Thirty-two

I vow to remember these names.

Emily Jane Hilscher Ryan Christopher "Stack" Clark Ross Abdallah Alameddine Brian Bluhm Austin Cloyd Matthew Gregory Gwaltney Caitlin Hammaren Jeremy Herbstritt Rachael Elizabeth Hill Matthew Joseph La Porte Jarrett Lane Henry J. Lee Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan Lauren Ashley McCain Daniel Patrick O'Neil Juan Ramón Ortiz Minal Hiralal Panchal Daniel Pérez Cueva Erin Peterson Michael Steven Pohle, Jr. Julia Pryde Mary Karen Read Reema Joseph Samaha Waleed Mohamed Shaalan Leslie Geraldine Sherman Maxine Shelly Turner Nicole Regina White Christopher James Bishop Jocelyne Couture-Nowak Kevin Granata G. V. Loganathan Liviu Librescu ...holocaust survivor, and hero. source: Wikipedia

I put them here, now, symbolically and virtually in my mind, so that they will not be forgotten. Corny. Cheesy. I know. I put things in here cuz this is where I put slices of brain so I can find them later, and I don't want to forget these names. I pray and hope in the days and weeks to come, we learn more about these people. Their potential. Their accomplishments. Their hopes and dreams. Their lives. These are the lives we should take to heart and find interest. They came from all walks of life. Many of them were born and raised in Virginia, but a few were from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, and even as far reaching as Indonesia, India, Egypt, and Peru. It is not just one city that is in mourning. Not just one country. This has affected many fellow human beings across an entire planet. Family members. Friends. And temporally speaking, this affects people who would have met them in the future, but now they never will. Maybe YOU were supposed to meet one of them, and now you never will.

The promise and potential that was housed in these thirty-two souls is gone now. These people still had so many things they wanted to do with their lives. So many sunrises and sunsets to take for granted. So many birthdays and holidays and special events to attend. They were studying a wide range of subjects from Civil Engineering to Foreign Languages to Animal Sciences. Perhaps one or more of these thirty-two would have learned how to time travel, or cure cancer, or take better care of horses, or run for congress, or come up with a new flavor of ice cream, or become a world-reknowned artist, or run marathons, or make you laugh ten years from now in a moment when you really needed a laugh, or continue to teach and inspire in others greatness.

One stupid idiot who thought his petty problems were more important than those of thirty-two others... One small mind had the power so painfully briefly, to snuff out the candles of thirty-two lights of humanity. One trigger finger. Thirty-two bullets. That's all it took. Why is the media - and why are we - so drawn to that little guy? The thirty-third one? The coward who hid behind a gun? That is not the name we should honor. It's not the life upon which we should dwell.

And why does that number haunt me? Thirty-two. I can't remember my ex-wife's birthday. I can't remember my ex-girlfriend's phone number. I can't remember a lot of things, but I have branded to my memory the number of people whose hearts were stopped on Monday April 16th. twenty-some-odd others were injured, but it's the thirty-two that stick in my head.

I wanted to ignore this. I was originally not going to say anything about it in my blog. I don't know these people. Dwelling on their names and their lives won't bring them back. I have found myself growing less and less interested in current events in recent months. The war in Iraq. I can't stop it. I tried to vote that bastard out of office. I'm powerless before the crap that goes on on this planet. Hell, I'm powerless with regards to pretty much everything going on in my own life. Who was it that said all men live in quiet desperation? Yet we persevere, somehow. We struggle forward. We don't freak out and blow up other people. Is it not beginning to look, in some circles just outside the mainstream, that this mentality of taking to arms and blowing up innocents is deemed fashionable to some? I don't like this trend, and I don't think parading the perpetrators of such fashion and encouraging their behavior is the right thing to do.

Nor is mourning the loss. Rather we should celebrate the fallen - thank fate or God or whatever you prefer to thank, for allowing these souls to exist on this Earth and do what good they did while they were here. The fond memories family and friends have of their presence on this spinning rock. That's what should be honored and treasured. Not the pathetic ramblings of that gun-wielding buffoon.

But then, I'm just another pathetic rambling fool, sans the guns. What do I know? Well. I hope to know these thirty-two names. It's not much, but the best way we honor those no longer with us is to remember them. I learned that from my Dad. =)

A Voice That Sounds Like A Warm Blanket Feels

"Out of the greatest tragedy comes the greatest comedy. Remember that. That's why I'm so funny... looking!"

Think I found my new Short Duration Personal Savior ...for the next fifteen minutes or so anyway. Until my cat-like attention span notices something shiny.

...ShorDurPerSav. You know. ...Or maybe you don't. That's a SubGenius way of describing one's most recent addiction, or obsession, or fascination, or INfatuation... Or just someone whom you think is really cool and you wanna tell the world about this person. Someone who somehow brings to your heart or your cockles or your third nostril or whatever ...SLACK. I found my latest Slack Wench.

Past ShorDurPerSavs I've known include Jenny Bruce, Kristy Kruger, Annie Benjamin, Courtney Fairchild, and the list goes on and on. This most recent ShorDurPerSav's name is MaryAnne Isabella, aka "ysabellabrave" which is a nickname her daddy gave her. That alone is just beyond cute, but it gets better.

She's a woman with a video camera, and karaoke CDs which she sings to and records it and puts it up on YouTube. She's just having fun, doing something she enjoys doing. There's also cats you don't often see which occasionally dance around her feet as she sings. When one looks at this objectively and rationally, there's perhaps nothing special about this. A woman stands in front of a camera and sings songs like Ain't Misbehavin, or Love Me Two Times, or I'm All Shook Up. This is nothing new. Others have done it before her. However, the thing is others who have done this before her, aren't her. This woman is lightning in a bottle. Someone somewhere with the right connections and resources could 'discover' this woman and make her The Next Big Thing, whatever that is. However, at the moment she has not yet been encased in glass or given the 'Star Treatment' she richly deserves. So, if you hurry fast you'll be able to see raw talent in its natural state. This is unique, like watching a meteor shower or catching a glimpse of a rainbow where you didn't think there'd be one, but it is also as common as a sunset. Every human being has some kind of talent. This lass has found hers and is putting it out there for the world to see, if the world cares to look.

This woman has a voice that sounds like a warm blanket feels. Her rendition of What A Wonderful World is heartbreaking, and there's the negative pessimist in me that thinks maybe she put eyedrops in her eyes before she recorded so that she'd get the tears. When I first tuned in I thought she was lip synching. She couldn't possibly be this good. This real. This sincere in front of the camera. However, a few videos into watching her and whether she's live or she's Memorex, it draws you in. You believe the illusion as if it's real, and you feel it's so real it must be an illusion. She's a virtual mirage in a world of wasteland media.

I don't know if she's real or fake and it really doesn't matter, so I'm gonna assume she's real and sincere and she doesn't have a dozen make up people behind the camera making her look this good that it's all just her and maybe her cats, and maybe a couple friends cheering her on. I just hope I don't get proven wrong like so many people who thought LonelyGirl15 was really whatever the hell she said she was. I didn't fall for that one, but then I wasn't ...by the time I heard about Bree, people were already thinking she was Blair Witchy, y'know? That the LonelyGirl15 thing was all too well produced to be real.

I don't think that's what's going on here with Isabella, but nowadays, how can ya tell? Doesn't matter either way I guess. I mean if it turns out this is some kinda viral marketing for a motion picture where this woman's just a character in a movie? So? But to her credit, it's that good. Y'know? She's either a well constructed faux YouTube personality, or she's a real woman who happens to have personality.

YouTube's full of people who want to be special. In the movie Incredibles, the mom tells her son everybody's special, and Dash responds to his mom by saying, "that's just another way of saying no one is." And then later in the same film, the villain explains that his plan is to make inventions that will give everybody super powers, and when everyone has special powers, no one will be special anymore.

The thing is though everyone is special, in different ways. The people on YouTube ARE all special, but I don't think most people on YouTube are special the way they intended to be. It's hard to explain. I enjoy Plan Nine From Outer Space but I don't think the way I enjoy that film is the way that Ed Wood intended for people to enjoy it. I see that a lot on YouTube. Someone does a serious religious piece on YouTube thinking they're reaching audiences and they're getting some serious point across about how they feel about their god, and I'm watching it cuz his voice makes me laugh, or there's something strange about the background, or just cuz some weirdo in Tennessee telling me how I should pray to my God? That just cracks me up sometimes. Like I said, it's hard to explain.

Guess that's why I haven't bothered trying to get a camera and getting on that thing myself. I don't wanna be one of the teeming masses who put themselves in front of a camera, think they have something to say, and then jackasses like me come along and say, "no you don't have shit to say." I'm horrendously jaded and cynical, probably cuz I know I'm one of those jackasses.

This is different though. YsaBellaBrave appears before the camera as someone who doesn't have an axe to grind. She just has a talent to present, a service to provide. She wants to put a smile on your face. Not too much to ask. So her presentation of herself is the kinda thing that melts through my jaded and cynical defenses against the LonelyGirls of the world. Is she real or is she just pretending to be real?

Who cares, when she's got a voice that sounds like a warm blanket feels?

YsaBellaBrave loves the camera and the camera loves her. It's a courtship that we are voyeuristically peering in on. She's having some kinda endearing and wholesome romantic relationship with that camera. It's not sexual but it is very sensual. It feels almost dirty that we're looking in on it, like reading a kid's diary, or accidently walking in on two people as they're just discovering how they feel about each other. It's a bit embarrassing, but obviously she doesn't mind, and the camera ain't talking, so we continue to look.

She's flirting with the camera lens. She's managed to be rather provacative without doing anything particularly provacative. And a strange thing is at first when you're watching you'd swear she was lip synching, and you watch her mouth waiting for her to mess up and she doesn't. Then depending on which video you're watching, she talks directly to you during the instrumental part. In one video she says, "this is where you're supposed to dance with me," and she dances, being careful not to stray too far out of shot. Maybe she's not just flirting with the camera. Maybe she's sincerely flirting with whomever sees it. This is where there's a dichotomy of uncertainty here. It's like she's making a connection, but she's most certainly not. So it's a magic trick. She's managing to make this illusion that she's making a connection with her audience, when it's patently impossible. Perhaps this is what Hollywood does all the time, and we're always suckers falling for it. YsaBellaBrave's able to do what it takes a team of people in Hollywood to do for television shows or motion pictures.

YsaBellaBrave is apparently her own own producer, director, writer, and star talent. She knows her virtual space before the camera. There's a lot of spontanaeity going on here. Her style's very improvisational, and in one of her Q&A videos she says that usually she does these in one take, but there's also obviously more than a little preproduction too. Before she turns the camera on, she knows how she wants to start it, certain things she wants to capture on film at certain times in the song, but rarely does she seem to have a controlled direction of how she's going to actually end a piece. She just starts giggling and then reaches behind the camera to turn it off. And like the greatest showman, of course she always leaves you wanting more.

There's also the fact that the way the world is right now, someone like YsaBellaBrave is just what I think the world needs. Her seeming innocence and daring courage before the camera echoes back to an earlier time, perhaps a more innocent and carefree time. A lot of the songs she sings are old standards from as much as a century ago, so she's doing this Torch Song kinda thing like... well it's like she's somehow captured the essense of every talent from The Andrew Sisters to Marilyn Monroe to Lena Horne to Sarah Vaughn. Her voice can turn on a dime emotionally speaking, and she's very expressive and dramatic - at times deliciously melodramatic. She's experimenting and taking risks, and sometimes I don't even think she knows she's taking a risk she just does it and if it works fine if it doesn't so what it's just YouTube, right? All this adds up to quite a novel approach to entertainment.

She has this paypal thing set up of course for people who can donate to her. I don't have any money. What money I do have is already spent on bills. So if I can't pay her for entertaining me a few minutes tonight, I figured the least I could do was talk about her. This is why YouTube, and the Internet, exists. So people like her can reach people like you and me. She's lightning in a bottle, and maybe no one with the right resources and connections will ever catch her in that bottle. Maybe she'll do this for a little bit, it won't work out for her, and she'll move on. Or maybe she will get discovered, and next time we see her will be on Letterman.

She claims she only just started singing a year ago. Didn't think she could ever hold a note. Then one day she just could. Something clicked. She figured it out. Now she's just enjoying the heck out of it. Here's hoping she continues to do so for many years to come, and we get to eavesdrop on her romance with the microphone and the camera lens.

I won't tell her we're watching if you won't. Now shhhh... Looks like she's about to sing again. Don't interrupt.

Temporal Temper

a very short short story


"Who are you?"

"A time traveler."

"Am I supposed to believe you?"

"No."

"Where are you from?"

"A future without you in it."

"Why are you here?"

"To create a future where you survive next Sunday."

"Yeah right. Charlie? Bruno? Get this jackass outta here."

"Have you recorded that birthday greeting yet for John Lennon?"

"Wait.. What?"

"About a month from now, John Lennon tells Dick Cavett he didn't get to hear your birthday greeting until after you're already dead. You really wanna be a downer for John's birthday?"

"Okay smartass. How do I die?"

"Heroin overdose."

"I ain't a psychic or a time traveler and I could guess that's how I'm gonna go--"

"So I have agents all over California. From our research in police records, customs, boat and airplane shipments, we know where all the drug activity is in America this very minute. You may have noticed how difficult it was to find your drugs this morning?"

"..."

"We narc'd. The cops know where all that junk is, and those leads will accelerate the FBI's efforts to stop drug trafficking by about a decade. They're undergoing a major crack down right now. By Sunday night you won't be able to find a gram this side of Vegas, much less afford it."

"Is that right?"

"Yep."

"Bruno? He's lying right?"

"..."

"Bruno?"

"Our wells started drying up yesterday morning. Jack is looking into other connections, but.."

"Well... Time traveler? Sounds like you've gone to a lot of trouble for little old me."

"A lot of people miss you, Miss Joplin."

"Is that right? Well you tell those people I don't wanna live in a future where I can't fucking kill myself with heroin by my own choice if I fucking want to. You got that?"

"Yes ma'am."

"You gonna call off the fuzz?"

"No ma'am. We done all we can. The rest is up to you."

"You're leaving?

"I was going to offer more help, but we can't go further without your permission, and you're obviously not interested in giving it."

"Where you going?"

"To see if your heart is still beating Monday morning. See you then."

Why I Hate Tom Cruise

Why I Hate Tom Cruise

Okay I broke down and bought the Cocktail DVD today, in preparation for Mike's riff on it (scheduled to be available on the 30th of August). I promised myself I wouldn't spend more than $7.50, and I found a copy for $7.99. I just hope Mike is pleased that one of his fans has had to go back on his word to himself and actually watch a Tom Cruise film again.

I can't stand Tom Cruise. And it's not because of his more recent insanity with the press. It's not because he told Brooke Shields she was a dip. It's not because he has this Scientology thing going, although that doesn't help. It's not because he jumped up and down on Oprah's couch. In fact, that was the closest thing to acting I've ever seen him do and I was impressed. He was pretending to be head over heels in love with a girl. That was precious. Not quite method acting. Seemed he was going on what he'd been told other people have done. He deserved an emmy that day. And I don't hate the man. I'm sure he must be fun to talk to over drinks or something. Nice guy I'm sure. I just can't stand him as an actor and I don't believe he deserves any of the attention he's ever gotten as an actor and I hope his fifteen minutes of fame end not with a bang but a quiet whimper, and the sooner the better. I want him to get out of my face.

So why do I hate Tom Cruise as an actor? Let's go through the film career of this stalwart soul that you people hold so dear to your heart of hearts.

Endless Love: I don't believe I ever saw it. The song by Ross & Richie was more than enough for me and one couldn't turn on the radio without hearing that over and over again back in 1981, but you can't fault Cruise for that.

Taps: That I did see. It's one of the reasons why I hate military films. I can't for a nanosecond believe any of these pretty boys spent a week in boot camp much less actually attended a military school. Cruise was about as believable in this as he woulda been playing a pastrami and rye in a supermarket delicatessen.

Losin' It: Tom Cruise attempting humor. That's a laugh. Not really. Okay to be honest I've never seen this film, I have no intention of seeing this film, I shouldn't have an opinion about this film, nor do I want one.

Risky Business: Now here Tom was actually tolerable, although to be fair, everyone around him was far more interesting but for this film that's what was needed. Tom played the 'everyman' boy who was coming of age and all that balderdash. Rebecca De Mornay is the real reason to see this film. Woof. All Tom had to do throughout was either pretend he was enjoying himself, or pretend he was suprised at something. You watch this film and you realize that all Matt LeBlanc was doing for ten years in the tv series Friends was pretending to be Tom Cruise. Fart smell acting. That's what Tom's doing here. Say a line and then pretend to smell a fart.

All The Right Moves: It's a football film. Therefore, I didn't see it. I have no opinion of it.

Legend: This film works for me again because of everyone around Tom. Mia Sara, Woof. Tim Curry, awesome. Billy Barty, Robert Picardo, Annabelle Lanyon, you just can't go wrong with this cast. All Tom had to do was hit his mark and a look cool in a suit of armor. Which he didn't. Cuz he's five foot seven. So a lot of what you see is very creative cinematography. You think they fuzzied up shots and threw in glows and other lighting tricks just cuz it was a fantasy? Tom doesn't even look the part. How he got the part? Only L.Ron knows.

Top Gun: This was the break film for me. From here on out I became an anti-fan of Tom Cruise. He was tolerable up until now but in this film he was playing a guy we're supposed to hate and love at the same time and all he couldn't get either right. Do you honestly believe he's a guy who could buzz the tower of an aircraft carrier and then just smile at his superior officer and get away with it? You can call a guy a maverick all you want but if he doesn't even know what one is he can't pretend to be one. He can't act. He can say lines, and hit marks, and look pretty while doing it. That's not acting. That's not remotely believable. I also hate this film cuz Anthony Edwards WAS acting and doing very well and then they kill him off leaving us with godawful Cruise for the rest of the picture. I told myself I'd never watch another Tom Cruise movie as long as I lived, but then...

The Color of Money: I loved the film "The Hustler." Paul Newman is a living legend, condiment hawking aside. He was great in this. I thought surely I could put up with Cruise if a giant like Newman is supporting him, and maybe the kid would learn a few things from one of the greatest Hollywood talents the world has ever known. I left the theater feeling like I'd just had a tooth pulled.

Young Guns: It's a western. With a short list of exceptions, I don't like westerns. I have no opinion of this one.

Rain Man: Again, surely a man like Dustin Hoffman, who is yet another great living legend of an actor, surely with Dustin Hoffman standing beside him, Tom Cruise wouldn't look half bad. The result of this film was Hoffman stole the show and Cruise looked like a grip they just threw in front of the camera at the last second to hit the marks while Hoffman literally held up the film both for himself and his doofus of a supporting partner. Cruise has no concept of what it takes to be an ensemble player. He's completely worthless on the screen.

Born On the Fourth of July: I have friends who were extras in this film. Parts of it were filmed right here in Dallas Texas. Despite that, I've never seen this film on the soul reason that it has Tom Cruise in it. Therefore I have no opinion of this film, nor do I want one.

Days of Thunder: I have never seen this film, nor do I want to. I have no opinion.

Far And Away: Ditto

A Few Good Men: SURELY! You got THE Jack Nicholson on board! You got Demi Moore. Kevin Bacon. Kevin Pollack. Christopher Guest is on tap! Kiefer Sutherland! For crying out loud you can't screw this up! How can Tom Cruise screw up this movie? Somehow, for me, he did. Again, I can't believe he spent a heartbeat in the military. It's like watching John Goodman pretend to be a vegetarian. I don't buy it. I don't like military films and I don't like courtroom dramas and yet one day I found myself in a situation where the movie was on TV and I had nothing else to do. I gave it a try. Cruise ruined this film for me. I could almost believe everyone else but Cruise on the screen just completely ruins any chance for me to suspend disbelief. His face has a way of reflecting the camera. He's 'on' all the time. He's faking it. It's not acting. It's not even performing. He hits his mark and he says his line. Sometimes with defiance. Sometimes with sardonic wit. It's all like pantomime. It's all calculated. He's like a programmed robot, not a person. I've to see him feel anything on screen. God this movie sucked, and it really didn't have to. It had no excuse with as much talent and money as was behind it, it should have been better.

The Firm: Refuse to watch it on the sole reason it's a Tom Cruise film. I have no opinion nor do I want one.

Interview with a Vampire: I have seen parts of this film, mostly by accident. I want to see it because I enjoy the genre, but can't get past the casting. Cruise and Pitt. What I have seen looks pretty, but these two guys in those roles just throws me out of it. I can't enjoy it. And I had wished they'd made this film a few years earlier and gave Sting the role. He woulda done better than Cruise.

Mission Impossible: Ugh. Yes I've seen this one. It's great eye candy. It's a fun roller coaster. It's not Mission Impossible any more than Drew Barrymore's attempts at Charlie's Angels is actually Charlie's Angels. In Drew Barrymore's situation though I like it. I like what she did with the franchise. Mission Impossible however is an example of what I mean by Cruise having absolutely no idea what an ensemble means. Ethan Hunt is not supposed to take the lead in every scene of Mission Impossible. It's supposed to be a group effort. Multiple talents in a spy espionage thriller thing working together and reacting to unpredictable variables to try and accomplish an impossible task. Cruise resolves this by making sure all the characters around him either die in the first twenty minutes or turn into his villains. Y'know who saves this film for me? Ving Rhames and Jean Reno. Damn but they rock, despite Cruise hogging the limelight. Aside from that there's cool stunts and things blow up so it's entertaining. I liked the original series when I was a kid. However, I haven't seen the other two MI's that have come out since. I believe I saw the first few moments where Tom Cruise is hanging off a cliff and his sunglasses explode. William Shatner was more bellievable hanging off a cliff in ST5. Like Cruise would know how to climb anything other than stairs! Really! Now THAT's funny.

Jerry Maguire: I actually had aquired a copy of this film on VHS some years back for free, and never opened it. I think I won it in a contest or something. I have no opinion of this film nor do I want one. I'm aware of Zellwegger's line about "you had me at hello" and Tom yelling at Cuba over the phone to "show me the money" repeatedly. That's all I know, and that's too much. I have no idea what happened to the videotape. I think I gave it to a friend who actually liked Tom Cruise. I don't see it on my shelf now.

Eyes Wide Shut: No opinion. Never seen it. I don't like Nicole Kidman either.

Magnolia: Never seen it. No opinion.

Vanilla Sky: Never seen it. No opinion.

Minority Report: Never seen it. No opinion.

Goldmember: Really? He was in it? I don't recall seeing him in any Austin Powers film. I probably went to get a soda or something.

Last Samurai: No opinion. Don't want one.

Collateral: I like Jamie Fox. I tried it. I liked the film. I woulda loved the film, except for Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise was playing a man pretending to be a man pretending to be someone else. The grey hair was a laugh riot. It was like he was a parody of his own performance. Somehow that kinda worked for me. I didn't believe that he had ever killed more than an occasional fly, and probably hires other people to do that for him, but for some reason the chemistry between him and Fox worked for me in this film. Again though, you can see, the talent of Jamie Fox is what makes this film work. Like Dustin Hoffman and Paul Newman before him, Fox carries this film and it's not believable except through the eyes of his character. However, this same film with Jean Reno playing Tom Cruise's part? That woulda been ten times better.

War of the Worlds: Now I do like Steven Spielberg. Don't get me wrong. I can't recall a film of Spielberg's that I haven't enjoyed. And I love the story War of the Worlds by H. G. Welles. I've heard Orson Wells version on radio and it's astounding. Dakota Fanning was major impressive in Man On Fire with Denzel Washington. However, I have yet to see this film. I don't want to see this film. I don't wish to have an opinion on it, on the sole reason that Tom Cruise is in this movie.

Despite my opinion of Tom Cruise, I am aquiescing this one time and will see Cocktail when I get the rifftrax from Mike Nelson. ...It better be funny.

Entropy Rules

The following is edited, based on an email I sent out May 19th in some haste to friends because at the time I thought I wasn't gonna have a computer anymore.

A couple weeks ago, I lost this little pocketbook where I kept all my phone numbers & stuff. So I can't reach any of my friends by phone. That bites.

Saturday evening my home computer gave up the ghost. My troubleshooting narrowed the problem down to a catastrophic failure of either the hard drive, the motherboard, or the power supply. The thing doesn't even beep now when I turn it on. Attempts to fix it only made it worse, naturally, since I'm just so splendid when it comes to hardware issues. That was sarcasm by the way. At the moment I have a very expensive paperweight.

Due to my financial situation, I'm unable to buy the components to get back online, so I plan to look into cancelling my home DSL subscription and spending the unforseeable future without home computer access. This means it's going to become even more difficult for those of you who like to keep in touch with me to do so. Those of you who don't want to keep in touch with me, well this situation shouldn't affect you in any way. =)

At the moment, my Yahoo mail address is still functional, but I can only access it from work, which they kinda frown on at work, so it's not a very dependable way of contacting me. I probably won't be checking it every day like I used to. Also, since Yahoo & SBC recently combined efforts, I'm thinking if I cancel my DSL service I will probably lose my Yahoo email address at the same time.

This is admittedly a painful decision for me, cuz the past eight years or so I have increasingly spent my life online, by choice, and suddenly no longer being able to do that is mildly frustrating to say the least. This may change in the near future, but my economic situation does not look like it will improve, and I'm perpetually barely keeping bills paid, so a new computer immediately falls under the terrain of "luxury."

There's some good from this though. After about fifteen years of smoking about a pack a day, I have officially quit smoking as of April 13th. My reasons are far from noble. I could no longer financially afford the habit. So I have gone cold turkey in hopes of amassing $35 a week which would otherwise have gone to the blackening of my lung cavity. That's $140 a month. You'd think I'd be able to afford stuff now, but at present I'm just barely breaking even, which I wasn't doing at all before April 13th.

The original impetus of the email in question was to let friends know how to reach me offline, since they would no longer be able to do so online, or so I had thought at the time. It wasn't intended to be an attempt to beg someone to give me a computer. I was accepting fate, and thinking maybe a break from the Internet would be a good thing. Sorta kinda 'Fox and the Grapes' like. However, many friends responded favorably, which makes it nice to have friends. I'm thankful for all of them. Fortunately, a dear friend of mine has come through, in a pinch, and allowed me to borrow her laptop until I can save up enough money to get a desktop computer again. This was, in part, provided I write up an updated entry describing the event for posterity.

Hey, it's nice to have at least one fan. =)

The Twilight of Austin

Preface: I'm typing these words in late August of 2009. Nine years ago I went to Austin Texas for the South By Southwest conference. I thought when there I'd meet all the people I'd seen online and be accepted. I was wrong. I was shunned. I was treated like a leper. Almost a decade later the people I looked up to back then still don't give me the time of day. Nor I them. I felt depressed and betrayed when in reality it was my own damned fault. I am who I am and I'm an acquired taste that many rightfully choose not to acquire. I couldn't fault them their choice. I have absolutely nothing substantial to offer as friendship. Frankly the few in my life who still consider me friend, I don't understand why they do. I make a terrible friend.

I'm not surprised now to have gone there empty-handed. However, at the time I didn't want the entire trip to be in vain. So after one particularly unsuccessful night of sleep, I left my hotel room and wandered about the foreign yet familiar capital Texas city. I made my way to the top of a parking garage, and from there discovered I had a most unique perspective on a city that has its own magic and vibrancy about it. I sat there with pad and paper and at first I was writing boring emo crap about how lame the whole SXSW experience had been for me and how sorry I was feeling for myself, but I didn't save any of that. The above summary doesn't capture the naive short-sightedness and insipid arrogance. As I wrote what was going on in my head at the time, I was overwhelmed by the vision of a city waking up before me. That's what I hope to keep for posterity in the words below.

I should also point out that the woman mentioned below who I had left behind in Dallas to visit Austin for SXSW was to leave me a few months after I penned this. At the time I was very much in love with the idea of being in love with her, but as with all my past relationships with women, she soon tired of my idiosyncrasies and found someone who pissed her off far less often. I wish her well.

- Zach Garland
Dallas Texas, USA 5:53am
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

__________________________________________


[Excerpt taken from Zach's Notes during SXSW2000] PART ONE

Austin Texas, USA ~5:45am
Monday, March 11th, 2000

Y'know it would be pretty funny if I accidently fell from this height right now? Then people would find my spiral notebook and what I'd written up until this moment, and provided they could make out my bad handwriting, they'd probably think I was depressed and decided to jump from the tenth floor roof of the Austin Conference Center's parking garage. If that happens, trust me. I'm not suicidal. Quite the opposite.

I just came for the view.

Austin really is spectacular. Especially at night, or the wee hours of the morning like now. Granted, this concrete block of parking garage I'm standing on, while impressive in stature to behold, it's just a large concrete block with holes in it and ramps for people to park. I can see steam emanating from a building between me and The Radisson. In the dark light it looks surreal and almost gothic. More steam from a building at least twenty stories high, with a pyramid on top.

God, which way is east? All around me all I can see to the horizon are city lights and a skyline jutting diagonal from me, with the capitol building peeking out from behind other buildings, like it was a bald pointy headed child wanting to be in the picture.

I can hear the city just now waking up all around me. There is this gigantic blocky pyramid structure before me, with neon blue horizontal outlines.. fashioned together into the form of an upright 'V' pointing upwards into the twilight.

Twilight. I'm standing in the twilight of Austin, and at this moment it feels like time is standing still. Somewhere between being asleep and being awake. Somewhere between the waking and the dreaming. Somewhere between night and day. A state of catharsis. A state of indecisiveness and uncertainty. A state of simultaneous yearning and fulfillment. Austin is all of these things at this moment of time, and it feels like it will always be this way. I am standing in the Twilight of Austin.

I can see the convention center from here. Looking down to the street gives an impressive sense of vertigo, I'm purposefully staying away from the far edge. Wouldn't want there to be any accidents. Who would type this thing in? If only my girlfriend had been able to join me on this trip to Austin. I wish there was someone here now to appreciate the sheer beauty and mystery of this brisk March morning with me, but I guess sometimes it's okay to be alone. In the middle of a city filled with 800,000 people, some still sleeping, some just waking up as I write these words, in a city this large, I stand alone. The sky is about to perform for me and me alone.

Way off in the distance, there are red lights blinking from radio towers like lightning bugs hovering in position, waiting for something to happen. I have no idea where the sun is going to come from. I'm all turned around and never have been good with direction. the city is lit up so bright it gives a vaguely dim hue of color all around the horizon, like the sun could come from anywhere.

The light on the horizon is getting a little brighter somewhere between the Sheraton and he Marriot. There are some who would prefer to experience the sunrise from a mountaintop or overlooking the Atlantic ocean. Me? I've always been a city kid at heart, Well, suburb kid at least.

I still can't tell for sure from where the sun will come. This mystery is actually suspenseful. This event happens every day. At home in Dallas I often take it for granted. I am usually driving down the Tollway. I rarely pay it any attention. Here in Austin, this one morning, it's magic just waiting to happen. It's strange how a slight change of geography can affect a person's attitude.

I can see a lone star twinkling as a rainbow of color glows to the left and right of the Sheraton. Or is that Venus? Is that Venus?! It's beautiful. And now I have my bearings. The sun should show up just a bit to the left of her. But by the time Apollo shows, Venus will be gone.

Above me blueblack, as the eyes look down from the heavens towards the east. The blue black turns cobalt, and then thousands of different shades of turquoise and aquamarine before phasing into a vague gaudy yellow, below that a band of orange and red dance with each other depending on where you look. Then just above, the city lights flicker and glow about the vanishing point of the horizon, magenta and violet merge into a color I have never seen. A color I didn't even know existed before now. And emerging from that swirl of color.. It's almost.. dark silver? wow.

The sky is slowly lightening up. I can see the paper just a little bit easier. Venus is taking flight just a little higher in the sky each time I look away from the pen. As if she only moves when I'm not looking at her. Like a phoenix she soars from the magnificent turmoil of color beneath her.

And it's so cool and brisk this morning with a gentle slight breeze tickling about my shoulders. I can make out clouds now. Very slight whisps of smokey grey high above me in the increasingly brighter greyblue morning sky. Occasional whisps of industrial steam and manmade smoke obscure miniscule portions of the landscape. Like little baby clouds wanting to be like the Big Boys higher in the air. From here they look about the same size.

Venus is twinkling now. Fading. As if she might say goodbye soon, the tinkerbell dying, waiting for applause and laughter to bring her back. And still the sky slowly glows brighter, replacing the tiny precious Venus with the majesty and brilliance of a much grander celestial body only just now slowly pulling its head out from under the bed covers. That silver glow inside the magenta and violet is more striking now. It must be the haze of the city, like an eerie dome covering its length.

Words fail me. My words pale compared to this. It's just good to be alive.

I glance over the edge again at the convention center down below. The clock above the front doors reads "6:19am."

I can see the highway from here, as if I were observing a major artery through a medical instrument, the cars and trucks like individual blood cells, hurrying along to the left and the right of me. I can hear thousands of birds way off in the distance. It sounds like the multitudes of conversations I could not make out as I 'mingled' the halls of the convention center yesterday. Just birds flying from tree to tree..

"6:21am"
The silver grey haze moves out from the horizon rapidly and lightly touching the rooftops and treetops, as if a slight flurry of snow fell sideways across my view of the landscape.

"6:23am"
Below me the occasional car drives by, slowly becoming more common. A cleaning truck blinks its yellow light at me as if waving good morning.

"6:24am"
Where but moments ago I could barely make out shadows, now all of Austin's history and splendor presents itself to me. Austin shakes off sleep, stretches, yawns, and sets itself off to start another routine day.

As if nothing special is happening.

"6:26am"
[...]

"6:27am"
The silver haze has trickled into occasional light wisps of fog. Perhaps that's what it was the entire time. Fog and steam and smoke. The exhalations of breath for a city pumping with life even as it slumbers.

I know it pumps with life when it sleeps. I know it sleeps. I know this city wakes up. It breathes. It lives. Like any living organism. Its steel and concrete is like our flesh and bone. Its electricity and water like our own bodies' natural internal combustion engine. And the very people of Austin and the tools they use to move about and accomplish their daily routine, they are this city's nervous system. When a baby laughs, this city laughs with her. Happily. When an old one dies, this city mourns his passing. And it dies too a little. Yet it is forever reborn just as the Venus Phoenix rises from the crimson cauldron.

I have vicariously observed Austin, like walking into my room back home to wake up my lover so she can make it to college class, but before I do, I set myself down beside her and look at her closed eyes and hear her breathing and smell her near, and then I kiddingly and quietly nudge her awake.

And then I watch her fumble slowly to life like a lotus blossom. So now too have I seen Austin's lotus. Here I stand ten stories into the air. It's time to nudge Austin awake.

"6:31am"
Austin's a beautful town when it wakes up. My Carey is prettier, but if I ever break down and get married and have a child, I think I might name him Austin.

Good morning Four Seasons. So glad you could join us. And the Raddison. Sheraton, nice to meet you. Yes, Capitol Building I can still see you back there behind all those guys who forgot their nametags this morning. Are you all here for the conference? No. Well. Neither am I, now. But I'm still here. And glad to be here. Perhaps no one else knows I'm alive, but I do. I guess that's really what's important. It's my life after all. It's my responsibility to live it to its fullest. No one else will do that for me.

"6:35am"
Somewhere behind the twilight band of melting cold light slowly fading away above the horizon, the sun still evades from my view. As if it's afraid to come out. Perhaps the Sheraton is blocking my view. Out of the way, you stupid hotel! I'm trying to meet and greet the sun. It's the ONE celebrity here today I definitely don't want to miss!

"6:38"
So many structures here. Buildings from different times of the last hundred and fifty years or so. Some only a few years old. Some several decades. most somewhere in between. Different architects leaving their vision as their mark. Different dreams, some realized and others cast aside. Some appear unfinished. Some look done in. I feel light headed and dizzy up here realizing that like the sunrise and sunset, Austin itself is forever changing and growing. It's a little different every morning. A little different every night. My home town is like that too, and I never contemplated that before now. The entire universe is that way.

"6:40"
Several yards away to the right of the Sheraton on the horizon a patch of red glows brighter than all around it. The silhoettes of two birds flutter across the red, disturbing my view for a fleeting second. They exchange pleasantries as they meet in the air, above the boiling mass of swirling crimson, orange and as the yellow bubbles into the blue. A couple pigeons alight a few feet away from me, nodding their heads, saying good morning to one another.

"6:42"
It's actually getting colder up here as the sun prepares to make its debut. I'm noticably shivering now. the breeze has kicked up just a notch. The city is alive now I can hear it come in full force.

And here comes the sun.

"6:43"
A small circle of red slowly emerging from the silver haze. She's beautiful.

"6:45am"
Again words pale. You missed it. The sun is so delicious I wish I could reach out and touch her. But I know I am forced to keep my distance and appreciate her from afar. Even if I could touch her, I would not feel her beauty. Only her heat and pain.

But from this safe distance, eight and a half light minutes away, she is magnificent. I can see why millenia ago she was worshipped and believed to be the god of the earth. And why some still believe that in their own way.

I looked at the sun off and on until I knew it wasn't safe to look any longer, for even to gaze too long into her would harm my eyes. I smoked one last cigarette, collected my things, and headed downstairs. For today, I'm not just a spectator, a tourist, or an outsider. Today, I'm a part of Austin.

- Zach Garland
Austin Texas, USA 6:50am
Monday, March 11th, 2000

originally input into previous incarnation of my online journal on
3/18/2000 05:17:32 AM