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Junior Prom. May, 2000.
NOTE: My Downtown Year was written in 2004. I will be using excerpts from My Downtown Year in a book about San Diego that I’m currently writing. For more context on its serial presentation on this blog, click here.
Day 5: Marx called religion the opiate of the masses. But he missed the mark. Religion is, in its very nature, agitating, and anarchistic. It demands the usurpation of all authority that is not God. Eventually, a truly deistic society will not need government in any form. This was the ultimate failure of the English church-state. The “Pilgrims” were retreating religious insurgents. To maintain government, the encouragement of religious thought is contra-positive. It is in this sense that communism and capitalism can be seen as what they really are: two different means working towards the same end. The goal of both is ultimately state control of the individual in order to maintain an ordered society. Communism failed because it attempted to substitute state for god in the pantheon of worship. Capitalism allows god, but neuters him/her/it with more alluring alternatives. Consumerism is the official religion of the capitalist society. Communism sought to destroy all concept of a supernatural God. In so doing, they indirectly endowed any concept of a god with infinite power. Why fight something that does not exist? Consumerism loves god when convenient, but locates him/her/it somewhere below new sneakers on the Mazlo Triangle of Actualization. While true religion eventually leads to revolution, consumerism invariably leads to greater reliance on government control. We require government to ensure that the mechanisms of buying and selling remain viable and stable, especially in this flying nation of hungry importers and haughty exporters.
As long as the system itself remains, we demand nearly nothing to live our lives. We want things, but we have to work to earn them. We should reward ourselves for all that hard work, so we buy more things, which we then have to work more to pay for. Life is an endless cycle of consumption and earning. We work until we die to be able to buy the things that help us relax from working so goddamn much. It suddenly occurs to me that everything I’ve written thus far is a half-assed and unsupported condemnation of a system that has allowed me to write a half-assed and unsupported condemnation of itself. Add convoluted to the list of pejoratives in the previous sentence. (Note: I bought an $80 T-shirt today with a caricature of Ernesto Guevarra on it.)
Macintyre says that we are facing a crisis because we have reduced absolutes to opinions and that the language of teleological morality has escaped our philosophical vocabularies. We should be so fortunate. We are facing a crisis because we are bored and see the world as an elaborate reality show, staged for our amusement and reward.
(Note: If you seek a philosophical system here, you are lost. I can recommend only utter and total excess and self-destruction. From there you will either become a relativist or a positivist. The choice between the two is preemptory to any other philosophical decision.)
First Garden. Fall, 2008.
- June, 2000: Junior Prom
My god, the world is a different place at night. Self-consciousness sets itself in motion. It’s to the point where forecasting criticisms of future critics has become commonplace. Every thought is filtered through its eventual perception by an audience of fans and critics, admirers and detractors.
And so does the machinery of the corporate world trickle down into personal applications. We are the first wave of buyers who accelerate the market penetration of new products and ideas. Our product is ourselves: the newer, better, cooler versions of ourselves. (Note: As I lit my cigarette just now, I pulled the lighter from my cigarette and my cigarette from my face in an overly dramatic manner.) (Note also: I smoke Camel Lights, as they offer the time-tested Camel brand name combined with the reduction in perceived-risk of a light cigarette.)
And so it is that our mirrors become proof-sheets for a photo shoot that hasn’t happened yet. (Note: I am currently wearing tight jeans with an interesting, but not overwhelming, wash. To complement my jeans, I am wearing a Shins t-shirt. I have donned a jaunty army cap for the occasion, complete with a small button advertising an up-and-coming local band that you have never heard of, yet are the best band in the history of music.)
That last paragraph was really only one sentence, with a three sentence parenthetical. Strunk says perfunctorily (Does he ever say anything otherwise?), that parentheses are far too formal for conversational style (Strunk can be a real dick sometimes).How witty, how clever. “He really is the voice of his generation.” “Look at how he subverts grammar and structure to fit his ends.” The point of knowing the rules is to be able to break them.
And so are we left with a grand design that has been implemented six billion times too often. We have learned how to ride a bicycle so that we can invent a tricycle. We “said no to drugs” so that we would do drugs in moderation. “A wannabe H.S. Thomspon, and a second-rate one at that,” – Dapper Literary Critic, New York Times Book Review. (Note: Dapper Literary Critic is a widely recognized dapper and literary sort of fellow who dislikes Susan Sonntag but who admires, if not the message, the style of On the Road.)
What a question: the drug question – the drug question that has itself become rhetorical and isn’t even asked anymore. And so it has become a question punctuated with a period rather than a question mark. It is a question in the same sense as the abortion question. Abortion question period. Rather than ask the question, we have decided just to ask the opposing parties to separate into distinct groups. (Note: While I dislike the idea of aborting a potential life, I feel that it is the woman’s right to choose. It is her body, after all.)
And so cohesion falls by the wayside. Less than a page by my count, but judging by the general word-to-page ratio for books by “the author of his generation”, these words will probably fall on the second or third page of actual text. What the true page numbers of those pages will be depends on whether this is the hardcover, pocket edition soft-cover, or the special edition featuring photographs from the new motion picture now being produced by Columbia Pictures. We also would have to factor in any special “Anniversary” editions, which invariably include all sorts of forewords and “looks back” by various literary and social luminaries.
And so we come to the question of our generation; we do not come to that question directly mind you, but we come to it nonetheless. To have an enemy, that would be something. We erect figureheads of enemies, sure, but a figurehead is not the thing. Our enemy is in fact faceless, or, more correctly, infinitely faced. Masks of our enemy are not popular Halloween costumes.
And so we come to the question of how one goes about describing a faceless enemy. Finally, a question with an answer! The answer of course is no… or rather, do not. Those that recognize the enemy do well not to reveal its identity. I’ve probably said too much already.
“A work of pretentious, self-important, obtuse and inefficient metaphors for nothing.” – DLC. (Note: Dapper Literary Critic has gone to using only his initials instead of his full name, so chic.) god damn it, he is good, that Fucker. You’ll all have to let me know if they capitalized that “god” there. Those bastards, I bet they did. By “those bastards”, I mean my editor. She’s a very smart, imaginary, young girl. She was brought on by the publishing company, also imaginary, and renowned for publishing very smart work, to help bring some focus and discipline to my writing. (Note: My torrid affair with my imaginary editor will be the subject of a period film, illustrating how deeply a work of art can touch a person.)
(Note: the ashtray next to my keyboard is now full to the brim as I smoke incessantly while writing.) (Note also: I write in the very late-night/early-morning hours as the friscillating light from the city streets leaks through a haze of cigarette smoke into my ironically-appointed downtown loft.) I met a homeless man once, and he told me a funny story that made me laugh. The story didn’t really have any meaning, but it’s a beautiful image isn’t it? Me listening to this homeless man’s crazy story? (Note: It’s far too late for me to still be awake, but it’s more important that I capture these ideas that are bouncing around like electrons in my head than to be well rested tomorrow.)
“Told in a series of disconnected vignettes…” – Dapper Literary Critic. I see he dropped the initials thing. Good for him, it came off as pretentious. I heard he was doing too much blow during the “initials” phase of his critical career. He’s been through rehab now though; I heard that going back to the full name was part of his leaving his past behind him. You always have to return to the beginning to leave the past behind. (Note: your shirt looks wrinkled, you should change it before you go out. No, no, I don’t mean like artist/rugged wrinkled, it looks like it’s really been in the hamper for too long.)
Great pornography lets you jack-off without thinking about jacking-off.
2004
A picture of an actress.
While watching The Duchess last night, I thought, “I could write a better screenplay than this.” For the record, I probably couldn’t. When I was nineteen years-old, I wrote a screenplay. It was about a group of privileged students from a private Christian university getting into trouble in Tijuana. It was called, “TJ”. Yikes. A year later, I wrote a screenplay about a student from a private Christian university who falls in love with another student at a private Christian university. It featured two other intertwining stories: one about a pastor and his wife (who turn out to be the first student’s parents), and an Iraqi woman whose husband dies in the war (she cripples the pastor when she tries to commit suicide by ramming her car into his church). Double yikes.
I eventually produced and directed (a truncated version of) the second screenplay, Hearts of Glass and Stone, for credit at the private Christian university I attended (surprise!). Before I could start production, I had to clear the script with my adviser, Dr. Hueth. I never got along with Dr. Hueth. I argued with him every chance I got. I thought he was a hack who didn’t know what he was talking about. I might have been right. But he did give me the best criticism I’ve ever received. He read my script, all 180 pages of it, and returned it to me with detailed notes and comments. Most of it was admonitions to tone down the more “shocking” content or smiley faces on the classroom scenes, but towards the end, at the end of a big monologue by the main character, was this note: “This hits the nail too much on the head.”
It was true. The monologue was a girl telling a boy she couldn’t love him because she was damaged goods. I think that might have been a line in the monologue actually, “I can’t love you because I’m damaged goods.” Yikes. But it’s not quite as bad as most of The Duchess. The scenarios surrounding the title character’s fall from grace are the stuff of Greek tragedy. What’s happening is clearly awful, no need for explication, but that doesn’t stop the characters from reciting plot points as dialog.
It’s as if the screenwriter is saying, “Look, see what’s happening here, it’s because of that other thing that happened before! I wrote that! Are you not getting it? Ok, I’ll just have the characters say exactly why they’re doing what they’re doing. Yes, I know most people in the sort of emotionally charged situations you’re seeing here don’t know why they act the way they do, let alone have the ability to explain their motivations, and although these motivations are easily apparent to an outside observer, I don’t think you’re a competent enough observer to put this five-piece jigsaw puzzle together without me holding your hand.”
I imagine a dialog meeting between the literary pillars behind this movie:
“Ok, this is the big scene where the Duke confronts the Duchess about cheating on him with Charles Gray.”
“So she comes out of the hotel room, and she’s all flush, you know, from having sex with Charles Gray…”
“And the Duke is sitting in the lobby.”
“With her mom!”
“Oh, that’s good. Did that really happen?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Great. So what’s the mom trying to say, what does she want? She wants her daughter to get back with this raping creep, right?”
“Right, and be a good wife. Duty and everything.”
“Right, right. And she’s a real prim, proper lady, right?”
“Right.”
“Ok. What if she says, ‘Go home and do your duty and be a good wife.’?”
“Oh, that’s good.”
“Ok, so then the Duchess sulks…”
“Then the raping husband starts yelling at her, ‘I’m mad at you!’”
”That definitely really happened, right? The part where he rapes the Duchess?”
“Yeah, totally.”
“Ok, I don’t wanna get sued or anything.”
“No, no. So the husband starts in…”
“Yeah, and Keira, I mean the Duchess, is all afraid… because of him tearing off her clothes and raping her before.”
“Right. So what if she says something, like, ‘Are you going to tear off my clothes and rape me again?’”
“Perfect! It totally says exactly what should already be obvious from the actress’ performance and the audience’s understanding of narrative convention.”
“Word. Call it a day?”
“You bet your ass, let’s get out of here. I hate this writing bullshit.”
January 27, 2009
“This is what I wanted. This is where I want to be. I am not afraid.
This is what I wanted. This is where I want to be. I am not afraid.”
I repeat it, again and again as I march. The metal treads of the tank next to me clatter and clang so I can hardly hear my mantra. My pack feels lighter than it did in training, my rifle heavier. I wish it weren’t winter. Why couldn’t we have done this last spring? ”Then I wouldn’t be here,” I think. The wind howls down the street, channeled by columns of empty buildings.
I don’t know how far we have to walk, or where we’ll be when we stop. I know I have to stay next to the tank. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. The tank is American, built like a, well… When shooting starts, I will be safest by the tank.
I think there is a pebble in my right boot. I shook my boots out and ran my hand all along the inside lining before we left. They’re tied so tightly, almost halfway up my calves, how could it have fallen in since? I must have missed it this morning. I was so sleepy, and it was still so dark, I’m lucky I remembered my rifle. My rifle. I look down at it, away from the rooftops of the empty buildings, for just a moment. It is beautiful, the precision of its machining, the ruggedness of the dusty aluminum receiver, the smooth modernity of its plastic stock, the straight, perfectly-round steel barrel… I wish my washing-machine at home was this well-made.
The washing machine leaks. I haven’t done laundry since I got married, but Rachel says it leaks and that she hates that machine, so I have to fix it, so I hate that machine. I don’t know how it leaks, where it comes from. I’ve replaced every gasket, reclamped and checked every hose, it makes no sense. After every load of laundry, there’s a puddle underneath the machine. Rachel forgets and steps in the puddle, and then she yells at me to fix the washing machine.
I exhale and see her in the wisp of steam escaping. Then I hear the sound of the earth opening and the tank is gone and I am prone in a pile of dust and rock and it is raining pieces of the empty buildings and I am deaf. I feel the earth shake again behind me and I turn and see the tank, rocking forward with the recoil of its soot blacked cannon. Another building comes raining down. Now people, running. I see screaming, but I don’t hear anything. Men with guns are taking positions in the rubble opposite, among the girls and kids running away. Positions. Shit. Little bursts of orange fire from the barrels of the men’s guns.
I scramble to my feet, concrete and sand and blood shifting under me as I do, and run ducking to the tank, to shelter. My commanding officer is waiting behind the tank already. He’s yelling at me, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. I point at my right ear and shrug. He understands and tells me in slashing hand-signals to take the alley on our right and flank the next street. I nod.
Leaning my back against the back of the tank, I slide to my left, keeping my head low. I reach the tank’s right tread, squat and turn around. I peak one eye around the tread. They’re gone. Where’d they all go? Shit. My CO looks at me and I shrug. ”Nothing.” I say. I can feel myself talking, feel the vibrations in the bones of my skull, but I don’t hear it. He repeats his slashing hand gestures and shoves me from behind the tank.
I run crouching to the alley. Once there, I move slowly, but purposefully, the sight of my rifle at my right eye, that plastic stock buried in my right shoulder. I sweep the perfectly-round barrel from side to side as my eyes trace the same pattern. I aim at the sky as I look up to check the rooftops. I lower the barrel, my eye still on the sight. I near the end of the alley and press my back up against the far wall. I creep left along the wall like this. At the corner I stop. I lean my head ever so slightly past the safety of the wall. My left eye strains at its peripheral extreme. Another empty street.
I swing the barrel of my gun around the corner. My head follows, attached at the rifle’s sight. My chest and shoulders and right hip come around the corner, exposed. I look up into a face, centered in the sight. A boy’s: wet with tears, muddy in this dust, but not crying now. In the reticule, I see the tiny muscles of his face tighten, his delicate jaw clench. I see his lips move and I hear his voice and he says, “I am not afraid.”
i sit in the cold of new night. an older couple walks briskly by and i nod to them, unrequited. the darkened side street is quiet. there is a small aluminum floodlight in a cabinet inside. i am supposed to attach it to the top of the one of the double doors that is closest to the outlet above the cabinet. there is a rubber-coated clamp welded to the aluminum floodlight for this purpose. i am supposed to attach the floodlight to the top of the door, thread its cord over the door’s top hinge, through the gap between the open door and the jamb, and plug it into the outlet above the cabinet.
i am supposed to make sure the conical flood of light it emits falls on the cardboard cut-out of a six-scoop waffle cone as tall as i am. the light is supposed to make it easier for people to see the sign. seeing the sign is supposed to make people want to eat ice cream, which we sell inside. if passers by succumb to the sign, i’m supposed to scoop the flavors they choose, into the vessel they choose, and give them that vessel. they, in turn, are supposed to give me money, in an amount corresponding to the vessel they have chosen, which i am supposed to place orderly, according to denomination, in the cash register.
i’m not going to plug in the floodlight. i don’t want to sell any more ice cream tonight. not that the floodlight works that well, not when its cold like this. i smoke a cigarette and my stomach agitates at the settling darkness. a group of arab men passes in tight formation, tersely debating the youngest war as they go. a sliver of the conversation lingers after them and finds my ear: “what peace…” the way they’re dressed reminds me of the secular muslims who smoked cigars at the Café Bassam, when it was still downtown, when one could still smoke inside. when i worked as a valet. when i was supposed to park people’s cars.
Andrea gave me A Moveable Feast for Christmas. It seeped into my brain to leak out in my first post, yesterday. I can’t help aping the style. Those short taut sentences are like Alexander’s blade through the Gordian knot that is modern life. They are simple in structure and lean heavily towards physical action. In the book, Hemingway says that writing hungry gave his characters great focus: they were always hungry too, always knew what they needed. Their actions and speech always represent this clarity of vision. There are no Focault-esque baroque oddities, spirals of abstraction, clause draped upon clause, endlessly supplementing, clarifying, hedging. The conventional thinking has Hemingway’s style as a product of its times, a counterpoint to the disorienting horrors of the first war fought with the full technological bounty of the Industrial Revolution, to the relativism of appocalypse. I think what makes that style so appealing today is the new universality of its application.
We live today in a continuous state of upheaval. New technologies supplant old faster than ever before. World changing innovations are on tips of tongues in labs and on campuses, not only across the country, but across the globe. Breakthroughs are shared at near the speed of light and critiqued, corrected and expounded upon nearly as fast. But the sword cuts both ways, and let us not forget, is a sword. War becomes smaller, faster and more deadly to the innocent, it seems everyday. Soldiers die less and less often, more and more return home wounded or changed or both. Industries emerge and collapse in fruit fly cycles. Today’s “conflicts” may not be “World Wars”, but the specter of their violence and confusion covers the globe.
So it feels good for me, like I’m sure it felt good for him, to put something in black and white, to cut through a knot I could never untie, to present my version of events and say simply: this is how it happened for me. Excise lengthy digressions on subjectivity and Heisenberg: writing is presenting an answer to a problem whose solution is unknowable. Every good piece of writing is a religion, presenting a universe within our own, with rules and norms askew or realigned to our own, varying assumptions about the nature of reality suggesting varying modes of life. Hemingway’s voice is authoritative as Moses’. He hedges no bets, makes no disclaimers on his prognostications. That’s a welcome relief in a deconstructed world and it’s the reason he’s the embodiment of American literature. Who could help ripping that off?
