I had a day off today, and I must say that as much as I like not working, having a day all to one's self in an area with little to do and not much money to do anything interesting sucks total ass. I read a couple of more chapters in Demanding The Impossible (just finished sections on Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity and their ideological connections with anarchism). I tried devoting part of the day to doing something productive and writing a couple of pages for my book (which I promised both my fathers, adopted and biological, that I would have finished as their Christmas presents by the end of the year). My brain felt knotted and strained, so I couldn't get much creative work done. With little money, most of the people I know working or getting an over-priced education, and no car to head to interesting places, I do what I usually do when I'm bored out of my fucking wits: I get on the bus.
The Situationists have a word for what I do on the bus: they call it a derive. The idea of a derive being that one wanders about a city aimlessly, following no set plan, and seeing how one's freeform exploration of one's environment shows a new perspective on the city. This is all fancy-pants intellectual jibba-jabba code for "when I get bored, I ride the bus for a couple of hours, changing bus lines at random stops, and just observing the type of people that come on and eavesdrop on their conversations". As I've stated in the past, the Arizona mass transit system is a beacon of madness, a rolling singles bar for crazy people. I've listened in on lots of fascinating conversations while on the bus: 3 teens talking about the finer points of "scrapin'", a drunk on Christmas Eve raving about toy prices, an old lady mumbling about killing cops, dopey pagans rambling about the origins of Wicca, innumerable immigration talks, and such memorable encounters with people like Eagle Speaks and Ken-The-Cancer-Killer. Sometimes my bus travels are a bust, sometimes they yield loony gold. Today was more of the former, although I did notice that on one of the bus lines (the 81, snaking from Scottsdale into Tempe and Mesa), there was one man (looked to be in his mid-40's) who kept on talking about politics with whoever attempted to engage him in conversation. Dude was conservative, which isn't anything unusual in this state, but his dogged insistence about poli-rambling was very noticeable. He seems to be a carrier for a social disease I like to call LISA SIMPSON SYNDROME.
LSS: I came up with the term while watching a Simpsons rerun where Mr. Burns is having dinner with the Simpsons, and Lisa starts one of her idealistic rants about whatever has got her goat this week, and Mr. Burns responds with a sigh and says "are you always on?". LSS: people who can't stop talking politics, even in social situations that are wildly inappropriate for such talk. Some readers of my journal might find my coining the term and diagnosing people with it ironic, but honestly, aside from my journal, the only time I ever put my politics hat on is when I'm chilling with my friends on the weekend. I almost never talk about the Big Three (sex, politics, and religion) with anyone else. There is a member of my family who has the most severe, fullblown case of LSS imaginable: my cousin Paul. Paul is a great guy. A bit flaky at times, a bit pie-in-the-sky with his ideas, but a good soul. Problem with Paul is that he is ALWAYS on. Doesn't matter what situation he is in or who he is talking to, he has to start talking about his leafy-green belief system, his co-opts, his attempts at running for Mayor of Prescott (seriously), the evils of corporate America, etc. The last time my family (my adopted Dad's side) got together was for Passover. My family is what I like to call Conveniently Jewish: with the exception of my older sisters, none of us are practicing Jews. We do the holidays and get-togethers, but its really just an excuse for pigging out on my sister's mean cuisine. I call it Convenient because since a good amount of my family is in the gem business, which is predominately a Jewish-run industry, we tend to play up our backgrounds to make business deals run a bit smoother. So we're having dinner, getting tipsy, my brother Greg and I trading dirty jokes with our aunts, and Paul (who brought along two of his friends, unannounced, both of whom also LSS carriers) starts in with his schpiels. Most of us, we just want to drink, keep our feet wet in the shallow end of the conversational pool, and enjoy the great food (me, I'm a culinary Luddite, the kind of guy who says "meat and fruit together in one dish? Madness!", but I was getting a kick out of the Moroccan style beef brisket covered with dried apricots... my stomach contorts itself like a Cirque De Soleil performer at the thought of that savory brisket). He can't key in to the "shut up and get down with the epicurean delights" vibe everyone is projecting (to make matters worse, aside from Greg and myself, Paul and his entourage of deux is ideologically alone in a room full of conservatives). Therein lies the danger of Lisa Simpson Syndrome: it blinds one to the fact that there is a time and a place for everything.
Frankly, I find liberal carriers of LSS just as obnoxious as conservative ones (the righties just appear more often out here). When I used to work at Harkins, when I got off work during a closing shift, I would have to walk home because the buses stop running after eight. Sometimes I didn't want to put up with the hour and a half walk home, so I would call a taxi. I used the same company, because they were cheaper than the others, but unfortunately for yours truly, said taxi company had an outbreak of LSS. Every driver I dealt with was a white guy bitching about illegal immigrants, and I never had to prompt these guys. I would crawl into the cab, tell 'em where to go, and usually I'd kick back, just grateful to be able to go home and wash the smell of cleaning chemicals and spilled soda off my skin. Two minutes would pass, and these guys, every single time, start in on immigration. And these guys were just completely ignorant. One of them actually had the gall to say that he visited Mexico, and that it was so nice and tidy a place he couldn't imagine why Mexicans come over here. Obviously, LSS-Taxi went to the touristy parts of Mexico, the parts cleaned up to part guilt-free white people from their greenbacks. If Mexico was such a damn Wonderland, why the hell are they coming over here? I didn't bother arguing with any of them, mostly because I figured if I smiled and nod, act kind of noncommital, they might not gouge me on the fare, maybe let me off with a couple of extra bucks (and besides: I was doing janitorail work, I was tired, and didn't care to get into a debate with some smug taxi driver fuck). Always made me feel like a bit of a whore, frankly; here I am, Mr. "Pro-Immigration, Anti-Minutemen, Mexicans Are Great" swallowing my anger to get cheaper cab fare....
So yeah, I saw some wicked cases of LSS in my time. I guess it sticks in my head because I have a fear of one day being infected with it, turning into one of "those" cats (call me Mr. Indignant, call me Mr. Righteous Fury, call me Mr. Pinko). *Shivers*
Last thing and I'm done, I swear:
Got home from my derive and I watched Kicking & Screaming (the Noam Baumbach film, not the Will Ferrell soccer-dad trainwreck) for the first time. For the sake of brevity, rather than do my typical big-ass paragraphs of film-analysis, I'll break this up into neat digestable bits.
PLOT SYNOPSIS: After graduating from college, four friends spend their summer in limbo, trying to figure out what the hell to do with their lives. Unlike most films of this type, how the film depicts this inertia feels true to life, rather than trite and full of shit.
THE GREAT:
-The dialogue is snappy, quotable, and well-done.
-The satirical send-ups of creative writing classes and book clubs was great, and hit a bit close to home.
-The characters were sympathetic and frustrating at the same time: loveable fuckups.
-The plot doesn't feel contrived or forced.
-Any film with the decency and guts to subtly mock itself wins points in my book.
-Special praise for actor Chris Eigeman: the only other film I've seen him in is Metropolitan, and he's just as good in Kicking as he was in Metro. If I were a director and I ever needed an actor to play a snarky, Gatsby-like preppie, there is nobody better suited to the task than Eigeman. He fills the role of high-society twat with just the right mix of pretension and charm. Pity he never really got out of Indieville.
THE GOOD:
-Soundtrack. The minute I heard The Pixies "Cecilia Ann" open the film, I was hooked. Any aspiring film-maker could totally sucker me with my Pavlovian reaction to music. Make a shit film, throw the Cocteau Twins and the Gun Club on the soundtrack, and I'd probably give the film more credit than its worth. Luckily, Kicking And Screaming would still be great even without the Pixies.
THE BAD:
-... Can't think of anything, really.
Not much else to say today, so I'm off to watch The Colbert Report.
The Situationists have a word for what I do on the bus: they call it a derive. The idea of a derive being that one wanders about a city aimlessly, following no set plan, and seeing how one's freeform exploration of one's environment shows a new perspective on the city. This is all fancy-pants intellectual jibba-jabba code for "when I get bored, I ride the bus for a couple of hours, changing bus lines at random stops, and just observing the type of people that come on and eavesdrop on their conversations". As I've stated in the past, the Arizona mass transit system is a beacon of madness, a rolling singles bar for crazy people. I've listened in on lots of fascinating conversations while on the bus: 3 teens talking about the finer points of "scrapin'", a drunk on Christmas Eve raving about toy prices, an old lady mumbling about killing cops, dopey pagans rambling about the origins of Wicca, innumerable immigration talks, and such memorable encounters with people like Eagle Speaks and Ken-The-Cancer-Killer. Sometimes my bus travels are a bust, sometimes they yield loony gold. Today was more of the former, although I did notice that on one of the bus lines (the 81, snaking from Scottsdale into Tempe and Mesa), there was one man (looked to be in his mid-40's) who kept on talking about politics with whoever attempted to engage him in conversation. Dude was conservative, which isn't anything unusual in this state, but his dogged insistence about poli-rambling was very noticeable. He seems to be a carrier for a social disease I like to call LISA SIMPSON SYNDROME.
LSS: I came up with the term while watching a Simpsons rerun where Mr. Burns is having dinner with the Simpsons, and Lisa starts one of her idealistic rants about whatever has got her goat this week, and Mr. Burns responds with a sigh and says "are you always on?". LSS: people who can't stop talking politics, even in social situations that are wildly inappropriate for such talk. Some readers of my journal might find my coining the term and diagnosing people with it ironic, but honestly, aside from my journal, the only time I ever put my politics hat on is when I'm chilling with my friends on the weekend. I almost never talk about the Big Three (sex, politics, and religion) with anyone else. There is a member of my family who has the most severe, fullblown case of LSS imaginable: my cousin Paul. Paul is a great guy. A bit flaky at times, a bit pie-in-the-sky with his ideas, but a good soul. Problem with Paul is that he is ALWAYS on. Doesn't matter what situation he is in or who he is talking to, he has to start talking about his leafy-green belief system, his co-opts, his attempts at running for Mayor of Prescott (seriously), the evils of corporate America, etc. The last time my family (my adopted Dad's side) got together was for Passover. My family is what I like to call Conveniently Jewish: with the exception of my older sisters, none of us are practicing Jews. We do the holidays and get-togethers, but its really just an excuse for pigging out on my sister's mean cuisine. I call it Convenient because since a good amount of my family is in the gem business, which is predominately a Jewish-run industry, we tend to play up our backgrounds to make business deals run a bit smoother. So we're having dinner, getting tipsy, my brother Greg and I trading dirty jokes with our aunts, and Paul (who brought along two of his friends, unannounced, both of whom also LSS carriers) starts in with his schpiels. Most of us, we just want to drink, keep our feet wet in the shallow end of the conversational pool, and enjoy the great food (me, I'm a culinary Luddite, the kind of guy who says "meat and fruit together in one dish? Madness!", but I was getting a kick out of the Moroccan style beef brisket covered with dried apricots... my stomach contorts itself like a Cirque De Soleil performer at the thought of that savory brisket). He can't key in to the "shut up and get down with the epicurean delights" vibe everyone is projecting (to make matters worse, aside from Greg and myself, Paul and his entourage of deux is ideologically alone in a room full of conservatives). Therein lies the danger of Lisa Simpson Syndrome: it blinds one to the fact that there is a time and a place for everything.
Frankly, I find liberal carriers of LSS just as obnoxious as conservative ones (the righties just appear more often out here). When I used to work at Harkins, when I got off work during a closing shift, I would have to walk home because the buses stop running after eight. Sometimes I didn't want to put up with the hour and a half walk home, so I would call a taxi. I used the same company, because they were cheaper than the others, but unfortunately for yours truly, said taxi company had an outbreak of LSS. Every driver I dealt with was a white guy bitching about illegal immigrants, and I never had to prompt these guys. I would crawl into the cab, tell 'em where to go, and usually I'd kick back, just grateful to be able to go home and wash the smell of cleaning chemicals and spilled soda off my skin. Two minutes would pass, and these guys, every single time, start in on immigration. And these guys were just completely ignorant. One of them actually had the gall to say that he visited Mexico, and that it was so nice and tidy a place he couldn't imagine why Mexicans come over here. Obviously, LSS-Taxi went to the touristy parts of Mexico, the parts cleaned up to part guilt-free white people from their greenbacks. If Mexico was such a damn Wonderland, why the hell are they coming over here? I didn't bother arguing with any of them, mostly because I figured if I smiled and nod, act kind of noncommital, they might not gouge me on the fare, maybe let me off with a couple of extra bucks (and besides: I was doing janitorail work, I was tired, and didn't care to get into a debate with some smug taxi driver fuck). Always made me feel like a bit of a whore, frankly; here I am, Mr. "Pro-Immigration, Anti-Minutemen, Mexicans Are Great" swallowing my anger to get cheaper cab fare....
So yeah, I saw some wicked cases of LSS in my time. I guess it sticks in my head because I have a fear of one day being infected with it, turning into one of "those" cats (call me Mr. Indignant, call me Mr. Righteous Fury, call me Mr. Pinko). *Shivers*
Last thing and I'm done, I swear:
Got home from my derive and I watched Kicking & Screaming (the Noam Baumbach film, not the Will Ferrell soccer-dad trainwreck) for the first time. For the sake of brevity, rather than do my typical big-ass paragraphs of film-analysis, I'll break this up into neat digestable bits.
PLOT SYNOPSIS: After graduating from college, four friends spend their summer in limbo, trying to figure out what the hell to do with their lives. Unlike most films of this type, how the film depicts this inertia feels true to life, rather than trite and full of shit.
THE GREAT:
-The dialogue is snappy, quotable, and well-done.
-The satirical send-ups of creative writing classes and book clubs was great, and hit a bit close to home.
-The characters were sympathetic and frustrating at the same time: loveable fuckups.
-The plot doesn't feel contrived or forced.
-Any film with the decency and guts to subtly mock itself wins points in my book.
-Special praise for actor Chris Eigeman: the only other film I've seen him in is Metropolitan, and he's just as good in Kicking as he was in Metro. If I were a director and I ever needed an actor to play a snarky, Gatsby-like preppie, there is nobody better suited to the task than Eigeman. He fills the role of high-society twat with just the right mix of pretension and charm. Pity he never really got out of Indieville.
THE GOOD:
-Soundtrack. The minute I heard The Pixies "Cecilia Ann" open the film, I was hooked. Any aspiring film-maker could totally sucker me with my Pavlovian reaction to music. Make a shit film, throw the Cocteau Twins and the Gun Club on the soundtrack, and I'd probably give the film more credit than its worth. Luckily, Kicking And Screaming would still be great even without the Pixies.
THE BAD:
-... Can't think of anything, really.
Not much else to say today, so I'm off to watch The Colbert Report.