Just The FAQs: Slop-Culture

(NOTE: Many years ago I was a playwright. Improbably a few of my short plays ended up getting published. This is the third and final installment of a three-part series of posts intended to provide a bit of background and answer some potential questions you may have regarding these plays should you be from one of the handful of the college, high school or community theater troupes from across the country who stage these plays each year.)

(To those who are reading these posts without having read the plays, my apologies. These posts will make little sense. Please feel free to ignore them with my compliments.)

SLOP-CULTURE


What Was The Inspiration?

Here's the short and slightly less boring version of where this play came from:

In 1999 the Actors Theater of Louisville held their annual 10-minute play contest, and that year they had decided they wanted to stage a handful of 10-minute pieces organized around a central theme at the festival. That theme was "Life Under 30." They wanted plays by writers, directors and actors all under 30 years old. And while they'd liked the play I'd originally submitted for the contest, (Guys), they called and asked if I had any other 10-minute pieces that might fit their theme a little more snugly.

"Why of course I do," I told them enthusiastically. "Why, I've got the perfect play for that! I shall send it to you forthwith!"

And then I hung up the phone and started writing it.

Seriously? Same Day?

I know. It sounds glib, but it's 100% true.

It was written and in the mail the same day. (We sent things through the mail back then. "Mail" was a kind of text message that people printed out and hand delivered to each other.) Start to finish, including rewrites, probably three hours of work all in. And you can kind of tell, if I'm being honest.

Fortunately, I had already been noodling over the idea of my own cultural identity and what it meant to be part of Generation X. (Yes, I'm aware that I am, in fact, old.) I'd been considering maybe doing something full-length, but hadn't zeroed in on any kind of story, structure or characters yet. The call was exactly the kind of kick in the pants I needed to pull the trigger.

So, What's It About?

What had been nagging at me, what I was itching to explore, was the fact that I didn't really have much of a cultural identity of my own to speak of. At least not how I understood the term. I didn't have any strong family or ethnic traditions. When it came to music or art or religion or food or ... well, anything really ... there just wasn't much there that tied me to any "tribe."

So a lot of the history and point of view I give Danielle came straight out of me. I, too, was half Italian, but had no connection to Italy beyond knowing how to microwave a bowl of Beefaroni. I was raised on pop culture. Nothing but bad TV and fast food.

At first this was a pretty depressing thought, but as I worked through the play I realized that everybody has a cultural identity. You just might have to widen your gaze enough to actually recognize all of the components of it. It's not just about ethnicity or religion or family. It's all the specific influences -- the books, movies, TV, pop music, whatever -- that make you specifically and particularly you.

And nobody gets to pick theirs. That alchemy is quite beyond our control. The forces and influences that make us who we are just kind of happen.

And that, it seemed to me, was the real choice. Once you recognize the forces that make you who you are ... do you embrace them?

It's a little corny, but that was kind of a big personal realization for me.

A couple hours later I had a cultural identity and the play was in the mail.

What Does The Title Mean?

It's a play on "pop culture," of course. When you have an entire generation raised on bad TV, that bubbling stew of references and touchstones can get pretty muddled and, well, sloppy.

Today, in the age of social media and the Internet, none of this seems like an especially big deal, since we are now all composed of roiling pastiches of memes, dog videos and snapshots of celebrities' food. But back then things weren't nearly as decentralized and fragmented. Deciphering your own identity and finding your tribe was a lot harder.

The Characters, What Are Their Deals?

As I said earlier, much of the existential crisis that Danielle is going through was straight from my own point of view at the time. There was a longing there, a feeling that I was lost. I was missing this deep connection to something larger. I didn't know what it was, but I knew I didn't have it. It wasn't until I eventually I realized that I was already part of something that I felt the pieces click together. I just needed to embrace it. Yes, Danielle is a product of pop culture, and once she accepts that, her place in the world starts to make sense to her.

Cindy is essentially Danielle on the other side of that realization. She's already made peace with that question and is stronger for it. She's got her shit together.

As for Brian and Dylan ... every group of friends has the equivalent of those guys. The lovable dumbasses who seem to float through through life without getting any of it on their shoes. These guys never had the crisis that Danielle having because they've always accepted who they are and where they fit since day one. They don't just accept their slop culture roots, they revel in them.

Hang On, Isn't All This Blather WAY Too Ponderous And Navel-Gazy For What Is Essentially A Fluffy Little Sit-Com?

Yes. Yes, it is.


Do You Have Any Performance Advice?

Okay, nobody ever asks me this, but I'm going to answer it anyway.

Over lo these many years I have found that the "louder, faster, wackier" school of comedy tends not to work at all with my material. I find if you underplay the material, it tends to work better. Mugging and shouting and falling down won't add energy to your show, it just adds frenzy, which isn't the same thing and isn't funny. (To me, anyway.) When in doubt, deadpan. I have found that just tightening up the dialogue pacing and then playing the pauses is a much surer map to laughs.

Just my two cents.

(FYI: Just as a reminder, if you're interested in performing any of these plays, please check the Samuel French/Concord Theatricals website. I've helpfully linked to them in most of the places the play titles appear on this blog. Otherwise, start here:
https://www.concordtheatricals.com/a/5552/robb-badlam)



Till next we meet ...

Just the FAQs: Guys

(NOTE: Many years ago I was a playwright. Improbably a few of my short plays ended up getting published. This is the second installment of a three-part series of posts intended to provide a bit of background and answer some potential questions you may have regarding these plays should you be from one of the handful of the college, high school or community theater troupes from across the country who stage these plays each year.)

(To those who are reading these posts without having read the plays, my apologies. These posts will make little sense. Please feel free to ignore them with my compliments.)

GUYS

So ... here's the thing ... sometimes positions we stake out early in life don't age super well.

It turns out, in order to become "woke," you have to first have been asleep.

This, in a nutshell, is my relationship to my short play Guys . Turns out what I wanted to say in my mid-20s isn't at all what I'd like to say in my mid-40s.

Every piece of art is a time capsule of the moment of its creation. A bubble that preserves the creator's thought or emotion at its inception. Sometimes those bubbles help you float off toward enlightenment. And sometimes ... well, sometimes they're more like a fart in a crowded elevator.

This play, for me, is the second one. Kinda.

Are there a few clever jokes in this play? I guess? Is it super aggressive and didactic in making its point? No, it's frivolous and silly. But the whole thing is in service to normalizing something that today I find kind of gross.

At the time, 20-something me wanted to declaim that all guys objectified women and that it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. "It's just the way guys are hard-wired," I reasoned back then. "There's nothing inherently sinister about it. It's Nature."

"MOST of us are harmless," I argued.


Sure, okay.

Looking back on this play as an adult, however, particularly in the wake of the stomach-churning revelations about the likes of Harvey Weinstein, or Louis CK, or our commander-in-chief, for that matter, today I find this play to be a little chunk of regrettable retrograde apologia.


Now you might read the play and find it totally harmless. Goofy fun. But chances are, if you do, you're probably a dude. If you're a woman, you're likely to read Guys and sigh heavily with recognition.

The play is essentially ten minutes of two hapless dudes gawking at a woman in the park who's just trying to eat her damn Chicken McNuggets in peace -- while they pontificate and navel-gaze about why dudes seem compelled to gawk at women in parks who are just trying to eat their damn Chicken McNuggets in peace.

Without realizing it, I'd pretty neatly encapsulated the concept of the "male gaze" then immediately tried to charmingly dismiss its effect on those upon whom it fell.

"These two guys are totally harmless," I argued. "So it's fine! They're not going to DO anything! Relax!"

It's telling that I specified in the stage directions that the woman not actually appear in the play. Instead, she exists off stage where the two male characters can see her but the audience cannot. At the time, I thought this was clever and theatrical. But looking at it through more mature eyes, that detail somehow makes it worse. Not only did I not give her the agency to respond, I didn't even grant her the dignity of existing at all.

Am I over-reacting? Entirely possible. I am prone to such behavior. I was drawn to the theater for a reason, after all.

Ultimately, there may not be much reason to flagellate myself over this perceived injustice done unto the Universe. In the end, the play may very well be silly and ignorable. But it does bother me that I once thought this way. It's embarrassing. A moral pebble in the shoe. (But then, I am a writer at heart so if a thing is worth thinking about, it's definitely worth over-thinking about.)

Point is, your mileage, as they say, may vary.


Um ... Were There Any Questions On This FAQ List?

Oh, right.

As for Frequently Asked Questions ... on this play, I don't really get many of those. Not enough happens over its ten minutes of run time for anyone to get confused. It's not exactly the building of the barricade in Les Mis. It's two guys sitting at a table, eating french fries and talking about boobs.

(FYI: Just as a reminder, if you're interested in performing any of these plays, please check the Samuel French/Concord Theatricals website. I've helpfully linked to them in most of the places the play titles appear on this blog. Otherwise, start here:
https://www.concordtheatricals.com/a/5552/robb-badlam)



Till next we meet ...

Just The FAQs

In another life, I was a playwright.

Went to a fancy school. Learned stuff. Got a shiny degree. The whole nine.

And while I ultimately didn't end up carving out a life for myself in the theater, when all was said and done I did have the good fortune to see a couple of my short plays published. A pair of ten-minute pieces titled Guys and Slop-Culture appear in a handful of compendiums (compendia?) including a couple of "acting editions" published by the Samuel French company (now Concord Theatricals).

Improbably, a few times a year those plays actually get produced in colleges and high schools and community theaters across the country.

While the proceeds from performance rights to a pair of ten-minute plays don't exactly add up to a Scrooge McDuckian treasure hoard (it's maybe good for a couple hundred bucks a year, tops) it's pretty cool that those plays are still out there in the world just doing their thing.

From time to time folks involved in some of those productions will even contact me with questions. Most often they're students who are either directing or acting in them.

Now, generally speaking, if someone takes the time and trouble to ask a question, I usually try to take the time to answer.

Sometimes the questions are about characters, sometimes they're about production logistics, sometimes they're about my background. But they tend to fall into a couple of broad categories.

(I mean, let's face it, these aren't thematically dense "works" that require a lot of probing analysis. They're pretty straight-forward comedic sketches. You dig too deeply into these, you're gonna fall out the bottom.)

In any event, I thought it might be helpful to post some of the more frequently asked questions here with my standard responses. So if you've found this blog because you're looking for information on these plays, hopefully this will save you a bit of time and hassle.

(I'll break these up into a couple of separate posts so they don't get too long and unwieldy. I'll do three: one for each play and one for more general questions. I'll also permalink them in the "Pages" section of the sidebar under "PLAYS" for easy access.)

All right, let's start with some GENERAL QUESTIONS. (Play-specific posts to follow on a bit later.)

Here goes:


Your play features a lot of pop culture references. But they're a little dated. Can you update your play with more current references?

There are two answers to this question - a legal one and a creative one. And unfortunately, they're both no.

First the legal answer:

When you pay for performance rights through Concord Theatricals, you're paying for the right to perform the play as published. That's the agreement you're signing. That's the contract you're entering into. That's what you're paying for -- the right to perform that specific text. And that agreement is between you and Concord. I'm not party to it.

Asking me to do rewrites (whether paid or unpaid) is a violation of that contract. And that's just not something I want to mess with.


Now the artistic/creative answer:

As far as I'm concerned, these plays are finished.

A play -- or any creative endeavor really -- is essentially a time capsule. It's a snapshot of the thoughts and feelings of the writer at the moment of its creation. And as far as I'm concerned that's exactly how it should stay. These plays were written at a very specific time in a very specific place and about very specific ideas.

Moreover, they were written by a very specific writer ... a writer who doesn't really exist anymore.

As a writer and as a human being I've changed a lot in the years since these pieces were published. The person I was at 26 is very different than the one I am at 46. I've learned, I've grown, I've matured. I'm not the same me that I used to be. Hopefully none of us are.

Does that mean I think these plays are perfect? Oh, good god no! But they are what they were intended to be. For better or worse. And I'm happy to let them be.

Because even if I was amenable to changing some of the references -- which again, let me stress for the record, I am not -- believe me, you wouldn't want me to. I'm not going to get your generation's touchstones right. I'm a middle-aged man who isn't even on Facebook. Do you really want my updated hot takes about the Macarena or According to Jim?

(You don't. You really, really don't.)

But if you really believe that the references in my work will leave your audience confused or disconnected from the characters ... that's a totally valid consideration.

So may I suggest ... and I mean this with all sincerity and respect ... that perhaps my play may not be the right one for you.

PLEASE don't read that as me being snippy and nasty! Every play has it's audience. They're like puzzle pieces, some fit with their audience and some don't. There's nothing wrong with that.

Here's what I know: If mine doesn't work for you, I am one million percent certain there are better, fresher, funnier plays out there that your audience will lap up like thirsty hounds.

I guarantee, that with a little more digging, you'll find the piece that works for you. There are tons of fantastic plays in the world, written by far more talented writers. Somewhere out there is the one for you and your audience. Somewhere out there is your puzzle piece.

It's a terrific opportunity explore and discover!  Have fun!

We call them "plays" for a reason, after all.


Okay, if you won't do it, can I update your play with more current references?

Again. No.

Reeeeally no.

As I said above, the play is the play. As far as I'm concerned, it is finished. It's in its final form. As its creator, I said everything I wanted to say with it.

It's done.

I understand when people ask this question that it comes from a genuine place.

I understand that you only want to show your audience the best possible time. I understand that the question isn't meant to be offensive ...

... Buuut it kind of is.

Okay, it's more than "kind of."

It's really not a cool thing to ask a writer.

So let's not even go there, okay?


Can I adapt your play into a short film?

I'm sorry this list seems to have gotten so negative, but I have to say again, no.

Unfortunately, those rights are not available.

Your contract with Samuel French covers only theatrical presentation, meaning a live performance in front of an audience. It does not cover the rights to adapt the play as a film. (Or YouTube video, or Vine, or TikTok or Virtual Neurographic Intra-Cranial Flo-Stream, or whatever Silicon Valley throws at us next.)

You can record your live performance, of course. There's nothing wrong with taping the live show. And I don't mind if you post that recording online. Provided you credit everyone properly. (Including me).

But if you want to film it like a movie ... that's a BIG no. That goes for any play, not just mine. If you take a play and make it into a movie without the proper rights and permissions you are violating U.S. copyright law. If you are not the holder of the copyright for that material, you can totally get sued. Even if you're just throwing it up on YouTube for fun and aren't making any money off of it.

So just be safe and don't do it.


Okay, that's enough negativity for now! As I said, I'll put up a couple of play-specific posts in the coming weeks that I promise will be much more positive!

(FYI: Just as a reminder, if you're interested in performing any of these plays, please check the Samuel French/Concord Theatricals website. I've helpfully linked to them in most of the places the play titles appear on this blog. Otherwise, start here:
https://www.concordtheatricals.com/a/5552/robb-badlam)



Till next we meet ...

Life Of Pie

As the old saying goes: Food is Life.

Well, kind of.

Okay, not always.

Yeah, sometimes it's the other thing.

till next we meet ...

Every Breath You Take

For the last two decades I haven’t wanted to write.

At all.

After spending the first 25 years of my life (not to mention an alarming amount of college and grad school tuition) attempting to hone that particular skill set, the idea of putting one word in front of the other had become unpleasant. Daunting. Difficult. Even painful.

Which was a little problematic, considering “Writer” was the box I had ticked on every "What I Want To Be When I Grow Up" questionnaire Life had ever handed me from as far back as I could remember.

I used to love it. A lot. There was nothing I enjoyed more than making up characters and having adventures with them.

But in my late 20s something happened. Something changed. Something I didn’t quite understand.

I just couldn’t do it anymore. The storytelling impulse – the storytelling compulsion, really – that had been with me since even before I could read - that impulse I’d taken for granted for so many years - had just vanished.

Evaporated.

It was gone.

The tank had run dry. The engine wouldn’t turn over.

I have spent the past two decades slogging through a sludgy mental torpor, unable to do the one thing I was ever marginally good at.

Through it all I never quite gave up. Out of bone-deep stubbornness, I somehow managed to drag four or five screenplays across - or within shouting distance of - the finish line.

But I really had to force it. It was like pushing rope. It was all I could do just to focus for half an hour at a time.

A total number of pages that should have taken me two years tops, ended up taking nearly twenty.

And, if I’m being honest, they weren't particularly good pages.

Writing had become hard work. Exhausting work. Impossible work. Work I couldn't even attempt unless I took multiple weeks off from my job and crammed myself to the gills with caffeine. And even then, the results were paltry, at best. What had once been a fire hose had slowed to an occasional drip.

So what changed?

I didn't know.

For years, whenever I was asked why I never tried to pursue much of a writing career, I would quip: “Graduate school cured my love of theater.”

Was it sardonic? Certainly. Clever? Maybe. But was it true?

Well, honestly it seemed to be. It felt true. My experience in grad school had gotten a little bumpy near the end, and in the years that followed, I just couldn’t motivate myself to write.

Correlation?

Seemed like it.

But, come on. It hadn't been that bumpy. And even if it had been, it shouldn’t have affected writing non-theater pieces, right?

Right?

But it did.

Whether it was prose, screenplays, shorts or even blog entries, I was still slamming headlong into the same problem. Writing in any form had become a Sisyphean chore. I just didn’t seem to have it in me anymore. My brain just wouldn't cooperate.

So what was the problem?

Had I just peaked early and burned out? Had I run out of stories worth telling?

In truth, the problem ended up being less metaphysical and more physical.

It turns out my brain really wasn't cooperating.

Because it was being strangled.

"My safe word is: 'Please Stop Strangling Me.'"

I’ve always been a snorer. This wasn’t news. Even as a little kid, I could rattle the windows at night. But apart from irritating a long string of roommates, family members, a fair number of neighbors, and certainly The Missus, I had never thought much about it. People snore. So what?

And as I slid from my 20s to my 30s and on into my 40s, a sedentary office job, a long commute, and the slowing metabolism of encroaching middle age all conspired to pack a considerable amount of extra meat onto my already stout frame. As I’ve detailed previously, I have never been slender. But in the last 20 years I’ve managed to swell pretty far above my natural weight class.

What I didn’t realize was, the snoring and that extra fat were just symptoms of a problem. A problem that was pretty much destroying me from the inside out.

It’s called Sleep Apnea, and it can totally kill you.

"Show me on the drawing where the death gets in."

It turns out, every time I went to sleep, my soft palate -- the fleshy bit in the back of the throat -- would collapse like a deflated bouncy castle and drape itself over my airway.

This was what was causing my snoring.

But the snoring wasn't the problem.

The problem was that it was starving my brain of oxygen all night.

Spoiler Alert: Your brain needs oxygen to live.

“This is where you dipped into R.E.M. state,” the doctor said, indicating a brief dip on the chart a few days following my sleep study. “You stayed there for less than a minute.”

“But it was a six hour test,” I said.

"Exactly."

“Is that why I don’t dream?”

“No,” he said. “You’re not dreaming because there are three more levels of sleep below R.E.M. That's where dreaming happens. And I don’t think you’ve been to any of those levels in years.”

“Huh.”

“According to this, you’re experiencing an apnea event about a hundred times an hour.”

“Which translates to ...”

“Almost every breath.”

“Huh.”


So what did it all mean?

Well, it meant that with nearly every breath, I was choking on my own throat.

It meant that every night my brain was being starved of oxygen.

It meant that my brain was never getting a chance to rest and recover.

It meant that my mind was being strangled for hours on end.

Every night.

For years.

Years.

And as he rattled off the symptoms, all the pieces started to fit. Constant physical exhaustion, extreme mental lethargy, weight gain, persistent mental fog, utter lack of short-term memory, shortened temper, complete loss of concentration ... check, check, check, check, check....

My brain, he said in so many words, was a tattered, wrung-out dishrag. It hadn’t been able to rest or recharge in nearly twenty years. Frankly, it was kind of miraculous that I’d managed to shamble through my life generally, let alone write what little I had.

I was essentially staggering through each day with the needle pinned below empty. Coasting on fumes. My brain was never getting the sleep it desperately needed to function.

Oh, and did I mention it can totally kill you. Sudden heart failure is fairly common with untreated apnea, as are strokes, and incidents of falling asleep at the wheel. Hypoxia, irregular heartbeat, and even diabetes are all linked strongly to it.

"Seriously. It's SO not good for you. As your doctor, I would recommend that you should probably stop having it."

So no, this wasn’t a case of snory chubster needing a few extra hours of shut-eye. This was severe oxygen deprivation to the brain. Staying in bed for a few extra hours on the weekend wasn’t going to help. Longer strangling sessions weren't the answer.

So ... what was?

Was there a treatment?

Could anything be done?


It's called a CPAP machine. And it just might be saving my life.


Every night I strap what looks like scuba gear onto my face and the machine blows air through a tube and up my nose - Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. The air pressure keeps my soft palate from collapsing over my airway and choking the life out of me while I sleep. It’s a little bit like a stadium with a fabric roof – the air pressure keeps the dome from caving in.

Sounds invasive and terrible, right?

How could a person possibly sleep in that get-up?

Well, it turns out, beautifully.

JUST LOOK HOW BEAUTIFUL!!!

I love this goddamned thing.

LOVE.

IT.

Because, for starters, it’s not as invasive and terrible as it sounds. After some initial trouble with a bulky and unpleasant face mask, I was able to switch to a much smaller “nasal pillow” which plugs into my nostrils perfectly.

And I'm thrilled to report that it’s working!

In the months since I’ve started using it, my memory has snapped back, my mental acuity has returned, and my energy level has ticked steadily upward.

Most noticeably, my once horrifying caffeine problem has been eliminated entirely.

There was a time I needed FOUR TO SIX LITERS of Diet Pepsi a day. Just to function. (For those not in Europe at the moment, that’s nearly TWO GALLONS.) Each day. Just to drag my swollen carcass to work and back.

The sheer volume of soda I have consumed over the last two decades has surely done irreparable damage to every organ and bone in my body, but I am happy to report that since I started using this machine, I’ve cut caffeine out of my diet entirely. With no repercussions whatsoever. Unless you count the fact that I’m now saving about $4,000 a year by not needing to drown myself in an ocean of aspartame.

And that's not all. My mood has markedly brightened, my thinking is quicker, and my vision has even gotten a smidge better. I’ve even dropped about fifteen pounds without exercising. (Admittedly, fifteen is just a drop in the proverbial fat bucket, but it’s an encouraging start!)

But the biggest change I’ve noticed is that my concentration has come roaring back. Time was, the state some call “flow” was a fairly regular destination for me. Whether I was writing, reading, sculpting, model building, drawing … anything that required intense, focused attention ... I would slip down into a kind of concentration hole and emerge many hours later with the task completed and a back stiff from hunching.

I’ve started doing that again. Often without meaning to. And it’s fantastic.

And guess what else ...

Yup.

It started almost without my realizing it. One day on the train home from work – a time I used to be helpless to stop myself from nodding off – I just flipped open my laptop and started absently plinking away.

And before I knew it, a few weeks had passed and I was 70 pages deep into a new script.

And it was different this time. I wasn’t forcing it. I wasn't doing it because I felt an onerous sense of obligation to live up to a life choice I’d made four decades prior. Nor was it a guilty attempt to justify the life-crippling student loan debt I’m still trapped beneath.

No. This time I was writing because it was fun. Because I wanted to.

That’s it.

In fact, the thing I'm writing isn’t even something I could ever sell. It’s really just for me.

And that’s okay.

In fact, that's better than okay.

That's pretty goddamned great.





Till next we meet ...

Breaking: Summer Has Arrived

Ladies and gentlemen, could I please have your attention.

The Captain has turned off the "It's Not Summer Yet" sign.

You may now feel free to move about the season.

Thank you for choosing U.S. (h)Air.



... till next we meet.

Empathy Or The Devil

(My apologies in advance. This one's a bit more serious minded and thinky than my usual nonsense. Sorry. Occasionally I do get drawn in by the tractor beam of matters of actual import. It happens. I'm human. But rest assured, silliness will follow anon. Promise.)


As any writer will tell you ... if you want to write better, you have to read more.

But it's not just about picking up tips from other writers or honing the subtleties of narrative craft.

Yes. There are many, many things you can learn from reading that will help you develop your own literary voice or fine-tune your personal creative process.

But there's something else about the act of reading that's even more important.

Something not just for writers.

Something deeper.

Something primal.

Something I believe is pretty darn fundamental to our humanity.


And it's something that seems to be disappearing from our culture at an alarming rate.



Empathy.



We all know people who seem to have been born with an innate hypersensitivity to the plight of their fellow human. They have that rare ability to feel for others on a deep and meaningful level.

But those folks aren't very common.

For most of us empathy is a response that must be actively and regularly cultivated. It's not an autonomic response. It's a muscle that must be worked out regularly or it will atrophy. Use it or lose it.

And right now, as a culture, we don't seem to be using it.

I'm not a sociologist or an anthropologist and I don't have any hard data to back up this observation, but I don't think it's hugely controversial to suggest that over the last couple of decades we've grown darker and meaner as a culture.

I'm not saying that there is no more kindness in the world. Just watch the response after a hurricane or an earthquake and you will see people show their best and most generous selves.

No, I'm talking about everyday sympathy and understanding. That's what seems to be in shorter and shorter supply.

We don't seem willing to walk a mile in the other guy's shoes anymore. Indeed, we seem now to resent the very fact that the other guy even has shoes in the first place.

Consider the catastrophic state of disrepair of our political discourse. It seems like we've devolved on a societal level. There's a ravenous, Lord of the Flies bloodthirstiness to our culture now that I just don't remember us having when I was 25.

Maybe it's the haze of memory, but I seem to recall a time when we could disagree without utterly loathing one another.

Today we seem to have an all-or-nothing, scorched-earth, I-win/you-lose-and-your-descendants-shall-be-obliterated-from-history way of dealing with each other.

I don't know. Maybe nothing's changed. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention back then.

Or maybe that open hostility was always there, but we just couldn't see it because the technology didn't exist yet that would reveal it. (If you're like me, a cursory glance at virtually ANY Internet comment section fills you with aching despair.)

Or maybe this frothing geyser of hate is really only representative of a small number of monsters but the electronic bullhorn of social media makes them seem far louder and more numerous than they really are.

I don't know.

But I can say this: The kinds of viciousness, cruelty and screaming rage that's being vomited up so openly just sets me back on my heels. Just look at some of the monstrously racist responses we've seen to the Black Lives Matter movement ... or the wretched misogyny of GamerGate ... or the reprehensible pro-gun backlash to any mass shooting ... or the naked hatred driving the recent wave of harassing transphobic bathroom laws ... or ... or ... or ... or ...

Is this really who we are now?


As a culture, we are hemorrhaging empathy at an alarming rate.

Where did it go? Can we get it back? If so ... how?


Oh, and what the hell does any of this have to do with reading?


Well, I believe there has never been a better tool for building an empathetic response in humans than reading long-form fiction.

I know. It sounds weird, but stay with me.

Long-form fiction -- specifically the novel -- cultivates our capacity for empathy like nothing else. There is no other activity that forces you to plant yourself behind someone else's eyes -- and more importantly, inside their thoughts -- quite so fully as novel reading.

Roger Ebert once famously defined the movie as "a machine that generates empathy." And yes, under the best of circumstances, movies (and TV) are machines that can work beautifully.

But it's the unfortunate nature of an audio-visual medium that we must start on the outside of a character. Hopefully we find our way inside over the course of the next two hours, but there are no guarantees we'll make that connection. Importantly, with a novel we generally start inside a character's mind.

For me, the time spent with a movie or television episode is just too brief. Alternately, even a fast reader is going to spend a significantly larger chunk of time with a book. And the longer we stay, the longer we psychologically marinate in another point of view. The more time we spend submerged within the thoughts of someone else, the more likely we are to build an emotional bridge to their perspective.

But it's even more than that.

Our engagement with a movie is largely passive -- it happens on the screen whether we're paying attention or not. Sets were built, images were photographed, words were written and performances were given. It's a fait accompli. And it happens on its own schedule with or without our input. If we wander out to the lobby for some Twizzlers, the movie doesn't stop and wait for us.

But with a book, when we close the cover, the story stops. It waits for us to open it again. If we stop reading in the middle of a sentence, the story waits right there -- suspended -- until we read the next word.

With a book, we are the engine.

By reflexively filling in the spaces between the words with imagination, we create a large portion of the experience ourselves. Our brains provide the thousands of tiny details. What the characters look like, what they sound like ... and most importantly ... what they feel like.

We supply a large portion of the experience. The engagement is cooperative, it's active.

The writer may provide the road map, but we're the ones driving the car.

We engage more fully. And consequently, we end up connecting with written characters and their experiences far more deeply than their filmic counterparts. We blend our own psyches into them. They become part of us in a way no other art form seems to.

Whether we started off identifying with that character or not, by the end, we've filled in so many of their blanks with own personas that we are actually changed on a fundamental level by meeting them half way.

No, seriously. It literally changes us.

For real.

Recent research seems to suggest that novel-reading physically changes the structure of the brain.

Let me say that again, louder and in bigger print.

It physically changes your brain.


According to a fascinating recent study at Emory University:

Heightened connectivity in other parts of the brain suggested that readers may experience “embodied semantics,” a process in which brain connectivity during a thought-about action mirrors the connectivity that occurs during the actual action. For example, thinking about swimming can trigger the some of the same neural connections as physical swimming.

And you know what that sounds an awful lot like?



Empathy.


Is it a coincidence that the rise of the novel as a popular literary form approximately coincided with the Victorian era's Industrial Revolution? And is it coincidence that many of the most influential early novelists, like Charles Dickens, were known for their ability to sway public opinion with their deeply humane and compassionate stories about the plight of everyday people being ground up in the gears of a brutal, uncaring world?

I don't think so.

And is it a coincidence that we appear to be getting meaner and nastier as a culture at a time when we're just not reading novels like we used to?

I don't think so either.

Just look at book publishing today. Sales are shrinking and several publishing houses have been forced to merge or shutter entirely. If your book doesn't feature a love triangle of mopey supernatural teenagers swanning around a generic dystopia ... chances are nobody's reading it.

With the Internet and smart phones and social media demanding our attention ... we're consuming vast amounts of media, but we're doing it in a remarkably superficial, scattershot way.

We need to learn to concentrate again, to deep-dive, to focus.

140 characters at a time isn't going to get it done.

The Internet has brought people together like nothing else in human history. But electronic connectedness is not the same thing as human understanding.

Because if novel-reading does, in fact, change your brain, you can bet spending all day every day staring at Twitter on your phone does too. And those changes may not be quite as desirable.

Humanity isn't something we're born with. It's something we have to cultivate. Something we have to work at. It's a garden that needs constant tending.



So turn off this blog and go read a book.




Till next we meet ...

Put My Nuts In Your Mouth

Hi there. My name is Monkey Joe.

I've got nuts.

Big nuts.

And I want you to pay money to buy them.

And then put them in your mouth.

Stop asking questions.

Just do it.

Put them in your mouth.



FOOD ALLERGY WARNING: We cannot guarantee "100%" that Monkey Joe's Nuts do not contain monkey. Those with monkey-based food allergies should avoid consuming this product.



Till next we meet ...

Dog Having In Three Easy Steps!

Ever wanted to have a dog?

Well this is your lucky day!

STEP 1: UNFOLD YOUR DOG.

STEP 2: ASSEMBLE YOUR DOG.

STEP 3: NOW YOU HAVE A DOG!

Congratulations!



Till next we meet ...

Edward Skewer Fingers

Yes, it's true that the movies Big Eyes, Frankenweenie and Dark Shadows failed to catch on at the box office.

And it's also true that Mars Attacks, Sleepy Hollow and Planet of the Apes were not adored by critics.

But COME ON!

You're better than this, Tim Burton!

And why the hell do you have a cuckoo clock over your batch?!

What are we expecting to come popping out of---OH MY GOD!!





Till next we meet ...

A New Hope

It was autumn, 2012. And there was a great disturbance in The Force.

The announcement came like an ion cannon blast from the blue: Disney had purchased Lucasfilm from founder George Lucas for a cool $4 billion in Republic Credits with the intention of immediately launching new Star Wars movies.

And with that ... millions of voices suddenly cried out ... and then continued to cry out. Louder and louder. Because the Internet.

As the months passed, the pieces started falling into place. Avowed Original Trilogy fanboy J.J. Abrams stepped behind the camera. Empire and Jedi (not to mention Raiders) screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan set to plinking away at the script. And all the original leads where wheeled out of storage. A reading was held. A picture was taken. Our nerd hearts fluttered.

They were putting the band back together.

"Break a leg," we urged them.

(Well, that didn't go exactly to plan, but no matter. Mr. Ford recovered eventually.)

There was a palpable electricity in the air! A feeling was starting to grow that had been largely absent from the Star Wars universe since those heady days in the run-up to Phantom Menace.

Hope?

A new one, maybe?

But why?

Well, for the first time in almost 40 years, a certain be-pompadoured, flannel-wrapped man-sausage wouldn't be piloting the ship. George Lucas would no longer be calling the shots in the Star Wars universe.

And this was a good thing? Maybe?

Potentially a great thing?

Now before I go any further, let me just say this:

It is 1,000,000% true that millions upon millions of Star Wars fans the world over owe George Lucas their bottomless gratitude for creating the galaxy far, far away.

That's just a fact. It is beyond doubt.

As a world-builder, he's in a class all his own.

Untouchable. A true genius.


But ... as a storyteller?

"Eh ... less so?"

To put things politely, the changes made to the Special Editions in the late 90s fell somewhere on the spectrum between "unnecessary" and "cringeworthy."

And the Prequel Trilogy ... well, a majority of movie goers might place those further out toward the "I'd Rather Not Talk About It" end of that spectrum.

To say fandom's (not to mention my own) relationship with Mr. Lucas had become "strained" -- or at the very least "complicated" -- is something of an understatement.

Though, for me personally, the problems didn't start in the late 90s. For me, his track record, had been bumpy since the first execrable teddy bear yub-nubbed its way out of the underbrush in 1983. But that's a whole other conversation.

(Complete tangent: In 1995 I was talking trash about Ewoks at a bar and nearly got into a fistfight with a fellow who seemed willing to throw down to defend their honor. In retrospect, I almost wish cooler heads hadn't prevailed. Just so one day I could say I'd been in bar fight over Ewoks. The perils of drinking and nerding, I suppose. I think I would have won, though. Both fights.)

I digress ...

So ... Lucas was stepping aside to let somebody else play in the Star Wars sandbox. This was exciting news. This was a game-changer. The possibilities! The mind raced! (But did NOT pod race. Ever.)

Then more announcements came fast and hard. More directors, more writers, spin-off stand-alone movies ... the possibility of a Star Wars universe movie every year far into the foreseeable future.

And in a surprise to exactly no one, the Internet has churned into a non-stop Hoth-sized blizzard of Star Wars rumor-mongering, thinkpiece-ing, spy reporting, and armchair speculation for the better part of three years. Every trailer, TV spot, photo or toy package is broken down pixel by pixel -- Zapruder style -- in an attempt to unlock its secrets. Who uses a lightsaber? Who's flying what ships? Who's related to who? And would Harrison Ford be able to stay awake through the whole movie or spend it napping grouchily on a giant pile of money?

And so today ... anticipation is at a fever pitch with the film about to be unleashed upon the world. As a nerd on the Internet myself, I believe it to be my solemn obligation to offer a few thoughts on the subject.

It is my understanding that this is compulsory.

So here goes.

(drumroll ...)

5 Ways the New Star Wars Movies Will Probably Be Different Without George Lucas

5. Socio-Economic Mobility?

With someone new plugging coordinates into the saga’s navi-computer, perhaps now, at long last, inhabitants of the galaxy far, far away will no longer be doomed to the same job their parents had.

Maybe Lucas was trying to prevent storylines from getting too complicated. Maybe he intended to echo a simple, fairy tale convention. Or maybe he’s just a big fan of rigid caste systems based on strict Calvanist notions of inescapable predestination. For whatever reason, social mobility in the Star Wars universe doesn't really seem to be a thing. Whatever your mom or dad did for a living, like it or not, that’s the gig you’re gonna get, too.

Even if that job is as microscopically specific as “Telekinetic Plasma-Sword-Wielding Bionic Space Wizard.”

“Oh, quit pouting. Sure, the hours suck, but the health plan is surprisingly comprehensive.”

(For the sake of simplicity, and to mirror what the folks at LucasFilm are doing, I'm not counting any of the expanded universe stuff to be canon here. Just what Lucas himself scribbled into his trapper keeper for the movie scripts.)

When we first meet Luke he’s a moisture farmer, but since that’s not a job his dad ever had, it’s just a matter time before everything goes all handstands and laser swords for young Master Skywalker. Because in George's world, your job history is predetermined. Your resume is already printed in your DNA.

Midichlorians, it turns out, are actually tiny, blood-borne Guidance Counselors.

Which may explain why Luke sucked so hard at moisture farming. Well, I'm assuming he sucked at it. We never once see him harvest a single ... um ... bucket? I guess?

(Look, don’t ask me. I don’t know how it works. My father wasn't a moisture farmer either.)

Fun Fact: Jawa "squeezings" count as moisture!

It’s that same circuitous logic ... one might even say tortured ... that mandates that since we've established Leia to be a princess, then BY GOD her birth mother MUST have been a queen.

Never mind the fact that we’re talking about two totally different planets.

Planets presumably with different, systems of governance.

And Leia was adopted.

And her adopted father was a Senator, not a King.

And her true identity was supposed to be a secret.

And Luke is never once referred to as a prince.

And Padme technically couldn’t really have been a “queen,” because she was elected and you don’t vote for queens because that’s not how queening works.

Point is, if you are a princess, your mom must have been a queen. Just make it work.

Somehow.

Because shut up!

(Not to disparage Naboo, but you have to wonder about a civilization that puts a tween girl in charge of a whole planet. As political systems go, that one seems fraught with peril. The likelihood of hearing the words “Secretary of State Justin Bieber” seems alarmingly high.)

(But what do I know, she’s not my queen. I didn't vote for her.)

Oh, admit it. You were thinking it, too.

And even though Boba Fett is technically a clone of Jango, not a son, that seems close enough for government work as far as George is concerned. Sorry, Boba. So much for your dream getting your MA in Italian Renaissance Poetry. Grab your jet pack. Them space skells ain't gonna disintegrate themselves.

(Though, to be fair, Dog the Bounty Hunter has numerous bleached, sun-damaged progeny who also hunt bounties. So maybe in this case it’s not a Lucas thing but more of a bounty hunter thing?)

Fittingly, the lone outlier might just be Han Solo. It’s never mentioned in either trilogy just what Papa Solo did for a living. We don't know anything about the guy.

But if he wasn't a smuggler, I think there’s a good chance he probably lived an honest life of herding Nerfs. Scruffiness, after all, rarely skips a generation.


4. Fewer Staff Meetings:

George Lucas may have started out as a rebel filmmaker (see what I did there?) with some big ideas and a metric ton of moxie-studded gumption ... but somewhere along the way he ended up growing, almost by accident, into one of the most staggeringly successful businessmen of the last century.

And when you’re mind-bogglingly successful at running a whole bunch of companies, you probably sit through a shit-ton of meetings in a day. That's gotta be pretty much your life. So in the late 90s, when he got round to penning the scripts for the Prequel Trilogy, maybe he took the old writing axiom: “Write what you know,” a little too literally.

Perhaps this is why the Prequel Trilogy is so liberally larded with scenes of people sitting around jabbering about things they could do – instead of scenes of them actually doing those things.

Depending on how you count them, there are something like TWO DOZEN staff meeting scenes in the Prequel Trilogy.

(And in true corporate style, those meetings usually involve the Jedi Council saying they're going to do something ... before then telling Obi-Wan to go do it for them.)

By contrast, there’s only one real staff meeting in the entire Original Trilogy and Darth Vader spices that one up by totally choking a guy out with his mind.

Which, be honest, is exactly how we wish all staff meetings would go.

"Does anyone have a Ricola?"

3. No More “Special Edition” Fiddling:

Whatever you think of Lucas as a filmmaker, it’s hard to argue that he didn't, on some level, have the authorial right to tweak a few things in the Original Trilogy.

Now the wisdom of tweaking those things? Oh, heavens! We can argue that until the stars burn out. In fact, providing the forum for that very argument was the whole reason Tim Berners-Lee invented the Internet in the first place. Well, that and porn.

But with the saga’s Uber-Honcho turning over the reins to a voracious corporate behemoth bent on churning out fresh, profitable product for decades to come, it's not likely that any one director, writer or producer will emerge with enough clout to continue Lucas' preoccupation of repeatedly reaching back into the original trilogy to rearrange the furniture.

Point is, mercifully, this is probably the end of all the Special Editions. From now on, for better or worse, no more changes.

Sadly, that also means whoever the last one was to "shoot first" will likely continue to shoot first on into eternity. It’s like winning a game of musical chairs, only with terrible aim and terrible-er CGI.

"Greedo? That guy’s a hell of a shot! Taught me everything I know!"

2. Nobody Will Ever Say “Yippee!” Again:

Ever.

For any reason.

Thank the Maker.

Seriously. Don't. I know it was a just line in a script and you didn't write it. But just ... don't.

1. Fewer Amputations:

Given that the series will undoubtedly continue to feature the lightsaber as its signature, iconic weapon, it’s a good bet we’ll continue to see at least a few loose appendages go tumbling bloodlessly out of frame in future episodes. But my guess is, the galaxy far, far away just became a friendlier place for extremities.

Because George Lucas has an amputation fetish.

Okay, maybe “fetish” is too strong a word. But Lordy, he does seem inordinately fond of lopping pieces off his characters.

By my count there are 15 instances of arm, hand or leg amputation over the course of the six films in the Star Wars saga.

If you include decapitations, that raises the total to 18.

That goes up to 19 once you include Darth Maul’s always impressive hemicorporectomy.

And if you count all of C-3PO's various pieces, that goes up to 33.

At this point you might be musing to yourself: “My, that seems like rather a lot of dismemberments.”

It sure is.

Now please also consider that after all the fanboy belly-aching over Jar Jar Binks in 1999, Lucas strenuously and repeatedly insisted that these are, in fact, movies intended for small children.

"You know what happens to little boys who don't clean their plate? They get scissored into wet, steaming meat!
Now. Open. Your. Mouth.”

Unsettlingly, George's hunger for limb-lopping seems to grow more ravenous as the Prequel Trilogy rolls along. By the time we get to Episode III, several of the victims in question are now having more than one part sliced off in a sitting.

If you're just counting lightsaber injuries, by my admittedly unscientific count, a total of 19 body parts are liberated from their owners in the Star Wars hexalogy. (OT: 6 vs. PT: 13.)

FUN FACT: That's 18 more amputations than are in the movie 127 Hours!

And I'm not even counting the amputations that happen off screen that Lucas doesn't show you.

"I miss my leg. Almost as much as I miss that 'wife' I bought.”

And my numbers are actually super low, because I'm only including in my tally characters with names or dialogue. So, no random Clone Troopers, Sand People or Geonosian bug-men.

But I am counting the Wampa. Because, come on. He’s the friggin' Wampa.

In addition, I'm also not totaling the legions upon legions of Battle Droids who get mercilessly hacked into a bajillion pieces because: A) numbers don’t go that high, and B) let’s face it, those irritating fuckers TOTALLY had it coming.

"Roger, roger?” Seriously?! Who says: “Roger, roger”?! AND WHY IS NOBODY HACKING THIS GODDAMN FLOOR LAMP INTO A THOUSAND PIECES RIGHT NOW?!

So, again, only characters with names and/or dialogue.

I'm also not counting anybody who gets stabbed with a lightsaber. Surprisingly, after six movies and over 14 hours of film, this only happens to two named characters. Poor Qui-Gon Jinn, of course, gets his intestines flash boiled by Darth Maul in Episode I. And in Episode III, a Jedi whose name appears to be Agen Kolar (or so the package for his action figure would have us believe) gets gut-lanced by Palpatine in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it "fight" scene that will leave you wondering if it's really all that hard to become a Jedi Knight in the first place.

"Wait! We're starting? No fair! I wasn't ready! While you were leaping 40 feet across the room I was looking up there for some reason!"

(And yes, Yoda does skewer that one Clone Trooper in Episode III, but that guy doesn't have a name, so I'm not counting him. Okay, he might have a name, but we're never told what it is. Was it Carl? It could have been Carl. In any event, I'm not counting him. Sorry. Thoughts and prayers to Carl's family.)

Of all the main characters, C-3PO is the one who gets disarticulated into the most pieces with a whopping 15 chunks -- a total that includes three "hilarious" (read: screechingly unfunny) decapitations in a single sequence in Episode II. However, unlike everybody else, nearly all of his injuries come via blasters. Except that one time in Star Wars when he loses an arm by falling down.

(But then, he was built by a 10-year-old, so ... grain of salt, I guess.)

Tragically, no matter how many times he gets blown to pieces, they never manage to permanently disable the part that allows him to keep bitching.

When it comes to separating folks from their various bits and pieces, picking a champion is tricky. If you're counting total bio-mass, Anakin is your clear first ballot hall-of-famer. Particularly if you count the steaming trail of Geonosian bug-man meat he leaves in his wake. But while Anakin tends to do a lot indiscriminate mass-chopping among the extras pool, it's Obi-Wan who goes straight for the featured players. And as I said earlier, I'm only counting characters with names or dialogue.

So going by my methodology, it's Ben who snatches the trophy, lopping off no less than 8 limbs over the course of the six movies. And that's including one spectacularly unlikely three-for-one slash that deprives Anakin of his three remaining meat-limbs at the end of Episode III.

(Seriously? Three? In one chop? That’s gotta be the Warren Commission’s Magic Bullet of the Star Wars universe.)

Ben's total is all the more impressive when you consider that for two-and-a-half of those six movies he’s a ghost with no chopping powers whatsoever! Surely, in the Jedi netherworld Ben and Anakin are forced to drag around spectral chains of all the limbs they severed in life, Jacob Marley-style.

Not to be out-chopped, Anakin himself manages a pretty nifty three-fer when he goes all Benihana on poor Count Dooku, slicing off both hands before then scissoring off a defenseless old man's head.

"Oh hi, Insult! Have you met Injury?"
Zzzzwwip!
Thud.

FOR CHILDREN.

THESE MOVIES ARE FOR CHILDREN.

Ultimately though, Lucas' final and most significant Star Wars amputation seems to have been himself.

With the sale of Lucasfilm, he's neatly snipped himself off of his lifelong creation/burden, like an errant Jedi appendage.

And by doing so he's given J.J. Abrams two incredibly valuable things.

First, as I've said, he's given him the freedom to play in one of the richest, most iconic and amazingly fun sandboxes in the history of cinema. An opportunity any filmmaker worth their salt would kill for. Especially one like Abrams who came of age in the 70s and 80s simmering in the cinematic bouillabaisse of Lucas and Spielberg.

And second, and perhaps more importantly, he's given Abrams the freedom to totally and utterly fuck it up.

With the Special Editions and the Prequel Trilogy, Lucas has lowered expectations to the point where just about anything Abrams cobbles together will likely be hailed as a victory. Even if Abrams totally muffs it, his worst, most misguided efforts will still likely be a step up in fans' eyes.

That said, it's also plausible this could end up being a legitimately great movie in its own right. Is that a real possibility? I don't know. I'm still a little gunshy. Keeping my expectations reasonable. I'm just hoping for "good."

That would be just fine by me.

That's my new hope.





Till meet we do next ...

Yup. That's It. We're Done. Pack It Up, Everybody.

Every once in a while it's nice to get a little reminder of where you are in the Universe. A reality check, as it were.

It's just helpful to know exactly where you -- and society as a whole -- actually stand in the Grand Scheme of Things.

A little perspective.

For instance, it might interest you to know that right this very minute we are no longer teetering on the precipice between order and chaos, between stability and utter bedlam.

Nope!

We have already plunged headlong into the muck and mire of the End of All Things!

The End Times have arrived, my friends, and everything you've held dear has crumbled to dust!

All bets are off! Tear up those rule books, they don't apply anymore!

Time to start flinging your poop, everybody!

Because apparently nothing goddamn matters anymore!

Yup. That happened.

(And actually continued to happen for several minutes.)

And by the by, this wasn't a kid who didn't know any better. This was a woman in her late 50s to early 60s.

Somebody's mom or grandma.

And there were several employees literally a few yards away! Employees who I'm sure would have been delighted to help her not step all over the damn hot dogs.


It may not be raining hellfire and brimstone just yet, but I think this is pretty solid proof that we are, in fact, living in a Pre-Apocalyptic Wasteland.

So good luck, everybody! And remember, babies have the tenderest meat!



It's my own fault, though. I shouldn't be shopping at Thunderdome.

Two men enter! One man leaves ... with savings!



Till next we meet ...

(Animal) Protection Racket

THE SCENARIO:

It's two in the morning. You're sprawled on the couch, drifting in and out of consciousness. An episode of Forensic Files flickers unwatched across the TV screen ... the oddly comforting white noise of a grisly tale of murder and depravity easing you into slumber.

And then you hear it.

The slow plinking of a very sad piano filters through your haze.

Instantly your eyes SNAP open!

NOOO!!!

With all the grace of a pile of lumber tumbling down a flight of stairs, you lurch up from your repose, scrambling madly for the remote!

You mash all the buttons in blind panic ... desperate to avoid what's coming ...!

But it's too late.

"They call me 'The Night-Ruiner'!"

Before your fumbly, sleep-palsied thumb can find the GO-AWAY button ... you've seen them.

The filthy, the emaciated, the scabrous. Quivering in rusty cages. Their terrified, imploring eyes boring holes straight into your soul.

Like a pitchfork twisting through your guts, reminding you what you already knew ... humans, whether by action or neglect, can be goddamn monsters.


And yup. It's official. Your night is ruined.

Thanks a LOT, Sarah.

(And not only that, you used to like that song! Can you ever hear it again without having a Pavlovian tear-gush response?)

But I have a humble suggestion for Ms. McLachlan and her various cohorts whose seemingly feature-length misery-paloozas haunt my late-night cable box.

I WILL PAY YOU TO STOP.

I mean it.

My proposal:


The ASPCA, Humane Society and other such organizations should band together and launch Kickstarter campaigns in each of the major media markets.

The purpose of the campaign? To raise the funding needed to run their good and vital operations in those regions, of course.

But what do we get if they reach their goal?


They promise NOT to play their horribly upsetting ads in that area.


I suspect I'm like a lot of people out there when I say I would pay cash money to ensure those deeply troubling and tear-inducing ads do not show up on my television. Ever.

The thing is though, their current ads just can't be working very well. Because logically, people who love animals don't want to see soul-searing footage of animals being abused. They're going to change the channel.

In fact, I personally have NEVER seen the end of one of those commercials. Like a lot of people, I've changed the channel long before they've had a chance to make their donation pitch. I wouldn't know where to send the money even if I wanted to.

So why not make a promise that if folks donate enough cash, they'll withhold the thing that so many of us find so horrifying?

If that sounds familiar, it should. That's precisely how a protection racket works.

"Some nice tear ducts you got there. Be a shame if something happened to 'em."

Now I realize this is a dangerous precedent to set. If it worked, other less scrupulous advertisers would surely try to exploit this same tactic to try squeezing money out of a beleaguered public by crafting the most irritating and grating commercials possible. (To be honest, I can't say for sure the people at Intel aren't already setting us up for this right now with those execrable and profoundly unfunny Jim Parsons ads.)

But I'm willing to take that chance.



Now, if the anti-animal cruelty folks wanted to sweeten the deal and really make us love them, they could replace their existing ads with ones featuring cute, hilarious and heart-warming animal footage.

After all, if the Internet has taught us anything (I mean, other than: "never read the comments"), it's that people LOVE LOVE LOVE looking at pictures and videos of adorable cats and dogs.

If they really want people to watch their ads all the way to the end, they need to make it possible for us to watch them all the way to the end.

Because I can say with absolute certainty that you're MUCH more likely to get money out of me by just showing me pictures of, say, this guy for sixty straight seconds:

"You can't look away, can you. And you know what? You don't have to! Yay!"

Seriously, where do I send the check?





Till next we meet ...

The Object of My Affectation

I have no patience for affectation.

Never have.

You know the people I'm talking about. Whether it was the kid from theater camp who always carried the sword cane, or the guy from junior high with the fish ties, or the girl in homeroom who dyed her giant mohawk every color in the rainbow.

Look around your workplace right now. You're bound to spot a guy with a handlebar mustache, or skinny jeans, or sleeve tats, or one of those huge, upsetting tribal-earlobe-disc-things. (Come to think of it, you'll probably find all of those things on the same guy.)

"My neck gets cold." 

"Look-at-me!" behavior has always just rubbed me the wrong way.

Which is pretty ironic.

Because since I could walk I've engaged in nothing but look-at-me behavior.

When I was a kid I was constantly writing, acting, directing, drawing, sculpting, animating, filming, and generally extracurricular-ing my ass off.

On and on it went. You name the activity, I was desperately trying to draw attention to myself by doing it.

But back then you'd never have known I wanted you to look at me just by ... well ... looking at me. The way I dressed or cut my hair was never flashy, unique or even remotely fashionable. My oft repeated mantra was, I wanted BE unique, not LOOK unique. I wanted attention for accomplishing things, not for how I dressed. I never wanted to visually stand out in a crowd. If somebody was going to notice me, I wanted there to be a good goddamned reason.

I wanted to be known for doing, not for shopping.

Which I suppose could be considered commendable.

You know ... if I hadn't been such an unbearable asshole about it.

For some reason, I really felt the need to harangue people who had the temerity to decorate themselves for their personal pleasure. They drove me up the wall and I didn't mind one little bit explaining that to them -- with all the judgmental, acid-tongued sanctimony I could muster.

Which was a lot.

I was a teenager, after all.

From my roost waaaaay up on that high horse, I'd lob long, preachy diatribes down at all sorts of innocent folks whose only crime was engaging me on the subject. Like Deidra -- my high school's version of Mohawk Girl. We'd have long arguments that usually ended with me feeling smugly superior and her feeling shitty and bullied.

(Did I mention that I was mean, pompous little fuck when I was a kid? Well, I was. "Recovering Asshole" isn't meant to be a clever title for the blog. It's more "Science-facty".)


The problem is, it's now thirty years later and while I've somewhat successfully managed to sand down some of the more objectionable corners of my personality, I still can't quite curb that knee-jerk aversion to affectation.

I know how I ought to feel. I ought to be rejoicing that people are celebrating their glorious and beautiful differences and letting their freak flags fly. Because, honestly, I LOVE the beautiful and bountiful banquet of different faces in the world!

I do!

Honestly!

Objectively I know there is nothing wrong with wanting to look different or unique or stylish.

It's not a character flaw.

I know this.

But for some reason I just can't help instinctively recoiling. It's a bone-deep, lizard-brain reaction that I've never been able to shake.

And it's swollen over the years, into a kind of blue-collar snobbery.

It's actually become a point of pride for me (rather than shame, as it probably should), that I own just one solitary necktie. An inexpensive accessory that I had my father tie for me about 20 years ago, that I loosen and tighten as the occasion dictates.

"No. Mr. Grey will not see you now. Go torture-sex yourself, you unprofessional shit-heel."

My lower middle class upbringing (or more accurately upper lower class) taught me early and often that money wasn't free. And since I've never had any, trendy clothes and haircuts have always been the equivalent of the expensive dishes that were on that page of the menu we weren't allowed to order from.

So I've never been able to stomach the idea of spending money on pricey outfits just because some magazine said I should. (Also, let's face it, the Fashion Industrial Complex is responsible for perpetuating some pretty awful things in our culture, so defying them can't be so bad.)

(Plus, as I've pointed out previously, I am in fact shaped like a mailbox made of meat. So there's a fair amount of fashion (read: all of it) that isn't tailored for my body type anyway.)

So it's all cargo pants and tee-shirts for me. Unfashionable in any decade.

"Dress for the job you want," the old axiom goes. And a cursory glance at me should tell you I apparently want to be homeless. Or a writer. (Not mutually exclusive, I suppose. Also both equally likely.)

Such is the level of my reflexive bias that simply "dressing like a professional" in my mind has become akin to "showing up at work in mutton-chops and a monocle."

"We're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports now, wut-wut. Bumbershoots!" 

But all of that is prologue.


Because The Universe has tossed me a bit of a brain grenade recently.


An extremely worrying thought crossed my mind the other day:

What if my staunch anti-affectation stance is actually an affectation unto itself?

Oh.

Shit.

"Well, that sure looks delicious! Better start swallowing until I wink out of existence in a puff of well-earned, self-absorbed karmic retribution!"

Well, if the hypocrisy fits, I guess I have to wear it.



(sigh)



Suppose I'd better start shopping for a top hat and a unicycle.

And I gotta call my dad. Gonna need him to tie my new fish tie.




Shit.




Somewhere, I hope a smile just curled across Deidra's pierced lips. It's been a long time coming.




Till next we meet ...