Good Quitting

Humblebrag time, kids. 

I was a smoker for a long time. I'm not proud of that. At all. What I am proud of is the fact that, with surprisingly little fuss, I was able to walk away from such a damaging and draining habit. If you happen to have fallen victim to the same bad habit, I strongly encourage you to do the same. 

Funny thing is, when I look back at why I started, it was absolutely for the stereotypical reasons. When you get down to the honest truth...it felt good and I thought it made me look cool. Sad, huh? I was a misguided, self-assured teenager with self-esteem issues. Also, it gave me something to do with my hands and afforded me an out in a lot of social situations. It was really stupid but I simply did not care about the repercussions at the time. Again, I'm not proud of it but it does help me understand the folly of youth. 

This was at a time when you could still smoke indoors. I recall the fondness for a specific restaurant in college that not only was open late but had a smoking section. There was some concern among fellow smokers when the smoking ban was first passed, but even at the time I knew it made sense. I had worked in  bars and restaurants prior to the ban. After my shift would be over, I would very badly want a cigarette but my lungs burned badly enough from second hand smoke that it would actually be unpleasant to light up. That may have been the first sign that maybe this wasn't the best thing for me to be doing. 

I was, for the entire duration as a smoker, a young person in reasonably decent health. That is, until I hit a tipping point. I mentioned in my last piece about dealing with a prescription that caused some excessive weight gain. When you add the smoking and weight gain on to a typical amount of collegiate imbibing, what was once a healthy young athlete's body was quickly transformed into the worst version of myself. I was a fat mess. Straight up. I ate terribly and felt terrible. All of these bad habits were suddenly catching up with me very fast. I vividly recall the stinging humiliation I felt when a friend of mine audibly noticed (in the middle of a party, to my horror) that I looked pregnant. I had, seemingly out of nowhere, acquired a huge gut. Rather than face my lifestyle choices, I instead chose to disarm any observance of poor health with self-disparaging jokes. I was the first one to point out my poor physique, as if my joking about it would grant acceptance or somehow overcome the fact that I looked and felt like a big sack of gross. 

The slow, steady turn around all started with my better half and my instinct to make a promise before I determine whether or not I can keep it. 

She hated my smoking, and I can not fault her at all for doing so. The simple fact that she dated me while I did so speaks volumes for her patience and ability to see the best in everyone. As New Year's Eve approached one year, I was once again asked about when I would quit. I dismissively remarked "...after New Year's, I guess." I just assumed I'd try and see how it went. It was less than a week away and I hadn't really planned for it. I got the patch and the gum and just kind of....stopped. I remember having my last one and thinking "Ok, no more." That was it. No big moment, just deciding I wasn't going to do it anymore. The patch and gum made me feel sick, so I stopped leaning on them. In a matter of days, I was essentially cold turkey.

Sure, the first couple days sucked. I was crabby and felt terrible. Worse than before. I remember peeling the label off of every bottle of beer around me. But then I rounded the corner. Suddenly food tasted amazing. Turns out your sense of smell and taste are so dulled by smoking that you forget what they are really capable of. Strangely enough, I didn't have any temptation to start back up. It was a bad habit I was just walking away from, for which I felt incredibly lucky. Not everyone experiences the same quitting process, but to anyone wired similar to me - it is completely possible to stop, if you really want to. I've never really wanted another one, to be honest. I miss having something to do with my hands in social situations, but hey - smart phones are a fantastic replacement. 

Once I was done smoking, everything else tumbled into place. I slowly realized I could change myself. Looking in the mirror after stepping on a scale, I vowed to change myself. I decided I didn't want to be fat for the rest of my life. I wanted to be the thin, healthy person I used to be. I wanted to be able to go outside without sweating and buy clothes without sacrificing my dignity to pants that wouldn't button. As a dude, I didn't want to have boobs. Yeah. I had some moobs. 

So, like quitting smoking, one day I decided I was going to get fit again. 

I stopped eating fast food and started bringing salads to the office. I stopped drinking soda altogether (sidebar - you want caffeine? Stop with soda, coffee has way more in it). Much like when Homer Simpson started working out, I began running in the early morning, when no one would point and laugh and see me jiggle. The weight peeled right off. It might be infuriating for some people to read this, but please - know that it's not bragging. It's me sharing how I got my life back in order after years of unhealthy living. I just wanted it bad enough to stick with it. I absolutely would indulge every now and then. Having a better half who is a phenomenal cook necessitates the occasional treat. Apple crisp in the fall. The Greek yogurt with honey. I have a serious sweet tooth. I had to learn moderation and self control.


From highest high to lowest low (which I had to back off from, after getting too skeletal towards the bottom) I dropped somewhere around 90lbs. It's been years and it's all stayed off. A former coworker once snidely told me she expected me to slowly let the weight creep back on after I got married, just like her husband. I remember how mad and hurt I was. Other peoples failures had no impact on me. Like I said, it's been years and I still look better than I did when I graduated from college.


It takes constant maintenance, but it has absolutely been worth the effort. I enjoy my life so much more, now, as a healthy person. It hasn't been a life ruining change - food is awesome, and what I eat now is so much more delicious than anything I ate when I was out of shape. It's just exercising and eating right. 


And not smoking. That stuff will kill you.

On Malaise

I should start this off by saying things are never as bad as they may have seemed. 

The thing is, I've had the mixed blessing of suffering from depression for most of my life. It's only a mix in that you at least get the peaks with the valleys, a fuller range of the emotional spectrum. For as long as I can recall, there has been this lingering presence, lurking just beyond the boundaries of my perception. It waits for the right moment, then steals back into my mind like a squatter waiting for the opportunity. I know it's always out there, waiting for just the right moment of weakness that affords it a foothold in my life. 

It wasn't always as intense as it has been in the last few years. As a child it manifested more as a sense of isolation and detachment. This may sound like it borders on solipsism, but there was always a feeling as a child that I was the only one suffering from these feelings, as though all the other kids were running around, oblivious to a whole subset of feelings that dragged down a youthful exuberance into quiet solitude. I didn't fit in. I was weird. The older I grew, the more pronounced it became. By the time I hit middle school there were month long fugues that, when coupled with teenage hormones and a burgeoning sense of identity, left me wanting to live my life curled up in a ball. Going to school was an exercise in coping with anxiety and pressure that didn't seem to alleviate until I transferred to a much smaller school. The smaller school, though, had more constricted and closed social circles which further isolated me. 

Entering high school saw the emotional sine wave elongate, but not ameliorate. I would have long stretches of unbridled idiotic giddiness followed by unrelenting turmoil. There was a lot of up and down, with the few level times feeling like boredom rather than normal life. I suppose, though, that such wild all-or-nothing mood swings are a part of teenage life. At this point I became more aware of having pronounced depression, and began seeing a counselor. It helped articulate what I was experiencing. It put a spotlight on the darkness covering my mind. Although I was generally unhappy with my geographical location, I was becoming happier with who I was. 

College made it worse. I was on my own and free to deal with the world at large as I saw fit. This brought about massive amounts of self doubt and social anxiety. I really struggled to cope with who I was, what I was doing, where I was going with my life. I lost a sense of purpose. Seeking further help, I started taking anti-depressants. They seemed to alleviate the problem, but it felt like the solution was a chemical lobotomy of sorts. I felt like a zombie. I had no highs or lows. Any sort of creativity I previously possessed dried up almost as soon as the pills started to take effect. Along with this new found fog was the rapid change in health. I ballooned up to well over 220lbs, having previously never passed north of 160. I hated it worse than the depression. 

In a move of inspired idiocy, I simply up and stopped taking my medication. When I graduated, I stopped seeing the counselors I had seen previously. Slowly but surely, I found myself taking solitary steps to improve myself. They were hardly intentional steps, and certainly not coordinated in any way. They came almost as instinctive acts of self preservation. I moved to a new place in a part of the city that brought me out of my shell. I found work that had regular, steady hours instead of erratic retail schedules. I had a better half who always tried to see the best in people, which slowly (unbeknownst to me) began to rub off on me. I quit smoking. I started to eat better. I even started exercising. Bit by bit, I took steps to improve the person I was stuck being. I was realizing that, even if I had to be me for the rest of whatever life I chose, I could at least make the best version of me that I could. 

Years later, I find myself in the best health of my life, with a stronger outlook than I can recall ever possessing. This doesn't mean I'm free from depression, however. It still returns, often when I'm least expecting, and stronger and more pronounced than it ever did in my youth. It's a sense of pointlessness and futility that begins to strip away zeal and confidence. I feel the bottom drop out and I become heavy with arbitrary despair. The difference now, though, is that I can recognize it. Whereas in my youth I would isolate myself and rail against the world, now I have an understanding of what's happening. Where it used to sink its claws deep into my psyche, now I can push the demon back and keep it at bay when it strikes. Longer, more pronounced bouts are more rare. 

It still comes back to visit, and I don't think I'll ever be free from such pronounced depression. My understanding of the situation has me thinking that it really isn't a chemical imbalance but a mindset, an awareness of my place in the universe that sometimes becomes overwhelming. The further I've delved into the magnitude and nature of the cosmos, the more I feel humbled and insignificant. Whether that is the root cause is subject for another post. I think, though, that I am in a good place that allows me a greater perspective on a life-long struggle. I appreciate my life so much more now than I ever have. No matter how depressed I become, I am always thankful for my life, unhappiness and joy and all.

Not Like That

Viral.

Viral, viral, viral.

I've been thinking a lot about that word these last few days. Not in the sense of desperate ad men, chasing after the most recent buzz word theyve glommed onto. Side-bar: you can't arbitrarily shoot for your campaign or video 'going viral' dummy, that's the point of the concept. It happens unintentionally and without reason. Rant over. No, the viral I've been thinking about is the bad kind. The kind that makes you question every sore throat and itchy eye.

Like the Plum Island kind of viral.

I found a book. I think maybe I gave it to my father in law for a birthday. How quaint, right? A paper book! It was an exposé on the secrets and history of Lab 257 on Plum Island, out past Long Island. It has a strong whiff of conspiratorial cloak and dagger to it, but it was still a fun, gripping jaunt down the rabbit hole into a world of viruses and germ warfare I assumed only existed in Resident Evil games. If you ever read my post on the paranormal-focused podcast Mysterious Universe, you would know I have a strong inclination for the unknown and whispered about. The things that go bump in the night. Plum Island is the kind of place born of the mind of a fevered fiction writer, not the stern, sober minds of the United States Armed Forces. It's long been rumored to be home to horrifying experiments and animal testing. While the white-coats there aren't creating something for the Umbrella Corporation, they still do work with some of the deadliest pathogens known to man.

So here we are. That's a real place.

Lab 257, written and researched by Michael Christopher Carroll, is an expose that dates back to just after WWII. It's common knowledge we brought over Nazi scientists to build the rockets for our burgeoning space program. It's less commonly known that we brought over the best and most creative virologists to develop the latest thing: germs. 

This tiny little island, off the coast of New England, is home to labs that not only house some of the most deadly viri and bacteria in the world, but some of the most appallingly lax security. It used to be strong, mind you. Carroll's exhaustive history tells of elaborate and maddening levels of decontaminization coupled with strict protocol. All of this seemed to go out the window when the US Army pulled out of the facilities and handed control over to the USDA. Yes, that USDA. Whereas the Army would snipe the deer that would occasionally swim to the island (and possibly carry infected bugs off with them, because why not?) the USDA would just not deal with it. The manner in which Carroll lays out the facts and history here, you begin to see how not only Lyme's disease, but also the West Nile virus spread from the supposedly safe facilities. Also, the numerous security lapses and de-con failures are staggering. Straight up raw sewage, laden with still hot germs, was being dumped for years into what used to be fertile coast line.

Crazy stuff.

You've got to read this book. It is a page turner in the absolute best way. It's the kind of book where you come in to it with an incredulous attitude, only to find yourself flipping furiously through the pages and thinking 'No way would the government let this happen'. Yet it totally did. Read up! It's fascinating.

Video Playback

Recently while running errands with my better half, we passed the remains of what used to be a Blockbuster Video store. Noting that there had been signs hung stating they were going out of business and had to sell off their inventory, we began to reminisce over a tradition that is no more. 

"Think of explaining all that to our kids someday," she said. "What a strange thing to have to do, like using a rotary phone." 

She was totally right. You don't think about it so much now, but it was a funny thing to have to do. Friday night, you and your friends would all pile into one car, drive to a store and wander around, arguing over what movie you wanted to see. If it was taken, you couldn't see that movie and had to pick something else. How strange does that seem now? We have wide spread systems called Watch Instantly and On Demand. There used to just be a single copy of a movie at the rental places and if it was gone - tough luck! On top of that, you usually only had one night to watch it. No planning ahead. You had to go get it, watch it and drop it off the next day. That seems like a weird pressure to have for enjoying a movie. However, being out and about did afford an opportunity (or, more likely, an excuse) to stop and grab snacks for the movie. This little benefit seems to be offset by the fact that if the weather was bad (as it could be in winter) then you had to weigh the risk/reward for venturing out. That is how people got sick of watching the movies they owned. 

As weird as this little ritual used to be, I am a bit sad to see it go away. I can recall a lot of good times from goofing around in the video store, as well as the unexpected surprise of my mom saying "Oh, I rented a movie for you while I was out." How nice was that? I wasn't always out doing things with friends, particularly before I had my license, so these unexpected movies were a great treat. My mom would randomly stop by the video rental place and grab something for me or my younger brother. That is something I'll never be able to do for my kids. Instead I'll have to sit them down and say "You're going to watch The Goonies and you're going to like it!" Who am I kidding? That will never happen. They won't be able to have an attention span long enough. Neither will I, really. 

Random surprise movies were fun. That was the only reason I saw (oof) The Phantom Menace when I was younger. Also, here's a confession - one time, the surprise movie was The Princess Diaries. Yes. You read that right. I'm not ashamed of it. I had some qualms about watching a girly Disney movie, but in my defense, I was severely grounded and it starred a little-known actress named Anne Hathaway. It wasn't bad, actually. Maybe my teenage sensibilities and a burgeoning crush were more forgiving than my current palate. Then again, I can cop to a spotty track record for hits and misses in pop culture. 

There was also the small joy of asking "Hey mom, if you're out and about today, could you pick up this movie for me?" Sitting in the basement and going through a mental queue of movies was my own precursor to Netflix. There was one snowy night I made a point of watching Reservoir Dogs and Chasing Amy, which felt at the time like the most independent and out there movies in the world. What an adorably sheltered life I led. 

I guess that's the way it goes, though. Time and technology march on. When I was a teenager I couldn't have possibly hoped for anything like I have now. Last night, when I couldn't sleep, I sat in bed watching an episode of The X Files on my iPad. Not only was I freed from the time and location restrictions of a TV, I had an overwhelming amount of choices of what to watch. We are absolutely spoiled when it comes to media and consumption. I'll keep that in mind the next time I feel nostalgic about the dearth of old habits or the prices of a movie ticket. 

Extinction

I had a revelation this morning. 

The past two nights have afforded me something quite rare and unusual - an uninterrupted hour, each night, with which I was able to indulge my fading passion for video games. That may not sound like such an occurrence, but it actually has given me quite a bit of insight into my behavior and tendencies as a gamer as I've gotten older. What I've realized, on further reflection, is that I am quite the outdated dinosaur when it comes to games. Allow me to explain. 

I'm not ready for the retirement home, but I'm no spring chicken, either. The closer I edge to the big 3-0, the more I realize (thanks to steady employment and scrupulous saving) that time, not money, is the commodity now. I could buy a game or console on launch day, sure, but when would I ever have time to play it? I'm up before six, not home from the office until six at night, and in bed by ten. If you account for cooking (yes, that is possible and actually necessary for good health) and running, let alone the things necessary for the next day like doing dishes and laundry and cleaning the cat box, there's so little time that I find it amazing I get anything done at all. I don't even have kids. I want to enjoy the evening with my better half. Sure, I could pull a late night marathon session, but at this point in my life I'd rather be well rested than at the next level, of which only I would care. 

Which brings me to my next point - I am absolutely of the old guard when it comes to gaming. I have taken my 360 (which I only purchased in 2010) online once. That single foray into online gaming wasn't even to play with others - it was to update the console and download a game. That game? An re-working of the decade old N64 choking Perfect Dark. It barely ran on that old system, now it looks fantastic when running at 1080p and 60 fps. I don't want to play with a bunch of people who are online incessantly, insanely better than me and more likely than not to spend the entire time belittling me with xenophobic slurs. Why should I put up with that? The games I play are completely solo endeavors, as is the nature of the experience. My preferred experience is a huge TV in a darkened room with some headphones, and maybe a glass of wine to steady the nerves. The games I'm playing hardly have any mutli-player of which to play. Other people would just take me out of the moment. 

Not only am I an isolated gamer, I can't play for very long anymore, these days. I remember a sleepless series of nights in college while I waited to have a root canal dealt with. I coped with insomnia by working my way through Resident Evil 2, front to back in all permutations of the plot. If that happened now, I'd be risking my job by coming in as a sleepwalker. The most I can sit and play is an hour. After that, my joints start to hurt and my eyes burn. I either have to take a break and walk around or just call it quits for the night. At this point in my life I feel like gaming is such an indulgence that more than an hour or two a week is time that could be better spent writing, reading, cooking, cleaning, running. Really, the guilt accumulates just as the saved games do. 

On top of this is the recent realization that I have moral quandaries about the games I play. I want nothing to do with pretending to be a soldier in the midst of a horrible war. I don't want to inflict pain or cruelty onto others unless the game requires it to progress. Life is hard and nasty enough, I don't want my downtime filled with unsettling moral choices and wanton destruction. Sounds pretentious, I know, but I prefer games that tell a story and have a reason for the madness, not mindless 'point and shoot'. Bioshock had an amazing story and surreal artwork to bolster the experience. Arkham Asylum let me indulge my childhood obsession with Batman delivering justice. Alan Wake was a spooky trip through a world quite similar to Twin Peaks. I recall playing Dead Rising and feeling kind of exhausted and wrung out after the despair and death in that game, just from the first hour or so. I love it, but more for the Romero-esque fantasy than seeing the imagery. Forget Call of Duty. Give me a story. 

Realizing I'm not a modern gamer has helped me reconcile my fading habit with my current life. I don't mind not being as culturally relevant as I used to. The industry is a juggernaut. It's more a realization that my tastes and habits are changing, ever so slightly, in ways that I only occasionally pick up on. I would have thought that this would make me sad to see, that not gaming as much meant I was getting old and stiff and boring. Instead, I love who I am more and more, I just appreciate my time and what I do with it more. Time is the commodity. I'm not going to make anyone watch me play a a game any more than I would make them watch a movie they can't stand. It's all much more personal for me, as a result. I get a personal, private adventure. The scarcity makes it all the more memorable. 

About (Jerk) Face

I really thought I was funny.


I hindsight I can say with confidence that it was not the case. In my last post I extolled the virtues of being genuine and kind, all while getting the sneaking suspicion the world at large wasn't such a kind place. Upon further reflection, I have concluded that while I may not have been one of the dudes, or bro if that suits you better, I definitely was a teenaged dick. At the time it may have been intentional, though not for the reasons I thought. Like many, if not all, teenaged males, I thought I could be the most hilarious person in the room. At least, I made an effort to be. While there was a fair amount of parroting SNL skits and quoting standup routines, there were a lot of times where I straight up bagged on people with little to no provocation.


That makes me cringe a bit. I don't really know where it stemmed from. I'm sure a fair amount of it sprang from adolescent insecurity and a desire to be accepted. There was also a subconscious desire to establish a personality and look cool to everyone. After all, doesn't everyone like the guy who makes everyone laugh? I thought so. The more I think about it as high school recedes farther in to the past, I get the sense I wasn't ever very funny, but just a dick.


On top of this, I probably was more popular than I realized. While that clearly smacks of Humblebrag, it only stands to further illustrate the disconnect between perception and reality. I think I had assumed, based on a couple rough years in junior high, that I was a social misfit. I'm sure I was as weird as anyone else could be, I just didn't hide it as well. What I convinced myself was shunning or social neglect was most likely my own low self esteem and self absorption manifesting in justification and ascribing intention to actions from others. In short, I probably made it all up. It's a clear cut case of Liz Lemon Syndrome.


So why all this? Why the post on trivialities of high school social burdens?


Simple.


I don't like who I was or how I acted, and there are too many people to apologize to individually. The more I think about how much I teased other kids, for what I thought was innocuous ribbing, I curse myself at the thought of my behavior. I was engaging in what I thought would make me more popular with the right kids. Instead, I was hurting feelings and probably embarrassing people. I'm not saying I was mercilessly tormenting defenseless kids, but I was definitely responsible for making people feel bad about themselves on more than a handful of occasions. Not some grand orchestrated prank, but more the kind of thing where you look back and think "Why would I do that? I would never do that now..."


Maybe that's what growing up is - realizing you were a jerk when you thought you were the victim. On top of that is the understanding that you can't take things back. I haven't seen almost any of my classmates in about ten years, so I doubt there's been little to change their minds about me. But there I go again - I'm vainly assuming that anyone from that time still is thinking about me in the slightest.

Face Paint

I remember the first time I really saw through male posturing. 

I was a freshman in high school, firmly rooted in my awkward phase of coming all-too-early into my adult body. I was a tall, gangly kid with long hair who had little to no athletic skills of any note. At that age, such a lack of skills, when coupled with unconventional tastes, make for poor socializing in a small Midwestern town. I didn't fit in, obviously. I had a few friends, but this was still at the age where they sprang more from geographical proximity rather than shared interest. Sure, we all dug video games and adolescent movies, but I still stood firmly apart from the group of dude's dudes who loved football and baseball more than anything else. I was the weird one, the bookish one, the nerdy one. 

It was Halloween night, which fell on a Saturday. Being in that awkward time of too old to trick or treat and too young to drive, we had nothing better to do than go over to Beef's house and play video games and eat junk food. Yes, if you're wondering - Beef was his known name. It was a bit of unfortunate nick-naming from a baseball coach who assigned everyone of his favorite players food themed monikers (Fries, Shake, who knows what else). None of the other ones stuck, of course, but this kid was known as Beef by all, even teachers, well past his teens. So we're at Beef's house, being freshman with nothing better to do, when his older brother and his friends stop in on their rounds of mysterious and tantalizing mischief. They were smoking on the back deck, regaling us with tales of paintball related antics when one of the friends, a short, stout, run of the mill bro, decided to toilet paper a neighbor's house. They all slinked off together to do the deed while we waited in awe on the back deck, the lot of us jealous of their hijinx and attitudes. 

Shortly after they left, a few came sprinting back to the deck. The excitedly told us of how local law enforcement had spotted them in the act and had tried to track them down. Rolling my eyes at the bravado, I stepped inside to get a soda. That's when the other older kids opened fire with their paintball guns. Sounding like a series of popping balloons, my friends were pelted by a hail of shots that left bruises and the occasional blood blister. When the good natured assault ended and the upperclassmen emerged from the shrubs, everyone had a good laugh about it, to my surprise. It looked like it hurt. Having been paintballing years later, I can attest it would definitely hurt on a cold night much more than it would during the summer days I tried it. When the upper classmen saw me emerge from the house, unscathed, they were upset. 

"Aw man," they complained. "We were gunning for Toycen!" 

I have no idea what, if anything, I had done to incur their wrath. I probably just looked like a dork and a great big, goony target. I get it. You want to pelt the awkward kid. The Bill Haverchuck. It's the natural way of the world. Nothing bad happened after that, they just had really wanted to nail me in particular. 

That wasn't the moment, though. As much of a revelation that it was for the upper classmen to arbitrarily open fire on us, it was almost par for the course. I was an outsider and I had an older brother with whom I would scrap. Again, big fish eats the little one, I get it. The watershed moment for me was hearing the same dude who started the prank regale his buddies with his concocted anecdote about the police chasing after him. I forget the start of it, but the words that I locked onto centered around his description of what the cop did when he saw him. 

He said "...and the cop flicked on his blueberries and cherries and peeled off after me. That's when I ran back here to wait it out." 

It still stands out to me, over a decade later, as complete bullshit. 

Look at it - 'blueberries and cherries'. That's how he referred to the lights. The unspoken assumption that he, and all of his friends, had dealt so much with the police that there was not only a short hand phrase for the lights on top of the car, but one that was actually five syllables longer than the word 'lights'. To give better context and more fully explain why this bothers me, here is the full scene: a bunch of middle class white kids in a small town in Wisconsin, none of whom had ever been accosted by the police. Two of whom were the sons of an actual officer. No girls were present. No prize was on the line. Just dudes being dudes. Despite all of this, there was still the subconscious desire for a few of them to put on airs and act tough. 

It drove me crazy then and it still does now. 

I remember throwing a sideways glance at the phrase, seeing if anyone else took note of the high bullshit quotient. No one skipped a beat. Others nodded along, because of course they spent all of their free time running from the police. They were bad ass, man. Hardcore. Not sheltered and posturing at all. That's when it clicked in my head - I didn't have to feel nerdy and nebbish. They were just as unsure about life as I was, they just made a big show of why they were big men. That's why I stood out - I wasn't pretending. I was just being nice, because I thought other people were trying to be nice too. "Oh," I realized, "even though they're all friends, these dudes are still insecure."


To this day, this memory stands out as a clear example of why I don't fit in with dudes and bros. I always thought you could just be nice to people and they would, by nature, be nice back. It hadn't occurred to me that people would just make stuff up and pretend to be something they weren't. I still try to be nice. I still don't see the harm in being genuine. 

Home Again

Kevin Mcallister must have been an anti-social nerd.


I realize that this stance on Home Alone sounds harsh, but hear me out. As is the annual tradition, we were watching the 21 year old movie tonight when I noticed a trend in the movie that hadn't picked up on before. You see Kevin building all of his gadgets and traps and have him talking about making ornaments with the forbidden glue gun and his dads new fish hooks.


This all makes for fitting foreshadowing to the madness that follows in the second half of the movie, but it also shows his ingenuity in Macgayver-ing his schemes. The whole thing with the mannequins as a faux party to throw the set bandits off his scent? Inspired stuff, I wouldn't have thought about that now, let alone at eight years old. So his gearhead/crafty nerd side is firmly in place.


But here's the other thing - I don't think Kevin has any friends. Not once in the three day ordeal does he think to call a friend. I'm not saying I'm throwing a ripper the minute my family disappears (actually, I did do that in high school...once) but never in his folly did he think about calling a buddy? Sure, everybody in the immediate neighborhood was out but that doesn't mean Chicago was empty. Furthermore, are there no Jews in Chicago? Not everyone is tied down for the holiday. So no friends came over, not even the kid from across the street, the talky one whose fault it was anyway.


Poor, misunderstood Kevin Mcallister. No friends and a nerdy passion for building contraptions and booby traps. He endured his darkest hour, a Twilight Zone scenario that saw him unleashing his crafty talent to save his own life. The Looney Tunes action turned dark at the last minute, with Joe Pesci threatening to bite of Kevin's fingers. Yeah, it got kind of weird there as the Wet Bandits hit the end of their rope.


They never stood a chance against that adorable little nerd, though.

High Pitched Noises

Yo.


Xmas Xceptions. Let's do this.


How about a thing that revamps a classic? Sound good? Cool. This may not curry favor with some readers, but I actually am a sucker for the Chipmunks song 'Christmas Don't Be Late'. I don't even know how this happened, to be honest. I think it just happened to be on a holiday collection my mom had and I picked it up through osmosis. My brothers and I used to have a good laugh over how ridiculous it was. Somehow it grew on me and now I find myself singing along when that insipid piece of strangeness, made by one guy back in 1958, comes on the radio. What makes it more palatable is an equally obscure cover of the novelty song by Powder, a long-dissolved Britpop band.

Powder only existed for a few years in the mid 90s, releasing a handful of singles before throwing in the towel. At some point during their brief existence they cut a heavy, melodic (and substantially less cloying) version of 'Christmas Don't Be Late'. Featuring Pearl Lowe's lush vocals, the song became a more relatable, plausible holiday song when re-contextualized. Now instead of pitch-shifted (actually just sped-up) one-man harmonies, it was a heavy, rocking version featuring fully fuzzed, bloated bass lines and the occasional squealing guitar lead. Actually, when they get to the hula-hoop line, it's pretty damn catchy. 

I only came upon this version of the song years after the fact, first as a bit of a guilty pleasure. Now, though, I don't like to think of things I like as guilty pleasures. I just like to own up to what I dig, including an oddball revamp of an oddball song. Sure, call it cutesy or not relevant, but it's a damn sight better than hearing the same 15 or so Christmas songs ad nauseum. Give it a spin and see if it doesn't add a little fresh air to your Xmas Xceptions. Less rodents this season, more guitars.

Box Out

These things have a way of bleeding into each other. 


It's been a fun weekend. As much as I enjoy parties, especially holiday ones with special drinks, I had just as much fun doing errands with my better half. Somehow we always get lost in Target and end up wandering around looking for something we've passed. It's like a casino in there - shiny stuff everywhere, tons of other weirdos and no clocks or visible exits. As I write this, the melted snow and ice are slowly re-freezing. I'm not looking forward to the drive tomorrow. It's nice and dark and quiet here. It makes me want to go and re-experience Outside the Box. 

Outside the Box is one of my favorite not-so-secret things on the internet. An online flash comic (wait, please stay with me for this) created by Brendan Cahill, Outside the Box is a great way to spend a quiet night. Cahill, hailing from San Francisco  created the strip/site/flashthing back in 2002, with the first run closing out in 2004. A one shot and second run followed in the ensuing years. It's not a strict re-paneling like some of Marvel's online content, or single page, three panel affairs like Penny Arcade or The Oatmeal. Box is a moving, vibrant noir tale that just has this unassuming but totally surprising edge to it. 


Telling the tale of office drone Jamie Black as he gets caught up in the world of private detectives and mobsters and the recently deceased, Box is a solid story told in an original format. It could work as a traditional format, but the way Cahill took advantage of the limited movement gives a whole added layer of context and storytelling to this mystery. Subtle tricks like shadows moving or showing characters moving through blueprints add a cinematic aspect that would otherwise be lost on a conventional comic. Through the novel medium, we see Black slowly separate from his office job as he gets pulled deeper and deeper into the mystery unfolding around him.

A nice touch on Cahill's part was the inclusion of suggested soundtracks. More than a handful have been covered here, the usual trip hop and down tempo stuff, as well as more off the beaten path artists like Two Lone Swordsmen. Throw on some of your favorite sneaking, gumshoe-esque tunes and dive in to the motion comic. It really paid off in the end. While it may be old hand in internet parlance, it still makes for a fun, gripping ride.

Good Catch

What's good?


I'm heading out to what will be the first of a slew of holiday parties tonight. I mean, the first of the season. No party hopping for me. Just getting a jump on the season. Super excited, no joke. While I get ready, I plan on listening to something a bit odd, a lost song that fell through the cracks of the world in the 90s. It's one of my favorite hidden gems. I got it on a CD that was given to me by my older brother's friend back when I was an impressionable youth and everything everyone older than me did was irrevocably cool. 

This friend of the older, benevolent brother was as constant a source of new tunes as my brother. When he sold me a stack of CDs he longer listened to, I was (for no discernible reason) really enthralled by a sampler for a label based in New York. For years after, I was unable to find any information on who or what the album was. Only in the last few years has relevant info popped up on the Googles. At the time, though, it was this inscrutable oddity - no real story or explanation as to what it was, just a random label sampler. Sure, there were some stinkers on there, but there were some great hidden gems, too. It was from Grass Records, which later evolved into Wind-Up, which kind of solves that little riddle. According to the Wiki, there were financial problems, which may account for the lack of any information whatsoever. The sampler was called Grass of '96 and it featured what must have been the new artists of that year. 

My favorite track off the sampler was (of course) similar to Sneaker Pimps, Portishead and Massive Attack. Performing a song called 'Catch Me', Chimera popped into my life with this lone single and disappeared without a trace. From what I've found, they were an Irish band that existed long enough to put out a few albums but never had much mainstream success here in the states. Too bad, because I really still dig this song. It's always felt a bit like the typical 90s alt sound, a bit of looped drums (how edgy!) and some caterwauling distortion beneath a clean, spacey guitar line. Singer Eileen Henry had a fine voice, nothing crazy but just fine for the song, clear and emotive, high and light. 


There's no big, startling revelation to this song, or a dramatic memory attached to it. Just something that was always odd and it stood out to me as something that should have had broader success than (seemingly) me being the only person to ever hear it. I guess I got the sampler around fall/winter, so it pops back into my mind this time of year. Give it a listen and see what I'm rambling about. Hopefully you dig it like I did.

Deep Thoughts

So here we find ourselves, back at the weekend.


This week was incredibly busy. It was one of those weeks where you glance at the clock and resign yourself to the simple fact that there aren't enough hours in the day. I'm okay with that,, though. It just means the days pass quickly and I have productive time at the office. Still, most nights this eek I came home with eye strain from staring at my monitor and a sore, cramped back from hunching as I crunch spreadsheets down. Fun stuff. I need to unwind, get out of my head for just a bit. To do so, I want to indulge in a secret, somewhat nerdy obsession of mine.

I love the ocean. Not just any ocean. All of them. It's the monumental concept of such a strange, alien place that fascinates my mind so. There's this completely and inherently different world that exists just beyond ours, beneath the waves. A place that makes no sense to our bipedal form, a place that was simply not made for us. We are not meant to be there. There are monsters there. How can you have any interest in the world around you and not be fascinated by this beautifully obtuse realm? Don't buy it? Fine. Watch Oceans, produced by Disneynature and tell me I'm wrong.

I saw the trailer for this doc back in 2009, just before it was released. Sitting in the dark of the theater, grinning in childlike glee, I tapped on my better half's arm excitedly, whispering "I have to see that!" While I may have missed it in the theaters due to schedule conflicts, it was one of the first Blu Rays I ever bought. Holy Hannah am I glad I did.

Oceans plays straight to my inner geek while soothing my overstimulated mind. Narrated by Pierce Brosnan, the documentary shows the beauty and allure of a place we simply cannot inhabit. Massive, sweeping vistas show the enormity of the world around us to create a sense of scale, only for the camera to plunge deeper and deeper into the abyss. Overwhelming schools of fish swirl around like tornadoes. Birds dive bomb the upper layers. An endless sea of crustaceans make the mind reel at the enormity of the fauna beneath the waves. We think of big blue sea, but its teeming with life where we least expect it. Scariest, or perhaps most majestic, of all are the whales. My mind simply cannot fathom sharing the planet with such gargantuan, intelligent creatures. The thought that there are things like that in the briny depths keeps me wary about boarding ocean liners, to be perfectly honest. They are smart, gentle and mammals, somehow. None of that makes any sense to my primitive mind. Seeing it all in high definition in the privacy of my own home, wine in hand, made it all the more engaging and captivating.

Disney's Oceans is a serene, cerebral look at a world that absolutely mystifies me. It's the perfect kind of documentary to help me blow off the steam of the week. I'd you haven't seen it, I highly recommend at least streaming it on Netflix. Go HD if you really want to see the depths from the comfort of your couch. I'll unwind. You go diving.

Police State

Okay.


Alright.


So, I'm in.


I had heard the buzz about Polica for a while. As bummed as I was about the disolution of local folk husband-and-wife outfit Roma di Luna, there was a bright spot on the horizon. While Alexi was free to return to his main ouevre as part of Kill The Vultures, his wife Channy Leaneagh teamed up with Chris Bierden, Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu to record a full length album under the name Polica. Funny thing is, they did this without playing a proper show in Minnesota. Before the album even comes out, though, there has been a massive buzz around the band. Just a couple of tracks from the forth-coming Give You The Ghost have been teased, yet their is an insatiable hunger for more. 

While they recently built on the anticipation by opening for Foster The People at First Ave the other night, Polica have already become a staple on The Current. Check out their sight to hear 'Wandering Star' (titled 'Dark Star' on their official site). This was the first track of theirs that I heard. It sums up all the best parts of the band without exposing all their secrets. Channy's voice gets to float and flit over the band, the only other sounds being two drummers, bass and the occasional sample. It's sparse and aloof, some soft vocals that get twisted and and tweaked just a bit while washing over the band. The echo of the drums and the warm bass make a distinct sound that form a better whole than the separate elements. 'Lay Out Your Cards', on the Polica website, has a similar mix of empty spaces and warm, human touches. Another in-studio performance for Radio K yields another fantastic song, the Bjork-esque 'Leading to Death'. It has some great synthesizers that form a core around which the band crafts a whimsical and weird tune.

I can't wait to hear more, honestly. Full confession - I am totally on the band wagon now. I had heard the buzz building and thought "how can it be so great?". Then I heard one song. That was all it took. I had to hear more. The album is done and ready to go, but in a wise move they're holding their cards close. A Valentine's Day release show is planned. Get on board now, kids. You won't want to miss this. 

Cold Cut

Yo!


I am writing this having been on the business end of a Power Hour with my better half and my sister in law. Such is life. You gotta make your own fun in the burbs! But long before I got down to business carousing and drinking to a timer while jamming out to local artists, I was out on a series of requisite errands. While doing so, one of the first major so falls of the season came upon the metro area. While I was winding my way through the snow I found myself cranking up a thoroughly amazing song that I credit hearing solely to the local indie station, 89.3, The Current. The tune in question? 'Surgeon' by St. Vincent.

It was kind of a beautiful moment. I had made a productive round of the area, crossing all sorts of things off my list. I was headed back to base camp. The snow was falling slow and steady, the lackadaisical kind of weather that begs you to pull over and start wandering through the adjacent woods. Had I been in my parents homestead, I would have just strapped on some snowshoes and wandered off and seen what the world had in store. In the outer ring, though, it means cranking some indie tunes and barreling through the snow, feeling the song crafting the atmosphere around me.

'Suregoen' by St. Vincent is a trip of a track. Hailing from the album Strange Mercy, it's comprised of seemingly disparate pieces of music, all glued together under the guise of some out-of-synch guitars and fuzzed out bass. St. Vincent is a young woman, barely a year older than myself, who has cut her teeth supporting some of the titans of the independent music scene. Her songs are breathy, ethereal things. This tune is no exception. It's a phantom of a track that makes any day, especially one with an isolating winter storm, all the better. Your mind gets wrapped in a blanket. You get a warm, fuzzy feeling from the bass and off kilter elements.

It's been a crazy, weird night out here in the outer ring. A night like this, far from the bars and restaurants I know, you gotta make your own fun in the outpost. When the snow started falling, it felt a bit like I was headed to my Hoth encampment. The strange air lended by St. Vincent only made it more wonderful and odd. Listen to St. Vincent, for real. She is an amazing artist with a great, distinct sound.