Spirals

I'm sure you've all heard the phrase "it's all in how you frame it." And I'm sure many of you have laughed that phrase off as something your grandfather would tell you to get you to stop whining about something. The essential connotation to the saying is that if you look a little bit harder, you might be able to find a silver lining. That things aren't as bad as you think they are. The question that I'd like to pose, is why are we looking for that silver lining? Why do things tend to seem much worse than they really are?

I started this blog as a way to deal with a breakup. To deal with pessimism. To deal with the fact that since my junior year of high school, I've defined myself based around who I was dating. I worked hard at school, I worked hard at my core friendships, and I worked hard at making time for whoever I was in love with at the time. And I missed a lot of major, major opportunities because of that. Simply put, these last six months have been the most important of my life, and my viewpoint of love has been framed completely differently than it used to be.

Last night I went up on the fire trail in Berkeley with 11 of my housemates and friends. We spent a few hours just wandering through the hills together, and eventually we ended up on top of the highest point in the Berkeley hills. I didn't really know where we were, but the place could be identified by two spirals built out of rocks in the hillside. I paused to catch my breath, and looked up to see the Bay and the Oakland hills right at sunset. Martin gave me his headphones with "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" playing, lit a joint, and we watched. Together, communally, me and 11 people who I likely wouldn't have spent much time with if I had a girlfriend. People that I knew weren't a major part of my life when I did have a girlfriend.

And so I come back to the phrase "it's all in how you frame it." I don't really believe that you're supposed to frame the world in a way that will help you find the silver lining. For years I've framed my world around the routine of getting work done efficiently, and receiving all my love from a select group of people (girlfriends and close friends). That love was the silver lining to my purpose-driven life, rather than the main point. This semester, I was terrified because my best friends are scattered across the world, I'm still single, and frankly, I didn't know where I was headed.

And then there was Palmdale.
And there were moments this semester of unbelievable presence with my housemates and friends.
And then there was yesterday.

I'm utterly convinced that a life framed solely around trying to receive love from one other person is a fruitless life. We have so many other things to fall deeply in love with as well. Whether it's music, God, film, art, math, physics, we have things that are unbelievably able to sustain our need for love. And I realized this because last night was the first single Saturday night for as long as I can remember that I wasn't trying to find my next girlfriend. I wasn't trying to find anything, because I already have all that I need. I just hadn't framed it to see it that way quite yet. Last night I was there to experience things with people that I trust. I wasn't trying to explain, I was simply understanding. The puzzle pieces that have been scattered between light alcoholism, manic depressive blogging style, and questions of self-worth culminated in one simple moment of knowing that I could walk around my house and my city and find people who would sit with me and simply be there.

That my friends is love. And that's how I'm choosing to frame my life right now. In reality, I'm probably ready to date somebody again. I've gone through the necessary steps of a breakup to be at that point again. The nice thing, though, is that I'm no longer pushing. I've got as much love as I need.

The 1st Annual Enrique Iglesias Awards

In an attempt to prolong my latest attempt to read Ivanhoe (please, hold the smirks), I've decided to flesh out an idea that I've long argued with many of you in person. As the pop culture nut that I am, one looming question that constantly comes up is "why the hell is this person still relevant?" Or on the other token, why did a certain part of popular culture just completely fall off the face of the Earth? And suddenly, in a flash of blinding light, the answer to all of my fruitless expostulation finally came to me in the form of the one and only Enrique Iglesias.

With his recent attachment to Jersey Shore, Enrique has risen to just as much pop music relevance as ever. Surely the juicehead in you has heard the frat jams "Tonight I'm Fucking You" and "I Like It." Hell, you've probably grabbed a friend and pulled him/her onto the dancefloor just to celebrate these fantastical creations of musical genius. But hold on a second, isn't this the same dude that sang that ultra-cheesy "I Can Be Your Hero" crap? Isn't this the same guy with the absurd mole and even more absurd fanatical Latin following? Isn't this guy thirty-five years old??.

All of the above is true, which make Enrique's vitality even more intriguing. What makes a star? And more importantly, what makes a talentless soap opera look-alike famous for over fifteen years?
Disclaimer: All Enrique facts are from Wikipedia. For ya know...research.

1. Find a few important niches
Enrique's first key to success came simply from the fact that he is Spanish, and the son of Julio Iglesias. But more importantly, he used that information to his advantage. His first record was full of Spanish ballads and telenovella tear-jerkers that vaulted him to the top of the Latin music charts. So what did he do? He waited for America to fall so sappily in love with Ricky Martin and the Backstreet Boys to make a record in English. He shrewdly placed himself on Will Smith's Wild Wild West soundtrack (and yes, in 1999 this was a wise move...hindsight's a bitch), and then hit the airwaves with "Bailamos" and "Hero." Before long, panties were dropping quicker than Enrique could schedule mole removal surgeries. Noticing that pop music of his caliber was falling out of sorts in America, though, he made another smart career move and went back to Spanish Pop. Finally, he's found a niche yet again in techno club-pop.

2. Look the part
If there's one thing Enrique always knew how to do, it was looking famous. When he was hitting the crest of his fame, he grabbed stunning arm candy in the most useless athlete ever to be famous, Anna Kournikova to add onto the simple fact that he had the look of a famous pop musician. Even that mole added a quirkiness to his character that kept people talking about how he looked, instead of how idiotic his music was (and still is). Seriously, this dude was a Latino Vincent Chase.

3. Take some quirky roles
While music was always Enrique's thang, he also managed to squeeze in a few key acting parts. He was edgy in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, hilarious as Gael in How I Met Your Mother, and allegedly present in a random Latin music off-Broadway play with Ricky Martin and Santana. Now that's how you keep a fanbase.

4. Do anything possible to stay in the limelight
Even if that means signing a Jersey Shore endorsement contract

And so without further ado, I present the 1st Annual Enrique Iglesias Awards for Cultural Relevance (or Lack Thereof)

First, the "Fall from Grace" winners:
Zach Braff - Being such a huge Scrubs and Garden State fan, it really does pain me to include him in this category, but the simple truth is that he deserves it. 2006 was really the last time that Zach Braff mattered. Scrubs started going downhill, The Last Kiss flopped, and really, his entire sense of style and humor disappeared. The indie kids lost out to the elegantly disheveled hipsters, and all of the Andrew Largeman sentimental softies fell with him. Come to think of it, that reminds me of another one of this year's winners...

The Shins - I'll be the first to admit that Wincing the Night Away was a great record...my favorite Shins album, actually. This award falls into James Mercer and Co.'s lap simply because the style has gone all but extinct. Much like Braff, the Shins were too soft, too simple, and too unsurprising. Mercer's look would shout "underwhelming" if anything about this band invoked shouting. Instead, their style of indie rock has disappeared along with the argyle sweaters that accompanied it. It's a shame, really, because the Shins are and always will be an awesome band. I just doubt they'll ever be as relevant as people thought they could be.

Dan Brown - Ah yes, the last guardian at the gates of mediocre pop literature hell has fallen from grace. We could see it coming as soon as Tom Hanks was cast as the main character for The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. Nothing about those movies included the sexy, edgy, intelligent story that people wanted to convince themselves Brown was writing. Instead, the films were long, miscast, and forgettable. They were watchable just as Brown's novels were readable. Get really excited for a few weeks, put it down, rinse, and forget.

John Mayer - Although I am a big fan of Continuum, it's less hard for me to throw Mayer in this category because frankly, he had it coming. The uncensored quotes about masturbation, the womanizing, the Twitter fascination. He had all the makings of a Kanye West type career. But instead of following all his crap with a fantastic record, Battle Studies was a colossal disappointment. He's even lost his throne as the social media king. And surely, making a pass at Taylor Swift can't have been good for his already decrepit image. But hey, that cover of "Free Fallin'" was nice while it lasted.

But now we've reached the more happy category. The Iglesias Best Career Revivals of recent years!

The Black Keys - I really don't know how they did it, especially since their formula has been essentially the same for their entire time as a band, but the Black Keys have broken into the mainstream. My best guess - people got sick of Kings of Leon and needed their boozed up rock from a different source. KOL always emulated the Black Keys, and now with "Tighten Up" and "Next Girl," America is getting a chance to see the original bloozy guitar rockers. And it's about time, if you ask me.

Eminem - Before we start this post, let's make it clear that I have very conflicted views towards Eminem. On one hand, he used to be a pretty damn good rapper, and his flow can sometimes compete among the best out there. On the other hand, he basically synthesized a genre of emo-rap that is not only excruciatingly melodramatic, but also damn hard to listen to for long periods of time. Either way, the last few years for Eminem have been revitalizing. He's scored a few hits with Rihanna, Lil Wayne, and probably now Dr. Dre (we'll see how the new single goes), and he's getting great reviews from Rolling Stone and a shitload of radio play. I still always wonder though...why's he so angry all the time? Oh well, maybe he can take a dip in his lake of money and ponder that question.

Jeff Bridges - Just when we thought the Dude had met his end, back comes Mr. Bridges. I remember not too long ago he was starring in a film about a gymnastics camp. He was the coach. Now he's won an Academy Award for Crazy Heart, is nominated for another in True Grit, and scored a major box office hit in Tron: Legacy. Whatever his motives may be, Bridges has seriously stepped up his acting game and garnered a legitimately great reputation in the film community. And to that, I say "Bravo!"

Aaaand finally...
Charlie Sheen
If all else fails in the Enrique Iglesias rules to maintaining relevance, Charlie Sheen has set an example of what to do to stay in the limelight. And so I will end this blog post with a few simple words from Sheen's latest work of sheer bravado.

"36-hour bender"
"Naked in restaurant bathroom"
"Multiple porn stars"
"Briefcase of cocaine"

I rest my case.

Best of 2010

I posted some of this info on Facebook already, but I figured I'd throw my best of lists on the blog as well as the playlist that I used for my best of 2010 show on KALX. So here it goes.

Top 15 Albums of 2010:
1. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasty
2. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
3. LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening
4. Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
5. The National - High Violet
6. Jonsi - Go
7. Girls - Broken Dreams Club EP
8. Spoon - Transference
9. The Roots - How I Got Over
10. The Black Keys - Brothers
11. Jenny and Johnny - I'm Having Fun Now
12. Holy Fuck - Latin
13. Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (II)
14. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
15. Dom Sun Bronzed Greek Gods EP

Top 10 Shows of 2010:
1. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - The Fillmore
2. Arcade Fire - The Greek Theater
3. Jonsi - Palace of Fine Arts
4. Atoms for Peace - The Fox Theater
5. Pavement - The Greek Theater
6. Frightened Rabbit - The Fillmore
7. The National - Treasure Island Music Festival
8. The Album Leaf - Berkeley Art Museum
9. Manchester Orchestra - Great American Music Hall
10. Explosions in the Sky - Great American Music Hall


Best of 2010 Playlist:
LCD Soundsystem - Dance Yrself Clean - This is Happening (DFA)
Rafter - Fruit - Animal Feelings (Asthmatic Kitty)
Black Keys - She's Long Gone - Brothers (Nonesuch)
Jenny and Johnny - My Pet Snakes - I'm Having Fun Now (Warner Bros)
Superchunk - My Gap Feels Weird - Majesty Shredding (Merge)
Darker My Love - 18th Street Shuffle - Alive As You Are (Dangerbird)
Deerhunter - Desire Lines - Halcyon Digest (4AD)
Frightened Rabbit - Skip the Youth - The Winter of Mixed Drinks (Fat Cat)
Jonsi - Grow Till Tall - Go (XL)
Mister Loveless - The Old Pain - Three Words (Shady Glen)
Vampire Weekend - Cousins - Contra (XL)
Girls - Heartbreaker - Broken Dreams Club (True Panther Sounds)
Titus Andronicus - A More Perfect Union - The Monitor (XL)
The Extra Lens - Cruiserweights - Undercard (Merge)
New Pornographers - Crash Years - Together (Merge)
John Hiatt - The Open Road - The Open Road (New West)
Mimicking Birds - Burning Stars - S/T (Glacial Pace)
The Bird and the Bee - Heard it on the Radio - Interpreting the Masters Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates (Blue Note)
Holy Fuck - Red Lights - Latin (Young Turks)
Phantogram - When I'm Small - Eyelid Movies (Barsuk)
Kanye West - Lost in the World - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Def Jam)
Broken Social Scene - Forced to Love - Forgiveness Rock Record (Arts & Crafts)
Wolf Parade - Ghost Pressure - Expo 86 (Sub Pop)
Local Natives - Wide Eyes - Gorilla Manor (Frenchkiss)
The National - Lemonworld - High Violet (4AD)
Judgement Day - Peacocks/Pink Monsters - Peacocks/Pink Monsters (S/R)
Crystal Castles - Celestica - S/T II (Fiction)
The Roots - Dear God 2.0 - How I Got Over (Def Jam)
Communist Daughters - Soundtrack to the End - Soundtrack to the End (Grain Belt)
Dom - Living In America - Sun Bronzed Greek Gods (S/R)
Spoon - Nobody Gets Me But You - Transference (Merge)
Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) - The Suburbs (Merge)

Run to the Desert

Today marks a historic moment for me - my first travel blog post. Frankly, I've never written a travel post because I rarely go on trips worth writing about. And yes, Palmdale/Los Angeles seems relatively ordinary in the greater context of travel blogs. I'm not fighting terrorist insurgencies in Pakistan or AIDS in Senegal. That said, the desert is a pretty good place to get lost. Or in this scenario, to fall into completely surreal fucking absurdity. Nevertheless, there are a few lessons I learned on the trip:

1. "Danger Zone" should always be playing in airport terminals:
Nothing says "let's do the damn thing" like exiting your plane, walking into a terminal, and hearing the first chords of Kenny Loggins' seminal soundtrack to Hollywood's greatest bromance. The only thing that could have made it better, you ask? If Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer look-alikes were chest pumping at the baggage claim.

2. Los Angeles drivers have absolutely no idea how to drive in the rain:
The early afternoon was mostly drizzle, but as soon as it started actually raining, average speed on the 110 dropped to 40 MPH. Just because it was raining. Are you serious? Of course, in order to prove his superiority, Bryan made it a point to say what proved to be the second most mortifying quote of the evening, which was "let's drift into this offramp." As it turns out, San Gabriel roads are slick. Luckily, their medians also have copious shoulders.

Which brings me to Part B: "How San Gabriel and LA drivers almost ended up killing me." Our decision to go to San Gabriel to visit Sofie and Co. meant that we missed the news that the Grapevine was closed due to snow. Meaning that we left a half hour too late to avoid Grapevine traffic re-routed towards Palmdale. Of course, once we hit Highway 14, we were stop and go (more stop than go) avoiding idiots who couldn't drive through the snow on the freeway. It took us two hours to drive 5-7 miles. I truly thought Bryan was going to just get out of the car and start walking. Eventually we exited and went on an icy canyon road, finally getting into town after four hours, at which point Bryan said the other mortifying quote of the evening: "I'm gonna be honest, I was about 50/50 on whether we'd crash and have to sleep in the car, I just didn't want to tell you so you wouldn't freak out." Thanks, bro.

3. Sobriety is inversely proportional to the amount of 99 cent stores, pawn shops, and chain restaurants in your town:
While the urge to drink profusely seems pretty common in any suburban town, it seemed so natural to end each night in Palmdale with a few (OK, or maybe more than a few) beverages. The days passed aimlessly as suburban time-wasters did their intended duty, and the nights quickly encouraged the question of, "so who's bringing the whiskey?" Hours at cafes or driving between strip malls flowed into a surreal flurry of sameness that still somehow managed to be unique. And this wasn't as unique to Palmdale as it was unique to the suburban experience. Each day provided unity through the mutual knowledge that everything around us could burn, and the earth wouldn't be much worse for wear; each night seemed a sigh of relief that another aimless journey had concluded. I'll spare the chill-bro power stories of how totally fucking smashed I got bro. All I will say is that one morning I woke up on a different couch than I fell asleep on with an inexplicable pain in my ass. Don't worry, it was in the cheek muscle. Get your mind out of the gutter.

4. Nothing cures a hangover quite like shooting a shotgun:
I can't fully describe how relaxed your mind must be to wake up after the aforementioned rendezvous with Jim Beam and be able to go into Kern County on an empty stomach and shoot a shotgun. Let's face it, I am a pretty neurotic person. I should have been more concerned about this. By the time I actually got to Rosamond to do this, though, I didn't even ask how to hold the damn thing. Bryan's friend Jason just handed me the gun, told me where the safety was, and I shot it into desert nothingness. I don't say this to sound cool (though I'm pretty sure this gives me a few cool points). I say this because there's something beautiful in everyone I was with and their collective ability to not be concerned. We knew we wanted to shoot a shotgun, so hangovers and breakfast burritos were delayed until we got what we wanted. I couldn't help but notice the enormous smiles on everyone's face after we realized what we had just done. "You mean I get to shoot a shotgun in the desert?" There seems to be so many barriers to doing things like this. On a day to day basis, this seems completely impossible. But it happened. I don't necessarily condone shooting guns without supervision, but I definitely condone breaking down all the unnecessary barriers that stop people from breaking an action to its bare bones, and then deciding whether it can be accomplished. That analysis aside, though, I'm pretty sure I now understand why the NRA has such widespread support.

5. Following your instincts will lead you where you need to go
To wrap up this rambling blog post that's taken me a week to write, I'll pull out the main point behind this all. I'm a different person than I was before I went to Palmdale. Before this winter break, I was a sea of excess. I drank too much alcohol, read too much postmodern literature, wasted too much time, and analyzed my life to the point where every encounter in my day became trivial and banal. I can say this because an important transition away from those selfish desires occurred when I found myself subject to the whims of a transient Southern California vacation. And to an extent I began this transition by taking stock of those important to me over winter break and making sure that I found a way to eliminate the ego and spend time in worthwhile companionship. I started this blog as a way to cope with the lack of fellowship that you naturally feel after a breakup. But lack of fellowship is something that anybody who refuses to look beyond him or herself will feel. My dialogue last semester was between me, my problems, and those who would listen. When you're surrounded by friends that are about to leave in a city that isn't your own, it becomes frighteningly obvious that your problems don't mean shit. That you should lay down your burdens and encounter the chaos with open arms. I didn't expect to do half of the things I did in Palmdale. I went down there to spend time with a close friend who I knew I needed to see. It was a simple, bare bones reason that was far different from the selfish whims to which I usually succumb. It just so happened that while I was there I remembered something I haven't felt in a long time. I remembered how to be comfortable that my personality, my choices, and my emotional and physical geography are valuable. This is not the winter of our discontent. This it the season of our awakening.

Burn Bridges

Rule Number 10: The key to winter break is knowing your rotations

I know it's been a long absence blog-land. You're tired of me coming home and immediately showering before getting in bed with you. You miss my warm caresses. You wish our relationship was as tender as it was in the beginning. You miss the days of flowers, long-winded holiday cards, and poorly constructed analogies based off kitschy romantic comedies that we pretend to love. Well it's time to take it back to another level. I'm re-upping my vows, baby. So grab your third-date panties, I'll put on some Al Green, and we'll get this rolling.

Being home for the holidays gets weirder every year. I'm sure someone has devised a complex equation for how much time should be spent with certain categories of friends, but I find myself wandering in the dark many times. The key is knowing your rotations of friends and how to manage them to maximize the amount of time spent with people you want to see. But before we dive too deep, let's go over a few quick categories of people you might run across over your winter break.

The best friends: These are the people that you always hung around with in high school. They're the first ones you call when you get home, and likely the only ones that you keep in touch with while at college. This is the group that not only deserves most of your time, but will likely get it. Because frankly, who wants to manufacture a deep friendship in three weeks when you already have the people who have known you for, in my case, around nine years ready to welcome you home, drink vodka out of a plastic bottle with you, and laugh their asses off when you drink too much (because that's what real friends do). On a side note, for those of you who have seen me drunk at school...just know that there is no comparison to how trashed I get when I'm with the people who have known me my entire life. I literally cannot embarrass myself. Or so I think. But I digress.

The periphery friends: These meetings usually involve one time getting coffee to catch up on all the things that you won't follow-up on in the next few months. The meetings typically last for a couple hours, come in between days where you have big plans with your primary group of friends, and end in hugs and promises to keep in touch. Which you usually don't do. I'm just as guilty of this as most, so I really can't judge the ethical consequences of maintaining peripheral friendships. But the carrying capacity of good friends in one town seems to be around 6 or 7, and everyone else has the occasional coffee date status. Someone from the periphery might slip into the rotation of close friends for one specific break, but after college the peripheral friends tend to stay the same, just as the close friends usually don't change. That said, there's something to be said for a peripheral person who can slip into your "hang out every few days" winter break rotation. This is less likely in the first few breaks after starting college, but I've noticed in recent years that I'm beginning to re-connect with people who have grown from periphery friends in high school into people who I could see myself hanging out with much more often. Let's face it, people change. There's no sweeter feeling than upgrading a peripheral friend and seeing him/her more often simply because you get along much better now. This is perhaps the most exciting part about coming home for break.

A sub-category worth mentioning: the peripheral friend to whom you are suddenly attracted. This is a tricky category to work with over breaks. On the plus side, you won't see the person very often in the future, so there isn't too much to lose. On the downside, you could be sacrificing a periphery upgrade candidate for a casual hookup that will likely lead to a little weirdness because frankly, everybody knows every embarrassing incident about almost everyone in their high school. I've never seen this category work out successfully, but I do see the unresolved tension between some friends. It's...charming.

The ex-girlfriends: This is particularly relevant for me, since every one of my ex-girlfriends is from the Bay Area. As such, I run into many scenarios in which I have to weigh my desire to re-connect with an ex. On the surface, these meetings are no different than meetings with peripheral friends. Except, of course, that I didn't used to hook up with my peripheral friends. The question that always has to be asked when deciding whether or not to see an ex is "why should I bother?" Because seriously, why put yourself through the awkward catching-up phase with an ex if you plan on going back to school and not speaking afterward? It seems that every break, I manage to see at least one ex. The encounters all go well, and I come out of most of the meetings feeling pretty empowered about my past. That said, it's hard to keep in touch with exes, and illusory connections over break can be broken very quickly when each person goes back to his/her regular life. The jury's still out on whether this is ever a good idea. I maintain that it usually is, though I can't explain why I bother.

The randos: This category is reserved for the "friends of a friend who went to a different high school," the "guy I don't totally remember being in my History class, but is now offering me a beer at a party" and the "people I wouldn't say hello to if I saw them in the same restaurant as me." I won't spend too much time here, since nobody likes bumping into randos. But I will say that if you see me at a party, don't know me well, and I'm in the mood to run with that, you could be my best friend for a night. I suppose random re-connections can be kind of amusing.

The difficulty in coming home for winter break (and summer, to an extent), is that there is really no room to progress in any of these categories. No matter how much you connect with a peripheral friend, you will still go back to not seeing him/her for months, and the person will likely fall back to the periphery. The same goes for close friends. You fall quickly back into a close relationship with these people because you've known them forever, but the relationship is usually a regressive one. New things are not tried and progress is not made, because everyone is aware that regardless of how much closer you get to another person from your hometown, you ultimately have to leave again. Depressing as that sounds, though, this is counterbalanced by the fact that because these people have known you through your formative years and have grown up in the same town, there is more shared knowledge between you. It's much easier to fall back into old ways and keep up close ties with friends from home who have common ground with you. No matter how much you change or how far apart you move from your home friends, you can always reminisce on the time that so-and-so did something stupid in P.E. Health class or such-and-such happened at Junior Prom. It's human nature. The paradox of the situation is that the people that nature deems you to be closest to are also the people who you will see less often than your other friends.

Enter my pop culture reference. I was listening to a song by Dom called "Burn Bridges," which triumphantly declares that "friends that you trust probably know way too much, you should just love em and leave em." As if that wasn't enough, the chorus says "burn bridges, make yourself an island, just forgive em and forget em." And when I say triumphant, I mean triumphant. Generally, the prevailing philosophy on friendship is that you should avoid burning bridges as often as possible. Then again, prevailing philosophy probably seems like a buzzkill to stoned twenty-somethings in Connecticut writing dreamy surf rock. The concept is interesting though. What if burning bridges can be a process of conquest and cleansing? Each time I come back home for a break, I find myself contemplating the point of maintaining the relationships that meant so much to me in high school. We are stagnant in our suburban nostalgia. We frequent the same haunts and find ourselves discussing the same insufferable gossip which we loved four years ago. We are living, breathing fossils when we come back home.

And yet I still think there's a point. A wise person once described a friendship to me between her and one of her best friends. They only see each other once a year and rarely talk when they aren't together in person. Yet once a year they get together for a weekend and everything flows back easily. The friendship is as strong and vivacious as any that she experienced in college. Without many questions asked, the friendship simply works. The glass half empty person would look at coming home as a fruitless quest to recapture the past. The glass half full person, though, takes stock of these various groups and puts them within a picture of both the past and the future. Like a basketball coach handing out minutes to his players, we all come home and work our rotations so that we can see people that we still love, people that were important for their own peripheral ways, and people who we once loved but still need to learn from. Perhaps I only say this because I am terrible at burning bridges. This is the first winter break, though, where I haven't been trying to light any new matches. I'm just rolling with whatever Walnut Creek throws at me. So far, so good.

On Letting Go

Rule Number 9: Don't make mountains out of molehills...and the other maternal slogan greatest hits

I have an absurdly good memory about some things, although this usually doesn't help me. Sure I can talk your ears off about the revolving door band theorem behind Queens of the Stone Age or the artistic merit of American Pie, but this usually does more destruction to my image than good. One of the things that I've never forgotten, though, are the sayings that my mother used to badger into my head as a child. How about a quick tracklist, while we're at it.

Ellen Bill's Motherly Slogans - The Greatest Hits
1.Don't beat a dead horse - All greatest hits records need to start with a classic. And I was damn good as a child at beating a topic until it eventually had an aneurysm and had to be taken to the overripe subject hospital. Much like I did with that metaphor.

2. Watch your door - Because seriously, when you get out of a car...watch it.

3. You aren't doing anything stupid, right? - And as any son knows, this isn't really a question that has a right answer.

4. You can't always get what you want, Travis - I still don't think I've learned this one...

5. Don't make mountains out of molehills

Alright, so this is a Greatest Hits work in progress, but it got me to my main point, which is that I am an absolute legend at taking minute details and turning them into catastrophes. Like my mother, I'm a perfectionist and a bit of a control freak. Hence the repetition of "you can't always get what you want." I really didn't (and often still don't) understand that concept. And really, why should I? This is America dammit. We pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and claim all that is ours! Ronald Reagan baby!

Just kidding. In any case, inability to let things go and move on is much less becoming on a person when he's in college, in his twenties, and a business major. At a certain age people are supposed to learn to let the little things go and focus on the big picture. However, I'm better at creating invisible checklists in my head of all the times that a person or situation has wronged me. Eventually, the smallest detail can send this thesis of grievances snowballing into flat out stupid destruction. Ever had somebody erupt over an innocuous tone in your voice or a strange look. I'm that guy. I believe everything is pregnant with meaning and symbolism and that perhaps if I remember every detail, I'll be able to piece it all together into something perfect. The problem is, of course, that not everything has meaning. In fact, most things do not have an intentional meaning behind them. The way that I merge through traffic doesn't seem to me like it should be important to the passengers in the vehicle, but that is how I've treated life for a long time. Simply put, I cannot let things go, and this is wrong.

Two weeks ago, my ex-girlfriend Jenna passed away after a long bout with cancer. She was an incredible human being, and I was devastated over the time I had spent on trivial crap that I could have spent reconnecting with her. Of course, it also put a lot of other things from my semester into perspective. The minute details that I tend to complain about disappeared for a little while, and I saw the big picture. At the time, though, I knew that this transcendent understanding couldn't last forever. I wrote a lyric to a new song that said "I was a fool to think our youth was so invincible, and I'll be a fool again this time next month." It only took two weeks. I found myself snapping about little things and complaining about minutia less than a month after I had supposedly sworn out of my hyper-controlling ways.

Unfortunately, this blog doesn't have a happy ending. I mainly posted it because I was doing it again yesterday, and I woke up pretty frustrated about my inability to deal with my Achilles Heel. By this point, I've realized that you can't change people to the point where their major battles simply disappear. This is something that will always plague me, just like other things plague other people. Those slogans that your mother tells you as a child are important though. They're meant to be roadblocks to help you find your difficulties, and then weave through them. As it happens, my mom had to say either "don't make mountains out of molehills" or "don't sweat the small stuff" more than any other childhood slogan. And although this looks like it may be an incurable disease for me, I know that with that memory I can do my best to treat it.

Earlier this week I made a joke that my exorbitant complaints were like global warming. Everyone knows it exists by now, though it can't be stopped immediately. I need some sort of Kyoto Protocol to slowly diminish my impact on the world. From what I hear, the UN's working on it.

In Honor of National Novel Writing Month

Last year, I did a project for a semester which was loosely entitled "write a fucking novel you idiot." And I wrote a 50,000 word novella for my non-violence class which has now been sitting on my shelf half-edited and half-scorned. In any case, I've been dragged into the phenomena of National Novel Writing Month yet again (this time with more emphasis on the month portion, as I only have around 12,000 words starting the month) with the hope that now that I've done it once, this time will be a lot easier. That is far from the truth. In any case, I wanted to encourage other people to attempt to do this with me, even if you don't get to the 50,000 words by the end of the month. And I wanted to share the first couple pages of this years novel, which I've entitled Ferguson's Convenience Grocery. I hope you enjoy!

Drip, drip, drip. The pipes in the bathroom were faulty, and with every splash of water against the inside of an already mildewing cabinet, I could hear dollars passing from my wallet, sales that were never made. The Chinese water torture of capitalism was inflicting itself on my modest apartment, with a thin layer of plywood protecting the uncovered linoleum from the ugly rusted water that wove like the Euphrates through my bathroom fixtures. Ride the Tiger, or the Tiber, or however the saying went. Leaking or plugged, I was still sitting on my bed with a gun in my hand hoping that enough dollars and cents would amass for me to finally overcome the urge to pull the trigger. A plumber wasn’t an option; I didn’t make enough money to pay somebody else to fix my pipes, and given my godawful mechanical knowledge, I was a long shot to figure it out myself. Somehow, the price of a pack of bullets and a split second of courage seemed far less than what it would take to fix the leak. Fortune favors the bold whispered the steel between my lips. I wasn’t born to be bold.

For the last five years I’ve worked as the full-time owner of a small grocery store somewhere in between the outskirts and civilization in my loathsome Zion. My parents used to run the shop, but they felt driving my grandfather’s Mercedes into a power generator to be a more cogent use of their God given talents. The story made the news for a day or two. The paper even ran an exposé a month later on why a happily married, modestly kept couple would commit suicide in such an unruly fashion. They even put on the clothes that they had worn to my christening. Wool and cotton sparked into an electrical inferno that caused a power outage at the local shopping mall for 38 minutes. 38 minutes of lost receipts and marketing ploys. What nerve they had.

In any case, the daily operations of Ferguson’s Convenience Grocery fell to me, a twenty-three year old high school drop-out who had spent most of his high school years snorting cocaine off of toilet seats and listening to Pearl Jam in an effort to fit in. We all dropped out together in solidarity and, well, the movement seems to have passed us by. It was a shame for the rest of them, and I doubt that any of them ever found a calling in life. As for me, my quiet life of cleaning a 500 square foot prison cell of brand name snack foods and birth control was about as close to a calling in life as I thought I’d ever find. The fact of the matter is, as soon as my parents decided to break the mold, so to speak, I knew that I had fallen into a fortuitous position in the Ferguson family. Whereas previously my goals in life had ranged between fucking my high school prom queen out of spite and buying a car so that I could drive to Mexico and never look back, I now had an actual purpose for being in Boston. I had inherited a family legacy of selling alcohol to minors, poking holes in the condoms of especially snooty teenage yuppies, and doctoring price tags so that we could actually charge upwards of forty cents more than the manufacturer had determined appropriate. Or, perhaps these were all modifications that I invented once I become the sole owner and operator of my 500 foot purgatory. I didn’t get a chance to interview the corpses on their managerial techniques.

In all aspects of its existence, Boston proved itself to be the perfect location for my operation. The general uproarious behavior of the population allowed my apathy towards anything other than my store to fill a niche that the city so badly needed covering. You see, when a group of people historically shifts to one end of the political, social, and economical spectra, it starts to wonder why people with different views aren’t forcing a different result. Thankfully for Boston, I’m here to fill the void. Just try to give me a 100 dollar bill in payment for your Snickers bar. Watch me tell you to fuck off with my finger on the trigger of a loaded pistol in case you decide to cause trouble. Still think your city is full of working class candor and collegiate pride? I’ve got another story for you to tell your psychiatrist on Monday morning.

Everyone hated winter on the East Coast. The entire city braved the snow by resting their lives on the win-loss record of the New England Patriots. I wasn’t a sports fan, but my store was. My parents had long ago placed Budweiser advertisements with quasi-lifesize Patriots helmets on them, a green football field in the background and the team’s schedule fighting for room between the grandiosity of the helmet and the grittiness of the chalky frozen gridiron behind it. Each year the beer manufacturer sent me a new poster; the images never changed, and the names and dates on the schedule were the sole reminder that a year had even passed. Blue and red streamers adorned the front of the store, weaving around capriciously inside of the decrepit structure and its barred windows. I had even added a touch recently which I feel would have made my parents particularly proud. Over the glass window of the malt liquor refrigerator, I had posted a special edition beer helmet poster, one which I had asked for specifically from the man on the phone in God Knows Where, Virginia where they take orders for all of America’s beautiful brewed poison. The sign stated “Be a team player, always use a designated driver,” and included the ever-important Patriots helmet and Budweiser logo. The irony, of course, and it was so fucking clever to me, God everyone would love it, was that the only people who ever purchase malt liquor are homeless people and college students. If that isn’t a group of rag tag team players already, then I don’t know who is.

This winter was particularly comedic, with inches more snowfall in a week’s time than most Bostonians are used to in a month. The streets were continuously filled with a collage of black pea coats, weathered leather jackets and puffy outerwear that enveloped ruddy-faced owners. All I had ever seen in twenty-three years in Boston was a change in jackets as fashions shifted in and out of commonality. Microfibers of various sorts were clouded by the gray façade of irony that even in the shittiest climate to found a heterogeneous community, Americans would find a way. There was a reason why these no-named patriots didn’t pack up their belongings and move to California. They still had something to prove. As for me…I just had a grocery store.