I think there is a tendency for people to dismiss what you find based on the way you came to the material. It really should not matter. The point is you discovered something for yourself.

The “fantasy” genre of literature is something I had pretty much abandoned after high school. I also never had a good reason to return to anything within the genre except for The Lord of the Rings series. So I had not been paying attention to the genre. I am always looking for new TV series to watch and I heard reviews for HBO’s new series Game of Thrones. (I do not have cable so I have to wait for the DVD’s to hit Netflix. So when it comes to TV series especially the ones on cable I am always about 6 months to a year behind in watching them.) The series is based on the books by George R.R. Martin who is a writer I was not familiar with either. I wanted to read at least the first in the series to see how well (or maybe not) the TV series plays to the book. I was curious on how the adaptation may work. However, the DVD’s will not be available until March.

I bought the book and 800 pages of story made take pause. I have not tackled reading a book of this amount in a while. However, I made it a goal to read at least one chapter a day. Side track a moment. It is also a goal of mine to read new authors this year and tackle more from my “To Be Read” pile.

This book took about 2 ½ weeks to read. And it was so worth the time. This book is filled with very intriguing characters. Each chapter is written from the “point of view” of its various characters. There is continuity between them all. It is a long book but it rewards the reader. Every time, there was something of “cliché” moment for “fantasy” writing the author goes the other way. Then I found myself drawn in even more to the story line where it became a book that was hard to put down.

I am not going to write a full review of the details. I want to give you the opportunity to discover it for yourself. I believe this work is worth the effort. I was so taken by the story than the day after I finished this book I immediately picked up the second volume Clash of Kings. It looks like Mr. Martin’s series is going to be with me for the next two months. After that I will need a new author to tackle from another genre. I am open to suggestions. I do not want to get stuck for too long in any one particular genre.

I was thinking why this series has gained some of the spotlight when it comes to our popular culture. First, HBO knows how to promote a series. They are also more willing to take on shows that big 3 networks would not have the courage to show. But then again the FCC has a thin skin when it comes to the few of the “offended”. A series also brings attention to the book it is based on. In this case, I think it is the tone of this book which is capturing the audience. This is a story about the most “seductive and addictive” drug ever known and that is “power”. This story highlights various factions trying to obtain that “power” and the characters that are caught up in that struggle.

This book I think captures some undertones that are going on in the U.S. culture at this time. The first thing is these are characters that swear oaths and go into actions to defend those oaths. We live in a culture where it seems like those who are in “power” are constantly saying “I did not say that. I was taking out of context.” We have too many so called leaders now that hide behind lawyers, insurance regulations and opinion polls. People want to experience people who are the “antithesis” of that even if it is in a fictional setting. Secondly, I also think that our current Presidential Election process (or better yet “farce”) is bringing people to this series. In the story, it is a kingdom being ripped apart by various factions with the goal somehow reuniting that same kingdom as a whole someday. How this series will come to that ending is yet to be known (at least for myself)? It is not healthy for a society to have at least two years of two parties with various factions fighting it out for the job of the President. Two years running for a four year job is not an efficient way to run a society. At least not forward and up. But it seems like a good way to “go into the ground”. Ideology cannot be fought on a daily basis. There has to be some “pragmatics” at work. This book says as much about our present times as it does for the time in which it set.

This is a great example of a “Concept” song. It has a narrative and a structure to it that can be followed without being given notes.

Clerks where they could only film in the convenient store at night when the place was closed so the”Savages” put gum in the lock of the security shutters. This allows them to act as if there was daylight. So they had to make sure the front door was never in the camera shot.

And you can just skip the obvious joke.

I took a few days off from work last week in order to tackle the various projects that I needed to. However, the “Forces That BE” decided otherwise. I wanted to be productive. I wanted to tackle a bunch of small projects around the apartment. I really need to be better at housekeeping. I am very close to being required to change my name to “Oscar”. I wanted to write out some postings. Make some more notes on future projects.

That was the plan.

The “Forces” that be decided I need to get sick with a sore throat, congestion, fever. So I spent most of the time in bed sleeping. Or trying to. But ended up on the couch watching Netflix. Burning fever makes the eyes have a hard time reading or trying to look at a computer screen to write. It is also hard to get any sympathy since I do not live with an audience. People win awards for portrayal of “sick and dying” characters. On your own it is just a pathetic act. It was just a nice way to waste 4 days doing nothing.

I am trying to get back to getting things done. I have a new tenant that brought forth issues I need to deal with. I just wish my plumbing skills were better. I have a garage that the town is making repair and the project has been delayed that I am not sure if the town’s patience is going to last. And I wish the nice weather would just a bit longer to get it done.

As I was staring at the ceiling last night. I was thinking about the universal forces at work and wondering. It would be nice if they just went with my “flow” for once. Not presenting problems but offering up solutions. It would be nice if the time, the money and the materials were there before the problem for once. Scrambling about is not a fun form of exercise. It has always been a problem of getting “the horse and the cart” in the right order. Everyone yells that the “cart” needs to move. But no one wants to help find the “horse” to get the job done.

I wish there was times in which the effort was noticed more upfront than the results.

But then again, these thoughts are the lingering side effects of the illness. Or the NyQuil.

looking at you now, I can see exactly where you fall on this spectrum. you are a man constantly trying to fix today what Yesterday Man did to you. you make up your bed, you clean those dirty dishes from the night before, and pledge not to start drinking until six, thinking that’s the way to keep an even keel. but in reality you’re always playing catch-up. I know this because I’ve been there. the thing is – you can’t fix the mistakes of Yesterday. Yesterday Man is dead, he’s gone forever, and blame and atonement aren’t worth a damn. what you CAN do is help yourself today. eat a vegetable. read a book. cut that hair of yours. leave Tomorrow Man something more than a headache and a jam-packed colon. do for Tomorrow Man what you would have wanted Yesterday Man to do for you.

It reminded me of this clip from the Drew Carey Show.

“Tradition and heritage are all dead people’s baggage.

Stop carrying it. Move Forward.”

Doug Stanhope, Track 4

Oslo: Burning the Bridge to Nowhere

A co-worker of mine leaves copies of Rolling Stone magazine in the break room. It has been about 15-20 years since I was a regular reader of that magazine. I do not have any really opinion about it either. It is just something to read to kill time while on break or lunch. However, compared to the local daily paper it has a little more substance to it. The back of each issue lists the top 20 album sales for the week. I looked over the list and most of the music I have never heard of. If this is a measure of where one place’s in comparison to modern music then I am way out of place. The thing is twenty years earlier and for reason now “unknown” I had the desire to investigate more of that music. Today, I just don’t care about most of music for the masses. A car payment and a mortgage did an effective job of taking up a good portion of my “entertainment dollars”. The other thing is I have developed better “filters” to either tune in or tune out music. There is also another chart on that page that lists the Top 10 songs from a decade or two earlier. I remember those popular songs and most of them are no longer played. I have come to the conclusion that most pop culture items, in this case music, is not made to last. There is not a vehicle that is more inefficient and does not carry good distances when it comes to mileage than “The Bandwagon”. So do not waste a lot of effort trying to “hitch on to it”. (Thoughts like this are why I could never go into “marketing” as a full time job.)

Art in its various mediums is basically an effort by “mortals” hoping by chance they might stumble on to “immortality”. This must be accomplished within certain frame of time which is a value unknown by the particular artist. In other words, the sun only shines so long. I began to think about this when the band R.E.M. called it end to their group after 30 years. It is also another “marker in time” when the major music groups that endured from when you discovered them in your youth come to their end. I heard it mentioned it was because of poor album sales. They may not have been selling like they did in the late 80′s and the 90′s. It does not mean they were putting out bad albums. I think they were still creating some good music and the last two albums showed no letting up. However, it was their call to make no matter how I felt. R.E.M. was one of the bands I found in high school that I was a “secret fan” of then. The crowd I was with at the was “Heavy Metal Only!” This band got me going into other music because back then “alternative music” and the mass population had not been introduced to either other at that point. I remember buying R.E.M.’s Green album while at the same time buying Never Surrender by Triumph. (Although that was not my biggest purchase of diverse music at the same time. That would be Strays by Jane’s Addiction along with Songs of Silence by Simon and Garfunkle.) The Internet did change how music was distributed. Album sales are no longer a good measurement of music’s popularity and quality. Radio is now program to be “boring and repetitive” with a condense playlist. Most bands now publish the number of Twitter followers they have rather than how many actually album copies they sold. It is also a shift by not only technology but generational one too. Internet streaming and digital storage means you no longer have to hold an actually physical copy. It is now more about the “experience” of the art. Remember making mixed tapes in the 80′s and early 90′s? I am a bit nostalgic for that “passion” in creating them. But I do not miss how much actual manual labor was involved in the process.


All products must evolve with the times. However when the people behind them announced changes their audience (customers) react with “Outrage and threats”. Netflix change their fee structures and may lose some content for streaming. I like the service for now but it does not mean I am “indentured” to them for life. I started with AOL which was the biggest and best at one point. Busy signals and price hikes made me change. Facebook changed their page layout in how you interact with it. I read a lot of people on there who were “pissed off and ready to quit”. None of them did. In fact, most of them still are posting with the same frequency they always did. MySpace did not update their interface and look what happened to them. The interface is going to change. The phone was a great new communication tool for the time. So does that mean they were to stop with the “rotary dial” as the way to operate it? Remember when you had to actually get up and change the dial on the TV to get to another station? (Actually given the “overweight” problem this might be a good thing to return to for some form of exercise.) So see what is actually happening before you go into some sort “self righteous outrage rant.” Make the change if necessary but stay off the soap box. Here is my example. I used to like to get my Sunday morning coffee and breakfast sandwich from a popular local “north of the border” chain outlet. I began to hate navigating their parking lots. I hated waiting in lines that consisted of only ONE person in front of me. Ordering a simple cup of black coffee only to get it with cream and sugar. A gift card (that came with a receipt) that the manager could not fix and was told I had to take it back. I began to dread their places. And by the way their corporation does NOT monitor their Facebook page so do not go there looking for customer service. I could have written a complaint letter and would have probably received a bunch of coupons to their establishments. So the message would have been, “The next time you come here. Your Poor Customer Service Experience is ON US.” I did not tell others not to go there. I just “Un-liked” their Facebook page and went somewhere else. “High Vocal Outrage” does not carry across the masses as far as you think it might. Besides enough “smart” customers walking away from them will make them change or die out.

There is no such thing as the “Status Quo”. Calling out for its “defense” is like saying you are willing “to take a bullet for the Easter Bunny.” It is feels good to sound “Very brave and moral” when you really do not to actually prove anything. Nostalgia is powerful but can be very draining thing to hold on to. Any form of social interaction will never make 100% of the people “happy”. That’s on them. Not you. And not me either.


I know I am arguing against “Nostalgia”. But I have to admit I am not immune to its effect. I got pissed when Miley Cyrus covered Smells Like Teen Spirit. She is “pop culture candy”. Twinkies have a longer shelf than her and more substance. That song was an anthem for “the disenfranchised” not for someone who comes from privilege. It is hard to believe it has been 20 years since the release of Nevermind by Nirvana. It was an album than change the cultural landscape when it comes to music.

Here is a link to Alan Cross talking about this album and why it mattered.

1991 was the year the big rock albums came from Metallica, Guns n’ Roses and do not forget Jane’s Addiction or Soundgarden.

I remember when I first heard this album. And Smells Like Teen Spirit was not the first song I ever heard from them. The album was being played on the local college station. It was Breed and it grabbed by the attention of my ears’ immediately. I had to get this album and bought at the local chain “Cavages” (And they have been out of business for almost 20 years now.) I bought the album and at the check-out. The young woman working the counter said, “There is something going on with this. It is the fourth copy I have already sold and we opened 30 minutes ago.” Smells Like Teen Spirit was just getting MTV play the same week and commercial radio was not far behind.

There most likely will never be a music album that will cause a major cultural shift like this. This is the album that knocked Michael Jackson out of Number 1 on the sales chart. And after this his music for the most part would never have the mass impact that it did in the 80′s. (Plus he became more of “circus act” in his own life.)

I still play this album today although on an MP3 player. The format may be different. But the music has endured so far.

That may change.

Then again it might not.

I cannot predict a future. I surely did not predict this one.

But I can at least guarantee this.

The Status Quo will still be elusive.

And politicians will still be promising to deliver it.


“Once you start laying back on your resume. The more you hear a country talking about their history. The more likely they’re not doing a fucking thing anymore. You always have to progress as a society. As a people. As a species. Egypt they created the pyramids. Fantastic! What have you done since then? Nothing?”

                                                Doug Stanhope, Track 7

I came across a news report that mentioned the yearly update from Beliot College. They publish the “Mind Set Listing”. This is a list of the life experiences that most of the graduating class has had. It shows how from year to year what a student has and has not experienced in their life up to that point.

Everyone experiences life differently. The culture is constantly shifting on some level within people. “Status quo” for a culture is a total myth. It can never exist as a constant state with our increasing knowledge that comes with time. The only way a “homogenized culture” can exist is within a milk carton. However, in that state it also comes with an expiration date. The problem with this mind set is that there is way too much arguing in society about these cultural shifts. A course of action can only be implemented when all sides come to an agreement. And that agreement has to be total aligned around set of beliefs. No one ever agrees fully with another person even if they are in the same group. Rhetoric has become the illusion of action. Time is not going to wait for people getting there “shit together”. Because it will never fully happen.

Now it is time to move off of that soap box.

I have been caught in the trap of too much Internet and TV. It is easy to do when I get into exhaustion and its side effects. (Which I will not go into) However, it is hard to read when my allergies flare up like they do every year in the end of August and early September and my eyes start burning. So the TV is there so I can watch something that may inspire at some point me down the road. I also (although it may be false) get the impression that I am at least trying to work towards something. I have to say with the Netflix subscription I have been watching more documentary films lately. There was one that is kind of in line with this idea here of “culture clash”. The film was called Exporting Raymond. It follows Phil Rosenthal, the former executive producer of the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond as he travels to Russia to help adapt this sitcom for TV there. This movie shows how he has to deal with the cultural shifts that make each side here argue over “what is funny”. He may be the award winning producer here but over there he is not always treated all that well. “The fish out of water” story helps to add a bit of unsuspected comedy to film.

If you watch this movie the DVD in the bonus section has two episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond. It also contains the exact same episodes that were adapted into Everybody Loves Kostya. It is a good exercising into noticing the difference between the two even though the overall story arc is the same in both shows.

The “Culture Clashes” are always going to be good fodder for sit-coms. However, in life they do not come with the “laugh track”. There are times when it can tempt you to want to go down “homicidal track”. I know this is my case. At my age, I made it to where I am still not “married with children”. And when I made it to this point I began to slowly notice more and more the looks of “suspicion and border line disgust”. I just call it the “look on envy”. This “existence” of mine causes real issues with my family. I come from an Irish-Catholic family and do not come out and say it. But I know this behavior of mind is definitely “out of line”. Outside of my last name the only part of my Irish heritage I still follow is that I like a good pint of Guinness. As for the Catholic part, I still like the Friday Fish Fry. With the pint of Guinness. What can I say after all of those years I finally found something I could give up for Lent. Church. Maybe they can give me a pass on the church part. I come from a family that only recognizes you when you produce children. It does not matter what I do. I could cure cancer, find world peace, whatever. It will not matter because I am still not “married with children”. So to keep the peace and what is left of my insanity I just do not have a lot of conversations with them about what I doing. I would rather have no conversation that an abrupt one. Plus I have seen enough clips from Maury. (I really need to turn the TV off) to realize that being able to reproduce does not guarantee any rising of a person’s character. It does make me wonder how a young woman can find half dozen men to drag on the show for a paternity test. Then none of them are the father. So she will be on next week with another half dozen hopefuls. Even worse are the so-called men who deny their responsibility in situation.

Here is an example of what it is like for me at times. It is the movie Behind Enemy Lines
which is a decent and effective action movie. There was a bit of a miscasting in Owen Wilson (but not a fatal one) as the Air Force pilot shot down behind enemy lines. The story is about him trying to evade capture. Gene Hackman starred as the commander office leading the effort to save him. This movie for me is a metaphor about “the married with children scenario”. I would be miscast to play a role in it. I am already a bit too narcissistic. The next level would be narcissism a completely greater level. At this point, I have none the resources needed to partake in the endeavor. I also do not want to go into by “accident”. I have no desire to share the stage with Maury Povich or Jerry Springer. However, may be Ripley’s Believe or Not! I also have no real influence on anyone who is “married with children”. They never take my recommendations. And it does not stop them from talking about theirs toward me. It can be frustrating but it just part of the game. Each side has a different view of the other’s “wants and needs”. And that disagreement is basis for my plotlines throughout sitcoms.

I now know better than with my life as it stands “acknowledgment and validation” will also be hard to come by. But I am going to follow the script I want.

There is quote from Phil Rosenthal in the movie that stuck with me.

“Make the television show that you want. Because they’re still going to cancel you in the end.”

It is has been a long and very hot week here. It is has been a rough week to attempt any form of writing. I work in a “hot box” all day and I came home feeling very “spent”. I was going to take my laptop to the local library to work in their air conditioning but it is only opened for about an hour after my job ends. And I always thought working on a laptop in a coffee shop seem to be pretentious and cliché. Plus, the last thing after a long day at work I need to do is load up on caffeine.

So I spent this morning in the yard just reading a book. I also listened to Eddie Vedder’s music from the soundtrack to Into the Wild. It is one of the best albums for music when it comes to mediating about things. Sometimes quiet meditation (although the ear buds are in) can be a good thing. Not every thought needs to be spoken out loud.

I was looking at my garden for this year. It is growing a bit different than in past years. The tomatoes are growing taller than before. The corn not so well. I used a different seed type of seed this year. Plus the squirrels ripped out some in their early stages so I start again. The squirrels had never done this in previous years. The Plastic Owl was bought to scare them away. However, they attack the corn again. I did find a deterrent that seems to work. Crushed garlic, old socks and coffee grounds. If this doesn’t work I am going to get a pistol with a silencer.

As I was having my meditating moment, I realize this garden in a way was like writing. An idea needs to the right conditions to grow. But even with them it may not happen. Somehow, I have to find the balance between the two and realize that state with always be fluctuating. Just have to look at the current conditions and make adjustments from there.

And then I stumbled into this idea in my readings which I am going to paraphrase.

Be expectant without having expectations.

I swear I did not read that from a Chinese Fortune Cookie.

I know I have written a few posts (maybe too many) about my own short comings on staying focused when it comes to writing. It is also a by-product of my circumstances. I am attempting to do something that no one in my immediate circle is attempting to do. Or even understands. So I guess I just throw that feeling out into the vast span of the Internet in hopes someday some bits of communication may come back someday. Call this my own personal SETI experiment. And I am going to leave it at this for now.

I keep a copy of the book Zen and the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury in my backpack. Everyone needs a coach to refer from time to time. It is hard to always have some on hand. So it nice to be able to refer to someone. The first essay in the book titled the “The Joy of Writing” he tells about how he finds joy in what others don’t understand. He states how he can’t worry about that because he feels compelled to write about it.

An Internet search engine is another way to find material to help me.

I stumbled upon this article that sums up Ray Bradbury’s tips for writing.

How to Feed Your Muse: 7 Writing Tips From Ray Bradbury