Connected Things

Disconnected

2011-08-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

This has been a long time coming. I'm ending this blog and starting a new one. Blogspot has been very good to me, but I want to be more successful as a freelancer. I've started up a new site that uses my name as the url. This is something that I've been stewing over for some time, as eponymous websites can sometimes come off as narcissistic. Having one's own site with a url free of a "blogspot" or a "wordpress" in the title, though, does look much more professional, and I want to switch over before I'm too wedded to this site/format.

I've ported all of my old content from this site over to the new one, and will now be blogging at joestreckert.com. Hopefully you guys who have enjoyed reading my various rants and word-spewings will head on over.

"You're Tearing Me Apart, Lisa!"

2011-07-14T22:40:00.000-07:00

The Room is a terrible movie.

It's developed something of a reputation as one of those movies that is called, variously, the worst movie ever, so bad it's good, and the ultimate midnight movie, etc. It's gained in popularity with late-night screenings that occasionally have the writer/director/producer/star Tommy Wiseau in attendance. It's one of those bits of pop-culture ephemera that for some time I knew only by reputation and hadn't bothered to consume. Recently, though, I had a few folks over to my place and, aided by various brain-killing beverages, we gave the movie a watch.

Most movies that are known for being terrible are known for their awful special effects and horribly contrived genre conventions. Plan 9 From Outer Space is emblematic of the kind of B movies that are traditionally known as the Worst Ever.

You get the idea- badly delivered lines clustered with cheesy sci-fi jargon, costumes that are impossible to take seriously, and storylines that reach for epic status and fall woefully short. That's the traditional kind of Worst Movie Ever. The Room is not like that at all. The Room is more like this:

It's like they only rented the flower shop for thirty seconds, and only did a single take.

The guy speaking, by the way, is Tommy Wiseau, the writer/director/producer/actor auteur behind The Room. He is like that in more or less every scene, and his line reads and terminally awkward demeanor are what make The Room a truly weird and awful movie. Here's his most famous line:

The plot is mainly a love triangle between Johnny (Wiseau's character), Lisa, and Johnny's best friend Mark. Lisa is engaged to Johnny but has fallen out of love with him, and subsequently starts boning Mark because hey, why not. After that, bad things happen. There are a number of other plot lines as well- Lisa's mother at one point reveals that she has breast cancer, and a friend of Johnny and Lisa's apparently owes money to loan sharks because he has a drug problem. These plots never show up again. Not even in the scene they're in. Take a look:

Did you see all that exposition? All that backstory? Did you catch that big dramatic reveal "I definitely have breast cancer"? That's it. That's the entirety of that storyline in The Room. None of that information is ever important ever again. Breast cancer floats in, says hi, and then is never heard from again for the entire run time. The same thing happens with drugs and loan sharks- stuff from which a whole plot can make just floats into a scene and then dissipates into nothing.

And then there's the sex...

The Room is front-loaded with sex scenes, first between Johnny and Lisa and then between Mark and Lisa. Even with ample nudity, the sex scenes manage to be utterly and completely unsexy and completely devoid of anything that could be coherently construed as erotic. The sex scenes are set to hideous nineties R&B songs and lacy curtains hang from bedposts. Red candles flicker in the background, roses figure prominently, and it has a weird stilted softness that suggests Tommy Wiseau might not actually know how making the beast with two backs actually works. It's as if he's gotten all of his ideas about sex from soap operas, soft-core pornography, and romance novels. It's all about as sexy as watching someone clack Barbie and Ken dolls into each other while playing Celine Dion in the background. Having my eyes and ears assaulted by Tommy Wiseau's notion of strangled, plastic eroticism made me glad that I had a trusty bottle of Ninkasi nearby- the beer was far more physically pleasurable than anything going on in the film seemed to be.

The romantic relationships in the movie fall apart, dramatic shouting happens, and eventually there's something like a climax and the movie's over. It's all terrible and bad and awful but, really I sort of enjoyed The Room.

It's fun to watch because it is utterly singular. There are other bad movies out there, but they're bad because of their production values or cliches or because they're merely studio cash-cows. The Room, though, is bad because Tommy Wiseau doesn't seem to really have a handle on how actual human beings talk, act, have sex, do things, or even buy flowers. He doesn't seem to know how to act like any version of a convincing human being, and seems to live in a world slightly askew from ours. He may very well have some kind of mental disability (which would make me feel bad for laughing at him) but it's sort of diverting to see the world from such a weird perspective.

The Room is not something that I'd recommend watching alone. Get some friends, stock up on beer, and prepare for an incoherent mess. It's bad, sloppy, weird, and amateurish- but at least it's also somewhat interesting. That's more than you can say of a lot of films.

Adventures in Euphemisms: "Bath Tissue"

2011-06-21T18:10:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I was at Fred Meyer and looked up. I saw this:

I'd seen this before but never really thought about it. Fred Meyer, it seems, is politely refraining from using the dread phrase "toilet paper." Their in-house brand does the same:

Okay, technically it says "bathroom tissue," but it's basically the same thing. I got to wondering if any of the brands of toilet paper in my immediate vicinity actually proclaimed what they were- paper that you use after going to the toilet. I looked about and did not see a single one. Not one brand of toilet paper actually used the words "toilet paper" on their packaging. Instead, there were lots of pictures of cute puppies:

Or cartoon bears:

Or babies:

The entreaties to softness, light, and general distance from things excremental even extends to invocations of the celestial on packaging. Juxtaposed, of course, with a baby:

I looked around for some kind of generic or earth-friendly brand that maybe dared to call itself by its true name, but found not a one. The only copy I saw was that recalling softness and, sometimes, absorbency. I wasn't put out by this because I think that "toilet paper" is the most fantastically well put together diptych of words in the English language- I simply appreciate honesty. No one says "I'm going to pick up some bath tissue," or "Hey, sweetie, pick up some bath tissue on your way home," or "Crap, guys! We're out of bath tissue." No human talks like that. We all call it toilet paper, but the aisles and packaging assume that the general population are too demure to be assaulted with such vulgar words.

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera said that kitsch is the denial of shit. He meant that literally. Denying that certain gross biological things happen to us is a form of intellectual laziness and naivete. I'm inclined to agree with him, and it seems that the most shit-denying place on earth, the kitschiest piece of real estate in existence, is the toilet paper aisle.

This is Ironic, Right?

2011-06-14T16:54:00.000-07:00

Please let this be ironic. That is the only palatable reason I can think of for this thing being on N Mississippi.

A Found Card

2011-06-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

A neat, orderly little stack of these cards were inside the lobby of my company's building earlier today. I'm just going to choose to believe that it's all part of a work of satire, or a clever hoax, or a whimsical piece of performance art. All of those options seem far more appealing than a true believer earnestly searching for something that's not there.

Holy Cats!

2011-06-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

Tiger: ROAR!

Me: Wow! Did something just roar? I shall check it out!

(I move my bike over in front of the cage I was about to pass, so I can see the source of the roaring.)

Tiger Keeper: Sir, could you please move your bike. He don't like bikes.

Me: Okay. Did he have a bad experience with a bike once?

Tiger Keeper: I don't know. He don't like bikes.

Me: Can I take a picture?

Tiger Keeper: Keep it quick.

Tiger: ROAR!

Die, Continuity, Die!

2011-06-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

In an announcement that has the geek world's knickers in a bunch, DC announced that they're completely rebooting their continuity. Many nerds have been seemingly transformed into mouth-breathing bags of aggression because of this. I'm very happy with it, though. In fact, I think that DC and Marvel should do this sort of thing more often.

I love comics. I also really hate DCU and Marvel continuity. It's not that I dislike big, serialized stories. I don't. But with long-running continuity, nothing ever really sticks and that makes everything matter less. When dramatic changes happen in either comics line, they don't feel real because they'll inevitably get erased or smoothed over.

Superheroes have a sort of "zero point" that they always have to bounce back to. Spiderman's zero point, for example, is that he wears a red and blue costume, keeps his identity secret, and has a girlfriend named Mary Jane. Some years ago he donned an Iron Man-esque costume, publicly revealed his identity, and was married to Mary Jane. All of those elements have been erased- he once again wears the red and blue, keeps his identity secret, and Mary Jane (I believe) is his girlfriend again in current continuity. Everything reset- I think Marvel blamed it all on Mephisto or something stupid like that.

This happens to every superhero. They bounce back to their set point of pop-culture expectations. This is aggravating, and robs the drama from comic book stories. I didn't care when Captain America "died" because I knew he'd be back in a few short months.

This is why I actually like superhero reboots. One of my favorite Superman stories is Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" because it wraps up a given continuity. It was a rare time in the DC Universe where it seemed that things actually mattered because there wouldn't be a story later that reversed it. It has a climactic tension that is sorely lacking in most superhero comics.

Here's what I'd like to see: DC and Marvel rebooting their continuity all of the time. Every five years or so. This would allow changes to actually stick inside smaller, more self-contained continuities.

Let's say that DC reboots their universe now, and then ends it five years later. In that five years, they can introduce us to Batman, Wonderwoman, the Flash, etc., and then actually put them through some pretty dramatic changes. Inside that continuity, let's say they killed the Flash. Not temporarily killed him- killed him for good. For real. Lets say the Flash were allowed to be as dead as any other character in any other book or movie.

That would actually make me care about what's going on and actually worry about what happens for a change. There would be tension and suspense where there's now none whatsoever. If the Flash could die, that means that maybe Hal Jordan could, too. Or Hawkman. I might actually start to care.

This continuity could continue for a while, and then DC could wrap it up. Superman, Batman and the rest could have a big, climactic finish and the whole line of comics could come to a conclusion. Then, DC could relaunch everything again and re-introduce their characters back at the zero-points where we're used to them. In the new continuity, the Flash would be back and maybe they could kill Batman or something.

This wouldn't be that different from what they're doing now with superhero movies. In the Christopher Nolan Batman continuity, Ra's Al Ghul and Two-Face are both dead. This doesn't negate all the other things with Two-Face or Ra's out there- those media stand on their own. In the Nolan continuity, though, things matter way more than in any Batman story wedded to the zero-point that all superheroes inevitably get dragged back to.

So, DC, thank you for rebooting your continuity. Make it end with a blast, and go ahead and kill off a few beloved characters. A few years down the line, though, I hope you do it all again.

On Receiving Tips

2011-05-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

I got stiffed on tips earlier this week. It did not do my mood any favors. I had several other things to do over the course of the afternoon, and while I did get some refuge from a quite delicious cup of cold-brewed coffee, the lingering feeling of tiplessness stuck in my craw while I attempted to go about my other tasks. I sort of trudged through them, going "grrr" to myself while I attempted productive ambulation.

On other days, precisely the opposite happens. Some days after a tour the fives and tens and twenties come out in something like a flood, and my wallet has a reassuring fatness to it afterwards. People not only compliment and applaud me, but give me money as well.

On those days, after making perhaps $150 over the course of a few short hours, I'm hugely happy. I'll treat myself to lunch at a favorite food cart, and I know that the rest of the day will have a comfortable ease. My heart won't beat as fast and I'll know that I can look to that stack of bills as a reassuring affirmation that I am, in fact, good at my job. The fives and twenties and tens say "You are smart, charming, and fun to be with. You were worth the price of admission and more. People like you so much, that you made enough in a single day to pay for two week's worth of groceries." (I think that my internal monologue has used the term "baller" once or twice after particularly successful tours.)

I like to think that I have a pretty good sense of when I'm on and when I'm not. After a fair amount of teaching, tour-guiding, and occasional stand-up, I like to believe that I can tell when I have a group of people and when I don't. I'm my own harshest critic, though, and often I'll be self-critiquing my own performance as I'm doing a tour. I'll dwell on the tone of my voice, the meter I'm affecting, and the attention that people are paying to me, wondering if I'm doing it wrong or reading the crowd incorrectly. Then, at the end, they'll tip me. When I'm hard on my self and then get tipped anyway, that's a massive affirmation.

But, getting stiffed inevitably spoils my mood. I seldom think "Yeah, that was a lousy tour and didn't deserve a tip," though that has happened. Instead, I think to myself "What's wrong with you cheapskates? You don't like me? You don't like the massive, personable knowledge-dump that I just gave you? You don't like the map of Portland with restaurant recommendations that I just did for you? You don't like my brilliant (though admittedly dumb) jokes? What?"

Sometimes it might just be because they didn't know to tip a tour guide, or didn't go to an ATM, or really couldn't afford a tour in the first place and couldn't do a tip on top of that. I suppose those are all reasonable. But still. A lack of cash makes me, as they say on the internet, a sad panda.

It's nice to think that someone could be virtuous enough to not care about money, but I don't think I'm alone in admitting that money makes me happy. Getting it, earning, feeling that I'm worth it and and not having to worry about it is a great feeling, and It's somewhat silly to pretend otherwise. Money is one of those things (kind of like sex) that is seldom ironic, sarcastic, or bullshit. It's a concrete backing to applause and thanks.

Ultimately, I would rather where prices and wages were a bit higher, and no one tipped. That would make things much easier, and my personal budget would be much more predictable. However, that's not going to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, I'll keep enjoying that high that I get from getting tipped.

Of course, the nice people who stiffed me wrote a pretty nice review of me on Trip Advisor later, so their lack of tip was probably just an honest mistake. Still, I dwell on it far too much. I love it and am exasperated by it, and the end of a tour when the wallets come out (or don't) is perpetually a high or low part of my routine.

The Agony and the Ecstacy of Pub Trivia

2011-05-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I haven't blogged about this yet.

For a bit over a year now, I've been sort of obsessed with pub trivia. I enjoy competitively answering questions about historical, literary, and pop culture minutiae to probably an unhealthy degree. There are two here in Portland that I go to with some sporadic regularity: Geek Trivia (which is about comics and such) and Quizissippi, a weekly trivia night about a block away from where I live. I've been to others, but those two are the only ones consistently good enough to keep me coming back. I have done decently well at both of these events- it is because of Geek Trivia that I now own a few Hellboy trade paperbacks, given away as prizes.

Pub trivia is kind of like reading Ulysses or watching The Simpsons. Both of those works of fiction serve as reward systems for knowing lots of stupid arcane factoids. With Joyce, it's fun to see how much of the mythological and literary allusions that you can pick out from the narrative. With The Simpsons, pop culture references abound. In either case, the reader or viewer can say "Hey, I know what that is! I recognize that! I know exactly what you're referencing here!" It's a carrot for knowing useless things, and one can pretend that the various factual flotsam bubbling about inside one's brain actually is good for something after all.

Of course, trivia can also poke ungently at your store of knowledge and mercilessly show the cracks therein. I can't remember how many times I've heard a question and been at least a little familiar with the answer. It is something I've heard, something I've encountered before. The answer is swirling about just under the surface, and I know that I'll recognize it when I hear it aloud, but cannot give it real form. That feels, in a way, worse than not knowing the answer at all. At least when you don't know you can blame simple unfamiliarity. When you know something, but cannot summon it up from memory's basement, that is when you feel ignorant. There have been plenty of times where I've blindly stabbed at an answer, crossed it out, and blindly stabbed at another, only to find that the original guess was correct. The crossed out wrong answer is probably the most wrenching sensation one can experience, and a slap on the forehead usually ensues.

Another pitfall is overthinking the possibility of trick questions. Those certainly happen, but far too often I am my team mates have thought "that can't be the answer, it's way too obvious." Probably the most telling example of this was at Geek Trivia some time ago where the host asked who wore the Iron Man Mark IV armor. My teammates and I thought that Tony Stark was way too obvious an answer, so, assuming that the question was trickier than it really was, we assumed that it was James Rhodes, a.k.a. War Machine. We ended up being quite wrong. It was not a trick question, it was merely easy.

These hazards are, of course, entirely necessary, and I find wracking my brain and conferring with my friends about obscure details of, say, Civil War battles to be fun, especially in the face of a time limit. Without the potential of teeth-grinding defeat, it wouldn't be nearly as thrilling, and there is not shortage of schadenfreude one gets from seeing other teams implode due to wrong answers.

Trivia is not really about how smart you are. That is part of it, but moreso it is about how good your memory is and how good you are at guessing. Being able to conjure up possible answers from the depths of the brain and pick the one that is probably right is the key to winning most of the time. Nevertheless, winning still makes me feel smart. External affirmation is always nice, and pub trivia can be something like the adult equivalent of getting an A on a paper or exam.

I know that I wouldn't be nearly as into it if I didn't take some narcissistic pleasure in my status as a know-it-all, but it is nice to put all those facts and things and details to use, to turn them into a game. That's not a small thing. Deriving a certain amount of pleasure out of all that useless effluvia of information gives it all a sort of ad hod form and meaning. Every time I go to pub trivia, science and pop culture and literature all seem to matter. It's like all of those details are suddenly doing something besides sitting in archives. Paying attention and clarity of thought seem important and valued, and there is an immediate use to all of one's nerdery and disparate interests. For the time being, each evening the contents of one's head seem slightly less trivial.

In Which I Finally Get Around To Reading Something By Jonathan Franzen

2011-05-04T08:07:00.000-07:00

The Corrections has been on my "to read" list for some time. I moved quite a few copies of it when I worked in a bookstore, and Jonathan Franzen has been in the back of my mind as a Big Important Author for quite a while. The release of his new novel last year reminded me, and I finally got around to purchasing a used copy of The Corrections at Powell's a while ago. Last week, I finally finished it.

It was very well done, and I didn't really like it.

Let me get this out of the way first: Franzen is a phenomenally good writer. I want to make this clear in no uncertain terms, because I'm going to spend most of this post criticizing him. His characters are extraordinarily vivid, his language rich, and as I read The Corrections I felt as if he were able to stir bits of recognition in my mind. It was if I'd encountered the people and phenomena he was describing, as if he were writing what I'd thought before, but could not express. His characterization and style are superb, and I'm pretty sure I would cash in an unimportant body part to have his talent.

That said, there are two things about The Corrections that I didn't especially care for. One was the plot, the other was the worldview that Franzen seemed to don while he was writing it.

First the plot. That's a slightly smaller issue. The Corrections is divided into several different subsections, each of which has their own miniature arc. The book mainly focuses on Enid, the stuffy grandmother of the Lambert family, trying to get her grown children all together for one last Christmas in the small Midwestern town of St. Jude. Her children, in turn, all get various subsections and mini-plots in turn.

There is not much in the way of "action" in The Corrections, most of the activity is actually the various characters agonizing about their emotions and relationships. This does not mean, though, that Franzen does not have to provide a beginning, middle, and end. A lack of real, physical action doesn't mean that the author is released from having to provide tension, drama, etc. There still has to be an arc, even if nothing happens. A few dramatic things do happen in The Corrections, but no real satisfying plot connects them, and the whole thing ends up felling disunited in a weird way.

Virginia Woolf is one of my favorite writers, and I've consistently admired her ability to make plot arcs, climaxes, and satisfying narrative based solely on the emotional lives of her characters. Next to nothing happens in To the Lighthouse, but the ending is powerful and cathartic. That novel has probably one of my favorite final lines of any book, and Woolf pulls it off because she knows that the interior lives of her characters are something that can be exciting and stimulating. A person's revelations, emotional vulnerability, failures, or epiphanies: these are all things that can be used as capstones and plot-points in a good character-based story.

However, as vividly as Franzen paints his characters, he doesn't seem want to give them any kind of emotional dynamism. None of the characters in The Corrections have any moments wherein we see that singular, emotional climax, where the plot-arc of their interior lives comes together and they, for good or ill, are changed. Franzen wants to write a book about the interior lives of a single family, but withholds from his characters the kind of comic or tragic catharsis or epiphany that would serve as a resolution to that narrative. And I'm not just talking about "resolution" in a good way. Horrible and tragic resolutions can be just as narratively satisfying. Franzen seems to want to give The Corrections a happy ending (of a sort), but he doesn't earn it by showing how the characters have evolved. That does not make for satisfying storytelling, and I couldn't help but wonder if he tried to give his characters emotional narrative climaxes, and just wasn't very good at it.

The other, bigger issue of The Corrections, though, is the horribly bleak (and worse, inaccurate) worldview that Franzen seems to adopt while writing it.

Franzen seems to think that because he is portraying his characters as so unabashedly ugly, he is telling the truth. Because he lays bare their selfishness, their fears, their smallness, he is painting complete portraits of them. Because he does not shrink at portraying human frailty, it's as if he thinks he boldly portrays humanity.

I don't mind that he's negative. That's fine. Franzen, though, seems to mistake cynicism for truth. That's why a lot of The Corrections reminded me of Seinfeld.

Seinfeld's basic premise was that its characters were selfish, small, and never learned anything. There was no real character development on the part of Jerry and Co. At no point did one really think that any of the wacky hijinks they encountered actually have any impact on how they lived their lives. The show is amusing in short bursts, but if you think about it as a long-form narrative, it doesn't work at all. People are not static. If someone were to go through all of the weird stuff that Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer did, they would either be wise in the ways of the world or perhaps hugely cynical. They would not stay small and naive, which is precisely what those characters did. They would change.

The reason I can't really watch Seinfeld anymore is because of its insistence that it rests upon a static zero point. I do not buy the characters or their lack of evolution or dynamism. People like that do not exist. It may occasionally be diverting, but it is not accurate or truthful.

Characters in The Corrections suffer this same fate, but Franzen seems to think that because he's presenting a heavily negative Seinfeldian worldview, he's somehow saying something profound or interesting. I know, I know- I'm being slightly unfair about this, that it's a little presumptuous to make suppositions about an author's personality based on their work. Franzen, however, seems like precisely the sort of jaded male hipster who, upon reading and misinterpreting Sartre, would tiredly declare that "Hell is other people."

It isn't, though, and I'll bet that Franzen's a smart enough guy to know better. This is the man who famously asked Oprah to stop endorsing his book, though. I would not be surprised if someone as attached to that kind of supposed authenticity has trouble accepting beauty.

And, weirdly enough, even after all that I will still read Freedom, probably when it comes out in paperback. Franzen really is a magnificent stylist, and his prose is rich enough to make me want more. I hope that in his latest offering the issues from his most famous novel have been, shall we say, corrected.

Why Dressing Up in Funny Clothes With Lots of People is Awesometastic Fun-Times

2011-04-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

That is a picture of me dressed up as my villainous alter-ego, the Defenestrator. His superpower is throwing people and things out of windows. I didn't crack out the leather and goggles on my own, though. The getup was for a pub crawl hosted by the Alter Egos Society, an organization in Portland dedicated to, well, dressing up like superheroes and supervillains. This last weekend several of Portland's enthusiastic geeks donned crazy clothes, took on the persona of characters of our own devising, and cavorted throughout town.

Now, why the costumes? Why not just go on a regular pub crawl? Why not just get a bunch of people together and have a night out? That's possible, certainly, but dressing up in crazy clothes gives it an extra amount of specialness, of awesome-osity.

Costumes are an outlet for creativity

There were some fairly impressive getups on display, from a quartet of horn-sporting demons to a mad scientist character who had an extremely impressive metal mask. I myself worked a bit on a logo for the Defenestrator that I appended to the back of my jacket, and settled on a distressed-looking down arrow that suggested dramatically crashing into the ground. (Several people asked me "Are you supposed to be the economy or something?")

While it's perfectly possible for me to go to an art store and load up on canvas, charcoal, and fixatif any time I want, knowing that I was going to attend a themed pub crawl gave me a reason to start scrawling out a symbol for my own fictional villain. Having a reason for something, a deadline, and looming event fires the productive imagination much more than most things.

Costumes are an instant conversation piece

While I can occasionally get pretty extroverted, it is still sometimes difficult to start conversations with strangers. I found myself talking to plenty of people I didn't know, though. The demons I mentioned earlier- they'd rigged up pitchforks that shot flames out of the end, and of course several of us started using them to light clove cigarettes. Socializing ensued. People commented on my leather pants, I talked to a guy who happened to be wearing an "Ike and Nixon" button, and briefly chatted with a man in a luchadore mask. All of these interactions were smoothed by the presence of weird clothes. "Dude, awesome costume!" was an instant conversation topic.

Costumes can change peoples' personalities

A friend of mine was dressed up as an evil mastermind he called Lord Skullfucker. Now, he's normally a pretty demonstrative guy, but got no shortage of joy talking about how he was going to initiate amorous relations with various peoples' ocular cavities. Likewise, my girlfriend was dressed as the deadly and beautiful Rocktopussy, and found herself voguing and striking David Bowie poses much more than she normally does. A guy dressed up as an 80s metal themed hero kept flashing the horns, and the various heroes and villains pretended to hate each other to amusing effect.

With crazy costumes, you can try on not only clothes, but a whole other bombastic and weird persona that you wouldn't use in real life. I know this is a bit of a cliche, but it's wonderful to see in action, with folks trying on personalities to go with their new tights and masks.

It's fun to freak the mundanes

Obviously, not everyone in Portland was dressed up in crazy duds. There were plenty of perfectly normal people out and about, and we got a fair amount of stares. Most of them were very appreciative, and several cars honked in support of our wackiness. Of course we waved back. Several onlookers from the Portland Streetcar pressed their noses to the glass of their vehicle as we walked by, and we responded with waves and whoops.

I'd venture a guess that most of them later told their friends "Hey, guess what I saw!" and we managed to improve their evening, just a little.

Weird stuff is a source of civic pride

This is probably specific to Portland and cities like it, but I'm quite grateful that I live in a city where quirky stuff happens on a fairly regular basis. The evening before I dressed up a the Defenestrator, I'd been playing extreme mini-golf. This weekend I'll probably see the mayor of Portland dressed up a robot. On Sunday, there's roller derby to be seen. Say what you will about Portland being self-consciously weird, it's not boring.

Of course Portland has other events like this. There's a pirate themed pub crawl. And the one where everyone dresses up as Santa. I hope to be at both, filled with joy at living in one of the funnest towns ever.

In Which I Finally Watch Scarface

2011-04-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

Scarface has been one of those pillars of pop culture that I've somehow avoided seeing all my life. I'd heard of it, certainly, and I'd heard "Say hello to my little friend" quoted again and again, but I'd never actually sat down and watched it.

Then I read that someone was making a $1000 special edition of the thing, and I finally decided to see what the fuss was about. Also, I'd been feeling ill and having a very long movie to take up my time sounded good. I plopped myself in front of my computer, and watched Al Pacino unleash his characteristic bombast.

Short review: Scarface is kind of overrated.

Long review: The film tells the story of Tony Montana, a Cuban immigrant who rises up the ranks of Miami's cocaine-dealing hierarchy. He starts as a lowly foot soldier and then becomes lord and master of a coke-funded empire.

The story arc was fairly predictable, but I wondered if that was an artifact of me watching it in 2011. All of the rags-to-riches-to-rags tropes seemed to be in place, and I wondered if the movie would have seemed less clunky and obvious in the early eighties. A predictable movie, however, can be overcome with great characters and good writing, though. Unfortunately, there wasn't very much of that.

None of the characters in Scarface "pop." All of them are pretty broad and one-dimensional, and the supporting cast is never really given anything to do except react to Tony Montana. The movie really is all about one guy. Tony Montana says something, and the supporting casts reacts. He does something, and the plot moves forward. He gives a speech, and the other characters react with rapt attention. It was as if the people who weren't Al Pacino just disappeared when they weren't on screen.

Pacino himself was fine, but to tell the truth I found his goofy faux-Cuban accent get in the way of his acting. For the whole movie I could not shake the thought "Wow, that's a really stupid voice that Al Pacino is doing." Pacino is great and quite fun to watch, but I found myself wishing I was watching one of his better performances, like his turn as Satan in The Devil's Advocate.

I also didn't find Tony Montana to be all that interesting of a main character. The movie is largely about what happens when a poor guy suddenly finds himself extremely wealthy. Tony doesn't do anything particularly interesting with his money- he buys a bunch of gaudy gold shit and a big house that he can be bored in. I know that the movie was trying to say something about the emptiness of materialism or whatever, but I had trouble buying it. I sort of wanted to shout at the screen "Why don't you go take an interesting vacation or something?" I know that Montana is supposed to be something of an uneducated yokel, but I found his gross lack of creativity hard to empathize with.

Also, he's an utter scumbag. I don't usually mind following evil characters as long as they're interesting, but Tony Montana has the drawback of being both a nasty human being and not particularly smart. Late in the movie, the viewer is supposed to empathize with him because he refuses to kill a child. That didn't get my sympathy, though. Refraining from kid-killing is a fairly low bar to clear, and the scene felt manipulative and false.

So it has a predictable plot, and uncompelling characters. The thing that saves Scarface (a bit) are two very well done scenes. One is a tense scene towards the beginning that ends up with a guy getting killed with a chainsaw, and a subsequent gunfight. Another is the ending, wherein Tony's mansion is stormed by a small army of hitmen.

When the line "Say hello to my little friend!" did finally jumpt out of the speakers, I did enjoy it, and the bombastically violent finale is fun in an 80s action movie type way. There's blood and bullets and a nice sense of finality when Tony Montan finally, finally dies.

But Scarface left me cold. It's not as good as The Godfather, Goodfellas, or even Casino. It's not really Pacino's best performance. The action sequences are good, but not enough to carry the movie. Had I seen it with no expectations, I probably would have enjoyed it more, but it certainly didn't live up to its reputation. Anyone who actually gets the $1,000 special edition of this thing is, I'm afraid, something of a chump.

Your Scooter is Stupid: An Invective

2011-04-07T19:35:00.000-07:00

During the past week, I've had a few non-good traffic experiences with scooters. Not terrible, mind you, but small instances that drove home what a colossally stupid machine the scooter is.

Recently my girlfriend's car was stuck behind one on a sizable road with no passing lane. We had no choice but to follow the puttering thing at a slow and inefficient 30 mph., as it was squarely in the center of the lane and we had no means of going around it.

A few days ago when I was riding my bike to work, I was attempting to merge from a bike lane into a proper lane so I could merge. With cars, this isn't a problem. However, an obnoxious scooter was right beside me and would neither accelerate nor decelerate in order to let me in. I made a forceful effort of it, passed, him, and got in fine, but there was the brief temptation to go all Ben-Hur and his puny vehicle so I could get myself a spot in the lane.

Lastly, I saw a scooter while waiting for the bus the other day, and it simply looked and sounded dumb, as if a grown man were riding Baby's First Motorcycle.

The scooter seems to operate in a weird netherworld between bikes and motorcycles, embodying the virtues of neither.

With a bicycle, you get exercise. You can use bike lanes, don't consume any gas, and produce absolutely no annoying "put-put-put" or "whirrrrrr" sound as you ambulate about the metropolis. Bikes are virtuous, green, and allow their riders a totally deserved measure of smug satisfaction as to why they are Part Of The Solution. Scooters, however, go about as fast as bikes and offer none of the benefits related to the environment or personal fitness.

Motorcycles are awesome. Even though they're somewhat dumb vehicles, I have a soft spot for motorcycles, and the chrome-plated two wheeled machines would probably be my preferred method of dealing with a hypothetical midlife crisis. I implicitly assume that all motorcyclists are killer badasses, and probably know some weird, messed up way to kill a man using only one's own left pinkie. Scooters, however, are about as intimidating as a basket of doe-eyed baby otters.

If you're riding a scooter, the message I get is "I'm too lazy to ride a bike, and too much of a poncy Little Lord Fauntleroy to ride a real motorcycle. I don't like making physical exertions when I move, and neither do I wish to wear full length man-trousers."

I know The Who rode them. I know that they were chic and mod and all that back in the sixties. Whatever. They hold none of the virtues of other forms of assisted movement, and for that, they will get nothing but my sneering derision as I pedal past them on my bike.

Windows Open

2011-03-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

The scene: A recent party at my apartment

Friend: Do your windows open?

Me: What?

Friend: Your windows. Do they open?

Me: What do you mean?

Friend: I mean, do your windows open.

Me: I don't know. I use Windows Seven. I like it alright. What's this "Windows Open" thing? Is Microsoft trying to incorporate social media into their OS or something? Is it like Google Buzz? I don't see that going very well.

Friend: No. Your windows. Like, the glass ones to the outside. Can we open them? There are lots of people in here and it's getting way too warm.

(Long, embarrassing pause)

Me: Yeah. We can do that.

A Plea For Coat Checks At Portland Music Venues

2011-03-06T07:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Every Portland Venue Ever,

Please have a coat check.

We have a fantastic music scene in this city. On any given night of the week, you can rock out for not very much money. The clubs, pubs, bars and venues here are absolutely wonderful, and I'm proud to call the local music scene mine.

Except for the lack of coat checks.

Why? Please, for the love of all that is decent and holy, why doesn't every single venue in this town have a coat check? I don't want to dance, gyrate, headbang, and otherwise get crazy in my jacket. I want to do all of that sans-jacket. What's more, I don't want to have to worry about my jacket being rifled through while it sits on a bench somewhere. And, even if it isn't rifled through (I admit this is a remote possibility, actually), there is the potential that some drunken jackhole (and I use the term "drunken jackhole" in the most affectionate way possible) will spill beer on it during the festivities. Just the other I was at the Crystal Ballroom (a magical place) and my girlfriend and I left our jackets on a bench. When we got back to them, after the show, her jacket was somewhat moist. This did not spoil the evening, but it was unpleasant.

So, have a coat check. Please.

It rains here. It is often wet and dark and cold. Crowds of people file into concerts and then have to shed various layers of waterproof gear before venturing out onto the floor of a concert. Oftentimes, piles of discarded jackets litter the sides of concert venues. This is messy, undesirable, and could easily be solved. Each venue could make a tidy bit of money chekcing coats. It is mystifying why you don't offer this service.

Every Portland venue ever, I implore you: Give me a place to check my jacket. A place where I can stow it safely and not have to think about it's security, structural integrity, or moisture level while revelries transpire. This is a simple problem with an easy solution.

I love you, Portland Music Scene. A lot. Gobs and bunches, in fact.

However, the lack of coat checks is utterly moronic. Fix it. I will give you all big, appreciative hugs if you do.

Love,

Me

In Honor of Washington's Birthday: Our New National Anthem

2011-02-22T11:59:00.000-08:00

It was March of 2007. I was in Tokyo for the first time, crashing in an inexpensive hostel. In the morning I heard an American voice singing in the shower. "America!" it sang, "Fuck yeah!"

It was The Fourth of July, 2009. Rolling down the streets of North Portland, a ridiculously augmented pickup truck rapidly rolled. The wheels were raised and beneath it various auto parts vibrated audibly under the influence of it's immense speakers. "America!" said the speakers, "Fuck yeah!"

It was a week or so ago. I was making breakfast. Eggs, probably. Someone said "America." I said, instinctively, "Fuck yeah!"

And of course, there's this:

Team America: World Police was, at best, an uneven movie. There were parts of it that I enjoyed, but other parts of it that I thought fell flat as satire. The abovereferenced song, though, is probably the most successful thing that Trey Parker and Matt Stone have every created. It is better than any single moment of South Park or Cannibal: The Musical. It is better than Orgazmo. I doubt that their upcoming musical, The Book of Mormon, will be able to best their success here.

The song is obviously about how bloviatingly bombastic America and Americans are or are perceived to be. It's a send-up of the ultranationalism and chauvinism that typified George W. Bush's America, a thumb to the nose of everyone who has a "Don't Tread on Me" bumper sticker. Parker and Stone go out of their way to portray America as evil (by referencing slavery), shallow (by calling out Bed Bath and Beyond) and stupid (by taking credit for sushi, which is notably from a place that is not America).

However, if the song was only a hateful spitwad, it wouldn't have the enduring appeal that it does. There is something genuine about the song. Even an urban liberal type such as myself really does think, at times "America! Fuck yeah!" I don't think that the guys in the big truck blasting on the Fourth of July were getting it wrong, either. It wasn't the case that the satire was lost on them. They were reveling in the very real (and sort of obnoxious) patriotism of the song.

Yes, I think this song is patriotic. In a juvenile and twisted way, it is. Displays of patriotism are often overtaken with saccharine injections of sentimentality that make them nigh-unpalatable to anyone with even a modicum of skepticism. Parker and Stone, though, have put in just enough self-critical irony make it palatable.

Yes, I know there are problems with irony, but put those aside for a moment.

Let's all admit, if only for a moment, that F/A-18s are really fucking cool. That it's sort of awesome that we invaded France and kicked Hitler's ass. That we totally won the Cold War. And, that ruling the world is sort of cool. Yes, yes yes. Admitting this makes you feel weird. Trust me, I feel the same way. I used to have a Che Guevera poster on my dorm wall, for god's sake.

But, just for a moment, think about how stupidly awesome we are. Doesn't it feel sort of neat?

Parker and Stone made it possible to sing proudly about America even as we acknowledge all of the problems this place has. All of the stupidity and greed and big, nasty history. All of those things that get in the way of singing about Purple Mountain Majesties. (And besides- since when are mountains purple?)

Patriotism doesn't mean being uncritical or sentimental. It doesn't mean you love unreservedly. It also doesn't mean that you have to be all solemn and pietistic. It doesn't mean you have to stop being self-aware.

So, happy birthday, George Washington! Thanks for kicking King George's ass, though you couldn't have done it without France's help.

America.

Fuck yeah.

In Which I Rant Angrily About a Particular Feature of StarCraft II

2011-02-17T21:18:00.000-08:00

After a long, long wait, I recently purchased StarCraft II. Yes, I know it came out last year, but I only recently got a computer capable of running it. The game is great. It is absolutely everything I wanted out of a StarCraft sequel. I even love that it's not even the complete game- that we have to wait for Zerg and the Protoss campaigns. Knowing that there's more there adds excitement.

However, there's one thing that I don't like at all about StarCraft II. One thing that I find almost inexcusably loathsome. Horrible. Hideous. Disgustingly terrible.

I hate, hate, hate, hate that it's an online game. Or rather, I hate that it has to be one. I have no problem with Battle.net, Blizzard's multiplayer network. In fact, I kind of love it. I love that it matches players of like skill level and that you can import Facebook friends. I love that there are all kinds of achievements that you can get to decorate your profile. I love how easy it makes online gaming.

But I don't want to have to be there.

It is impossible to play StarCraft II without logging into Battle.net. This is distasteful. Right now, I'm playing through the single player campaign, yet every time I start up the game, I have to log into Battle.net, and that offends my sensibilities. This is not because I don't like Battle.net- it is a veritable strategy game paradise- but because StarCraft II is so closed and locked-down, it might as well have been designed by Apple.

There is no option to play on a LAN. This is repulsively horrid. I have fond memories of playing SC on my dorms LAN back in college. It's ridiculous that a multiplayer game won't allow for such things- multiplayer games and LANs are practically synonymous.

Mods and whatnot will be much more difficult to implement. I've played quite a bit of Civilization IV, and that game was greatly enriched by Fall From Heaven, a fantasy-based mod. Several other player-made mods (sometimes of dubious quality) abounded on the Civ forums, and the old copy of Unreal Tournament that I've got socked away on an old hard drive is very heavily modded with all kinds of ridiculous add-ons and extra widgets.

I also very much believe that games should be playable for an indefinite period of time. If you get a copy of Risk, for example, that game is playable as long as you have all the pieces. Likewise, if you were to get an old NES you could fire up any old cartridge you wanted and it would still function. Games that are dependent on online support don't have this. StarCraftII demands that you authenticate it with Blizzard in order to work. I know that some enterprising hacker will find a way around this, but it's terrible that if in thirty years there's no more Blizzard, those old SCII discs will be unplayable as-is. Old NES cartridges and copies of Risk, on the other hand, will still work fine.

I guess I'm starting to sound like Corey Doctrow or some other anti-DRM digital web-libertarian type. I've all but shouted "screws, not glue!" I do believe in that sort of thing. I do believe that once you own something, you should do with it as you please, and that games, after money is exchanged, should be play-withable without a lot of mandatory interference from their makers. And, it's not that I don't like Battle.net. But, as beautiful, as wonderful, and as expertly engineered as it is- it should be optional.

Here's A Picture of Abraham Lincoln With a Bird on His Head

2011-02-09T18:06:00.000-08:00

Just because.

BOOMSHAKALAKA!: In Which I Play NBA Jam

2011-01-24T16:40:00.000-08:00

I recently had the pleasure of accompanying my friend D to that temple of geekery and consumption known as Fry's- the magical place filled with myriad shiny toys and software. It's one of those stores that fills you with the aspiration that consumption relies upon. Stepping over its threshold, one is filled with the knowledge that they, one, can own all manner of shiny gizmos.

I was there because D was getting a new laptop and I like to look at electronic things that I can't really afford. While she was checking out the various computers, I amused myself by walking over to the game section, because, hey, video games.

The games that were set up were all fairly family-friendly and inoffensive. Gran Turismo and that ilk, and mostly sports. I suppose having bloody FPSs set up in an area with potential kids would not be the best PR move. I grabbed a PS3 controller and started playing the newest version of NBA Jam, a cartoony basketball game for people who don't really like sports games.

Of course, I chose to be the Portland Trailblazers. When selecting my opponent, I chose the villainous and vile Los Angeles Lakers.

I don't know much about sports, but I do know this: If you like the Lakers, you earn some major douchebag points. Likewise, if you are a fan of the NY Yankees or Dallas Cowboys, you're publicly stating what prick you're capable of being. Liking the Lakers, Yankees, or Cowboys is sort of like wearing Dockers: It's boring and jerk-tastic at the same time. I know this is irrational, but whatever.

In my game of NBA Jam, Brandon Roy's knees were working just fine, and he was able to outmaneuver, outshoot, outblock, and generally run circles around big-headed AI-controlled Kobe Bryant. The announcers kept shouting goofy catchphrases (BOOMSHAKALAKA! being the big one) every time my zanily-proportioned basketball dudes made a basket. I thought I was just going to give NBA Jam a try, but I ended up playing a whole four-quarter game right there in Fry's.

I realized something about sports games: Of all of the types of games out there, they are the only genre wherein players can bring the hurt to actual, real celebrities. I have watched many a Blazer game going "NOOOO!" at the screen while the Lakers (bastards that they are) played well and scored points. While watching it with other Portland fans, we all believed that it was because the refs were biased and Phil Jackson has some kind of Nietzschian hypno-power that he was using on the officials.

Watching the Lakers win was always massively, horribly painful. Other teams, like San Antonio, never quite brought on that sort of emotion. When I watched the Spurs kick our ass I just thought, "Wow, the Spurs are really good at this basketball thing." When I saw the Lakers do it, I filled up with rage. There was just something weird and awful about the Lakers- they were, after all, from LA. Jack Nicholson and his self-satisfied smirk goes to all of their home games. They represent a city that is everything Portland (supposedly) isn't- sprawl, waste, stress and utter lack of culture.

Playing NBA Jam, though, made me realize how much I enjoy that rivalry and hate, how much sports really does need villains. It's great that lots of people think LeBron is a dick- that'll be a major boost to the drama and emotional stakes of his games. It was that rivalry that made NBA Jam so much fun. Also, I could not think of any other genre of video game where you can best actual, real media figures.

There is no game out there where I can challenge Sarah Palin to single combat, or get into a boxing ring with Glenn Beck. (Actually scratch that. Beck wouldn't be any fun. He'd just start crying. I'd rather fight Bill O'Reilly- he'd make it interesting.) There isn't any kind of game where I can humiliate Brit Hume or challenge Larry the Cable Guy to a lightsaber duel. Most of the time (unless you count fighting Hitler in Wolfenstein), I can't pwn celebrities via video games.

Athletes, though, are a different matter. Dunking on Kobe was hugely satisfying not just because of the game play, but because, through the magic of video games, I was able to vent out a whole bunch of Blazer fan-rage onto cartoon Lakers. It was a nice release, and scratched an itch I didn't know I had.

Boomshakalaka.

Why Portlandia Doesn't Work

2011-01-16T23:05:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite comedies right now is It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The central characters in it are all utterly horrid examples of humanity- each episode is about their various petty squabbles, arguments, idiotic schemes, jealousies, weaknesses, and manifestations of stupidity. The main cast fights, bickers, make horrible decisions, hurt each other, hurt innocent bystanders, and generally act in a contemptible fashion.

But, because the show is made by some very talented people, I still like them.

Even as the creators of It's Always Sunny send up their characters as objects of ridicule and mockery, you can tell that they still quite like their characters. As nasty as Mac, Dee, Dennis, and Charlie can be- they still manage to grab a certain amount of my affection. I know that in each episode they will do awful things, but it's a testament to the skills of the actors, directors, and writers that even as they are objects of farce they are also full, real characters whom I am capable of feeling something for.

Likewise, Alec Baldwin's character on 30 Rock is oftentimes toweringly evil and self-centered. Jack Donaghy is something like a better-coiffed Dick Cheney in his demeanor and outlook. However, as much as he's portrayed as a villainous caricature of a certain type of conservative exec, Baldwin & Co. don't forget that for us to keep coming back to 30 Rock, there has to be some humanity there. As much as I'd loathe Jack Donaghy in real life, he remains a real person worthy of empathy in addition to being a figure of fun.

The deft injection of affection and empathy into farce and satire- the streak of love that runs through ridiculous and mean humor- that is what's missing from Portlandia. That absence of underlying reality- that the people on screen should be people in addition to jokes- is why the show will probably fail.

I've only seen the first episode and a few of the promo shorts, but what I've encountered so far is not inspiring, and so far I have a certain loathing for the show. This is not because Portlandia is insulting my hometown- quite the contrary, I would love it if we had our own version of Northern Exposure. The problem is that Portlandia doesn't lampoon this place especially well.

The first episode starts with a clip that's been going around quite a bit, a song about how "the dream of the 90s is alive in Portland." You've probably seen it already, but here it is:

As far as a big opening number, this doesn't work at all. Fred Armisen was born in the sixties, and Carrie Brownstein in the seventies. Both of them were in the twenties and thirties in the nineties, and, presumably, enjoying what the youth culture of the time provided. They seem flabbergasted, in the opening song, that some amount of youth culture is still extant, like an old hippie amazed that young people still listen to Led Zepplin.

Yes, current hipster/alternative culture grew out of nineties grunge. Which reacted to, and grew out of eighties new wave and hair metal. Which sprang from seventies punk-rock. Which owed a lot to hippie music from the sixties. Who were preceded by greasers in the fifties. Who in turn were preceded by beatniks in the forties.

Arguing that any kind of youth/pop/alternative/creative culture is similar to what preceded it is facile, annoying, and utterly non-funny. The best humor is smart, and hits upon unthought-of truths. When one says of a comedian "he's saying what we're all thinking!" we're talking of comedy's ability to express what was known, but never voiced. Portlandia's introductory song expresses the obvious and holds it up as if it's some kind of profundity.

That was only the opener, though. Sitting down to watch the first episode, I hoped that there would be something more inspiring, something that would actually, you know, make me laugh, something that would make me go "yeah, that is true," and nod in amused recognition.

This did not happen. The sketches seem clunky and joyless, and the whole show occupies a kind of forced, airless space. Not even a Steve Buscemi cameo was able to inject some life into the proceedings.

The central problem was that throughout the episode none of the characters portrayed by Armisen or Brownstein seemed to be real people. I had no sense of connection whatsoever with any of the people whom they portrayed. This is not because they were playing idiots- the crew from It's Always Sunny have roundly proved that one can play an idiot and still connect with the audience- it was because they seemed uninterested in injecting humanity into their characters. (While on the subject of sketch comedy- there's more drama, feeling and reality in a single College Humor sketch than any single section of Portlandia. The CH crew also prove that you can mercilessly mock your characters and still get the audience to like them.)

I do want this show to do well. I want it to dramatically improve, take on some new talent, and become a kick-ass sketch comedy show that makes me laugh. I want to hear jokes about how everyone has food allergies, wears stupid hats, has weird facial hair, and eats doughnuts that have bacon on them. My hometown is, I admit, filled with things that can be hilariously mocked.

But I want them mocked well, and with a little bit of love, and joy, and fun. I want to smile while I see my tattooed neighbors insulted. So far, prospects don't look good.

2010, In Review

2010-12-30T21:12:00.000-08:00

2010 was simultaneously horrible and awesome.

It was horrible because it was yet another year wherein I (and thousands of others like me) survived on part time jobs and freelancing. I do not want to sound ungrateful- I happen to love my part time job (more on that in a bit) and freelancing has been immensely fun, especially when I manage to actually get paid in a timely fashion. Any enjoyment that I had of 2010, though, has to be accompanied by a gigantic asterisk.

This wasn't a year of great progress- it was a slog. All in all, a positive slog that will hopefully get us back to where we need to be, but for too much of this year surviving, rather than thriving, was the order of the day. And yes, I know that when someone like me says that it comes across as immensely arrogant. I'm a reasonably well-off educated white boy in the U.S.A. who has quite a few things going for him. It's utter b.s. to pretend that I'm going to be destitute any time soon. However, I'm thirty years old now and would rather like to start a career. (Helllllloooo, grad school!)

That said, the one big job that I did have this year was immensely awesome. I loved it. I still love it, actually. I love that I've learned things from it, that I've become a better public speaker and better communicator. I love that I've learned how to be funny on a consistent basis and can get different crowds of people to laugh at the same jokes. I love being a performer, a showman, and a knower-of-things. I enjoy the hell out of being a tour guide.

Giving walking tours of Portland has been a fantastic experience, and has made me realize something that I always sort of knew about myself: public speaking makes me high. When I taught for GEOS and then Kaplan, I got some whiffs of that- those days when a class just clicked and the students all went "ooooh!" at the same time. For four years now my job has pretty much been "get up in front of a bunch of people and edify them." Now, I finally realize that I'm quite good at it.

Again, I'm sounding arrogant. It's very nice, though, to know what you're good at. I happen to be a good public speaker and knower-of-things. This hasn't just been applicable to tour guiding, by any means. I also officiated a wedding for some very good friends of mine back in March, and have occasionally done stand up comedy. Stand up, by the way, ranges from being transcendentally awesome to horribly painful. I try to veer towards the former.

It's weird that a lot of the time, I'm a professional performer. It's also odd to know that Performance Joe is very much a persona, and not one that I created deliberately. He has a different way of speaking, a different cadence a different sort of mode about him than me. This is true of all performers, and is not a new observation, but something's always weird and new when it happens to you. (By the way, Performance Joe sometimes gets out during social occasions, where I've been told that he can be boisterous and annoying.)

Let's see, what else?

Oh, yes. I talked to some very nice people. That was cool. I also finally encountered the storied and sprawling metropolis that is Los Angeles, which was quite an eye-opening experience. Spent plenty of time in San Francisco, as well, which has rapidly become one of my favorite places on earth, though one time I did have to spend ten hours in a car with a crazy man to get there. Also, a bunch of bigots ended up causing nothing more than a big party here in Portland, which turned out to be quite the uplifting experience.

Oh yes, and I led around a bunch of zombies on bikes.

Anyway, I had fun. Tons of it. I'm in no position whatsoever to say that 2010 was dull or boring or lacking in neato things to do. I have, though, been very conscious of the lack of real progress over that past year, and that remains frustrating.

In that sense, I'm quite ready to leave this year behind. C'mon, 2011- have something nice for us.

A Pretty Okay Daft Punk Video: What I Thought of the New Tron Movie

2010-12-19T18:04:00.000-08:00

Given that I had a previous post on Tron, I feel bound to offer up a few thoughts about the new movie, which I saw last night.

It was highly adequate. There were a few good thing about it, and a few less good things as well. I'm just going to do a rundown of them. Spoilers ahoy!

Good Stuff:

-Jeff Bridges. Had Bridges not appeared as Flynn, the movie would have very little reason to exist. His being there made it seem more like a "real" Tron movie, and not just an attempt to cash in on geeky nostalgia (even though it is totally that). I loved it that Bridges played the older Flynn as basically an all-purpose Jedi/Buddha/Jesus/The Dude sort of character, an old man with crazy powers in the Grid akin to that of some kind of wizard/god. Also, seeing him digitally de-aged was a neat party trick. I'm sure that it will look terrible and dated in five years, but I enjoyed it for the time being.

-The movie is beautiful. Stunning. Shiny. Dazzling. Electrifying. It is an eye-poppingly wonderful calvacade of cool visuals. The lights and sets and costumes are all fantastically extravagant and orderly all at once. The aesthetic of Tron seems to be that there is a profusion of energy and color, and it is all tightly controlled. It is ecstatically mechanistic, like a choreographed rave. I wish there was a more positive word for "soulless" because the machine-world of Tron is soulless and gorgeous in the best way possible.

-Likewise, the soundtrack by Daft Punk is excellent. There are very few movies where, upon hearing the soundtrack, I think "I would like to hear that in a context outside of this movie." This was one of them.

-References to other films were nice. Flynn's apartment outside of the Grid resembles the apartment at the end of 2001, and at one point he quotes War Games saying "the only way to win is to not play." Bridges also seemed very conscious of his most famous character, The Dude, and put more than a little Big Lebowski flavor into Flynn.

...And that, unfortunately, kind of does it for the really good stuff.

Less Than Good Stuff:

-The action sequences hit their marks, but they weren't all that thrilling or memorable. While I didn't find myself groaning or disliking them, they weren't incredible.

-Garrett Hedlund, the guy who played Sam Flynn, was dry, bland, and didn't really seem like his father's son. He was too preppy and well-coiffed, too much of a nice, clean leading man. Also, the part where he parachutes off of the skyscraper is just dumb.

-Olivia Wilde (Quorra) also didn't thrill me, but she was very nice to look at.

-I didn't imagine I'd ever think, while watching a movie, that it needed more Bruce Boxleitner. Tron: Legacy, though really did need precisely that. Tron himself appears several times in the movie, but always wearing a black face mask that completely obscures his features. Normally, I'd just think that this was the kind of cheap trick that a director would use if they couldn't get a given actor for their movie, but Boxleitner appears as Tron's creator, Alan, early in the film. He also shows up as Tron in a flashback. He could have totally whipped off the mask for a big dramatic reveal! I was expecting that. Not having that there was strange and aggravating.

-Oftentimes, the movie was way too talky and self-important. Instead of dramatic it seemed staid.

-The filmmakers seem to have forgotten that Tron is supposed to happen inside of a computer. The Grid is portrayed as a kind of alternate dimension. In the original film, Tron & Co. were inside of a specific computer system. They don't explicitly contradict this, but it bugged me somewhat.

All in all, the movie wasn't great unless you were already a Tron fan, and even then, it was only kind of okay. I'm sort of nervous that the franchise (which had once been a nice little piece of cult nostalgia) is going to get crushed under a new wave of sequels and spin offs. I saw Star Wars get revived, only to be crushed to death by its resurrection. That franchise is in a state of deeper necrosis than it ever was precisely because things were added to it. I don't want the same thing to happen to Tron.

On the other hand, I did love all the pretty glowy lights set to Daft Punk.

Against Monopoly: An Invective

2010-12-09T09:34:00.000-08:00

The other day I had the occasion to go to a mall with some friends, and the whole Cathedral of Consumption (as per usual, this time of year) was decked out with tinsel and faux tree branches, red ribbons and assorted signifiers of consumptive yuletide. Winter Wonderland and its ilk played on the loudspeakers. Patrons moved about, negotiating mall traffic whilst clutching multiple red-and-gold bags redolent with perfunctory gifts.

Such things were expected, but in the mall I espied another seasonal phenomenon. There with the wreaths and the songs and the rest of it were several different versions of Monopoly. Not just in one store (Barnes and Noble may have been the worst offender) but in several.

Classic Monopoly. Star Wars Monopoly. Disney Monopoly. Simpsons Monopoly. Family Guy Monopoly. Anniversary Monopoly in a gold box. Monopoly called "Onyx Edition" which is in a black box for some reason. Monopoly, Monopoly, endless fucking Monopoly.

I hate Monopoly. I hate it as a game, as an object, and as a gift. I hate that it's successful and enduring. I hate that it's a piece of Americana and a fixture of households. I hate that it teaches bad lessons about economics and how real estate works. Worst of all, this year countless editions of it will be given as a thoughtless gift. Festive wrapping paper, glowing with festive potential, will be unfurled to reveal a board game of dubious fun and economic fallacy. The various editions will be played once, probably on Christmas or the day after, and then boxed for good. The various bills and pieces will be lost, possibly lodging themselves under refrigerators or in the ducts of heating systems. Years later, when cleaning a vent, someone will find a small, half-melted bit of plastic, and infer that a Monopoly hotel probably got lodged in there somehow.

As a game it requires little to no skill and the conclusion is usually evident from the start. Someone manages to buy up the various valuable properties, and from then it is only a matter of time until the other players go bankrupt. There are no comebacks in Monopoly, and after a certain point little of the uncertainty which lends any game drama. There is very little room for cleverness or wit, very little space for elegance. It is, ultimately, a grown-up version of Candyland- a game flush with iconic adornment, but has very little in the way of actual playability. For all of its non-complexity, it demands that we pay attention and store the various player pieces, cards, bills, houses, hotels, and dice. Upend a Monopoly box, and a whole bunch of disparate shit is on the floor. It is disparate shit that is so much sound a fury (in plastic form) signifying very nearly nothing at all.

Monopoly inspires my hatred precisely because I love games so much. I love Scrabble and Cranium. I love Jenga and Apples to Apples and Trivial Pursuit. I dearly love Risk, in all of its incarnations. Each one of these games has more elegance, more grace, more intelligence and is ultimately a better source of fun than Monopoly. Yet Monopoly gets endlessly repeated and endlessly sold, and is, for some reason, one of the best loved board games out there.

This year, I implore you: Do not buy your loved ones Monopoly. Buy them something with drama, like Axis and Allies. Gift them a game that will actually make a party better (nor more boring) like Apples to Apples. Wrap in paper a game that excites the strategic mind, like Risk. These games, I guarantee you, will be more fun the Monopoly, a terrible game that is wholly unworthy of the attention, money, and love that it receives.

Goodbye, Blank Slate or What I Think About That New Tron Movie Coming Out

2010-12-07T17:22:00.000-08:00

It is occasionally alarming how much geek culture is defined by nostalgia. Watching Star Trek or Star Wars or the rest of it does not make me me think of the future or possibility or sweeping vistas of the world of tomorrow. Instead it calls to mind childhood and adolescent comfort, something familiar, tested, and proven. They are narratives and artifacts that don't have to stand up to the rigors of contemporary scrutiny. Why should they? They carry so much emotional cache.

The fact remains, though, that they don't transport me to the future. They transport me to the 1990s.

Nostalgia pieces by definition wistful, and bring to mind forgiving smiles and gentle rationalizations of their flaws. An object of nostalgia might appear simple, but we justify it by saying that it was from a simpler time. Effects were less sophisticated. Budgets were lower. Audiences weren't as savvy. That's what we tell ourselves to excuse Luke Skywalkers's ludicrous comment about "power converters," or to justify transparently cheap monster costumes.

Nostalgia is not bad or wrong per se, but it is warm and unchallenging. It is easy to idealize the objects that produce it, to put layers upon them and add dimensions that are not there. In almost every incident, the idea of the nostalgic item is much better than the work itself.

Which brings me to Tron.

Tron blew my fucking mind. I don't remember how old I was when I first watched it. Maybe eleven? Twelve? I don't really know. But there were glowy lights on everything and it was about a guy who got zapped into a computer and, man, that was cool. The guy had to play computer games inside of a computer! C'mon- how neat is that? There were tanks and motorcycles and everything was covered in neon because back then that's what the future looked like.

I watched it again in college, and, much to my surprise, found that I still liked it. Last year I actually got my ex-girlfriend to watch it and she had to concede that the movie that her geeky, overenthusiastic boyfriend had recommended to her was "kind of fun."

And it is. Tron, though, is quite a simple movie. There isn't much to it, really. Why is the Master Control Program so evil? He just is. Why is Tron the good guy? He just is. How is it that Tron's disc will bring about a new order on the grid? It's a MacGuffin- just go with it.

Tron is a very pretty movie with an okay plot. Fortunately, it seems that the filmmakers knew that. Tron is shallow, but has no pretension to depth. It is thin, but does not pretend to be substantive. The ultimate message of Tron is, really "Hey, look! Shiny computers! Whee!" This is all well and good, and makes it the perfect nostalgia piece.

Because Tron is so basic, it's completely possible for a thirty-year-old geek like me to invest it with all kinds of layers and awesomeness as I wistfully recall it. Fans like me can imagine any sort of drama or depth we want of Tron, because the movie is ultimately just a bunch of cool blinky lights and zoomy computer game action. In lots of ways its a blank slate that we can project all kinds of affection and imagination onto. The idea of Tron is oftentimes better than Tron the actual movie. If it were to come out now as an original film, it would probably be dismissed as readily as Avatar was by people who actually care about science fiction.

Disney has decided to cash in on the widespread affection and nostalgia for Tron and release a sequel later this month, nearly three decades later. Like many other genre fans, I'm completely geeking out about this and probably will fork over the extra cash to see this thing in 3D. However, once the sequel comes out, a certain amount of the nostalgic "oomf" of the original is going to get taken away. Tron will cease to become an object of nostalgic affection, and turn into a franchise.

With that, it will go from being something that can be vague and unspecified, to something specific. It will no longer exist primarily in the minds and emotions and memories of fans- instead it will be an actual thing, separate from their feelings and ideas of of the original. Tron won't be something that belongs to fans anymore, a pop-culture byword that recalls shared experiences of wonderment about computers. Instead, it will become the first movie in what is likely to be a series. We won't have a blank slate to play with anymore. The idea of Tron will be gone, and in its place there will just be Tron.

This does not bother me too much. Later this month, though, I'm going to buy a movie ticket, put on a pair of 3D glasses, and a little bit of my nostalgia and geeky affection for Tron will be gone forever.

In Which Elvis Asks Me Who I Am

2010-12-05T10:36:00.000-08:00

"Who are you?" asked Elvis. We were sitting across from each other on the MAX and he was looking directly at me. He stared through his massively thick glasses, quizzically. "I've seen you around a lot!"

Given that my primary job is the walk tourists around Portland whilst gesticulating at buildings, landmarks, etc., this wasn't too unusual. A few other people have also recognized me and asked who I am.

"My name is Joe," I said, "I'm a tour guide."

"Oh, that makes sense," said Elvis, "You're in Saturday Market a lot. I've seen your groups. What do you tell them about?"

"Oh," I said, "you've probably seen me telling them about the Skidmore Fountain."

"Ah," Elvis smiled a bit, "You know, you should tell them about me. You tell them about some stony old fountain, but you don't tell them about one of the best things in Portland!"

Portland's Elvis is an old guy, maybe in his fifties, sixties, I'm not sure. I've also got no idea what his real name is, but he's known as Elvis throughout town, so that name works well enough. He's wearing his black and gold jumpsuit is holding a guitar case. I've seen his guitar- it is a beautiful guitar. It has waves and surfers and ships and Hawaiian scenery on it. Everybody recognizes Elvis. He's a fixture of the town. His picture is outside Voodoo Doughnut.

"I've seen you," I said, "but I didn't want to put you on the spot."

This is true. I am completely comfortable talking about buildings or fountains or geographical features. I'm also okay talking about dead people. Talking about a real, live person who is walking around, though, like they're a piece of architecture seems a bit weird to me.

"Why not? That's why I'm there. Next time you see me, say 'hi.'"

I say okay.

"I mean it!" says Elvis, "I'm part of Portland just like that fountain is."

I have to admit he has a point. We talk for a bit and he asks me how I got a tour guide job. I told him I was a teacher, got laid off, and then turned into a tour guide. He says that he's been performing at Saturday Market for twenty seven years. That is quite a bit of time, and he is part of Portland. If I have the opportunity, I would like to say hi to him on a tour, but don't want to treat him like a mascot. I snuff that thought out, though, on account that its a tad patronizing. He is a part of Portland. I'll say hi, next chance I get.

It's my stop and I have to get off the MAX.

"Hey, one more thing," says Elvis, "I've seen you tell that story about the guy launching the airplane off the roof of that hotel. Is that really true?" He's referring to Silas Christofferson, who in 1912 flew an early lightweight craft off the roof of Portland's Multnomah Hotel.

"It's totally true," I say, "But he was later killed in crash."

"That's too bad," says Elvis, "but I'm glad it's true. You say hi, next time!"

"Yes, sir," I say, and step of the MAX.

And I really will, too.

"Kids These Days..."

2010-12-02T20:42:00.000-08:00

More than once in the past year and a half, I've felt myself biting back on a strong but irrational negative emotional sensation. It wells up in the back of the throat and steams behind the eyes, fomenting in the upper chest and manifesting in clenched fingers that coalesce into fists. Various primal (and unproductive) responses assert themselves, and I have to say to them "calm down." In a few moments, it goes.

This incipient rage? Near hatred of the Baby Boomer generation. In particular, any Boomers tilting their heads and gazing in wonderment at the plight of people in their twenties and thirties. I found that much talked about piece in the New York Times earlier this year to be utterly infuriating. More recently, though, the Oregonian ran a story asking if Portland was the new Neverland, (as opposed to the old one?) and the proceeded to mock young-ish people for not yet having "real" jobs and wasting time with bikes and comic books.

Whenever I see this sort of thing, I'm dumbstruck by how Boomers (yes, I'm generalizing) try to assign blame and point fingers at younger generations for presumably not doing anything, being layabouts and slackers. I have two responses to this:

1: Older generations have always complained about "kids these days." Here's a famous quote you've probably heard before:

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was Socrates. Hearing the older generation bitch about the next is literally as old as Western Civilization itself.

2: The issue of people in their twenties and thirties isn't really an issue about what's wrong with them, or the culture, or anything else. It's an economic issue, and trying to dodge that reality is, I think, intellectually cowardly.

We are still reeling from the effects of a gigantic recession, and are only slowly recovering. The cause of all recessions, broadly speaking, is a failure of demand. When people don't want, don't need, or can't afford various goods and services, we all suffer.

Right now, there is a below-average demand for labor. Experienced workers (older workers) are going to receive preference over people who have just gotten out of degree programs or have only a few years of experience (i.e., less than a decade) and it stands to reason that younger workers will suffer.

In the meantime, why not get on a bike? (It's cheaper than owning a car!) And why not make comics? (If you've got a lot of free time, you might as well do something creative in order to use your brain.) The issue that gets decried as being some kind of generational anomaly actually has everything to do with the disappearing middle class.

And so, when it is framed in generational terms, my instinct is to snap back at the Boomers and tell them that the Rolling Stones are overrated. I bite it back, though, talking myself down with a nice little internal economics lecture.

Wish they'd do the same thing...

Regarding This Past Friday Night

2010-11-28T09:02:00.000-08:00

Finishing work on Friday evening I was in high spirits- my tour had gone well, the weather was agreeable, and I was on my way to meet some friends for burgers and beer at one of Portland's local hipster holes. The streets of downtown were crowded with people who had showed up for the Christmas tree lighting in Pioneer Courthouse Square, and every third person seemed to have a green blinking light on their person. (They must have been handed out as a promotional item.) I passed the Square, took a look at the tree, and a huge crowd of people were still there singing carols. Jogging a few blocks over to Burnside, the newly-lit White Stag/Made in Oregon/ Portland, Oregon sign lit up the night. All was wonderfully festive.

And the next morning I opened my browser to discover that someone had tried to blow all of that up.

The facts of the case are widely reported, so I won't bother reiterating them here. I'm quite happy they got this guy, and all for stings, but there are two things that I can't stop thinking about:

Firstly: As a matter of personal policy, I refuse to be frightened by this. Like the poster says, I'm going to keep calm and carry on.

Secondly: Law enforcement (at least based on reported anecdotes) seems to be targeting foreign-born individuals who have become radicalized. Most of the time, it seems that these guys probably couldn't pull off their desired schemes themselves. The feds are with them every step of the way. Left to his own devices, I wonder Mohamud would have gotten the materials he needed.

Again, I like the idea of stings. It's a great thing to keep potential criminals off balance. Potential terrorists don't know if they're talking to an actual Jihadist or a federal agent. Sowing that kind of overcaution, confusion, and fear among these criminals is great, strategically.

And yet, I wonder how many unbalanced guys the FBI would catch if they targeted the militias in Montana, the self-appointed border guards in Texas, or the white supremacists in Idaho. How many other Tim McVeighs are out there that could be stung into arrest? How many native-born, equally bloodthirsty, equally unbalanced white Mohamuds are there?

I have no kind of sympathy for adherents to radical Islam. They are, at the very best, foolish. However, history tells us that they are not alone. Prior to September 11th, 2001, the largest terrorist act in American history had been carried out by a radical white Christian. McVeigh's kin, gun-toting religious radicals who are doubtless incensed by the very existence black president, are still out there.

What could we reap with a focused effort? Given the collaboration, encouragement, and resources of an undercover FBI agent, what kind of potential violence could we find welling from religious white America? I don't doubt that Mohamud (may he spend his remaining days ingloriously in prison) has an equal and opposite out there, a kind of inverse brother born not in Somalia but in Kansas, reading not a Quaran but a Bible, and just as filled with impotent unarticulated rage, and dreams of violence.

Why I Killed SonicLlama

2010-11-21T11:14:00.000-08:00

This (wholly narcissistic) issue has been on my mind off and on for the past year or so. Quite some time ago, I ceased to use a screen name on this blog. Not only that, but I tweet using my real name as well, and when I comment on various forums I do so as "Joe Streckert" if I can use a space, and "JStreckert" if I can't.

Previously I'd gone by the nom de net "SonicLlama," a handle that I acquired in high school. It stuck the way nicknames usually do, lodging itself in my mind. I attempted to use a few others: "Cerberus," as I've always liked the big three-headed fellow, but ultimately that was too negative and possibly too pretentious to use on a regular basis. Sometimes, in FPSs, I went by "Mr. Mutilate," but the drawbacks of that one should be abundantly obvious. "Metis," was another attempt, a Greek term meaning "skill" or "wisdom." The main appeal was that it was invoked at length in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.

The trouble with "Metis" was that later I found out that it's both the name of a Native American group up in Canada, and the term for an inbred werewolf in the Werewolf: the Apocalypse RPG. Not wanting to have my meaning mistaken, I quickly ditched that and went back to using "SonicLlama," even though I'd long since grown tired of the moniker. The breaking point came, I think, when a then-girlfriend referred to me as "SonicLlama" on her blog. Seeing my high school screen name used in the context of something kind of sweet and romantical seemed highly weird, and I just ditched the thing altogether.

Being utterly unable to think up something meaningful or witty, I simply started blogging as "Joe" and then appended my last name to it. At times I wondered if this is something that's sort of foolish, given that anyone could Google me and find, for example, pictures of me with stupid hair. I've also wondered if my habit of appending my real name to things on the internet at all narcissistic. I do like attention, after all.

But... No. No, I don't think so. In fact, I wish that more people did what I did. Using my real name means that I don't say anything online that I wouldn't say in person. Being a troll lacks all appeal, and big part of that is that I don't take on too much of a persona while online. There still is a bit of one, but appending "Joe Streckert" to my blog and twitter feed prevents me from ever succumbing to the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, a process wherein normal people become insufferable while behind a scrim.

Screen names are fine, and it is fun to give yourself a nickname (I might think up something specifically for gaming) but for now whenever I see someone else posting under their real, actual name, it makes me smile a bit. Maybe, like me, they couldn't summon up a handle that fit them well. Or maybe they just don't want to be a fuckwad. Either way, I approve.

An Incomplete List of Fifteen Books

2010-11-14T16:43:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm doing one of these chain Facebook note things. I never do these, but this one's about books. Apparently it has the following rules:

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen novels you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me because I'm interested in seeing what books my friends chose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your 15 picks, and tag people in the note.)

Okay, that's nice. I guess the point is that you can't pick books that say "Hey! Look at how awesome I am because of my refined taste in wordy things!" Being genuine and honest seems to be the point. Oh, well. Here's the (definitely incomplete) list:

1. Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
As a kid I identified tons with Calvin, with his endemic behavioral problems, overactive imagination, and love of very large words. I love comics to this day because of Calvin and Hobbes, and Watterson showed me from a very young age that there is no contradiction between being ironic and sincere, or both snarky and poignant. Calvin is a deeply realized character, and to this day I still see a lot of myself in him. He's also a guy who imagines killer snowmen and time travel, and there's no contradiction in that.

2. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Were's in elementary school here. I was a little Catholic school kid in a dumb uniform and I was fully aware of the Christian allegorical elements of these things while I was reading them. Because, c'mon. Aslan is fucking Jesus. It's not subtle, people. By the time I got to The Last Battle, I was fully disgusted with Lewis' world-view, even at the young age. Lewis, in that book, is hugely judgmental of nonbelievers, casually racist, and generally thinks that dying is grand because that means you get to hang out with Jesus all the time.

This was my first inkling that religion was actually sort of fucked up. I think I was eight or something.

3. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Yes, everyone and their dog is going to choose this. This is not original. Whatever. It really is quite good, despite being hugely popular, and blew my mind into approximately 12,586,327 individual pieces back when I was twelve. I loved every overwrought word of it, and got turned into a ginormous nerd because of it. I roll funny-sided dice on a regular basis because of this trilogy, just like every else.

4. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare.
This is the first Shakespeare play that I read, saw, and really understood. This was in middle school. Beatrice and Benedick's relationship is defined by unspoken attraction that they act out by making fun of each other. There was this girl I liked in eighth grade, and I let her know as much by writing nasty columns about her in the school newspaper. (She happened to be the student body president, so it was kind of relevant.) Anyway, the point is that there was this girl, and I really liked her so I totally insulted her because I didn't understand my feelings or girls or anything. Kind of like in Shakespeare.

5. 1984 by George Orwell
We're back in eighth grade again, and this is where I learned about political satire, dystopia, and hot, hot politicized sexuality. Winston and Julia totally did it and it was political and that was totally awesome because not only were they having tons of sex, they were also totally Sticking It To The Man by bumping uglies. Jesus Christ, that was sexy back when I was, like fourteen. Also there was some other stuff. Stuff about the nature of power and control and mind-warping people into subservience. That was creepy.

6. Everything Isaac Asimov Ever Wrote by Isaac Asimov
Along with Star Trek, Asimov turned me into a total technophile. His stuff seems sort of dated at this point, but he made me believe in The Future

7. Neuromancer by William Gibson
I'm pretty sure that reading this book is a step on the road to enlightenment. Also, this really hot smart girl lent it to me. That was awesome. According to Gibson, even if The Future (which really, is where we live now) turned out to be horrible, it would still be pretty interesting. On top of that, it would be a place where we'd all look awesome whilst wearing leather and sunglasses, and have sex with hot cyborgs.

9. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
If I were to explain why this book is truly awesome, it would give away the ending. It's neat, though, because it's a medieval Sherlock Holmes pastiche. Really! The book is totally Holmes and Watson as monks in the Middle Ages investigating murders in a monastery that have something to do with books. If you like this book, you are automatically a giant nerd.

10. The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
At this point I'm a college freshman and have a non-ironic Che Guevera poster on my wall. There was an unfortunate chin-beard in there somewhere. The Myth of Sisyphus is basically Existentialism 101, and I still regard it as great reading if you don't want to get depressed about how repetitive life is. Meaning in life is self-generated, and that's actually totally okay.

11. The Collected Stories of Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Whilst in Japan, I attempted to read Japanese literature. Granted, it was in English. Akutagawa stuck with me the most. He's quite witty, and almost cruel with how he deploys irony (though never in a way that comes off as cliched, at least not by Western standards). His story Green Onions is a great example of an author hating his characters, and loving every moment of it.

12. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
I read this in Japan while thinking a lot about the direction my life was going and what sort of person I was. It was inspiring and thought provoking. I suppose that makes me a total cliche, utterly unoriginal, and something of a parody of the white-guy-in-foreign-country-finding-himself. Whatever. My experience was genuine and neato. Shut up!

13. Ulysses by James Joyce
For a long time I thought I hated Joyce because I thought he was impenetrable. He's not, though. I totally penetrated him, and found it a very rewarding experience. Ulysses is a puzzle box with all kinds of references, puns, jokes, and Easter eggs in it. It's not really about anything, but it's a totally cool aesthetic experience that stretches your brain-parts out.

14. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
This book made me want to dig up Nabokov's corpse, eat his brain, and absorb his writing talents. While reading it I wrote an essay all Nabokov-like, and successfully pitched it to a literary event. It was the first time that I ever got paid for anything I wrote, and Nabokov helped me get there.

15. Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
I've read a few other of DFW's books, but Consider the Lobster was the book that made me really love him, and sort of wish that I could be him (except without the depression part). There are very, very few authors whom I would call inspiring, but DFW is one of the most. He utterly charmed me with his wit, erudition, and utter genuine nature, and is one of the few writers whom I admire unreservedly.

Um, yes. there's probably some other stuff, too, that I forgot.

Aww! It thinks it's Oregon!

2010-11-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

Washington is stealing our logo. It's kind of cute. Really, we should be flattered.

Look! Horsey!

2010-10-31T16:14:00.000-07:00

I've seen several of these around town, and the gag is hardly original, but I think it's funny every single time I see it. Honestly, I kind of wish every horse tie had some variant of this going on.

Update: Apparently this is a thing! Like, an organized thing! A friend of mine on Facebook alerted me to the existence of the Horse Project. Check it out!

Some Underrated Monsters

2010-10-30T09:14:00.000-07:00

It's Halloween, which is objectively the best holiday all year. It's not nearly as stressful as Christmas, it's sexier than New Years, and is barrels more exciting than Flag Day. It's also the holiday where we'll all be reminded how pervasive two of the most popular monsters are- vampires and zombies. I guarantee you that every single Halloween party you go to will have, at the very minimum, three people dressed as these things.

It's easy to see why. Vampires are an excuse to dress up all sexy-like. Dracula and Co. have always been distinguished by their nifty clothes, deathly pallor, and sexy neck-biting business. That's all well and good, but vamps are a tad overexposed. As for zombies, they're a super-easy costume to do: just slosh some blood on yourself, and, boom, you're a zombie. You don't have to have a particular clothing style or anything; all you need is gobs and blood and maybe a bit of putrescence. Boom. Zombie. Done.

The great pantheon of other monsters, though, seem to be sadly ignored. Not just in terms of costumes, but in general. What follows are a few monsters whom I think are just as creepy as the popular dead guys.

Werewolves

Yes, I know. Werewolves are in everything. They were in Buffy and they're in True Blood as well. The problem with the wolves, though, is that they've sort of become a foil to vampires. Every other bit of vampire media seems to set up werewolves as the natural enemy of vampires. The World of Darkness did this, as did Underworld, as did that horrible Van Helsing movie.

I've got no problem with the Wolves Vs. Vampire thing, but the raging furry dudes ought to have a chance to stand on their own. The werewolf is basically about how scary it is to flip out and lose your shit, giving into rage and emotion. That's something worth developing. Instead, they've just been a beastie for vampires to fight.

The Phantom of the Opera

This another instance where the creature in question is pretty popular, but not used to his full extent. The Phantom today is best known for the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, which establishes him as a romantic lead first, and deranged killer second. People tend to think of the musical before they think of Lon Chaney's freakish and psychotic Phantom, if they think of that at all. This is a guy who's grossly deformed, gets obsessed with starlets, and then hangs people for his own enjoyment. He could be right up there with the Frankenstein Monster as a freakish horror, but instead is viewed as being all romantical and misunderstood. Rightly, he should be viewed as the aristocrat-killing opera-haunting all around murderous badass that he used to be.

Entities From H.P. Lovecraft's Mythos That Are Not Cthulu

Cthulu gets way too much attention. He's everywhere- movies, games, t-shirts, toys. You can't go into a comic shop without tripping over a bunch of tentacles. As much as I like Cthulu, though, he overshadows the other nasty elder gods that Mr. Lovecraft bequeathed on us- grotesque beings such as Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat With a Thousand Young; or the King in Yellow, an eerie being who makes a memorable and hugely creepy appearance in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. The big green tentacled dude has been overexposed to the point where he's almost a parody of himself, but the rest of Lovecraft's pantheon is still genuinely creepy.

Pretty Much Everything From Japanese Mythology

One of the better books of ghost stories I've read was Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan. Hearn was one of the first Westerners to be nationalized as a Japanese citizen, and he loved the folklore from his adopted land. Most people now think that his wife, a Japanese woman, had just as much to do with the book as he did, but he was a dude, it was barely the 1900s, and his name was put on the book.

Anyway, the thing that I find sort of creepy about Japanese mythology is that there are a disturbing amount of stories where a guy marries a lady, and then the lady turns into an ice witch or crane or fox or some other variant, often abandoning her husband once he learns her secrets. One can play armchair psychologist and wonder what this says about Japanese culture, but the idea that beasties are actually in your living room rather than out in the dark woods is niftily squicky in a pod-people sort of way.

Hungry ghosts are also genuinely spooky. Vampires are supposed to illustrate the horrors of thirst, hunger, and general lack of satiation, I suppose, but anymore they're way more about leather and sexy times than anything else. Hungry ghosts, dried out husks forever trying to satisfy themselves, seem actually damned.

Anything William Blake Ever Painted

William Blake is one of my favorite painters. He was also probably insane, and his paintings of scenes from Dante's Divine Comedy are fairly creeptacular.

Actually, paintings aside, he himself was probably pretty monstrous.

About A Certain Urban Nickname...

2010-10-14T20:12:00.000-07:00

I've never liked the name "Rose City."

Portland, to me, has never been the "City of Roses." That name reeks of airbrushed idealism, it seems forced and false. The idea of this place as some sort of fragrant garden, some sun-dappled manicured lawn redolent of blooms and buds seems hugely false. The region is fertile, yes, it is green, certainly, but it has never struck me as particularly rosy.

The everpresent evergreens seem a better symbol, as do the layered and enveloping clouds. This city isn't suggestive of brightness and perfumed plants. This place is rain-soaked. It is green and awash more with the scents of coffee and hops than any ornamental plant. Roses are an ignored ideal. Portland deserves a sobriquet.

"Puddletown" is more accurate, but there are rainy cities everywhere. Such a name is not terribly unique. A better fit is "Bridgetown," a name that brings to mind our wonderful and inspiring urban infrastructure. "Stumptown" speaks to the actual history of the place, and is a reminder that we stand in the middle of what once was a dense forest. Even "Rip City" works better than the floral monikers. It is full of nonsensical bravado, reminiscent of Drexler-era games of NBA Jam. But, it calls to mind something real, a time when the Trail Blazers were a force to be reckoned with.

All of these are good. All of them are better than the too-cheery names "Rose City" or "City of Roses." All of them seem to have more of that very in-demand commodity; authenticity.

I hope that the roses fade, that "Stumptown" and "Bridgetown" gain primacy. A stand of evergreens or the spires of the St. Johns Bridge are more real and more inspiring symbols of our metropolis than any non-native flower will ever be.

We are Stumptown, Puddletown, Bridgetown, even Rip City. Roses, it seems, just happen to grow here.

"I Don't Create. I Own.": In Which I Finally Watch Wall Street

2010-10-08T21:53:00.000-07:00

Goodfellas is, ultimately, a movie about how hollow and empty the life of crime is. Chances are, says Goodfellas, that you'll probably end up dead. Or, if you don't, you'll at least end up washed up and existentially empty.

Yet when watching it one thinks, "Being a gangster sure looks like fun, what with all the snazzy suits and easy money."

Wall Street is, ultimately, a movie about how hollow and empty the life of stock trading is. Chances ares, says Wall Street, that you won't produce anything and you might go to prison. Or, if you don't, you'll at least end up washed up and existentially empty.

Yet when watching it one things, "Being a stock trader sure looks like fun, what with all the snazzy suits and easy money."

I finally sat down and watched Oliver Stone's eighties epic this evening, and while I enjoyed all 125 of its minutes, I couldn't help but feel that the movie kind of misfired. Reason being, I ended up being utterly charmed by Gordon Gekko, the slimy stock trader who was really supposed to be the villain.

Make no mistake- Gekko is presented as a reprehensible person. He's a lying, manipulating bastard who plays other people to get his way, and wholly owns that. The "greed is good" speech has been widely touted as summing up the movie (and in context, it is pretty badass) but when Gekko proclaimed "I don't create. I own," that really summed up his character for me. He owns his leechlike state. He touts his non-contribution to civilization as a point of pride.

He does not provide any good or service to anyone. He enriches himself on the labor of others. He can decide the fate of thousands of people, yet in the end he's little more than a petty oligarch.

Yes. I got it. I was totally on board with Wall Street's anti-corporate message.

The problem, though, is the Michael Douglas, as Gekko, is pretty damn charismatic. He eats up the screen, chews up and spits out the scenery, dominates the entire film, and is ultimately just bigger than anything else around him. He's huge, vibrant, attractive, and looks like he's having a great time. I had a hard time hating him, even though he was so obviously a son-of-a-bitch.

This is why Wall Street, at the end of the day, is something of a failure. At least ideologically. After seeing it, I kind of wanted to go to New York and blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on steak dinner, hookers, cocaine, and abstract art; all the while surveying the Manhattan skyline from a lofty perch. I will bet you anything that there are swarms upon swarms of WASPy little douchebags infesting trading floors and financial institutions because they were inspired by this movie.

Hell, I'm super-liberal, borderline-socialist, tree-hugging, crypto-hippie, and I was nearly inspired to go put on a pair of suspenders and become a professional swindler. Imagine what it could do to someone more nastily disposed. At Goodfellas is about the mafia, an organization that is sort of hard to join. Wall Street, though, is about the financial service industry, an industry that hires people all of the time.

And that's why Wall Street is, ultimately, a failure. Its heart is in the right place, but its inspiration points staunchly in the other direction.

In Praise of the Satchel

2010-10-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

Bookbags are heavy, unfashionable, and reminiscent of Mormon missionaries and high school students.

Messenger bags, while wonderful, are sizable. The whole thing is vaguely fashionable and utilitarian, but in the end is a very large bag. For a day on the bike, they are great. For a night out, they are not.

A briefcase demands to be carried, and having one's hands free is a plus. What's more, it is far too businesslike for social occasions.

What is a guy to do for those times when he's going out, but doesn't need a huge carrying case? How can one carry around a say, book, phone, iPod, and notepad, but not have to carry the aforementioned pieces of luggage?

The answer is simple: the noble (and unfairly maligned) satchel.

Call it a man-purse if you like. You may even shorten that to "murse," if you so choose, or make a facile scrotal pun but calling it a "man bag." Call it whatever the hell you want. I don't care. Your complaints that my trusty shoulder bag looks sort of swishy and effeminate are dwarfed by the sheer functionality of the item.

What do you need when you go out? I always carry a book with me, for those times when I'm waiting for/riding on public transport, or in the event that I simply want to spend a bit in a park or coffee shop reading. Not having a book make me feel naked and exposed, like I'm missing something essential.

I also carry around my iPod. You know, for music and podcast whilst walking. Striding through the streets of Portland, satchel on my shoulder, with the dulcet tones of either the Dirty Projectors or NPR's Planet Money in my ears truly does put me in a specific demographic, one which I completely enjoy occupying.

In the off chance that I need to write something down, I carry a pen and notepad. This is a very, very handy item to have on you. When someone says "do you have something to write this down on?" I can say "Yes. Yes I do."

All of these handy items (and oftentimes more!) are toted around in my trusty black satchel, an oiled-canvas bag that I've had for a few years now. I got it as a going away present, and it is, far and away, one of the most useful gifts I've ever received. It has been to Japan, China, Korea, and even as far as California. It's held a camera, voice recorder, bottled water, an amplifier, and even a marriage license. When handed a stray piece of paperwork, I need not fold it up awkwardly- it goes in the satchel.

I am proud of how danged handy, how wonderfully useful this item is. As widely-used as it might be, though, by urban types such as myself, the satchel is unfairly spurned. There seems to be a stubborn subset of men who reject its use because it vaguely resembles a purse. Certain kinds of men, insecure in their masculinity, deny the obvious usefulness of the satchels.

On the off chance that any of those guys are reading this, I would like to address them specifically for a moment. All of you guys who, for some reason or another, think that the satchel is vaguely girly.

Guys, let's talk about that for a moment. Women, you might have noticed, wear pants. So do we. They wear shirts, just like us. They also get haircuts, much like we do. Would you walk around sporting women's pants, shirts, or haircuts? Okay, some guys would, but for the most part, dudes, you'd get pants, shirts, and haircuts designed for you. Our pants are designed for a dude-waist rather than lady hips, our shirts are made with guy shoulders in mind, and our haircuts are generally a different species than those the ladies favor.

Thus it is so with the satchel. The satchel is no more a purse than any other dude-designed item. Try it! It is useful! No longer will you have to stuff paperwork in your pocket or keep five things in your hands at once. No more will you be without a writing implement or reading material. Your iPod and phone will not rest awkwardly in your pockets, and if you get sick of sitting on your wallet, it can go into the satchel. Glasses and sunglasses fit easily inside it, as do any other doo-dads or whatever you might have on you at the time.

Men, do not let this obvious bit of utility pass you by. We have the technology to carry around day-to-day items. You need not shirk from this innovation, this satchel. It is useful, it is nice looking, and (don't worry) it's definitely not a purse.

In Which the Front Wheel of My Bike Gets Stolen at a Busy Portland Intersection

2010-09-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

For the first time in my life, I willingly approached a Greenpeace canvasser. "Hello," I said to her.

"Hi!" She was smiley and pixie-like and had red streaks in her hair.

"I know you guys have been on this street corner all day. My bike's been parked over there, and someone stole the front wheel. Have you guys seen anything?"

She thought for a minute. "Yeah!" she said, "there was some guy messing with a bike over there earlier, but I didn't get a good look at him."

"Any idea of what time?"

"Maybe two. I don't know. Three? I was watching the pedestrians, mostly."

"Okay thanks."

"Do you want to help save the environment today?"

"Look, I just had the front wheel of my bike stolen."

"You ride a bike! Obviously you care about the environment."

"I'm in a very bad mood right now, and have to file a police report."

"Okay, but it's a great cause!"

I walked away. The corner where my wheel was stolen, SW Broadway and Morrison, is an incredibly busy spot. Several retail spots, tons of pedestrians, a few buskers, some canvassers, and a handful security guards are nearly always there during the day.

I asked around to see if anyone had seen someone messing with my bike. I asked the Baskin Robbins, Abercrombie &, Fitch, Nordstrom, multiple security guards, a few buskers, and a great deal of Pioneer Courthouse Square. I didn't know why. There was no chance that I'd get my wheel back, I suppose I wanted some sort of satisfaction, or wanted to know that it wasn't possible to just go up to a bike in a public place and, you know, steal parts of it without detection. The presence of lots of people would be enough to deter you.

Unfortunately, no one had seen anything of substance. My bike wheel was crippled, and some thief has a new front wheel, along with an old tire and much-patched tube. I was annoyed at the thieves, certainly (I had some nice thoughts about weaponizing my U lock and bruising up their soft tissue with it) but I was also pissed at Portland itself. This was on a dynamic, well-trafficked intersection. I would hope that the light of day, the presence of crowds, and general feel of the area would be enough to deter crime. It usually is, but today I got to be the one guy who happened to get his shit jacked.

In a very, very public place. The whole incident reminded me how easy it is to slip beneath people's perception, as this clip illustrates. Stealing is actually quite easy, as is sleight-of-hand, being unnoticed, and stealth in general. When I was in high school, a classmate walked into a McDonald's, took the gigantic ketchup dispenser with him, and then walked out. Nothing happened to him (he claimed that it was a "social experiment" and subsequently had a ketchup dispenser in his locker all year.) The Willamette Week actually did a story on this, and a reporter was able to very easily steal his own bike. I don't have any profound conclusion here, but I really do want to believe that the presence of tons and tons of people on an intersection an exert enough ambient social pressure to make people behave. It works, I suppose, most of the time, but every so often a crowd of people on a street corner are all too happy to see nothing.

Something That Happened on the Yellow Line

2010-09-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

When the doors opened by Union Station, a very drunk man stumbled onto the Yellow Line. He was late middle-aged, at least fifty. Perhaps over fifty-five. He sat down behind a woman in a wheelchair. She was small, perhaps thirty-five, and had a blanket over her legs.

"Can I ask you something?" he said, slurring his words. The woman said nothing.

"Can I ask you something? What's wrong with you?" She turned her head.

"Nothing," she said. "What's wrong with you?"

"You're in a wheelchair."

"Yes."

"What's wrong with you?" He could not sit straight. His shoulders rocked with the train and he put his hand against the window.

"Are you asking me why I'm in a wheelchair? Is that what you're saying?"

"Yeah."

"I got shot. That's why I'm in a wheelchair."

"Bullshit." From his slurring mouth, all the syllables were longer. The Ls, in particular, were stretched in such a way that left his inebriation wholly undisguised.

"You don't believe me?"

"Bullshit!"

"My brother got involved with some bad people, and when they came for him, I was with him and I got shot."

"Fuckin' bullshit."

"And then, he was scared and felt guilty about what happened to me, and he killed himself a few days later."

"What?"

"That's why I'm in a wheelchair."

The man seemed to think, very slowly, and then looked as if he believed her. "Was it gang-related?" he asked.

"Yes, it was."

"Were they black guys?"

The woman paused, and said "Yes, they were."

"Are you racist now? Because you were shot by a black guy?" Both the drunk man and the woman were white.

"You should eat something," said the woman. She got some crackers from her bag, and gave them to the man. He began to eat, spewing crumbs onto the ground.

"I wanna go to Lloyd Center," he said. "When's Lloyd Center?"

"You're on the wrong line. This is the Yellow Line."

"I'm not going to Lloyd Center?"

"No, you got on the wrong line."

"Fuck." His hand was on the window. "Your hair is so pretty." He put his hand in the woman's hair. "It's like you're an Indian," he said, running his fingers through her strands. She was blonde. "Can I go to your house?" he asked her.

"No," she said, "I think you should get off and go in the opposite direction. That way, you can get on another line and go to Lloyd Center."

"I wanna go to your house." he stroked her hair, and ate crackers.

"This is my stop," said the woman. It was the same as mine.

"Okay," said the man. He put his hands on the back of her wheelchair.

"I know how to work this," she said. "Don't worry about that."

I saw them going in the opposite direction, and was very, very afraid for the woman. Even obviously intoxicated, the man still had two legs and could take her. Very quickly, I turned and jogged up to them.

"Ma'am," I said, "is there anything you need a hand with? Anything you need taken care of?" I nodded at the drunk, still holding on to her wheelchair. My heart was pounding. I was offering to get in a fight on this woman's behalf. Even if I called the police, I would still have to deal with him for a few minutes. There would have been unpleasant physical altercations.

She smiled at me, and said nothing for a several seconds.

"I'll be fine," she said, "but thank you."

She and the man went in the opposite direction, and I hoped that she was right.

Someone in the BBC Has a Sick (and Admirable) Sense of Humor

2010-09-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

I can draw only one conclusion from this picture from a BBC slideshow: The ages-long rift between Anglicans and Catholics still hasn't healed, and the BBC is trying to undermine the Pope by trying to make him look as leering and creepy as possible.

With kids. The pope is leering at a bunch of kids. If your organization has a problem with child rape, why the hell would your P.R. department ever let you within a hundred feet of children? Christ, this picture is unfortunate- the only thing missing is a creepy van. I'll bet that somewhere in the BBC, the photo editors are chuckling about how goddamn clever they are.

An Open Letter to America's Really Rich People

2010-09-15T11:21:00.000-07:00

Dear People With Several Times More Money Than Me,

We have had our differences. There were those nasty incidents back in college when I was all hopped up on Marx and proclaimed mostly non-ironically that we should "eat the rich." I also used to have a Che poster and have used the term "capitalist pig-dogs" on more than one occasion. Sorry about that. I feel differently now, but I believe in getting the elephant in the room out of the way.

Especially because now I (and indeed, all of America) kind of needs your help.

Our economy is not doing so well. Yes, we're recovering, but rather slowly. A while ago, when the stimulus was passed, I hoped that one of my favorite economists was wrong. Paul Krugman said over and over again that the stimulus was going to be too small to get the economy going, I love Krugman, but in this case I really, really hoped that he was wrong. Incorrect. Not on it. Erroneous.

Alas, it seems like he won that Nobel prize for a reason, and the stimulus really was too small. We need another one, but there presently isn't the political will for such a thing. If the government isn't going to start feeding the economy, then the demand is going to have to come from somewhere else. In this case, you guys. You massively rich humans who go to sleep on beds made out of Benjamins and have doorknobs that cost more than me. You guys are sitting on approximately ten bazillion-bajillion dollars of wealth, and that money really needs to be spread around.

As yourselves: Do I have every XBox game ever made? Does my cat own enough sweaters? Are there enough melon ballers in my life? Do I really own enough blenders? Is my life really complete if I don't have my very own sushi franchise? I can tell you right now- the answer is no.

Rich people, for the sake of us all you need to do what you do best- spend. Spend widely and freely. Spend with abandon and excess. Spend because the rest of us can't. Go out to eat and order dessert. Tip your server well- they will put that money into circulation, trust me. If you're eyeing a new gadget, go ahead- buy it. Buy the pro version, even. Get yourself a new set of drapes. Or a summer home. Or a velodrome. If you happen upon some crazy entrepreneur with a wacky business model, go ahead and invest in her idea. Who cares if it doesn't work? You've provided much-needed liquidity.

Would it be nice to live in a hippie-utopia zero-growth economy not dependent on consumption in order to sustain itself? Sure. That's not the world we live in, though. In the meantime, us normal people really need you guys to start being profligate and excessive for the sake of America. I wish that we could have another stimulus- a nice big one that incorporated high speed rails and alternative energy. That would be fantastic. But, I know it's not going to happen. In the meantime, though, while the rest of us are doing less than awesomely it's up to you, rich folks. It's up to you to spend and spend and spend until we've got money again.

So when you go out to Restoration Hardware and buy a bagload of artisinal hammers, remember- you're not just helping yourself. You're helping us all. You're doing what's right for America.

Love,

-Joe Streckert

The Price of Weirdness

2010-09-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

The night before last I found myself in line at Voodoo Doughnut with Seph and his girlfriend L. Neither of them had ever been there, and Seph was keen on getting a doughnut as an early birthday celebration. Standing in line at Voodoo's east side location, we were surrounded by plenty of self-consciously weird and kitschy decor- Kenny Rogers posters, pinball machines, and a cardboard cutout of Elvira. Sundry other bits and pieces decorated the area, and Voodoo's trademark pink wall filtered out from behind the posters and ephemera.

An elderly couple were in front of us. They were looking about the room with grins on their faces. I imagined that they'd seen this shop on the Travel Channel or the Food Network, this crazy pastry hut that puts bacon on maple bars. At the counter was a young woman who fit right in to the whole tableaux. She was young and pretty in a Suicide Girls type way, redolent with tattoos and sporting a spetum piercing. The elderly couple in front of us looked at the Kenny Rogers posters and took pictures of those. They took pictures of the pinball machines and Elvira. When they got their doughnuts, they asked the young woman if they could take her picture, too.

"Uh, yeah." She smiled nervously. Perhaps she was weirded out by having an older guy suddenly take her picture. She tried to laugh a little, and look candid, but was obviously slightly uneasy. The old couple in front of us, though, were quite happy with their whole experience. They left with a bag of doughnuts and a camera of pictures, satisfied that they had indeed found something that makes Portland as odd as it is.

I enjoy it that Portland is self-aware about its weirdness. If anything, it pays a significant chunk of my own bills. In my capacity as a tour guide, I take people to see things like Voodoo and the 24 Hour Church of Elvis, all marks of oddness that allow us to maintain distinctiveness. On an abstract level, it's a nice source of regional pride to know that one lives in an easygoing and fun place, but more practically it's great for our tourism industry. Visitors, obviously, want to see something they can't see at home. We can give them that. We can give them weird doughnuts and Elvis worship and signs that are really big double-entendres. Tourists will come here and pay money to see these things, and spend money while they're here. That's great. But, there's a price.

The price is the nervous laugh of that Voodoo Doughnut employee, out of towners gawking at us and ours and saying "Wow! You guys are weird!" I get it all the time. I mention to tourists that I ride my bike to and from work every day, and a few have asked incredulously if I'm afraid for my own safety. I find such questions hugely naive, but understandable if you come from somewhere where everyone drives. When I've mentioned Portland's penchant for vegan and vegetarian lifestyles, I've been asked more than a few times about alleged attendant health problems- another set of questions I think are naive.

Upon reflection, though, I know that these questions are not dumb, and that that older couple wasn't wrong to gawk at Voodoo Doughnut. I joyfully provide people with information, and Voodoo joyfully dresses itself up to be weird. Most of the people that this brings in are not naive gawkers, but there will always be a few. There will always be a few old people taking tourist pictures of the local tattooed populace, or wondering with disbelief how one could ride a bike everyday. This reaction is aggravating, but unavoidable, and ultimately part of something much more positive and entirely worth it.

The Rest of a Letter

2010-08-31T10:59:00.000-07:00

A few people have said to me this week "Hey, I saw your letter in the Mercury!" My response has usually been "Um... thanks. Yeah. Thanks." Or something akin to that. I'm quite happy to be in the comments section of a local newspaper defending the ranks of nerd-dom, but I didn't think they'd actually publish it. The original letter was comically long and verbose, and I wrote it on a whim as something of a silly fan letter.

For those of you who said "Hey, I saw your letter!", though, here is the overly long original:

I normally enjoy One Day At a Time, Ann Romano's highly neat column. While reading it, I usually experience a feeling that approximates joy. It is with great regret, then, that I write this missive regarding her column of August 19th, 2010.

"Avoid nerds?" Really, Ms. Romano? That hurts. That hurts deeply. When your slings and arrows are directed at the effete elites of "Hollyweird" (as you so call it) I can do nothing but root for your trenchant and bitchy commentary. I imagine you bringing the mighty to heel with nothing but a sneer and an insult, devastating and deflating the puffed-up and the arrogant whilst you sip a martini poolside like the magnificent she-bastard that you undoubtedly are.

But... Nerds? Us? You've used your powers bitch-smack to us? We who have suffered so much already? Really, Ms. Romano, that is just cruel. While it is unfortunate that Adrianne Curry dressed as Slave Leia was groped, I can assure you that it is not generally representative of nerd behavior. You insinuate that we are so sex-starved and perma-horny, that of course we are going to grope, fondle, caress, and otherwise boorishly handle any and all examples of the unclad female form that we happen upon.

I can assure you that, the vast majority of the time, just the opposite is true.

You see, Ms. Romano, we are a timid folk. We generally live in awe and fear of the opposite sex (or the same sex, if that's what we're in to) and I can guarantee you that most nerds who like ladies are far more likely to comport themselves as gentlemen (or gentlewomen) than other segments of the population. Jocks and douchebags will gleefully slap an ass at the slightest provocation. Hip-hop enthusiasts will proclaim their approval of a lady's gyrations with boisterous enthusiasm. Your average male will exhibit all manner of sexism and gropiness after a few beers.

Not so with nerds, though. As a nerd who has dated other nerds, I can assure that the behavior you wrote about was not at all representative.

Oftentimes, our social awkwardness acts as a sort of anti-harassment shield. Faced with the possibility of any intimate contact, we stammer and freeze, overthinking the entire situation. We wonder what we should do, and fret about whether we are coming on too strong. We try to read our opposite number, and wonder if they feel the same. We start sentences, and then don't finish them. For nerds, foreplay often begins with awkward hugging. Then, if the hug goes well, we'll wonder if we should try and kiss the other person. This usually leads to a lot of dodging around of the faces and perhaps a chaste peck. While other social groups would interpret this as license to, for example, kiss harder and deeper, nerds will still be fretting at this point. We will wonder whether or not tongue would be an acceptable addition, and whether or not it would be uncouth to affectionately run our hands over our partner's back.

At this point, male nerds will become anxious about whether they have an erection, or even half of one. We are well aware poking a lady with an unwanted boner is quite rude, and will oftentimes strategically shift out of the way.

All of this needs to be sorted out well before any groping happens. Even after sexy activity is achieved and a good time is had by all, nerds will often go home, wonder what it all meant, and the cycle of fretting and awkwardness will begin anew.

So, Ms. Romano, I can assure you that the incident you described was a horrendous anomaly. On behalf of the vast majority of nerds, most of whom are entirely un-grabby when it comes to ladyparts, I apologize for what occurred. I also promise that neither I, nor any other well-meaning nerd, will grope any of your various feminine bits.

As for the existence of juggalo nerds... Such cross-pollination is necessarily impossible. Nerds are defined by their intelligence and juggalos by their lack thereof. Such a hybridization would be as absurdly freakish as, for example, a gay Republican. That hypothetical hybrid would soon implode under the weight of their own fundamental contradictions.

Here's hoping that in the future the awesome power of your bitch-ray will be more tightly focused on more deserving targets.

Live Long and Prosper,

-Joe Streckert

I Have No Idea What These Are

2010-08-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

I saw these costumes at Last Thursday on Alberta. The majority of it was comprehensible to me- various bands set up at regular intervals, drum circles, people on stilts, fairy wings. Normal stuff. One particular performance, though, was rather mystifying. I saw the figures pictured below, and found their presence genuinely enigmatic. They were dancing, and, later one, stood utterly still. I wondered if they were some sort of traditional costumery, or merely an invented weirdness. Are the below-pictured a thing? And, if so, what nature of thing? I was perplexed.

A Certain Mosque

2010-08-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

The issue of the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" has been greatly distressing. All manner of bigotry and nastiness has surfaced on the right, of course, but what I've found quite distressing is that leftists have been quiet on what seems to me to be a clear-cut issue of tolerance and liberty.

When Obama said that Muslims definitively have the right to build their community center on private property, my heart fluttered a little. I was immensely pleased and got a little bit of the "Yes We Can!" vibe again.

Then he backpedaled. He said he was not commenting on the "wisdom" of the Cordoba Center's construction. My heart fell.

This issue should not even be a controversy. At all. This is the U.S., and one of the best, most admirable things that we've ever done is institutionalize freedom of religion. No one is compelled to belong to a state church or religion. No one is required to believe anything that the state tells them to. Citizens are free to assemble, discuss, and believe whatever they like. That is, really, quite profoundly incredible.

I'm an atheist- I don't believe in any kind of god or gods, and that philosophical stance is immensely important to me. However, I think it would be massively deplorable if even atheism was enforced as a state religion. The state should be utterly neutral in these matters.

That neutrality is not exciting or sexy. It is not amazingly compelling. It is, really, massively boring to have one of the most powerful entities in the history of humankind (the U.S. government) not take stands on issues such as religion.

That unsexy boredom, though, allows for so much else to transpire. The U.S. is a stew of religions and philosophy, of mutually contradictory worldviews and outlooks. That pluralism is utterly fantastic. As fervently as I cling to my own philosophy, I would never, ever, want the state to enforce it. Not even my philosophy is worthy of a breach of state neutrality.

This is profoundly important, and I really do believe that having a government divorced from any religion whatsoever (even mine!) is very, very important to maintaining a civilization. The very idea that we should prefer one philosophy over another (on private property, no less!) is cause for distress.

I keep hoping that someone on the left will express this. I keep wishing that some Democrat will take a principled stand and inform America that religious liberty is one of the most fundamental pillars of our free state.

But, I have my doubts. Right now, I can't identify any admirable leftists in government. I wish I could, but there's no one.

That distresses me far more than anything Gingrich or Palin says.

Awesome Thing: The Truth is Sticky

2010-08-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

Jenny isn't real.

What's fantastic is how quickly we all knew that.

Just this morning, pictures of her and her dramatic quitting were zooming around the Series of Tubes, being shared as if they were fact. By this afternoon, the full scrutiny of the Internet was on them, wondering who this woman was, where she was, if she would grant interviews, what the specifics of her job were, etc.

Soon enough the truth came out, that the photographs of a woman quitting her job and accusing her boss of being a sexist Farmville addict were, indeed, a hoax. As nice as the mini-meme was, I was more excited at how quickly the collective intelligence of everyone was able to ferret out bullshit. Sure, not in terms of something truly important, but the world very quickly found the truth.

And the truth stuck. People didn't keep believing the meme because they wanted to. Reality surfaced, and the pleasant illusion was let go.

I might sound a little idealistic here, but this makes me very happy. More people than ever before have access to accuracy, truth, and good information. More people than ever are able to look up and find what is, in fact, real. More people than ever before illuminate that which is real that that which isn't.

And, when faced with the truth, it's wonderful to see people discard illusions, even little ones. Yes, this is an inconsequential issue, but I felt rather good today knowing that our collective intelligence can, indeed, overthrow pleasant unrealities.

Ross Douthat is a Bigot

2010-08-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

If I spent all of my time railing against right-wingers with whom I disagree, I would have no breath left in my lungs. However, I recently came across a column I thought was so subtly nasty, that I was compelled to write about it.

Like most snooty American liberals, I read the New York Times editorial page. Paul Krugman is probably my favorite avuncular bearded economist, and I find Thomas Friedman sort of amusing, as he usually gets quite enthusiastic about issues that broke five or so years ago. (I recall him being very excited about cell phone cameras in the mid 2000s. It was cute.)

Yesterday at dinner my friend L asked me if I'd read it that morning, and I said that I hadn't. She alerted me to a piece by Ross Douthat, the NYT's resident token conservative who isn't David Brooks. Douthat's column was basically a screed against gay marriage, but not for the reasons that you'd expect. He does not seem to oppose gay marriage for religious reasons or because it will lead to polygamy. He says, basically, that heterosexual marriage is special because:

This ideal holds up the commitment to lifelong fidelity and support by two sexually different human beings — a commitment that involves the mutual surrender, arguably, of their reproductive self-interest — as a uniquely admirable kind of relationship. It holds up the domestic life that can be created only by such unions, in which children grow up in intimate contact with both of their biological parents, as a uniquely admirable approach to child-rearing. And recognizing the difficulty of achieving these goals, it surrounds wedlock with a distinctive set of rituals, sanctions and taboos.

The point of this ideal is not that other relationships have no value, or that only nuclear families can rear children successfully. Rather, it’s that lifelong heterosexual monogamy at its best can offer something distinctive and remarkable — a microcosm of civilization, and an organic connection between human generations — that makes it worthy of distinctive recognition and support.

Again, this is not how many cultures approach marriage. It’s a particularly Western understanding, derived from Jewish and Christian beliefs about the order of creation, and supplemented by later ideas about romantic love, the rights of children, and the equality of the sexes.

This is utter sophistry. This is ahistorical dreck. This is nothing but thin apologetics for bigotry. A few points:

1: Douthat's last section, about "equality of the sexes" is particularly laughable, especially when juxtaposed with Christian and Jewish beliefs. The ideal of sexual equality is new, and we don't have religious traditions to thank for it. Thank the feminist movement. Thank women's liberation. Thank Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem for that. Prior to that, wives were pretty much property. You're actually going to claim that "later ideas" "supplemented" religious beliefs? No. Just the opposite. These later ideas overturned religious beliefs.

2: He is also equating marriage with monogamy. Admittedly, this is most people's expectation, but it is entirely possible for married couples to have any array of sexual arrangements open to them. There are plenty of happily married non-monogamists out there, and their marital unions are as legally binding as anyone else's. Marriage, really, is about whatever the people in it say it's about.

3: Douthat also brings children into the equation. Aside from the fact that the children of gay couples tend to be just fine, who says marriage has to be about children? Matrimony doesn't equate to kids.

4: Heterosexual marriage, says Douthat, is distinctive. All relationships are. Heterosexual relationships are distinct from each other, and homosexual relationships are also distinct from each other. For instance, an elderly couple who get married late in life and can't have children will have a very different relationship than young people who pop out tons of kids. Both relationships, though, are worthy of legal sanction.

Douthat ends his column with this bit of semi-coherent vileness:

[I]f we just accept this shift, we’re giving up on one of the great ideas of Western civilization: the celebration of lifelong heterosexual monogamy as a unique and indispensable estate. That ideal is still worth honoring, and still worth striving to preserve. And preserving it ultimately requires some public acknowledgment that heterosexual unions and gay relationships are different: similar in emotional commitment, but distinct both in their challenges and their potential fruit.

"But based on Judge Walker’s logic — which suggests that any such distinction is bigoted and un-American — I don’t think a society that declares gay marriage to be a fundamental right will be capable of even entertaining this idea

Douthat obviously thinks highly of heterosexual marriage. Great. Wonderful. Good for him. However, we're not just talking about how we feel about people's relationships, here. We're talking about the law.

We're talking about health care and inheritance, tax breaks and hospital visitation rights. We're talking about partner benefits and unique legal protections that apply to spouses. We're talking about a whole array of privileges that come with marriage. Very real privileges that translate into rights, money, and legal recognition. For that state to deny such things just because "lifelong heterosexual monogamy is a unique and indispensable estate" is indeed "bigoted and un-American."

The state, in matters sexual, really ought to be neutral. We would balk at the government taking official positions on religious beliefs, political parties, or journalistic entities. Theoretically, the state is neutral with how it treats with all of those in their various forms and kinds. It should be likewise so with sexual behavior.

I would not be nearly so incensed about this if it weren't in the New York Times. Not because the NYT is a liberal newspaper, but because it's serious one with standards, an editorial board, and all that. Even though they carry Maureen Dowd, I still expect them to maintain a certain degree of intellectual cache.

Douthat would be a more honest person if he just said his thesis directly- that he does not like the idea of gay relationships. He is, I imagine, uncomfortable with the idea of two men having sex. Such queasiness is not the basis for law. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of two fat people having sex, but I still believe they should get to have their relationship sanctioned.

There is nothing left for the opponents of gay marriage. No argument that carries any sort of serious weight. Nothing for them to say that is at all persuasive. On every meaningful philosophical point, they have lost. Douthat and others like him are grasping at straws, and those straws are slipping away.

In Which I Probably Read Too Much Into Dirty Harry

2010-07-25T19:44:00.000-07:00

I recently watched Dirty Harry for the first time, which had since then been something of a hole in my pop-culture education. I enjoyed the movie, but found its politics to be somewhat objectionable.

To briefly sum up the film, Harry Callahan pursues and catches the Scorpio killer, a serial murderer who uses a sniper rifle, through San Francisco. Scorpio is let loose after his release, though, because the district attorney say that Harry didn't inform the suspect of his rights, that he violated multiple sections of the Constitution, and that all of the evidence that Harry obtained was done so illegally.

The scene in which Harry is informed by the district attorney that there is no way that the authorities can bring a case is preposterous. If anything, a district attorney passing up the chance to put away a serial killer seems highly improbable. The chance to lock away a high-profile sicko is the career-making move that most DAs probably dream of.

However, the prospect of realistically portraying the civilian authorities (along with the DA, the police chief and the mayor are portrayed as similarly toothless) is not Dirty Harry's project. The film goes out of its way to portray such authorities as weak so that Harry, by comparison, may appear strong.

Dirty Harry posits that the warrior caste of a society may second-guess the civilian authorities. Not just may, but should. Harry's decisions are portrayed as wiser, braver, and more socially responsible than those of his police chief, the district attorney, or the mayor.

A democratic, civilized society means that the state retains a monopoly on force. Force is controlled, regulated, and not used lightly. Private citizens may not initiate force- they may only use it in self-defense. Indeed, the state may not display aggression, either- it may only use it in a situation where the larger ends of society are served by the judicious application of violence.

Those who apply violence for desirable social ends do so at the pleasure of civilization at large. The police and soldiers who may engage in violence do so in a context where they are ruled by civilization. It is most decidedly not the reverse. The warriors do not rule in a democratic society. (Hence the hooplah some years ago about W. wearing an Air Force jumpsuit. Presidents, even if they have served in the military, traditionally always wear civilian clothes.)

Dirty Harry posits that the mechanisms of democracy are fundamentally broken, that the safeguards of law and order, the rights embedded in the Constitution, are deterrents to justice. In Dirty Harry, the implication is that if San Francisco really wanted to catch the Scorpio killer, if they were serious, then they would not go to the mayor, the police chief, or the DA. If they were serious, they would go to Harry Callahan and allow the warrior caste to call the shots over the civilians, not the other way around.

The stance implied by the film is a deplorable and socially irresponsible position, basically stating that borderline-sociopathic individuals such as Harry Callahan are necessary for civilization's survival. The whole thesis of the movie reminded me of another famous speech, wherein Jack Nicholson's Co. Jessup rationalizes his existence in A Few Good Men.

The scene above, though, is more nuanced because Jessup is explaining himself to other members of the military. A Few Good Men is essentially about members of the armed forces who conduct themselves as normal participants in a democracy rooting out and investigating those (such as Jessup) who behave as if they belong to an exceptional warrior caste a la Harry Callahan.

The polar opposite of Nicholson's speech (and ideological sibling to Dirty Harry) is Team America: World Police. I've always found the final (NSFW) speech to be something like the opposite of A Few Good Men, and in it Trey Parker and Matt Stone seem to articulating something akin Dirty Harry's thesis- that society needs a certain population of nasty, violent people in order to survive.

Though they admit that pussies are necessary, too. How big of them.

Make no mistake, I am not a pacifist. Not by any means. I don't believe that we should dismantle the Pentagon or anything like that, and I find people who are reflexively anti-police to be kind of strange. Every contact I've had with people who've been members of the armed forces or law enforcement has led me to believe that those who are responsible for public safety are more or less normal people. I worked for the Department of Public Safety at the University of Oregon for two years, and none of the police officers I met (a few of which were former military) seemed nearly weirdly barbarous as Harry Callahan. My grandfather was in the U.S. Army, and while he had seen and participated in WWII's horrors, he certainly wasn't a monster.

Granted, the Dirty Harry is a bit self-conscious about how monstrous the protagonist is- the word "dirty" is right there in the title, after all- and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't delight in seeing Clint Eastwood blow dudes away while glaring that steely glare of his. But, Dirty Harry tries to turn the pathologies of the main character into virtues; virtues that civilization supposedly needs in order to endure. We do need warriors, certainly. We need cops and soldiers and marines and fighter pilots. That is true. But we do not need monsters. We do not need Col. Jessup or Team America, and we certainly don't need Harry Callahan to survive.

Awesome Thing: Tea

2010-07-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

Tea is beautiful. It is, without a doubt, my single favorite beverage. Other than water, it is the only thing that I drink every single day. It is more flavorful and stimulating than any sort of juice, not as blunt or intense as coffee, and far more peaceable than anything alcoholic. As much as I love coffee and beer, Portlander that I am, tea is foremost in my affections. The first thing I do in the kitchen is put on the kettle and I inevitably begin my day with at least one cup of the stuff. If I don't have to go to work I'll generally down a few cups throughout the day.

It's the ideal beverage for writing or reading. At the keyboard, I'm usually typing between sips, and while reading a book on my porch I often have a mug close by. I associate tea with literary endeavors, with the inspired creation of words or the calm, solitary appreciation of them.

The words "tea party" have now become utterly synonymous with bombast and nonsense. I find this not only disconcerting, as a tea lover, but also deeply weird. Tea, the most peaceful of beverages, the most contemplative and calm, the kindest and most thoughtful of stimulants, is now a signifier of yowling, yelling yahoos.

Tea does not deserve this. More to the point, tea does not fit this. The contemplative nature of the beverage clashes horribly with right-wing ideologues, with upraised fists and brandished signs. Tea is a learned beverage, the least barbaric and most civilized of all drinkables.

I believe it's reputation will persevere. Tea, after all, has been with us for millennia, and the maniacs now screaming in its name have existed for less than thousandth of the age of the beverage. Tea will, once again, be known as something calm, rational, civilized, and logical. Until then, my favorite drinkable will take its lumps, not of sugar, but of irrational defamation.

Live, Real Star Trek: "A Group of People Dating Back to the 1990s..."

2010-07-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

This is mostly about Star Trek, yes (as you can surmise from the accompanying illustration). But, bear with me as I digress for a moment about Star Wars.

Long ago, in the before time, I remember an era when Star Wars was still cool. In that time (the late 1990s) the movies were re-released in theaters, albeit with modernized special effects and additional footage. I remember sitting in a theater as an exuberant teenage, excited to see it all on the big screen. The audience whooped and applauded, laughed and hollered with raucous energy as the movie went on. Darth Vader was greeted with hoots and people shouting "yeah!" and a wave of applause went up when the Death Star exploded.

One of the biggest reactions from the audience, though, was towards the beginning. I remember it very clearly. Luke, kvetching to his uncle, says that he wants to go to Toshi Station with his friends and "pick up some power converters."

The audience roared with laughter, applause, and general appreciation. It's probably one of the cheesiest lines in Star Wars, and brings to mind all manner of B-movie derision. Luke's line sounds precisely what some hack writer would think up to tell the audience "Hey, guys! We're in a futuristic universe here!" and given what we know about George Lucas, that's probably exactly what it was.

Nevertheless, the audience cheered with very real affection. The transparent artifice of the line did not stop them from loving it. If anything, it was the reason that they roared with approval.

I was reminded of that moment last weekend when I saw Trek in the Park, an event wherein a Portland theater troupe performs an episode of the original Star Trek live. I went to it last year and enjoyed myself, so there was no way I was going to miss it this time around.

Like last year, it was loads of fun. The particular episode they performed was Space Seed, better known as "the one with Khan in it." The thing about the performance that reminded me of Luke's legendarily groan-worthy line, was that Khan is from the 1990s. When Star Trek was aired in the sixties, I suppose that the nineties were still distant and future-y enough to write science fiction stories about. According to the original Star Trek timeline, Earth apparently got into an enormous eugenics war in the late twentieth century, bred a bunch of supermen, developed interstellar travel (but without FTL) and generally devolved into chaos. Space Seed contains several references to this, and to "the twentieth century" in general.

A few choice lines:

"Much older. DY-100 class, to be exact. Captain, the last such vessel was built centuries ago, back in the 1990s."

"Seventy two alive. A group of people dating back to the 1990s. A discovery of some importance, Mister Spock. There are a great many unanswered questions about those years."

"With simple nuclear-powered engines, star travel was considered impractical at that time."

"Earth was on the verge of a dark ages. Whole populations were being bombed out of existence."

"[Khan's] age would be correct. In 1993, a group of these young supermen did seize power simultaneously in over forty nations."

"From 1992 through 1996, [Khan was] absolute ruler of more than a quarter of your world. From Asia through the Middle East."

...and so on.

The performers, though, made absolutely no attempt to cover up how unashamedly retro this all was. If anything they reveled in it. Much like that crowd at the screening of Star Wars who had such a great reaction to Luke's ultra-cheesy line, the crowd lapped up with verve and amusement any reference to the nineties, and anything else hokey or otherwise dated. On top of that, a full complement of electronic music and woo-woo sound effects accompanied the performance. All through the production music that would have been massively futuristic fifty years ago hummed away.

What was weird is that the hokey stuff really made it all better. The concession to genre, anachronism, and borderline kitsch seemed to alchemically combine into something that was, actually, very awesome. Had they attempted to modernize the production or play it straight, it wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable. Nor do I think (and this is what I find sort of weird) I wouldn't have been nearly as emotionally invested in what was going on.

I am fascinated by an audience's ability to laugh at something for being silly, hokey, and sort of dumb; but at the same time be utterly charmed and on board with it. Nearly every single person there was utterly into how, well, Star Trek-y it all was, how a piece of sixties SF was walking and talking right in front of us. We were rooting for it because it was anachronistic, full of genre conventions, and of its. Not despite those things. We can laugh at the absurdity of another time without mocking it, regard artifacts as absurd and all the while wholeheartedly embrace them.

Awesome Thing: The Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse Sculpture Garden

2010-07-07T08:22:00.000-07:00

If you live in Portland, you've probably seen the looming ultramodern tower that is the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse (MOHUSC). Since it was built in 1997 it's a building that I've consistently admired, a fact that I find continually surprising for two reasons. For one, many of the things that I thought were cool in the '90s (black turtlenecks, Mortal Kombat, putting "2000" on anything) are, in retrospect, sort of silly. Architecture in particular seems to wear its age badly, though. The things that probably looked futuristic and cutting-edge throughout the twentieth century usually look hopelessly anachronistic now. Postmodern buildings such as the Portland Building were edgy once, but they now they're the structural equivalent of a George Michael album; dead-end fashions that everyone involved wants covered up.

Paradoxically, the recently contemporary often seems even more aged than the truly old. The boxy Oregon State Capitol exudes the 1930s, but the much older Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. seems timeless and therefore more contemporary. (Total aside, but this reminds me of the probably apocryphal story of an English professor who, in the 1950s, decided to translate Hamlet into beatnik so that young people could relate to it better. The resulting text ended up being utterly impenetrable ten years later, but the original Shakespeare could still be grokked without much difficulty.)

The point is, that if you're going to make something and have it look edgy and contemporary and neato, you run the very high risk of being passe in a few years. When making big, permanent things like buildings, this is something you want to avoid. People are going to be staring at these buildings for quite some time, and you really want these buildings to seem contemporary in some form or fashion long after their styles were "cool."

So far, the MOHUSC is holding up. When I walked through its lobby the other day, it impressed me as much as it did thirteen years ago. It seems utterly futuristic in a classy, subdued kind of way. The interior is filled with stark, quiet lines and blocky structures that are somehow also elegant. It's big and stark and empty, but also impressive, precisely the kind of thing that made the young me want to be a lawyer.

And it has a sculpture garden on the ninth floor.

Since the MOHUSC is a public building, anyone who wants to can walk right in, go up the elevator, and hang out in the sculpture garden. Granted, the sculptures themselves are sort of silly- a collection of animals and anthropomorphic computers that are collectively titled "Law of Nature" -but the space is highly neat. It is secluded, affords a great view of the city, and is open to the public.

It's a nice space in what could otherwise have been an utterly utilitarian government building. I was alone for the entire time I was up there, which I didn't expect, but was refreshing. Again, the statues aren't great art- they're silly little animals dressed up as lawyers, but I like it that tucked away in a large, ultramodern building is a little bit of flourish, and anyone who likes may admire the skyline, the surrounding buildings, and the greenery below.

Late Evening of the Living Dead Bicyclists

2010-06-28T09:35:00.000-07:00

Last night I found myself wearing a Jesus costume and leading a coterie of bicyclists dressed as zombies around NE Portland. Our fair city's (now annual) zombie bike ride was upon us, and for a number of reasons I suddenly found myself leading the thing. Needing to stand out from the biking horde of slavering cyclists, I decided to comport myself as the most famous zombie ever, a dude who shambled out of his grave three days after a rather nasty torture/execution session.

We met up in a park, and my friend L was good enough to show up with a batch of corn syrup, red food dye, and flour. As I'd only recently had the responsibility of the ride foisted on me, and didn't have any fake blood, L was a lifesaver (or rather, unlifersaver) for bringing the hemoglobin. A few pictures-

Here's L, devouring her somewhat chagrined boyfriend:

This gentleman did the "military guy gets zombified" thing. He had very creepy teeth.

"BEEEEERR!"

Slathered in L's fake blood, this girl looked a bit more like Carrie than a zombie, but she certainly pulled it off. She should watch out, though, because the girl behind her seems to be contemplating Carrie-centric mastication.

Our attempt at a zombie last supper:

You can't really see it in the picture, but these girls are covered in glitter blood. We decided they were Twilight zombies.

Zombie dance! We stopped at three places, and rocked out to Thriller at two of them. The night closed with zombie karaoke at a tiki bar where numerous zombies (as in the drink) were consumed. I decided that the best thing for Zombie Jesus to sing would be Highway to Hell.

As people went home, more than a few of them said "Thank you, Jesus!" I kind of love my lifestyle.

Night of the Living Naked Bicyclists

2010-06-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's me. In that picture I am wearing the following items:

-Socks

-Shoes

-A bicycle helmet

-A messenger bag

-Paint

...And that's it. Saturday was the World Naked Bike Ride here in Portland, and I was not going to miss it. Last year, I learned of the event too late and wasn't able to participate because I was playing Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, really. While thousands of other Portlanders were getting naked in the streets last year, I was playing D&D. (Though, it was a really fun D&D session...)

The Oregon constitution goes a bit further than the federal one with regards to protected speech. Because the World Naked Bike Ride is technically political speech (we were ostensibly there protesting oil dependence), the ensuing bike-mounted parade of butts, boobs, and saddle-mounted wangs were 100% legal. The police were out in force... corking traffic for us. Several of the cops waved, and one particularly enthusiastic officer of the law was throwing metal horns to the various naked cyclists.

This was the second time in my life that I've been naked on a bike, and just like when I got naked for a flaming lips video, it was pretty much entirely nonsexual. I'm not about to turn into some kind of ideological nudist, but damn it was fun. Lots of fun. Overturning social mores almost always is.

A steady crowd of onlookers had massed on the street, often with their arms out, high-fiving the participants. The naked participants, in turn, often shouted things such as "Take off your pants!" to the crowd. Amazingly, some of them did. There were more than a few naked onlookers, most notably a very well-muscled gentleman sitting naked astride a motorcycle and giving everyone a thumbs up. If there ever was a potential cover for a gay metal album, he was it.

One of the bums I recognized from Old Town also decided to get naked, and there, on the side of the road, he was wearing nothing but dirt whilst bouncing up and down excitedly. I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing filthy bouncing hobo wang, but there it was. Also in Old Town a rather obnoxious frat-boyish sort of guy screamed "Where the titties at?" I thought this was sort of a curious thing to say given that titties were everywhere.

Like I said, overturning social mores is nearly always fun. The feeling of everyone getting together and saying "Hey, guys! Let's temporarily operate using alternative social constructions!" is precisely the kind of thing that can make lots of people say "Woo!" It's a refreshing reminder that things are mutable.

It was highly neat. If I'm in Portland next year, I'm definitely getting naked again.

The Idea of Los Angeles, Part Two, Wherein a City is Redeemed in My Eyes

2010-06-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

Hollywood is awful.

Up until I set foot on Hollywood Boulevard, I'd been enjoying my time in L.A. I'd had a fine time at the beautiful, art-filled Getty, and the grandly sleazy Venice Beach. The palm trees, gimmicky as they were, gave the place a recognizable sort of local character, as did the Spanish-inspired hacienda architecture. Other than lacking public transport, L.A. didn't seem that bad.

Until I got to Hollywood, which was, easily, the single most disappointing tourist experience of my entire life.

Now, I'm all for the whole "be a traveler, not a tourist" type of sojourning. Walking down an unfamiliar street or sitting in an unfamiliar local bar or restaurant can be quite rewarding. One of the things that delighted me about L.A. was just being in a different sort of environment, taking in the buildings, people, and climate. Appreciating the change in latitudes, etc.

But, every so often, I like to have me a good-old-fashioned tourist experience. There is nothing wrong with going to a well-recognized landmark and saying "Woo! There's the Golden Gate Bridge/Taj Mahal/Statue of Liberty/Big Ben/Great Wall! Wow! I'm actually looking at it right now!"

Mind you, I was warned. "Hollywood is kind of crappy," said Seph, as we drove there. I assumed as much. I thought that it would be a row of shops and restaurants, and that would be about it. I had low, low expectations, and I was okay with that. Mainly, I was happy to be hanging out with a good friend in a new city.

Hollywood, however, did not meet even my low expectations. The place is an utter shithole. A depressing and despondent stretch of concrete. It is exactly the kind of place where beggars ask for weed instead of change. The shops along the way ply movie memorabilia and stripper boots, all the while bedecked with promotional posters and faded cardboard cutouts of Marilyn Monroe, Hollywood's suicidal bombshell of a mascot.

The stars on the street are bland and undifferentiated. There is very little separating Jack Palance from, say Larry King. They are cracked and largely uninteresting, and resemble inexpensive headstones more than anything else. Ostensibly I was walking up and down a monument to art and glamor, but I felt nothing. The stars were generic and perfunctory. Even finding one dedicated to one of my heroes didn't move me particularly much.

Yup, that's Gene Roddenberry's star, and that's my foot on it. I was genuinely attempting to enjoy myself and find something to like about Hollywood, and hoped that Star Trek would fit the bill. I love Star Trek. To me, Star Trek is warm, wonderful, safe, cuddly, and comforting. It is like chicken soup combined with oatmeal, but not in a gross way. Star Trek is like an old friend who knows exactly what to say can totally make you feel better. If I ever have a kitten that gets caught in a blender, I will seek solace in Star Trek. If I ever am enduring a bad acid trip and start believing that the curtains are trying to eat my lungs, I'll try to calm down with Star Trek. If I ever lose both my earlobes in a freak Cuisinart accident, I'll try to cheer myself up with Star Trek.

Star Trek, however, didn't really make Hollywood that much better.

Here's another Trek-related picture. Again, this is me attempting to have fun.

Unfortunately, despite the pistol-pointing and my jaunty smile, I am not experiencing very much of what can be called "enjoyment." I'm making a good go of it, though.

That picture, by the way, is right in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater. Now, it is a very cool looking building. The place is wonderfully distinctive, and I liked that a lot. Something that I think is sort of funny about the theater, though, is that it's so obviously reminiscent of yellow-peril Orientalism. Now, I'm not going to go all Edward Said on you, but one could definitely imagine Ming the Merciless or Fu Man Chu walking out of the place (not that that wouldn't be awesome, mind you). I wasn't in China very long, but the exterior didn't really match many of the historical buildings I saw there. It seems much more of a "woo-woo exotic East" sort of building, rather than anything built by, say, actual Chinese people.

The building is still a working theater, which I like. Landmarks are especially interesting when they are still actually used by their local communities. The front of the theater, though, is choked by tourists. On several different occasions, a uniformed staff member asked us if we wanted a tour, and we declined. People were constantly snapping pictures of the handprints and footprints in the cement, and the place really was spoiled by its obvious identity as a tourist trap. A nearby tour was a Chinese chapter of Amway who probably came to the States for a convention pertaining to their grand pyramid scheme. People wearing shorts and khakis milled about, and I was sort of embarrassed for the setting. I really, really don't want to sound like a cliched, snotty, Kerouac-reading backpacker here, but the crowd of tourists really did make things suck.

At the same time, though, I empathized with the people there. I wondered how many of them were having a supremely shitty time of it all, kind of like I was. How many families from Iowa rolled into Hollywood expecting... something? Something significant and at least partially enthusiastic. Something other than a street names less interesting than the cheapest of headstones. How many of these Iowan families went back to their rooms at their mid-ranged hotels and wondered if they'd done it wrong? How many of them thought, "I didn't see what's so great about Hollywood. Maybe I went on the wrong day? Maybe I didn't go to the good part?"

Hollywood has a reputation, a reputation that draws those families from Iowa who show up with their shorts, khakis, and expectations. It does not back up that reputation. Hollywood half-heartedly goes through the motions, doing the bare minimum of what it takes to be a landmark or district of note. It lets each and every one of those Iowa families down, and, for that, Hollywood is a truly vile place.

Oh, yeah- the Hollywood sign. It's on a hill behind some smog.

In Seph's car, I became despondent. That's exactly the right word for it- despondent. At that point, I hadn't been able to completely articulate my disappointment with Hollywood, and my idea of Los Angeles was beginning to suffer. I thought, perhaps, that my horrid preconceptions of southern California had been right all along- that it was a massive but ultimately culturally insignificant region.

I thought for a moment that I really need to visit Austin. It's supposed to be pretty cool.

We made our way to a bar in downtown L.A. to meet a mutual friend. I was in a funk. About halfway through my first beer I said "I was astounded by how much, Hollywood sucked."

"Yeah," said our friend, "It's awful."

And there it was. I proceeded to go on a beer-fueled invective about why Hollywood was the most disappointing travel experience I'd ever had, and damn if it didn't feel good to hate on the place. After a few beers my spirits were up and I started milling about the bar, interviewing and photographing attractive strangers for an assignment.

We left the bar, and walked through downtown L.A. to an art walk. Stepping through the streets I realized that this was precisely what I'd been missing- walking through a city's downtown, strolling past stoplights, under skyscrapers, past people, and in an area where one feels that something is going on, there is some real authentic human activity vibrating all about you. Tokyo had this. Tokyo is my ideal of this, really. I could walk through that city all day (and did) and simply enjoy the crush of the crowds, the blare of the neon, and the ambient activity.

L.A. had a little of that, so far. I enjoyed Venice Beach because it was such a good strolling area and filled with weirdos, but Hollywood had erased that goodwill. Downtown L.A., though, began to redeem the city in my eyes. Or rather, L.A. finally started seeming like what I think of as a "city." (By the way, I know that it's kind of ludicrous to refer to the second-largest urban area in the U.S. as anything other than a "city," but I think you know what I mean.)

An art walk was in progress, and it dwarfed anything that Portland had to offer.

The streets were crowded with people of a particular demographic (mine) and various galleries were lit up and open. A band bedecked in sparkles and glitter played in one area, and I had no trouble collecting interviews and photos for my assignment. Eventually we found ourselves inside the Alexandria Hotel surrounded by people. In a ballroom a dorky-looking hipster guy was singing David Bowie karaoke. Art was strewn on the walls. Odd looking films were being projected. Very attractive people were milling about. Sexy architecture was being put to good use.

I said to Seph, "I am enjoying this."

"Welcome to my town, bitch!" He said this knowing that I'd just gotten it- that I'd just figured out that L.A. is worth it, after all. Our friend had to leave and eventually we found ourselves drinking in a swank-seeming basement club with vaguely steampunk-looking decor. Various people were dressed up in twenties garb, a pretty good jazz band had the stage, and several silent films were being projected on different walls.

"This is normal," he said to me, "there is always something going on."

I knew he was right, that with millions and millions of humans of course awesome things will emerge. Of course there will be things of cultural relevance and interest. I was immersed in an environment that I was enjoying a great deal.

I thought of my beloved Tokyo. Admittedly, there are plenty of lame parts of Tokyo- there are whole tracts of Chiba suburbs that are somewhat less than exciting. I'd much rather visitors judge it by taking in the performers at Yoyogi Park, geeking out in Akihabara, or getting plastered and going clubbing in Roppongi. There is still plenty of mundanity there, though.

If I lived in L.A., I'm sure that I would be able to find its equivalent of Yoyogi, or Akihabara, or Roppongi. I know that I'd be able to dig in and find the awesome bits, just as Seph had. Hollywood, though, the single most famous part of the city, actively makes you believe that that urban life just isn't there.

My idea of Los Angeles had indeed been revised upwards. I left with an overall positive impression. It is not just undifferentiated sprawl- there really are a few very nice things down there.

And if they ever get a mass transit system, it might actually be an alright place to live.

The Idea of Los Angeles, Part One

2010-06-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

I've been to Northern California several times, and regard San Francisco as a sort of far-flung cousin of the Northwest. The same sort of ineffable Ecotopian vibe that I appreciate in Portland, Eugene, and Seattle pervades SF. The city is walkable and criss-crossed with mass transit, an air of palpable liberalness pervades the atmosphere. And (just like Portland) it's filled with weirdos, hobos, and people on impractical fixed-gear bicycles.

My mental image of "California" is of the mostly-empty North- the Sierra Nevada and I-5, the vast area between Eugene, OR and San Francisco, CA. This image of California was unthreatening, boring, and filled with cows. San Francisco seems unjustly separated by its Northwestern brethren by these vast tracts of bovine-munched emptiness. "California," to me, was equivalent to empty driving.

I had never been South. I'd never trekked below the Bay Area's latitudes (at least not in California) and had never seen what went on in the tract of land known as "SoCal." I had never seen so much of what feeds into the popular mindset of what is called "California." In my head, however, there was an idea of Los Angeles:

A vast and undifferentiated city that can only be barely called a city. It is only a city in that many people are there. However, it has no center. A city must have a hub and axis, a point of communal recognition. There must be a beating heart within some ever-lively downtown area where something is always happening. I did not imagine this. I did not imagine a center to L.A., or things happening in L.A., or even the idea of walking through L.A.

My idea of L.A. was that despite the presence of millions of humans in a given area, a real metropolis had failed to take hold. The thing was massive but uncomplex- as if single-celled organisms had kept dividing and multiplying, but had never bothered to evolve. Sitting there would be an immense amount of undifferentiated biomass- heaps of cells but not a single organ.

That was my idea of Los Angeles. I'd gone down there to help Seph move from SoCal to Seattle. He'd been telling me to visit the city for some time. Finally, I did.

My first impressions of the place were poor. My rideshare from the Bay to L.A. was a woman who had what I found out was an Orange County accent. This surprised me. I think of regional accents as something that are just naturally going extinct, especially west of the Mississippi. When I imagine future English, I imagine it as neutral and unaccented. She and I had some confusion about directions, and immediately we got lost while I was on the phone with Seph, trying to find a spot to meet up with him.

Eventually we did, and he dragged me to his soccer game, which was held in a venue that was not at all apocalyptic, smog-choked, or otherwise despondent. One of his teammates informed me that people do, indeed, have real lives in L.A.

Seph, being a good host, was determined to show me the sights, such as they were. One site was Wilshire Drive which, he said, "kind of looks like a real city." He was right. It did. There were skyskrapers and everything. Wilshire clashed with my view of L.A. as a spread-out unbuilt place. I was amazed. "Keep in mind," he said, "this is really just the downtown area."

The next few days would confirm some of my suspicions about L.A., though. It is extremely spread out, and there seem to be precious few options for public transportation. This boggles my mind. I do not understand how a city can be of appreciable size and no demand for competent public transit emerges. I know that I have been spoiled by Portland and Japan, but I think of public transit as something fundamental about cities. You have plumbing, electricity, and public transit. Otherwise, you're just wallowing in barbarism.

Anyway, Seph took me to the Getty, which is nice. Very, very nice- if it wasn't free you'd probably imagine that you couldn't afford admission. The building itself is almost more interesting than the art inside- most of what I saw were some oils and impressionistic works that I didn't really care for. (I think impressionism is boring. That's right! I said it!) The view was more visually stimulating than any of the Monets, though. I found out that L.A. smog is very real, and various sub-skylines seemed to dominate the sprawl. Below the Getty, the vast city stretched out and various pockets of tall building occasionally poked out of the landscape.

Strolling through the structure seemed to hammer home the idea to me that, yes, L.A. actually is capable of containing some rather nice stuff. For my whole trip there, I was trying to revise my idea of L.A. upward. I wanted to find redeeming things about it, and the Getty was certainly that. If you're in L.A., go there. It's a beautifully made building filled with green lawns and fountains, and it has some fairly neato art as well.

As were the palm trees, the hacienda architecture, and the various art deco buildings. After we went to the Getty, we strolled on Venice Beach and through Santa Monica. Venice Beach was surprisingly enjoyable. The place is sleazy, dirty, and weird. In a good way. It's immensely touristy, but it seemed to be focused pretty well on a certain demographic. Pedestrians were redolent of tattoos, and it seemed as if every third storefront was selling, if not actual marijuana, something related to cannabis.

Or, you know, botox.

The stores selling bongs, pipes, and sophomoric weed-themed t-shirts did not really surprise me. What did surprise me, though, were the amount of medical marijuana dispensiaries along the way. Most of them had barkers outside, petite women holding signs shouting that "the doctor [was] in" and that you could "get yourself legal." This, by the way, only bolstered my belief that medical marijuana as a cause is sort of silly, and we should stop kidding ourselves and just legalize it for recreational use. I sort of appreciated how blatantly the law was being bent. It made me feel like real change is going on.

In Santa Monica itself, I found myself revising my opinions of L.A. I enjoyed the smell of the ocean, the temperate climate, and the palms shifting in the wind. "The palm trees aren't native, you know," said Seph. "They were brought here in the forties as a publicity stunt." I didn't care. They were just... neat!

I experiencing something that could best be described as "fun." Between the high-falutin' Getty and nicely nasty Venice, I was beginning to get this idea that L.A. was a pretty alright place. Sure, the lack of public transport still seemed sort of fucked up, but my idea of Los Angeles and of California was spiraling upward nicely.

Until I got to the misery-inducing belt of disappointment known as Hollywood Boulevard.

Fuck Hollywood.

The Best and Worst of America, All in One Morning

2010-06-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

There were only five of them.

Just this morning the infamous Westboro Baptist Church (a.k.a. the "God hates fags" people) protested Portland's Grant High School. Arriving there, I could see why they chose the location- the entrance to Grant is large and dramatic, columns rising up over greenery and stairs. The street in front of it is wide but not busy, accessible and easy to find but not excessively choked by cars. The setting was an idea potential publicity place.

The five of them, a middle-aged man and women, along with three younger men who looked to be either in their late teens or early twenties, held two signs each. One of them read "YOU ARE ALL GOING TO HELL" and another said "FAGS DOOM NATIONS." Of course, there was one that simply said "GOD HATES FAGS" and another proclaimed Obama to be the Antichrist. I wondered if the five of them were all related to Fred Phelps, the leader of the church.

This was the worst of America, a fanatical cultlike hate group. This was a vile and utterly morally bankrupt display. This same group also pickets the funerals of people who have died of AIDS, frequently desecrates the American flag and declares the U.S. to be a "doomed," and also holds hateful signs outside of Jewish institutions. They are (and I use this word sparingly) evil. I don't use that word for a lot of people, but I think that if you are heartless enough to disrupt funerals, blame Jews for crucifying Jesus, consign nearly all of the U.S. to hell, and all the while believe that God is on your side, you are most certainly evil. Crazed, arrogant, and twisted.

But there were only five of them. There were hundreds of us.

A whole crowd of counter protesters massed in front of Grant High School, carrying signs and banners, playing guitars and drums, singing and chanting. There were high school students, weirdos, old people, geeks, and priests. Some of the signs were serious, but most were whimsical and odd, proclamations of nonsense and internet memes. People were there to protest, but they were also there to have fun.

This is better than simple resistance. My generation, for the most part, believes in equality. We were raised learning about Marting Luther King, Jr., we were born well after Civil Rights, Women's Lib and the first gay rights movement. For most of my generation, people in their twenties and thirties, equality has simply been part of the air. Of course we believe in civil rights. Of course we're against discrimination and prejudice. It is, anymore, common sense. To rail against it is absurd, and it was answered with absurdity.

Again, there were five of them, and hundreds of us. The crowd, rather than being angry, was gleeful. At one point, everyone started singing the Barney theme song ("I love you, you love me...") and then This Little Light of Mine. That was followed by The ABCs. Grant students milled through the crowd holding cans asking for donations for "The Grant High School Gay/Straight Alliance... and irony!" I gave them a bit for irony.

Someone had a portable stereo and the familiar lyrics "Never gonna give you up..." blared through it. The crowd said "Woo!" and started grooving to Rick Astley only half-jokingly. Cars drove by, most of them parents dropping off their high schoolers, and waved to the crowd, tooting their horns in support.

(Her sign says "I like cats," by the way.)

Would it be better to ignore the Westboro Baptist Church? Maybe. If you see a crazy street person ranting to themselves, it's usually best not to try to dissuade them of their craziness. They're too far gone. However, the counter protest wasn't about persuading the Westboro Baptist Church that they were in the wrong. The crowd was more there in solidarity, and it turned into something of a party, a huge pre-work get-together. People were having fun. That was what the WBC accomplished today- I doubt that they persuaded anyone that God actually hates fags, or that anyone is going to hell. What they did do, though, was act as the impetus for a good time, a fun occasion of playful nonsense.

I don't fear for America. This is a country that's produced a fair amount of awful things, but we've also pushed back. Gradually this place has gotten better. Yes there are still nasty things like the business in Arizona going on right now, and yes we have a long way to go, but things are mostly going in the right direction. I really believe that.

Fifty years ago we had segregation, and now the president is black. Fifty years ago sexism was the norm, and now a(nother) woman is going to sit on the Supreme Court. Fifty years ago homosexuality was considered a psychiatric disorder, and now Don't Ask, Don't Tell is in the process of being repealed. Would the crowd in front of Grant have been there fifty years ago, enjoying themselves in the streets, all in the name of equality? Probably not. But because of the wonderful evolution and adaptation that this country is capable of, we were there.

It is tempting to despair and say "fuck it," to point at incidents of nastiness, ignorance, and regression and just write off the country as doomed. That's a cop-out, though. That's ignoring responsibility. I'm not there. I believe that one of the best things about America is that it has the power to grow out of its awfulness and become something better.

It has become a place where there were five of them and hundreds of us.

How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Westerns

2010-05-30T20:58:00.000-07:00

Two anecdotes:

I am nine years old. In an effort ot distract me and my sister from our mother's recent death, my father takes the two of us (and our tiny brother) to a rodeo just outside of Portland. It rains, and the performance is not particularly good that night. My sister and I are pelted with rainwater and are undistracted from our loss.

The other:

I am fifteen years old. I have completed my freshman year of high school, and it is summer. For most places, I am just too young. They will hire sixteen year olds, yes, but not anyone younger. Because I cannot find a job in Portland before summer vacation lets out, my father arranges for me to work on a garlic farm in eastern Oregon.

I get off a Greyhound at the designated spot. A man in a workshirt asks me if I'm Joe, and I say that yes, I am. I get in his car and he takes me to his farm, where I'm work for the duration. I live with his family- he, his wife, and two daughters. My room is in the basement, and I sleep on a cot next to a large meat freezer. On the wall, there is a poster. It is a poster of Ronald Reagan. He is wearing a cowboy hat, and the poster reads: "AMERICA: REAGAN COUNTRY." I sleep next to this. When I am alone in the basement, I listen to the Led Zepplin tapes that I brought with me, or read some of the Asimov novels that were in my suitcase.

During the day I move irrigation pipe. I learn how to ride a motorbike, shoot a rifle, and move large sections of pipe in a set pattern. It is an easy job because I don't have to think. It is a hard job because it is repetitive and physically exhausting.

When I converse with people, I realize that I am in the minority. The people in eastern Oregon do not like abortion, or gay people, or people who are not Christian. They listen to Rush Limbaugh and modern country music. They watch versions of Hollywood movies that have the nudity edited out, and the swearing bleeped. I am in foreign territory.

I try to stand up for what I believe in- I tell that that it's okay to be gay or have abortions. I am argued with, and I lose, because I'm only fifteen. I know that I'm right, but I cannot defend myself.

Therein are the reasons that I've never loved westerns. Also, my dad liked them and I dismissed them as a genre for old people.

Westerns have reminded me, perhaps unfairly, of that postmortem rodeo and that summer on a farm. I am reminded of a certain bleakness, crying in the rain, or trying naively telling a whole swathe of America that homophobia is wrong.

When I thought of westerns, I thought of that poster of Reagan in his smug cowboy hat, "AMERICA: REAGAN COUNTRY" above my old cot. I did not want to be a part of that. I did not want to enjoy or abet that.

I thought of westerns as enemy territory- lumped them in culturally with Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, and Christian rock. The repetitive myths of Red State America.

I am now prepared to say I was wrong about westerns.

Yes, this is all in part because I'm playing through Red Dead Redemption right now, for those of you who know what a horrendous geek I am. That is the catalyst. But, I have to acknowledge that there were always examples of the genre that I've enjoyed.

I quite liked the Dollars trilogy, The Magnificent Seven, High Noon, Stagecoach, The Searchers, and Unforgiven. However, each and every time I watched a western I enjoyed, I simply assumed it was an exception, a classic that was non-representative of the genre. Last night I saw Tombstone with some friends of mine, though, and it's really clicked for me- the western is not a genre that has much to do with rural America.

Yes, Red State America might lionize the cowboy, but, truth be told, westerns are just like space operas, gangster movies, fantasy, etc. They are fantasy films. They do not actually take place in America in the 1800s. The desolate land they show is an idealized no-man's-land, a fantasy apocalypse. The movies where Clint Eastwood guns down outlaws have nothing to do with history- they take place in the same cinematic universe as Star Wars and Kill Bill. This is a facile revelation to have, but, fuck it, I'm enjoying it.

Westerns, now that I've divorced them from history and political context, are a great genre. They're about civilization without infrastructure, organized crime, social and political progress, self-reliance, social and political ostracism, and, of course, shit-tons of dead dudes.

The world that they take place in is fairly divorced from the actual American frontier, if only because several of the gun tricks pulled off by cinematic gunslingers are actually impossible. More importantly, though, there is nowhere that bleak violent. There is no place that is actually as nihlistic or horrible as the west that the Man With No Name or his compatriots inhabit. It is as fanciful as Dagobah.

Because of that, (and because of encroaching maturity) I've been able to watch westerns and simply enjoy them, like them as a genre piece as opposed to monuments to Red America. I recently rewatched A Fistful of Dollars and loved it. It, like the science fiction movies and books that I love so much, exists in a world apart from and other than our own. Its world is a compelling alien and cinematic one, an open dead place of violence and airlessness and unthoughtof potential. It is an curious place, one that exists without coordinates or real dates. Because of that, I thought not at all of the horrid bleakness of Red America and enjoyed it thoroughly.

The Single Most Important Part of a Concert (Which I Don't End Up Explaining Very Well)

2010-05-26T22:53:00.000-07:00

One of my little brothers once went to see a Pink Floyd cover band (not something that I could imagine myself doing...) and I asked him how it was.

"It sucked," he said. "They were too good. It's like someone put the CD in and pushed 'Play.'" I completely understood where he was coming from. What he described didn't sound like a concert at all, but some sort of "musical experience" or whatever.

The best concert experiences I've had don't just involve music, but the performers getting on stage and dazzling the audience with that ineffable charisma that makes them so good at what they do. Not only do musicians have to be good at, well, music, but they have to be engaging and fun to watch in a sort of ineffable way. (Of course, musicians aren't the only ones who have to do this. Actors, lecturers, comedians, etc. also have to be able to work a room.)

Last weekend I saw Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley play at the Crystal Ballroom. I'd seen both of them last year (albeit in an entirely different fashion) and I was happy that I decided to catch them again. Both Palmer and Webley have charisma in spades- not only are they great at playing music, but they exuded waves of charm, presence and charisma on stage. I was amazed at how much the room liked them. Really, really liked them. Granted, the deck was stacked in their favor- I think every hipster/goth/geek in Portland was in that room that night, but still.

A good part of winning over the audience came from the fact that the concert was not simply a concert per se, but also a theatrical performance. In the middle section of it, Palmer and Webley were dressed as the fictional conjoined twins Evelyn Evelyn, each of them wearing matching wigs and piled into the same huge dress/bag costume. As conjoined twins, they performed using Webley's right hand and Palmer's left on the piano, accordion, and ukulele. This added absolutely nothing to how they sounded, but it was a neat party trick and the crowd loved it.

They played up their persona as fictional twins as much as possible, singing about their backstory and predicaments, occasionally accompanied by shadow puppets. There was comedy, weirdness, and a freakshowy vibe to the whole thing that just worked, even though (well, maybe because) it was extremely silly.

By the time they took the stage as their actual personae later in the show, the crowd was completely prepared to shower them with love and adoration. When Jason Webley told everyone put their arms around each other, sway from side to side, and sing a drinking song, we all cheerfully obliged. When Palmer prattled on about the story behind her songs, I didn't care. I liked her too much. I know I'm not going into details, but it's late and I don't really know how I can effectively explain how utterly charmed the audience was.

That feeling of being charmed and disarmed, of being compelled by a performer's raw charisma is exactly what I want out of a show. And, again, I feel like a completely lousy writer for not being able to fully articulate it right now, but I think that's part of it. It's not about how well you play or what you say or anything like that. It's about sheer power of personality. It's about being utterly charmed by a man with an accordion who tells you to sing along, and then joyfully doing so. It's about rooting for the artist, about being utterly engaged (and them engaging you) with everything that they're doing.

I'm sure actors and whatever talk about this a lot. I hope that in my own oratorical pursuits I can be half as compelling as Palmer and Webley. The sheer moxie that I saw on display last Friday is the reason why I will always be willing to get out of my house, open up my wallet, and go to a show.

Awesome Thing: Moon

2010-05-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

I've added categories to this blog, and after doing so realized that I tend to blog quite a bit about media. No surprise there. I've decided to intermittently endorse various things that are not necessarily current, stuff that I enjoy for some reason or another. All of these will be under the "Awesome Things" category. Here's my first non-current endorsement, Moon.

I've been meaning to blog about Moon for quite some time now. You really ought to watch it. I don't want to give away too much about it, but was far and away one of the best science fiction stories that I've seen or read in a long, long time.

When I was a kid, I devoured Asimov, Clarke, and Dick's short stories. I checked out collections of Hugo-winning short stories and novellas, and devoured them with gusto. Science fiction, I think, is uniquely suited to the short story. Brief narratives can be built around a single interesting idea, a nice little "what if..." scenario that can put a human face on speculation and abstraction.

Moon reminded me a great deal of those stories by Asimov & Co. The film is science fiction in the traditional sense, starting from a speculative scenario of what it would be like to live by yourself in a station on the moon. It goes from there, with Sam Rockwell having no one to talk to except himself and his computer buddy voiced by Kevin Spacey.

I wish I could talk more about the plot. I really do, but I don't want to spoil a thing about it for anyone who hasn't seen it. There is a twisty moment in the middle, but something that I really, really love about the movie is that the further sci-fi weirdness is used as a departure point, not a conclusion. When the audience does find out about a given futuristic oddity in the world of Moon, the movie does not just say "PRESTO!" and leave it at that. Instead, it actually develops the weirdness, exploring it just like good science fiction should.

Moon reminded me of all the reasons I love science fiction. It reminded me why I love speculation and wonder, why I think that "what if..." is a great question to ask, why I devoured all those short stories, and why I wanted to be a sci-fi writer when I was younger. (Actually, I still sort of want to be a sci-fi writer sometimes...) It is everything good and neato and smart and clever about the genre, and it reminded me not that I love stories about space and robots, but why I came to love them in the first place.

Performance!

2010-05-15T10:09:00.001-07:00

Last night I found myself on stage with a microphone in my hand in front of a room full of complete strangers. I could feel my heart banging against my ribcage, and I wondered if the mike was able to pick up the beats and gasps of my cardiopulmonary system. I'd been wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but ditched it in favor of a black tee. Freedom of movement and looseness were necessary. I was sweating and filled with a very specific kind of fear. The primal part of my system was telling me to run away, to get the hell off the stage. I had to tell that part of my brain though, as well as my heart, lungs, and sweaty forehead, to shut the fuck up.

"We're doing this," I mentally said to my rebellious brain-stem, "we're doing this and it's going to be great." At the comedy open mike I'd already seen one guy bomb horribly. At the very least, I would not be the least-funny person on stage that night.

I opened my mouth and heard the parting of my lips amplified by the mike. "I was raised Catholic," I said. There were a few "Whoos!" from the audience. I proceeded to talk about being an altar boy, and launched into a routine about how I never got molested.

"I was an altar boy for a lot of priests," I said, "and I never got molested. Ever. What I want to know is-" and here I did my best to adopt a put-out expression, "why the fuck not? I mean, I'm not that bad looking of a guy! I was even sexier when I was fourteen. I ran cross-country- I was fit! And I didn't even get a wink from a single priest. Nothing! Quite frankly, I feel left out."

For the next few minutes filled the air with absolutely filthy material about pedophilia, the Catholic church, and how God was an asshole because he cuckolded Joseph. I made jokes about Mary was probably a pushy Jewish mother, and how if God had any manners he would have offered to have had a threesome with Mary and Joseph instead of just going behind the dude's back.

I chose sex and religion because I thought it would be easy to joke about. Joking about the Catholic church and sex is kind of like selecting Ryu in Street Fighter- it's cheap, easy, and gives you an overinflated sense of your own skill. The subject matter, though, seemed to make a lot of the audience very uncomfortable. I had a few people laughing consistently (I was pleased that they were other comedians) most of the audience seemed to be squirming uncomfortably as I called God an asshole for knocking up Mary and then never calling her back.

Their discomfort made me in turn uncomfortable. I thought to myself "I'm offending people! Shit! I should have done my routine about ancient Greece!" I realized that working with that kind of subject matter means that you have to not give a shit about the people who are uncomfortable or offended. If you're going to talk about God giving Mary the best orgasm in history, you have be prepared to deal with the people who think that's gross. I did my best to focus on the people who were laughing, and stay positive.

I finished my routine, got off the stage, and my heart rate immediately dropped. My back muscles loosened, and I breathed easier. The host shook my hand and told me "right on." I sat back down. Prior to my routine I'd been too nervous to drink the beer that I'd ordered from the bar. I sat down and almost immediately drank all of it.

As I was sitting down and drinking my beer, my dominant thought was "I want to do that again!"

I felt loose and exhilarated. Despite seeing audience members squirm awkwardly, I wanted to go on stage and do another comedy routine. Punching through the fear, the pressure to perform, and the feeling of actually succeeding at being engaging, actually making people laugh, was a huge rush. I had all kinds of endorphins firing through my system, and I was enjoying a very familiar sensation.

I enjoy public speaking. I enjoy getting in front of groups and being interesting, funny, and engaging. I did speech and debate in high school (where I did pretty well at competitive stand up), was the speaker at my high school graduation. I was in a band in college, and have been a teacher, tour guide, and wedding officiant. Maybe I'm a huge narcissist, but feeling a roomful of eyes on me, and then being able to power through the nervousness and actually perform is my drug of choice.

I love the idea of being alone on stage. There is nothing there. Nothing. Everything that comes off stage has to do with you. The mood, the audience reaction, the vibe of the room- it all comes from your voice, body language, and presence. I want to be that kind of person, the kind of person who can fill a room with just their voice, and make people react with just a gesture. The instant gratification is also nice- as much as I like writing, I can't see my audience. Closing the gap between creation and reaction is, quite frankly, just neat.

I admit that I love hearing myself talk, being the center of attention, and being able to charm a crowd of people. I will do stand up again, probably soon. It will probably be a while before I do another routine about sex and the Catholic church, though. I have a routine about ancient Greece I've been working on, and some jokes about science fiction. I don't care about my rebellious brainstem- I wanna go again!

Break That Cycle: Why I Gave Up Pasta

2010-05-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

I am jonesing badly.

It is an unpleasant feeling. I keep thinking about the object of my desire/addiction, the thing that I want so badly to enter my bloodstream. I'm antsy and I wonder how long this self-denial will last. If it's for real. I keep thinking how easy it would be to go to my hook-up, how simple a task it would be to trade cash for what a really want, and make all of this energy and anxiety go away. I keep telling myself that I'll make it a month. Yes. At least a month.

I'm talking, of course, about how I've given up pasta.

I love pasta. Noodles are, bar none, my favorite food in the entire world. They are my ultimate, super, desert-island megafood. Ever since I was a little kid and I was making fresh pasta with my mom, I've loved the stuff. Loved it. Right now, if I could have my way, a bowl of fettucini alfredo with salmon would show up right in front of me.

But, that's not going to happen. I'll admit it- I almost bought the ingredients for fettucini alfredo at the store, and didn't. I bought some eggs, veggies, and a bottle of wine instead. (With that bottle of wine, at least I'm indulging myself a bit...)

I gave up my very favorite food ever as an exercise both in vanity and self discipline. On one hand, I'd like to get rid of my gut. Having a 36" waist was not a pleasant truth to face, and, being quite nearly thirty, I need to admit that stuffing myself with carbohydrates and fat (i.e., pasta covered with cheese) has consequences. Time to give up the food that I most often pig out on. So far, I have noticed some results. Hopefully, this will be the one and only time in my life that I fill out my current pants...

The other aspect of it, though, is more ephemeral. It is very useful to give up something that was so normal, so expected. Pasta was what I made for myself when I could not think of anything else to make. It was a default food that required no thinking, no planning, no real cognizance of any sort. Giving up something that was so much a part of my normal schedule has required a great deal of presence of mind.

The result of this is that I've thought far more about what I eat than I previously did. I think about the composition of my meals, what I'm actually putting into my body, what is necessary and what is not. I broke a cycle that was not necessarily healthy or useful, and it feels great. I just finished eating chicken and asparagus for dinner, and I know it was sufficient. That knowledge is extremely nice to have, comforting in an immense way.

I don't generally endorse puritanism or self-denial for it's own sake, but I do think that testing oneself in small ways is usually a good idea. Seeing how much of something you can do, or take, or go without. Seeing how much of a given thing is necessary or not. Power over others or over situations is all well and good, but it is quite rewarding to feel power over oneself in tiny ways on a regular basis. I gave up pasta. Probably not forever, but I banished my favorite food from my life. The results have been amenable.

While it has a rap for being associated with things like puritans, the military, and religious types, when done right I really do think that self-discipline can benefit people in very non-fucked-up ways.

I'm still jonesing. Hopefully I'll stick with this.

May First, 2010: What I Think About Immigration

2010-05-05T11:31:00.001-07:00

Yes, I know it's a few days later, but I think it's fitting that I'm writing this particular post on Cinco de Mayo.

A flash back to my time in Japan: On more than one occasion I was stopped by police, asked to show my ID, what I did for a living, where I worked, etc. I was stopped because I was very obviously a foreigner, and the police in Japan routinely ask for ID from those who are obviously not Japanese. I would not say that I was harassed per se, but the whole process was inconvenient and somewhat humiliating.

More to the point though, I hated these incidents because of what it said about Japan. Every time I got stopped by a police officer, Japan revealed itself to be a country possessed of an alienating insularity. I wanted Japan to be a better country than that, a modern country, a country that didn't really mind if foreigners were about. Clinging to national identifications seems deeply childish, and the police stops that I had to put up with did not really accomplish anything. The only thing that they did was remind me that I was a foreigner, and that Japan (as much as I loved it) could be a real dick sometimes.

Which brings me to Arizona.

I would like to believe that the U.S. is a bit more enlightened than Japan, a bit more inclusive and broad-minded. I would like to believe that the U.S. will never behave like an insular island nation, insecure in its own cultural integrity. On May first, a substantial amount of Portland's Hispanic population was in the streets, protesting more generally for recognition and equality, but with a special emphasis on Arizona.

I have a hard time, thinking about immigration. On one hand, I do think that people should come to the U.S. legally, that crossing borders without authorization is, indeed, a crime. That said, simply trying to deport everyone in the U.S. illegally would be a massively impractical (and probably inhumane) undertaking. Something else needs to be done.

The protesters and various speakers over and over said that they were in the U.S. for jobs. That's the crux of it, right there. Every year, thousands of people make the completely rational decision that it is preferable to be illegal in the U.S. than poor in Mexico. I find that very, very affecting. Being poor, out of work, and generally on the lowest rung of the social ladder in Mexico is so bad, that every year a very appreciable number of people make the decision that it is better to be surrounded by hostile law enforcement, live without documentation, and be in the midst of a language that you don't understand. They choose that in favor of poverty in their home country. Think about that- think about being so completely destitute and desperate that you decide to smuggle yourself to, say, Russia in order to actually support yourself. That would take a certain amount of wherewithal.

The U.S. does not have an immigration problem with Canada. There is a reason for that- Canada offers a range of economic options for its dwellers. It's a perfectly nice country, and the poor in Canada are not so desperate that they choose our illegality over their poverty. Canada has jobs and social infrastructure, and that's why the Canadian unemployed tend to stay there.

The fact of the matter is that illegal immigration from Mexico is going to be a problem until Mexico gets its act together. This is not something that we can necessarily fix quickly. It has taken us over a year to fix the comparably coherent domestic economy, and as much as I'd like to believe in American economic and political power, we cannot pull up Mexico by ourselves.

Until then, yes, the people who are here from Mexico (a dysfunctional, corrupt, and impoverished narco-state) ought to be accommodated in a humane matter. This does not mean that we should open the border to all comers, but it does mean that if someone has been in the U.S. for over a decade, contributing to the economy and possibly even with a family here, then amnesty should be considered. (One set of my great grandparents also came to the U.S. illegally, so the family story goes. That also certainly effects my views on the matter.)

I most certainly don't think that anyone who looks foreign should be stopped by police and asked for ID. I brought up my experiences with Japanese police not so much to identify my situation with that of Hispanic immigrants, but because I knew that I had it easy- I was an American white guy. I'm sure those police were much harder on the people whom they heard speaking Mandaring, Cantonese, and Korean. I'm sure the Arizona police will be much harder on Hispanics. (To be fair, the Portland police were out in force, and I didn't see any incidents of nastiness. They seemed much more concerned with directing traffic.)

The whole march had a kind of carnival atmosphere to it, and as much as I tried to stay a disinterested observer, snapping away with my camera, I couldn't help but experience great feelings of empathy for the families carrying flags, placards, and signs in English and Spanish. The pro-pot protesters in the square looked somewhat sophomoric by comparison. Here were people asking for things like jobs and familial coherence. They were asking for something that I thought was immensely reasonable. It is a shame that their requests have to be shouted.

May First, 2010: What I Think About Legalizing Marijuana

2010-05-03T12:14:00.000-07:00

On May first, the unofficial holiday of protests, of demonstrations, of signs and shouting and slogans, was in full swing in downtown Portland. I was somewhat conflicted- that Saturday was also Free Comic Book Day, and the geek in me wanted to bike around town to the various shops and get all of the free books that I could get my hands on. I did go to two shops, but my political curiosity got the better of me, and I spent most of the day in downtown Portland.

In Pioneer Courthouse Square, a very specific kind of music was playing, a certain slack-sounding rock, a loose, unconstrained music that immediately brings to mind tie-die and unkempt beards. Several tents were set up in the square, many of them selling glass pipes, hemp crafts, and other marijuana peripherals. The whole event was dominated by NORML (National Organization for Marijuana Legalization) and a not-unfamiliar vibe of hippie rhetoric and low-level outrage dominated the event. The police, of course, were milling about diligently.

A speaker took the stage, and began to speak about the alleged virtues of medical marijuana, and declared that the U.S. was denying sick people medicine to which they had a right. The medium-sized crowd responded favorably, applauding and whooping, all the while milling about, signing petitions, and looking at pipes. The speaker went on to extol the various virtues of marijuana, its safety and supposed health benefits, the economic rewards of turning it into a legitimate crop, etc. I have to admit, that the rhetoric coming from the stage made me more than a little uncomfortable.

I am in favor of marijuana legalization. More specifically, I'm in favor of recreational legalization, and believe that moderate use by responsible adults is fine. I have no moral opposition to the drug, and an generally a civil libertarian when it comes to what people should be allowed to do with their own bodies. I think that legalization would be a fine thing, and will probably come about in the next twenty years or so.

Nevertheless, the rhetoric in the Square on May first made me a bit squeamish. I believe that there were a few reasons for this:

1- While I don't doubt that marijuana has some pharmaceutical benefits in specific cases, I can't help but wonder if advocacy of medical marijuana is a fig leaf for recreational legalization. Actually, I think that this is the case more often than not. Pretending that marijuana is some kind of panacea or essential medicine being denied to sick people makes me very skeptical. There are several depressants and opiates already available to the health care industry. I would rather have honest advocacy of a recreational drug, rather than dressing it up as a medical necessity.

2- I do not like it when cannabis advocates call marijuana "safe." It is true that it is relatively safe, compared to, say, cocaine or heroin. To classify marijuana as the same kind of narcotic as these drugs is absolutely ridiculous. However, it is still a drug, and still entails a certain amount of risk. Drug consumption is always a managed risk, and it is a risk that individuals should be allowed to take. Moreover, just because something is unsafe, it can still be managed. I would not pretend for a moment, for example, that driving is perfectly safe, or that whiskey, traveling, or sex are safe. However, all those things are worthwhile, and the benefits outweigh the risks.

3- Marijuana advocates do not seem to anticipate the economic changes that legalization will entail. The speaker in the square repeatedly mentioned everyone "growing their own marijuana." While I have no doubt that this will happen, she and others like her seem very naive about how marijuana will be commercialized almost as soon as it is legalized. I believe (but cannot prove) that the various tobacco companies privately hope for marijuana legalization. They have the infrastructure already to manufacture and distribute smokables. I truly believe that RJR Nabisco will be selling joints as soon as they are legally able to. This does not seem to occur to many legalization advocates.

4- Enthusiasm about drugs generally makes me uncomfortable. I am not by any means a puritan (in opinion or behavior) but I think that many people mistake the easement and momentary satisfaction provided by drugs as a substitute for genuine enlightenment. I believe it was in Heaven and Hell where Aldous Huxley after (I think rather unevenly) extolled the virtues of hallucinogens, referred to the experiences they offered as a "gratuitous grace," a momentary glimpse of supposed understanding, as opposed to the thing itself. I do not doubt the feeling of relaxation that comes with, for instance, a frosty beer after a work day, but I would not mistake that for genuine psychological well-being, the ability to be at peace in the midst of chaos. Genuine existential satisfaction comes from an array of experiences that cannot be readily obtained.

Given all that, I did agree with the protesters about their policy prescriptions- that marijuana should be legal. However, I did not feel a real connection with them, did not see myself as part of their "team." I will vote with them, but I am not of them.

In Praise of Mass Market Paperbacks

2010-04-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

Like I said in my last post, I recently read Anathem. I enjoyed it, but one of the things I liked most about it was that even though it was a nearly a thousand pages, it was fairly easy to carry around. The edition that I had was a mass market paperback with rather small type. It fit easily into my bag, was lightweight, and generally not troublesome to read whilst in a coffee shop or bar. I appreciated it not only as a fun book about alien science-monks, but also as a convenient object.

Which brings me to Infinite Jest.

So far, I'm very much enjoying David Foster Wallace's magnum opus. I've read several of his essays, and (like Neal Stephenson) have a gigantic man-crush on the dude. (I hope that his being dead does not make that creepy.) Anyway, the book so far is absolutely a joy to read, but I continually wish that it was smaller.

Not shorter. Smaller.

The edition of Infinite Jest that I have is an enormous bricklike doorstop of literature, a weighty tome in every sense of the word. I can feel my satchel eating into my shoulder because of its weight, and when I'm reading it in a coffee shop it takes up a prodigious amount of table space. As a book, it's wonderful, but as an information-delivery device, it is somewhat lacking.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Infinite Jest is about the same length as Anathem, and could just as easily have been published as a mass market paperback. However, the publisher has deemed it fit that DFW's book be an inconvenience to the reader, a ponderous and massive object. This is unfortunate, really. I would enjoy the book far more if it were not so physically troublesome, if I could actually put it in my satchel and have room for other things as well.

So, why isn't it a mass market paperback?

Trade paperbacks are an attractive intermediary between mass markets and hardcovers. They are cheaper than hardcovers, but maintain a bit of the same gravitas that traditional unpaperback books tend to have. Mass market paperbacks are usually associated with disposable bits of entertainment- genre fiction. When one thinks of mass market paperbacks, one usually imagines lurid mystery novels with the author's name stamped in gaudy raised type, or romance novels that are only a few steps removed from outright pornography. One thinks of SF novels based on licensed IPs such as Star Wars and Star Trek, and masturbatory jingoistic military fiction by the likes of Tom Clancy and his ilk. Horror novels and westerns are brought to mind, all genres that are (unfortunately) regarded as unliterary, unthoughtful, unworthy.

To publish a trade paperback is to announce that a book is not pulp. It is not a disposable entertainment or an unliterary bit of genre flotsam. To publish a trade paperback is to announce a book as somehow worthy. It is obvious that DFW's publishers wished him to stand apart from novels that feature vampires and spies, and that his august work was quite literally heftier than that of the average author.

Which is a shame, really, since his book is such a pain in the ass to lug around. Mass market paperbacks are wonderful at what they do, and do not deserve their stigma. As a format, I pity them, and wish they were more highly regarded.

Of course, this whole point will become moot in a few years, when everything's on e-readers anyway...

In Which I Read Anathem

2010-04-28T11:14:00.000-07:00

Neal Stephenson has become something of a nerd saint, penning Snow Crash, probably one of the most widely-read SF books of the last twenty years. He's also a fiercely intelligent cataloger of minutiae, filling books such as Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle with the kind of stuff that will make you ridiculously good at Trivial Pursuit.

Anathem, his latest book, is not his best, but I still enjoyed it immensely. It's not as weirdly creative as Snow Crash or The Diamond Age, but even then it's immensely engaging- provided you have a specific personality type. If you are wondering about whether or not you should read it, ask yourself the following questions:

1: Do you like books where most of the action is taken up by characters having long discussions about philosophy, science, history, and math?

2: Do you enjoy books that take place on other planets wherein the social and governmental system is somewhat different than our own?

3: Do you like made-up words, most of which are tweaked versions of Greek and Latin terms?

4: Do you like books with explanations of geometry in the appendix?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above, go ahead and read Anathem. In a nutshell, the book is about a bunch of cloistered monks devoted to science on an alien world. Then (and I don't want to give anything away) stuff happens. Big stuff. Totally gonzo, wowzers sci-fi stuff. However, the book spends the first three hundred pages grounded in a hermetic, academic atmosphere, so even when the hugely epic world-shaking plot starts up, it still feels pretty grounded. With all of the philosophical exposition, the book acts as a sort of SF, grown-up version of Sophie's World, and I mean that in a good way.

What makes Stephenson so special, though, is that you get a real sense of joy from his work. Stephenson isn't just smart- he seems to jump for joy at all of the wonderful stuff there is in the world, and Anathem gives you a very real sense of that. After reading Anathem, Platonism seems interesting to me all over again.

Yes, it's one thousand pages of alien science-monks and made-up words, but it's also a very obvious labor of love. Stephenson doesn't just know quite a bit about the history of philosophy, he also knows precisely why it's so interesting, so wonderful, and so worth studying. That's why Anathem's 900-plus pages go by so fast- the author is jumping up and down about how wondrous the world is.

Something That Freaks Me Out About People Who Shout Loudly

2010-04-23T15:00:00.001-07:00

Looking at the tea partiers (or, as I like to call them, "teabaggers") one cannot help but think that they're having a pretty good time.

Yes, their signs show all the marks of (irrational) outrage, but one of the reasons I think it is so hard to kill their mythology (for instance, about how Obama is a socialist/Marxist/Nazi Kenyan) is that they seem to enjoy it. I really think they do. I really think that the people out there, waving their signs, listening to Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, are having a lot of fun.

Be honest with yourself for a moment- It's kind of neat to feel aggrieved. It's fun to feel like you're in a wronged minority, like you're part of some grand struggle and speaking truth to power. It's ennobling and invigorating and gives you something meaningful (seemingly) to be a part of. The teabaggers are not the only ones who behave like this, who take pleasure in supposed feelings of persecution. Liberals do it as well. Spend any time with radical leftists and get them talking about an implacable and oppressive government/business/military/industrial complex and you'll see that they, too, take a certain pleasure in imagining themselves as David against Goliath.

This is truly frightening.

Obviously, feeling aggrieved is fun because it gives you something to do, gives you something to rage against and yell about. The "aggrieved" are provided with straw man to whom they can assign all their woes, justly or not. For instance, I believe that one of the reasons that the U.S. has a bad reputation with the Muslim world is that Muslim elites use America as a scapegoat for domestic woes. This is not only expedient for, say, the Saudi royal family, but also fun and easy for parties involved. (I truly believe that if the Islamic world have a better, more diverse economy, we'd have less scapegoating, less terrorism, and, probably, less Islam.)

This feeling of perceived oppression, whether it be present in teabaggers, Islamic terrorists, or Portlanders who call themselves "anarchist" (while only vaguely knowing what that means) also removes responsibility from the believer. It is much easier, for example, to complain about public works than it is to build them.

If all you want is to destroy, if all you are doing is condemning and shouting, as the teabaggers are, then you are relieved of the responsibility of articulating a coherent social vision. True, idealists such as those I've mentioned above might have a utopian or long-range ideal, but they don't, for example, really have anything about what we should be doing about financial reform right now. They have divested themselves of the responsibility to be creative and constructive, especially in the immediate future.

Teabaggers, shouting and carrying their signs, not only get to experience a rush of seductive emotional energies, but also, I think, a sense of relief. They relieve themselves of obligations, of pressures to provide solvency. They relieve themselves of having to have a plan, of having to articulate a coherent solution that (might) work. They play, instead, in an emotionally rewarding mythology.

Shaking your fist saves you from having to write a plan. Seeing the teabaggers (or any radicals) on television, waving signs, reveling in anger, I cannot help but think that it is not just about politics, but also release. There is an escape from responsibility, a pleasurable cessation of obligation, and in the shouting and I truly believe that the main draw is the enjoyment of a passing, false ease.

This is all much more fun, and easier, than being a reasonable participant in an educated democratic society, and that, I think, is kind of creepy.

One More Thing About E.F.N.Y...

2010-04-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

The best part of the movie. It happens in the future! The gritty, dark, crime-infested future where America has become a brutal police state!

In other words, 1997. I cant' wait until 2019 rolls around, and we finally get off world colonies, replicants, and umbrellas with LED handles.

An Interesting Idea From A Totally Badass Movie

2010-04-22T08:34:00.000-07:00

A while ago I was watching Escape From New York, which I'd never seen. Short review: It was pretty good. But, that's not what I want to rant about, really. At the beginning of the movie, Snake (Kurt Russel's character) is being escorted through a prison office building, and a recording is playing over the loudspeakers. The recording says that before the prisoners are locked away, they have the option to be euthanized and cremated. In the context of the movie, it's meant to seem creepy and sinister. However, I thought to myself, "How humane- that's a pretty good idea."

Really. I think that offering prisoners to off themselves would be a pretty good idea. What's more, I think it's the type of thing that both liberals and conservatives could get behind.

Liberals have a number of reasons to support voluntary criminal suicide. Physician assisted suicide is already in place (here in Oregon) and the option allows a greater degree of autonomy for people who are suffering. Those who are doomed to suffer ought to be able to take their own lives, be it because of a life-crushing disease, or a life inside the criminal justice system.

Conservatives ought to support voluntary criminal suicide as well. If someone supports capital punishment (as most conservatives do, and I, for the record, don't) then they already have demonstrated that they are alright with criminals being killed via state-applied violence. They should also, then, be alright with criminals being killed via self-applied violence. While I can't prove it, there's also the possibility that prisoners killing themselves would save the criminal justice system a fair amount of money.

With this in mind, it's ridiculous that criminals sentenced to death be put on suicide watch, or not allowed objects such as belts or pens. If anything, they should be able to say the guards "I would like to go now," and then be allowed to press the lethal injection button themselves.

Not that I want to turn this into a rallying cry or anything, but in a sane society, I see no reason why criminals shouldn't be given the very option that Snake and his fellow prisoners were. Turning Manhattan into a giant prison may have been kind of insane, but this detail was something they got right.

Thirty-Eight, Cesar Chavez, Forty

2010-04-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

I like numbered streets. They are a force of good in the world. If, for example, you are looking for 32nd Ave, you would do well to look between 31st and 33rd. Easy, intuitive, and logical. Numbered streets are wonderful. Only slightly less awesome are streets that are in alphabetical order.

Portland, though, has decided that the beautiful efficiency of numbers is apparently a bad idea, and has started chipping away at this by renaming 39th Ave Cesar Chavez Blvd. Now, I have nothing against Chavez- but I mourn heavily the loss of number 39, an innocent number that really should be nestled in their with its little sister, 38, and its big brother, 40. Instead, the number 39 is now a restless orphan, wandering the streets alone and trying to sell matches, all the while slowly dying of consumption.

I want to reiterate this again- I have no problem with Cesar Chavez Blvd. as a name. However, I would be opposed to replacing any number with anything. If 15th were going to be replaced with Cuddly Bunny St., I would oppose that. If 82nd was going to be renamed Delicious Pie Ave., I would oppose that. If 33rd was going to be rechristened Screaming Orgasm Drive, I would oppose that, too.

Maybe I'd be okay with having 42nd renamed Douglas Adams Ave. Maybe.

If we wanted to commemorate Cesar Chavez, then we should have used a street with a boring, prosaic, name. I think Grand would have been an ideal candidate. It's a main arterial, not a numbered street, and has an entirely generic name that could suffer a bit of erasing. Instead, we got rid of a perfectly lovely number. As awesome a guy as Cesar Chavez was, he can never replace 39. No one can.

Portland, We Need to Talk About "Chinatown"...

2010-04-15T09:11:00.000-07:00

Dearest Portland,

Over the past year plus that I've lived here, I have found new reasons to love you. New areas of weirdness and wonder, new quirks and oddities to marvel at. You, Portland, are a tremendous place, and I routinely feel a swell of irrational pride at you being my native city. However, there is something that we need to talk about. Something that you could be doing better. No, it's not the lack of bike lanes on Sandy Blvd., though that is annoying. Nor is it the eyesore that is SE Powell. I have every confidence you'll clean those up eventually. No, what we need to talk about, Portland, is the couple of blocks downtown that you have decided to dub "Chinatown."

Chinatown sucks, Portland. It's more than a little embarrassing. I was recently in San Francisco, and took a stroll through that city's Chinatown. I'd been there before, but it's a fun neighborhood and I was with people who'd never been. I snapped a few photos. Here's an example:

That's not any particular landmark or a significant intersection or anything. That's just a bit on the street. Nothing too unusual. Here's another one:

Again, that's not a famous landmark or anything. I was just walking down the street, snapping away like an obnoxious tourist, and took a picture of that building. Pretty commonplace.

For contrast, here's the House of Louie, one of Portland Chinatown's most "Chinese" buildings. It's kind of decrepit and sort of a sad sight:

And here's Royal Family Ginseng, right next door, abandoned. Someone papered up the windows, but now those brown sheets are peeling away, the markings of abandonment themselves disintegrating:

And that's it, really. There are a few other "Chinese" type buildings, but that's pretty much it in terms of what Portland has. Why the disjunction? Why does San Francisco have a Chinatown where storefronts and apartments are culturally distinctive and Portland has pretty much just a pair of crumbling buildings?

The answer is pretty simple- San Francisco's Chinatown actually has Chinese people in it. The distinctive cultural flair of the area, the storefronts, tea shops, and restaurants, are all a product of the actual residents. Sure, they play it up for the tourists, but it's completely possible to go into a dim sum shop and be the only English speaker in the place. San Francisco's Chinatown actually reflects an immigrant population where they can get together, speak their own language, eat their own food, etc. As someone who's been a stranger in a foreign country, I can totally see why such a place is necessary.

Portland, on the other hand, has a big gate, a bunch of red street lamps, and some rather dubious buildings. That's about it. What's missing from Portland's Chinatown is, well, Chinese people. The are near Old Town is the official Chinatown, but there are a lot more Chinese people and businesses out on 82nd Ave. In the official Chinatown you can find hipsters, drunks, and homeless, but you won't hear anyone speaking Mandarin.

So, Portland, here's what I'm proposing: stop pretending. Stop pretending that we have a Chinatown, because we really don't. We have a neighborhood with some red lamp posts, and that's about it. It is a neighborhood that I really like, but it's not reflective of an immigrant population, it's not an enclave that Chinese people have made for themselves. I'm not saying we should tear down the big gate or anything, but we should all acknowledge that Portland's Chinatown is, at the end of the day, complete bullshit.

Preacher Man, or, What I Was Doing in San Francisco

2010-04-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

"Joe, will you marry us?"

I thought the question rather odd, to say the least. I mean, I'm totally okay with open relationships, polyamory, swinging, etc., but these were my friends and it would be kind of weird to... Suddenly I got it.

"You mean perform the ceremony?"

"Yeah."

I thought for several seconds. More than five but less than ten. After that time, I said

"Yes."

That was last August. Two weeks ago I found myself in San Francisco, and suddenly, very suddenly, it was all much more Real. Prior to that, the idea of officiating the wedding of my friends seemed like a fun/quirky enough idea, something that I could do that would add to my overall Resume of Weird Stuff I've Done. The fact that can now (in a technical and legal sense) append "Rev." to my name seemed just sort of charming and odd. That all changed two days prior to the wedding.

Oh shit, I thought to myself, there are going to be grandmas here. Grandmas. Grandmas and uncles and parents and smiling family members who want to see something sincerely beautiful. And it is, really. This was not to be something frivolous and interesting. This had to be something filled with genuine feelings beauty, love, etc.

Starting the ceremony by saying "Mawage! Mawage is what bwings us to-gether today!" would probably be unwise.

My friends, Robin and Greg, had jokingly told me that one of the reasons they'd chosen me to perform the ceremony was because I "don't believe in marriage." That's not quite true, but I am generally not a solemn person, and don't stand on ceremony very much. I'm completely atheistic, I try not to feel constrained by tradition, am ambivalent about monogamy, and am generally uncomfortable around nice old people who enjoy things like weddings.

While I don't disbelieve in marriage, or weddings, etc., I did need to shove aside a certain amount of my personal philosophy aside to pull the whole thing off, which was an interesting mental exercise, to say the least. My biggest hang up was the wording that the bride wanted to use for the ring exchange- the words "holy" and "soul" were included, and in a phone conversation beforehand she asked me if I would be okay with intoning such things. I said yes, I would. In fact, I did so happily.

To eject a bunch of unnecessary detail, I ended up freaking out two days before the ceremony, wondering how everything would go, and then eventually everything went great. Robin and Greg got hitched without a hitch.

During the whole thing, I became very cognizant of the importance of ceremony, ritual, and public demonstrations. Not because ceremony does anything supernatural or whatnot, but because it is a public and undeniable demonstration of fact, in this case, how much my two friends loved each other. Doing the whole thing, I realized that I had no philosophical problem with it. At all. None. I was sort of astonished to find that my worldview is consistent with things like wedding ceremonies. In fact, I'm quite in favor of them. What's more, presiding over it actually is meaningful. Being the guy up in front who presides over it isn't all that trivial. While I don't share their philosophy, I think I have a better understanding of how preachers and priests must feel, and I kind of get while judges still wear those robes. Outward expressions of ceremonial authority are (somehow) meaningful.

Anyway, I had a great time. I still wish that I had a teleporter that could zot me between Portland and the Bay Area. That would be awful nice. As for being a sort of new-model preacher man... I could do it again, given the right circumstances. It was a fantastic privilege, and I really did learn that ceremonies, because they are invested with emotional value, can be much more than the sum of their parts.

In Which I Channel C. Doctrow and Shake My Tiny Fist At George Lucas

2010-04-11T12:15:00.000-07:00

In 1942 Isaac Asimov, in his short story Runaround, coined the term "robotics." The word has since entered the lexicon, and people who know about such things are generally aware that Asimov was the first to use the term. He's credited in the Oxford English Dictionary with being the first person to ever use it, and he is rightly respected and admired for inventing a shiny new word.

Asimov didn't invent the term "robot," though. The term that we use for our shiny metal friends was coined by the Czech playwright Carl Capec in his play R.U.R., a drama that featured (what else?) robots rising up and overthrowing their fleshy human masters. Like Asimov, Capec is recognized as coining the term. He gave us all a wonderful new thing to say, and for that we thank him.

Which brings me to George Lucas and the term "droid."

I was extremely surprised to see, in an ad for the Droid smartphone, legalese to the effect that "droid" is copyright Lucasfilm and is used with permission. I don't want to start sounding too much like Cory Doctrow here, but, quite frankly, Lucasfilm enforcing a copyright on "droid" is ridiculous. Utterly indefensible. Stupid. Idiotic to the point where it is pitiable.

Imagine, if you will, every commercial use of the term "robotics" appended with a note that the word was the copyright of the Asimov estate, and used with permission, or if each commercial use of the term "robot" cited Capec. It would be entirely stupid. Lucasfilm, though, seems to think that they are somehow more entitled than these two authors, and is apparently insisting on being credited with the term "droid," a word that's been part of the English language and science fiction since 1977 when Star Wars came out.

We don't cite Asimov or Capec, though, because we expect authors to coin terms. There seems to be a part of the zeitgeist wherein terms that are coined by wordsmiths are completely okay to use and adapt. Quite frankly, this is wonderful. If I were ever so lucky to coin a term like "robotics" in my life, I would burst with joy and pride, and get a warm fuzzy feeling every time someone said a word I invented.

Other media, such as films, should not be an exception. Just as people freely borrow terms from books, anyone who wishes to should be allowed to borrow linguistic adaptations from film and television. It enriches the language, mixes up the lexicon, and generally makes the wordy landscape more colorful. I remember feeling a twinge of joy when characters in Battlestar Galactica referred to the human-looking Cylons as "skinjobs," a term I recognized from Blade Runner. Use of the term was both homage to the original, and a reflection of the accumulation and adaptation of science fiction terminology.

Lucasfilm, in appending their name to the term "droid" is standing squarely in the way of this wonderful process. Lucas made a new word for "robot," and he should be justly proud. Star Wars should indeed be cited as the source of the term "droid." But to claim utter ownership, to demand permission for use of what has become a normal English word is utterly silly. I did not think I could lose further respect for the Lucasfilm empire, but I have.

Addendum to That Last Post...

2010-04-10T12:13:00.000-07:00

Just to make it clear that I'm not spending all of my time drinking and looking at lolcats, I would like to add that breaking up tends to be a great impetus for self improvement. At least, that's been my experience.

It is good to get jolted out of complacency, break routines and cycles, and live in such a way as to to cognizant of even trivial things. Being present and living in an examined fashion is necessary for any success or happiness to proceed. At least for me- I am not happy with stagnation. As unfun as, say, ending a relationship is, I really do believe that if nothing bad ever happened to us we would not be very effective humans. Adaptation and learning need necessity.

As such, I've been animated with this feeling of ambition and confidence in the last twenty four hours that seems silly on the face of it. I've been feeling more social, more able to work, and even better able to sit down and pay attention to things. I have had extended conversations with strangers, and felt perfectly alright about it. This is curious. One would think that being spurned by a lover would have the opposite effect.

In any case, I'm happy to respond to undesirable instances with something like a plan, or attitude of ambition. This is not to say that I'm happy about recent events- I'm not- but it is very possible to derive positive outcomes from things like this.

In other words, life is not completely in the Sad Panda realm. The Sad Panda is making himself very, very busy.

A Ritual

2010-04-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

There is a ritual to it.

Last night at I was over at some friends' house, drinking a rather delicious vodka cocktail that was going to my head. We talked about, refreshingly, trivial things. Books mostly. I had some leftover pizza, and went home where I couldn't sleep. I opened a bottle of wine and began clicking away at intellectually undemanding websites, watching humorous videos and looking at amusingly captioned pictures of cats and other animals. For some reason, I started listening to Prince, an artist whom I've always admired more than i enjoyed. It seemed like a good idea at the time, though.

Eventually, after consuming the entirety of a bottle of wine, after I couldn't stay awake any longer, I went to sleep. I'd made my bed and cleaned my room because she was coming over, and seeing that tidiness just before sleep was somewhat painful. I went to sleep, woke up, and slept again. I woke up and read for some time, despite being tired.

In a certain way, I've been very lucky. I've had some wonderful relationships, and none of them have ended particularly badly. I have only, once, yelled at a girlfriend. I have never had a relationship end with a fight or any any kind of acrimony. My relationships have ended as well as anyone can hope for, with a minimum of drama, and a certain degree of amicability. For that, I think I'm truly fortunate.

Nevertheless, there is a certain amount of ritual wallowing that goes on. Even as I'm sitting here, somewhat unkempt and watching episodes of Lost on Hulu, I'm conscious of the fact that I'm indulging in a pattern. Sad music, alcohol, consoling words from friends. I know it's a ritual, a thing that plays out again and again. What I think is fascinating is that it remains meaningful.

The exasperation of the post-breakup, the behavior and the indulgences, the conversations are all iterated again and again. There is always comfort and mucking about in negativity, always a little bit of a wallow. Nevertheless, despite the predictable nature of it, it remains necessary. How fascinating, I think, that I need to do what I know is predictable. I need to seek comfort from predictable places.

Ritual is not necessarily empty, and not necessarily codified. My hood is over my head, and I'm bent over my computer, and not planning on going anywhere anytime soon. Any fiction writer could have written my actions, and anyone astute in the ways of behavior could have predicted them. Nonetheless, in my subjective perspective, this time of post-breakup wallowing, this ritual retains its importance.

Ten Hours

2010-03-24T10:58:00.000-07:00

"If you have any guns they have to go in the trunk."

"I... I don't have any guns."

"That's fine if you do, they just will have to go in the trunk. I'm a firm believer in gun control! Keep both hands on the gun when you're firin' it! Ha!"

And thus began my ten-plus hours in a car with what can only be described as an ultra right-wing hippie. I'd gone to Craigslist to get a rideshare to San Francisco. I had several possible leads, but the only one that left when I wanted to (and wasn't going in a completely decrepit car) was one that I felt sort of sketchy about. The guy's reply had contained spelling errors, on the phone he'd seemed sort of out of it, and he said that he could take me to a BART station, but not into SF proper.

I had a bad feeling about this rideshare. A bad feeling that turned out to be entirely justified.

The guy's bead obscured most of his face and chest, and his hair was in a white tangle on top of his head. I tried to keep the conversation focused on niceties like travel and music, but every so often things like this came up:

"I'm more Republican than most Republicans."

"I say, you get six months on welfare. Six months! If you don't have your shit together after that, you should put a bullet in your head!|

"This fuckin' health care bill is government-run extortion! Just a big present for the insurance companies! Before we had insurance, everyone could affor health care!"

"That government bailout was bullshit. Fuck 'em."

"There are people living off welfare. Did you know that? They're reachin' into my pocket to live. Fuck 'em."

"I'm in favor of local currencies." Me: "What do you think about the gold standard?" "I'm all for that shit!"

"I used to be in a gang. I hurt a lot of people."

"If you can't take care of your own shit, then fuck you!"

"This world would be great if there weren't so many fuckin' idiots in it!"

"We haven't been a real democracy for over fifty years."

(I would like to emphasize that I try to use exclamation points sparingly. However, given this man's volume, passion, etc. necessitates liberal use of them.)

Ten hours of this. Ten hours. I managed to sleep for a while, and we did have some pleasant conversations, but for the most part this guy seemed to be driven entirely by anger. When he was talking about things he enjoyed, like music, hiking, or drug experiences, he lit up, and went on about how wonderful it was. However, it only took a slow car, the presence of the highway patrol, or any other aggravation to get him going on about "fuckin' idiots" once again.

It was not his conservatism that bothered me. (Conservatism weirdly blended with hippie philosophy, I might add.) I can deal with people less liberal than myself. What bothered me was that his most animating feeling was rage, the thing that fueled his conversation about politics, society, life, etc., was disdain for others, frustration at something that he saw as wholly malevolent, a lack of joy when it came to percieving others.

I sympathize with political anger. I really do. All too often, though, we forget that the vast majority of the things that we do, we do right. We are not living in an unfixable, unchangable world, nor are we in the First World under the heel of something implacable. Rage has it's place, but if it defines us, we lose. We get sour and feel impotent, and rather than a wonderfully complex world pointing in all directions, we see slings and arrows coming directly for us.

I got out, after ten hours, and made my way quickly into the BART station. I cracked open the Neal Stephenson book I'm reading, and sunk into the intellectual joy of the fiction. I rode the train for the better part of an hour, and relaxed.

A Common Dilemma

2010-03-12T18:51:00.000-08:00

Let's say that you're walking down the street. Let's say it's mostly unpopulated, and you can see, about a block in front of you, a person walking in your direction. Very soon, you and that person will pass each other.

What do you do? Do you give them a short "hello/good morning/good evening" (etc.) or do you simply walk by in silence?

I have no idea what the right answer is.

On one hand, you want to say "hi." That's the nice, basically pro-social thing to do. You acknowledge them, they acknowledge you, if only for a passing moment.

On the other hand, a greeting can be sort of presumptive. They (or for that matter, you) might be doing a rather important bit of thinking, and who are you to interrupt them? They might be enjoying their walk, enjoying their time without people, and why the hell should you presume to interrupt their perfectly peaceful headspace with a meaningless and perfunctory greeting?

I honestly don't know what the preferred course of action in this case is. Part of me wants to err on the side of being pro-social and say "hi," but I can't do an adequate job of convincing myself that that's actually the right choice.

The larger issue, though, is that part of me wants to live in a world where it's okay to strike up conversations in public by saying, "Hello, sir! What a fantastic hat you have on today!" or something to that effect. However, my recent experiences with people talking to me in public have been, at best, annoying. A while ago a woman on public transit saw that I was reading and asked me "How's your book?" I wanted come back with a rejoinder like "More interesting than you," but thought the better of it. I was also in line for a restroom recently, and a man said something like "This sure is a long line!" I couldn't conjure up a good response to such an asinine unsolicited comment.

Those experiences notwithstanding, though, I'm not a misanthrope and, when it comes to people, generally like them. However, social norms tend to be in favor of introversion, and while that's nice if one wants to read in peace, I often wonder how many interactions and potentially edifying social experiences we miss out on.

In Which I Am Reduced to Screeching Fanboy Status by the Brilliance of BioShock

2010-02-24T00:46:00.000-08:00

Of the various loves in my life, one of the most abiding and constant has been video games. I haven't really blogged about video games at all. I never blogged about how much I love the Fallout series or how many hundred yen coins I spent in Japanese game centers. It's a topic that I've avoided, semi-intentionally.

However, I'm compelled to gush about how much I love BioShock. Not that the series needs it- BioShock is a tremendously successful franchise and it doesn't really need any more geeky adoration being spewed in its general direction. I can't stop myself, though. I need to shout like a screeching fanboy. There is a big overriding reason why I love it so much, something utterly apart from the great gameplay, wonderful design, excellent writing, and creepy atmosphere. Those things are great. However, there is another, very simple reason why I love this particular FPS so much:

BioShock is a game about shooting Ayn Rand in the Face.

The original game is a refutation of Atlas Shrugged in video game form. Somewhat more importantly, though, it is also a satire of video games in general, and at the same time makes a point that could only be made in video game form. That's what I really want to talk about. BioShock wouldn't be what it is if it were a movie, book, TV show, or any other kind of media. It's great because it makes the most of what it is.

Okay, spoilers ahead, everyone! For both games.

The First BioShock game is all about the hubris and failure of Andrew Ryan, a stand-in for Ayn Rand. Ryan built himself an undersea utopia that failed miserably. His vision was based on unabated individualism and constant nattering about "parasites" who spoil life for the shiny paragons of industry and brilliance.

BioShock is also all about the protagonist (you) gradually finding out about who the hell you are. At the beginning of the game, we see the main character in a plane that crashes into the Atlantic, and immediately assume that he's just an ordinary, hapless survivor who happened upon the underwater city of Rapture. Much later, we learn that he actually hijacked the plan and caused the crash.

What's more, we find out that the character has been manipulated the whole time. He has been under mental compulsion for the vast majority of the game, but you wouldn't know it from the gameplay. At no time is control really wrested from you- you play BioShock as you would any other linear game. However, you don't have any control about what the character will do. You do what you do because NPCs tell you to do stuff, and because you are led by the nose in a linear fashion.

It's amazing because you are able to embody someone you know nothing about. You can't see the protagonist's face, can't hear him speak, and know nothing, really about who he is. Yet you embody him and identify with him anyhow. Eventually you find out that what you thought was a bland, voiceless video game protagonist was actually a genetically manipulated zombie who had very little choice about his actions. The surprise of the big reveal could not have worked in any other medium.

BioShock 2's ending is somewhat less satisfactory- you find out that your daughter has been watching you the whole time, and that your actions have determined her character. I chose to be a nice, shiny paragon of goodness who helps people, so she, in turn, turned out to be an idealistic, sunny person. Apparently if you decide that you like killing and selfishness, your daughter turns out to be a kind of a bitch at the end.

I suppose that this is a pretty good approximation of parenting- you're actually raising your kids all of the time, not just when you think they're watching you. You know, like this:

Anyway, BioShock (both of them) are great video games because they take full advantage of the fact that gamers embody the protagonists, and don't really think that much about whom they are embodying. At the end of the first one you get hit with "Guess what! You're a juiced-up zombie bitch with no free will! How do you like that? Now, would you kindly kill Ayn Rand with a golf club?" The big surprise at the end of the second comes down to "I learned it from watching you!" wherein you discover that parents who mercilessly harvest Little Sisters have kids who mercilessly harvest Little Sisters.

In books, movies, television shows, comic books, or any other medium, the observer cannot slip into the protagonist's shoes, cannot embody them. In video games, though, that can happen. BioShock allows you to embody characters that are not who you thought they were, or doing things that you did not think they were doing.

Gaming can put you in disorienting the position of not only observing actions, but doing them and not understanding them, with great emotional effect. It is something I would like to see more of. Rather than just games where players pursue goals for pasted-on reasons, I would like to see games that take advantage of this disorientation that comes from character embodiment. The only other video game that I can think of that has effected me as much as either of the BioShock games has been Silent Hill 2, wherein the protagonist wades his way through the shadowy world of love and uncertainty that is husbandhood. (Given that I was living with my girlfriend while I played it, it kind of hit a nerve.) In all cases, my emotional reaction came from the fact that I did not just watch the drama happening, but had to deliberately make it occur, had to move it forward via the character. I empathized more strongly, and felt more real fear, because of that. I do think that video games can be a powerful medium, and am happy to see that they have become more complex and emotionally charged over the years.

Also, more things should be about giving the finger to Ayn Rand. Just putting that out there.

Why I Think That Lady Gaga is Pretty Great Even Though (In Fact, Because) I Don't Want to Have Sex With Her.

2010-02-15T20:59:00.000-08:00

There are lots of celebrities whom I would like to have sex with. Lady Gaga is not one of them.

"Joe, you red-blooded bucket of unabated virility and leonine manliness! Why on earth not? Aren't you utterly entranced by the current Empress of Popular Music?"

Well, Hypothetical Reader, yes. Yes I am. I find Her Gaga-ness as fascinating and entertaining as any other consumer of popular culture. However, unlike so many other nubile young famous people, I don't really want to fuck her. When you really think about it, that's kind of neat.

And also, really, really fucking weird.

I mean it! Really weird. Utterly strange. Most of celebrity, fame, and general media-ness has to do with the parading about of pretty young things, both male and female, whom the general populace can fantasize about whilst touching themselves at night. If you disagree with me, then I would like to politely refer you to to Jersey Shore, a massively popular television show that seems to be mostly about breasts and hair of titanic proportions, and men who possess no shortage of hair gel but not a single shirt.

I suppose what I'm trying to say, is that if you don't think that popular culture is about fantasy sex, then you are a delusional stupid person who has a bowl of sodden guacamole instead of a brain.

So, yeah. Anyway, here's how it usually works in the music world: You've got your standard rock-star person up there on stage. Let's say it's David Bowie, someone who's also known for being sort of weird and shiny. There are lots of women in the audience. These women are watching and enjoying the music, but also, on a certain level, they probably want to fuck the Thin White Duke. Sure, it might be in just a little corner of their mind, but they think to themselves "I would totally do his glitter-covered ass." Many of them would settle for having their male consorts be a bit more Bowie-like, and proceed to pursue men who wear impossibly tight pants.

You've also got men in the audience, men filled with a sense of identification who want to be David Bowie. They don't want to fuck him, but they want to be him while he's fucking someone else. They put themselves in his role, and they get off on it. This is why James Bond is popular.

Meanwhile, you've also got gay and bisexual dudes who want to be and fuck David Bowie simultaneously, and they are probably having the best time of all, eventually breaking out into a cocaine-fueled dude orgy that fills the other people in the concert with a mixture of arousal, envy, and fear.

Where were we? Oh yes. Sexy fame. That's how it usually works.

Lady Gaga does not seem to do this.

"Joe, you massively erudite cogitator! How could you say that? Didn't you notice how she often dresses in a provocative manner?"

Yes, Hypothetical Reader. Yes I did.

Lady Gaga objectifies herself. I do not mean that she objectifies herself in the sense that the word is normally used, but rather she portrays herself as an object, specifically something manufactured. In her videos she's often made to look artificial or damaged in some way, covered in armor, plastic, bandages, or exotic clothing. She does bare a lot of skin, yes, but she comes off more like something that has been engineered to be a simulacrum of sexuality. There is a sort of perfunctory and robotic way of her movements, or rather, how her videos are shot and edited to portray her movements. She and her backup dancers move like they are filled with pnuematic cams and shafts, and there is a an unnatural, puppet-like lurching to her.

She does not flirt with the camera. There is very little in the way of knowing winks or direct interaction with the audience. Instead we are given a kabuki-like tableau of massively elaborate costumes and enigmatic visuals. Faked sex in popular entertainment is often pitiable, and Gaga, rather mercifully, does not attempt it. Instead, she revels in her bizarre nature persona.

I like this. After seeing lots of interchangeable starlets look directly into the camera and act like they are singing just for you, Gaga's detached and cold videos are immensely refreshing. She does not attempt to be authentic when she is not. She does not pretend she is not artificial when she is. She is completely honest about how fake she is which kind of makes her like Andy Warhol, except that she's entertaining.

It also makes her more honest than, well, most other pop stars. Lady Gaga proudly proclaims that she is a product of an advanced industrial society, a singing, dancing super-robot. And she is a glorious super-robot, a fantastically well-engineered one.

Which brings me back to my original point: I don't want to fuck a robot. Sure, I used to live in Japan, but I never really got into that scene.

I respect a well-engineered and transparently fake thing. I like machines, spectacle, and moving shiny things. Moving shiny things like Lady Gaga. Her whole schtick is well-executed artificiality, and that beats fake authenticity any day. It also acts as a refreshing counter the cloying and ultimately pitiable attempts at sexiness that are so often trotted out for our collective "entertainment."

So, no. Gaga the android, the plastic-and-brass dance robot, the techno-puppet, does not arouse. She does something better- she entertains.

ATTENTION POP CULTURE: Hades Was Not That Bad a Dude!

2010-02-12T09:43:00.000-08:00

There seems to be a not-very-promising-looking kids movie coming out today all about the Greek gods. I have no plans on seeing it, but I'd like to use this as an excuse to talk about something that has bugged me a lot: Pop culture's persistently negative portrayal of Hades. You know what I'm talking about- he's usually portrayed as some kind of Greek version of Satan, or like something off a death metal album cover. Apparently in the shitty-looking new movie coming out today, he's one of the main bad guys. And remember the Disney movie with Hades as the bad guy? Or how he looks like some inhuman S&M fantasy in the God of War games? It's everywhere.

Unfortunately, this popular depiction of one of the major Olypians is utter bullshit. While the ancient Greeks were afraid of the lord of the Underworld and found him to be something of a hardass, he was not the "bad" member of the pantheon.

Hades was the more or less passive ruler of the next world. If he were a D&D character, he would have been Lawful Neutral king who managed his domain the same way that Zeus ruled the sky and Poseidon the sea. (Solid earth was open to all of them.)

The Greek underworld itself was also pretty varied, it wasn't just a hell-like place where everyone got zapped with flames or tormented in a Dante-like fashion. For the most part, it was gloomy and boring, though the Elysium and Tartarus were offshoots of the underworld, where souls were either rewarded or punished, respectively.

While Hades was considered a fairly morbid and fearsome guy, people were afraid of him and his domain in the same way that people have always been afraid of the irreversible nature of death. A realm of death and eternity that no one could ever leave is kind of scary no matter how you slice it, but Hades was nothing like this:

Or this:

If anything, he was one of the more just Olympians. Yes, there was that nasty business with the rape of Persephone, but for the most part he was a pretty passive and predictable administrator. You know who was a pretty nasty member of the Greek pantheon? Well, almost all of them. Zeus, for instance, was a colossal dick, what with all the womanizing and the petty punishments he kept dishing out. Ares was a bloodthirsty maniac. Even Athena, one of the more likable deities, got all bitchy envious and turned Arachne into a spider. They were a petty, nasty belligerent bunch, which is why they're such great characters and we continue to tell stories about them to this day.

But, for gods' sakes, please stop using poor Hades as the stock bad guy. Cut the poor dude a break. If anything, Ares was the nastiest, what with all of the bloodlust and destruction.

BONUS MYTHOLGY RANT!: You know the sequel to The Mummy? Remember how The Rock makes a deal with Anubis and gets super-powerful? Remember how Anubis was portrayed as basically the Egytian version of Satan? Also wrong! Anubis was the god of morticians, and basically in charge disposing of corpses in a sanitary fashion. Portraying his as the malevolent figure in the Egyptian pantheon makes about as much sense as depicting St. Peter as the central villain of Catholicism. IT MADE NO SENSE! Especially since Egyptian mythology had Set and Apophis, two perfectly interesting malevolent baddies, available. Why did they pick on poor Anubis?

The Protagonist Syndrome

2010-02-11T17:11:00.000-08:00

I recently started watching Carnivale with my girlfriend, and rather like it. I know that it's one of those shows that ends without complete resolution, but I enjoy the aesthetics of it and the inclusion of supernatural elements that are at once flashy and subtle. I have one problem with it, though: I can't stand the protagonist. He's boring, stupid, and lacks a sense of curiosity about the obviously interesting setting he's in. Worst of all, I can tell that the writers and directors of the show want me to identify with him. I identify far more with the carny hucksters and weirdo psychics, though. I want the show to be about them. The protagonist is dead weight.

This is a common problem.

Protagonists are supposed to be people we identify with, and all too often writers and directors interpret that as "let's put some boring guy at the center of the action." And it is usually a guy. And he's almost always boring. Think about it: Who's the most interesting character- Luke Skywalker or Han Solo? Frodo Baggins or Aragorn? Charlie Bucket or Willie Wonka? Johnathan Harker or Van Helsing? Jack or everyone else on Lost? The list goes on. All too often, perfectly interesting pieces of fiction have their weakest link front and center. Protagonists tend to be watered down, terminally decent, utterly good and rather boring schlubs who somehow get laid despite not having any edge to them at all. Frequently, they are outshone by the supporting cast, who are actually allowed to have a certain dimension of weirdness and even a personal demon or two. Protagonists, though, tend to be empty balls of uncompelling boredom.

What should a protagonist be like, though? How about Willie Lowman, someone who evokes our sympathy and pity even though his plight is different than ours. How about Dr. Frankenstein, whose ambition and lack of responsibility to his work is applicable to pretty much anyone who's wanted to create something? How about Holden Caufield, who continually struggles for authenticity and who goes crazy while he does it? How about Orlando who retains his/her mercurial identity even though so many other things change? How about Satan in Paradise Lost, who bravely defies stated authority? These characters are all awesome protagonists. They are weird, yes, and oftentimes kind of nasty, but their authors made them real, above all else.

Protagonists don't have to be decent, "normal" ciphers of characters. They shouldn't be the one character in the given medium without dimension or depth. I can tell what the creators of various shows and movies are trying to do- they want to provide an empty slate that the audience can project their identifications onto. That's hugely aggravating, though, because instead of having a person at the center of the action we have a void. The protagonist should carry a story, but all too often they seem to drag it down.

Goodbye, Prof. Zinn

2010-01-27T17:21:00.000-08:00

I saw Howard Zinn at PSU when I was a junior in high school. The room was packed, and security wasn't letting anyone else in. Determined to see the man whose book I'd just read, though, I found an opening, ducked past security, and sat down on the floor in the back of the lecture hall. He was a wonderful speaker. I'd read his book A People's History of the United States at the urging of my history teacher, Mr. Curry, who ranks as one of the four or five most influential teachers I've ever had. It was probably the fastest thousand pages I've ever read.

I didn't agree with everything Prof. Zinn said, but he was an immense influence. From him, I learned something about history and politics that has stayed with me to this day:

When people argue about history, they're not arguing about accuracy.

Historical arguments in the public sphere don't really have anything to do with the fine details of what is true. Professional historians may take sides on whether something was characteristic of a given time period or carbon-dated correctly, but public historical controversies aren't really about that. At that PSU lecture, Zinn gave the example of Columbus.

The historical record is fairly clear about what Columbus did and didn't do, and who he was. It's quite clear that he did not, in fact, prove that the world was round (that was already well known) and did, in fact, kill quite a lot of Native Americans. Columbus (and his crew) were professionals and kept records of what they were doing. The truth is, as they say, out there.

The perennial controversy every October 12th, though, isn't about the accuracy or inaccuracy of the historical record. It's not about whether or not those written records are accurate or not. Arguments about history are clashes between what people want to believe (the "truthiness" of something, if you will) and what is actually true.

Symbols, emotions, and cultural identifications all taint the way people evaluate history politics. It's about people wanting history to be cleaner and more idyllic than it is, and the practice of willful ignorance on the part of those who want simplicity rather than truth. When the truth that people know they can't fight, comes up against symbols and emotions, that's when controversy strikes. One may say something like "Yes, Columbus did kill many people needlessly but..." followed by an argument about why he should still be lionized.

This is hard even for me. It takes a certain amount of emotional fortitude for me to admit to myself that Lincoln and FDR, my two favorite presidents, did some fairly awful things. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, probably the most primal and basic of all legal rights. Roosevelt had Japanese internment, a program that destroyed my own hometown's Japanese community.

(MLK also committed plagiarism in college. It feels sort of uncomfortable to believe that, doesn't it? Too bad it's true.)

Being able to face these nasty historical truths, though, is not without a certain satisfaction. What's more, it makes the more positive aspects of history stand out with even greater dramatic effect. Zinn, though, taught me to not look for perfect figures or statuesque titans in the history books. The desire to see them as such led only to disappointment. The facts are there, the truth is out there, and longing for lionized cultural symbols only leads to controversy and argument. It is not an argument about facts that occurs every October 12th, but an argument between an emotional desire for unblemished heroes versus seeing history as-is.

Zinn taught me that history is riddled with blood, injustice, and unfairness. He made me realize that as much as one might admire an ancient city, one still has to think of the slaves who built it. History is full of those who were trampled underfoot and never given a chance, and to ignore that- to only focus on polished marble edifices of imagined ancestors -is to do a disservice to them and the truth. I didn't always agree with him, but he illuminated truths that needed telling.

In Which it is Confirmed That I Am Not An Anarchist

2010-01-19T09:08:00.000-08:00

Ursula K. Le Guin, now over eighty, looks even more like someone who could turn you into a newt. With her was Margaret Killjoy (who, much to my surprise, was a dude) the founder of Steampunk Magazine. The two were sharing the stage at Powell's to talk about anarchism in science fiction, and even though I'm far away from being an anarchist, the intersection of politics and SF has always been near and dear to my heart.

The room was full of people in boots and black jackets, and honestly I didn't look all that out of place, considering. Le Guin read briefly from The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home, only the first which I'd read. Even now she's still charismatic, and seems immensely comfortable in front of a crowd. The passage she read from The Dispossessed highlighted a character's dismay this his formerly anarcho-utopian society had reverted to capitalism. I wondered to myself how much of a real difference there was between anarchy and an unrestrained marketplace and thought, not much, really.

Killjoy was actually and extremely engaging speaker. Very funny, very active, and utterly confident. I'll confess that I found him charming, even as I found him hopelessly naive. He named various writers who, at one time or another, expressed an affiliation with anarachism and waxed rhapsodic on the joys of statelessness. I was not convinced. I don't find any utopian vision all that convincing, really.

More cynically, I wondered how many of the audience hadn't even bothered to read a single word of political theory, and just liked wearing black and the idea of disorder. Quite a few, probably.

Utopias always remind me of a particular episode of South Park, wherein a crowd of hippies decide that they are going to create a new model of living. "We'll have one guy who like, makes bread. And one guy who, like, looks out for other people's safety."

"Like a baker and a cop?" says one of the children.

"No no, can't you imagine a place where people live together and like, provide services for each other in exchange for their services?"

"Yeah, it's called a town," says one of the children.

I have my own issues with Trey Parker and Matt Stone's politics, but in this instance they're spot-on. Utopias reimagine what already exists, but with a certain kind of simplicity and straightforward innocence replacing complexity.

Now, don't get me wrong- the reason that renouncing anarchism is difficult for me is that there's a lot about it that is appealing. I do think that self sufficiency has a lot of merit, and there are plenty of things that the government should stay out of. When it comes to social issues I'm more or less a libertarian. But, there are certain things, like public education and urban planning, that I'm unwilling to do without. When I look at my beautiful hometown of Portland, OR, when I ride its bike lanes and zoom among its multi-use buildings, I know I'm experiencing the benefits of a government that has done something very, very right. Anarchism seems to rail against militarism and oppression, but fails to realize that smashing the state means getting rid of the bike lanes. That's just unacceptable.

Bringing down civilization doesn't appeal to me. I love civilization, despite all of its very real problems. When I think of an ideal world, I don't think of anarcho-syncadalist communes. I don't imagine bucolic local communities. My ideal world has high-speed rails connecting continents like iron spider webs, megalopopli teeming with urban populations. I imagine cures for cancer that everyone has access to and nicely funded educational systems. Does that mean that some people are going to have jobs they don't like and taxes they don't want to pay? Absolutely- and I have no problem with that. When I think of my ideal world, I don't imagine a cessation of suffering.

But, despite that, I still look forward to the future, and I know that a utopian ideology, any kind of utopian ideology, cannot deliver it.