Discoveries

After a pathetic amount of time trying to figure out how to use RSS feeds, I finally found out how to do it without a local application. There's a site called bloglines, and there's a link to the right (and maybe a bit down.) They have a large list of popular feeds, and it's pretty easy to add ones they don't have listed. Now I can be an even better news junkie than I was.

Also heard a new band last night, called Cue. They sound something like Godspeed You Black Emperor, instrumental rock with epic feel. Aaron told the drummer, a friend of his from high school, that they were too good to be playing small clubs, and I think he was right. This is a band that people would be willing to pay to see, if they knew about them. As it turns out, I've actually sort of known one of the members of the band (Stacey, their electric violinist) for quite some time, and she never told me she was in a band. I think that this might indicate why they are playing venues that are not worthy of them-the bands I've seen succeed have done so based more on their self-promotion rather than their actual talent. It's sad, but people's ability to succeed in the arts has little or nothing to do with their ability.

Down with the sickness


A while back I told a friend of mine who is studying for her masters in clinical psychology that common people should not have access to the Diagnostic-Statistical Manual (DSM) because we are all hypochondriacs and we would start diagnosing ourselves with random, stupid shit that we didn't have. Now a friend of mine (who is more introspective than most, granted) has diagnosed himself with something called "histrionic disorder" based on information he got in a book about Borderline Personality Disorder (which he has diagnosed two ex-girlfriends of his with, by the way.) Now, is it just me, or does "histrionic disorder" seem to hail back to the days of Victorian psychology, where women who were upset with their husbands were diagnosed with "hysteria" and given laudanum to combat it?
I suppose my issue with all of this is that there is a sort of general feeling of ill over the better part of the world, and if everyone's feeling it, it can't really be sickness, can it? I think that a combination of a fucked up society (see my last post) with an obsessive need to know that everyone falls within a certain standard deviation, contributes to the idea that we're all sick. It seems to me that not too long ago, things such as fetishes were relatively rare. Now everyone's got one, and you can't find a date if you tell someone you don't have a kink, because they think you're lying. Small talk has come to include a frank discussion of how and why you are fucked in the head, and what you're doing to deal with it. Or rather, what you're taking to deal with it.

Of course, in the midwest, they don't talk about it, they just depress themselves with liquor and burn their brains with meth and beat the shit out of people who dare to act differently. I nearly cried the other night, watching the end of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, not because of what the flower children lost, but because of what they have since made unavailable to us. They are the ones shipping jobs overseas now, and taking our future from us. They let the world get fucked up, and are leaving it up to us to fix it, while they tell us that we're crazy.

So a number of things this fine day...

Ran into my ex at The Hole in the Wall the other day (during the all night happy hour,) which means that she has violated one of the key rules of a breakup: let the other person have their space. What made it notable was-I don't know if it was the beer I'd had or what, but I started feeling really broken up about the whole thing. Two weeks ago, I was ready to break it off with her, a week ago I was cool with the whole thing, and then the other day, I'm feeling like a wreck. No wonder friends of mine recommend a minimum 1-month breakup time.

In other news, I had a minor revelation the other day while listening (oddly enough) to Speakerboxxx. In one of the tracks, Big Boi raps about someone buying a $100 pair of heels while there is no food in the house. I recalled an NPR report I had heard about an Indian inventor who was saying that it would be possible to market a combination TV/DVD/Web-box that sold for US$50-US$100 because "people care a lot about entertainment. They would be willing to give up a couple days' worth of meals for it." Now, I know you're wondering where I'm going with this. In the novel Infinite Jest, one of the key plot points is an "entertainment" that is instantly and fatally addictive-people forgo all else for continued viewing. In The Society of the Spectacle Guy Debord says

Understood in its totality, the spectacle is both the result and the goal of the dominant mode of production. It is not a mere decoration added to the real world. It is the very heart of this real society’s unreality. In all of its particular manifestations — news, propaganda, advertising, entertainment — the spectacle represents the dominant model of life. It is the omnipresent affirmation of the choices that have already been made in the sphere of production and in the consumption implied by that production. In both form and content the spectacle serves as a total justification of the conditions and goals of the existing system. The spectacle also represents the constant presence of this justification since it monopolizes the majority of the time spent outside the production process.

It occurred to me that the "entertainment" in IJ is the spectacle itself, and we are all addicts.

Last bit: got google ads. Yes, baby needs a new pair of shoes.

So someone I met online asked me the other day to tell them a story about myself, and I thought "Hmm, a story about myself...." And here's what I told them

Well, recently there was a little competition here in Austin wherein the participants were challenged with shooting a horror film in 48 hours. The rules were as follows: no one could be paid; you had to use a horror subgenre and murder weapon that were assigned to your team; there was a communal line of dialogue and non-horror prop that every team had to use in their film; the films had to be between 4 and 8 minutes; and no pre-competition preparation was to be done (eg, no writing a script and then cutting it to fit.)

Well, I was on one of the teams that competed, and actually had a finished (though not polished) piece of work in the time limit. The story actually starts about a month before the start of the competition, none of us had worked together (with the exception of our cinematographer/DP and I) and so we did a couple of tests where we shot scenes so that we would all be a little better as a team. In fact, we shot one scene from Buffy season 1 as a test.

I had to work the Friday that the competition started, and so myself and our makeup person made it down a little later than expected. We were assigned the subgenre "Cannibal," the murder weapon fire, and the communal line was "I gave blood on Monday," communal prop was ice cubes. When I got there, the director and the AD already had a script worked out, and so the DP and I got setting up the first shot. This was about 11pm. By 4am, we had all the shots we needed at that location, which was good because there had been the potential for several shots getting ruined by the *thunderstorm* that blew in around 12:30am.

The next morning, we met up at the AD's house to shoot the rest of the film, and I started learning what being a director really means. Renee, who was directing our film, seemed unwilling to make decisions that might be unpopular, and continually was asking the rest of us for direction. Now, asking for advice is one thing, but if one is the *director*, you shouldn't be asking other people what they want to do. I suppose some of the issues could be written off as fatigue, but several near-arguments boiled down to Renee needing to state whether or not she needed a particular shot. Where was I during all of this? I was the light monkey and general gofer. I set up just about every lighting scheme we used, helped get costuming together, hung felt for the cyclorama we used for one shot, and overall played support. I also choreographed the chase sequence that is the climax of the film, and created one shot myself (granted, it's a classic thriller shot-someone hiding in a dark closet, their face illuminated by the light from outside, which is suddenly blocked by their pursuer, who then leaves...)

After primary shooting, my job was done, and I went home while our AD and director edited the film and got it down to competition headquarters. A week later, we went to the screening, and with every film that we saw, our hopes got higher. Despite the fact that it was a rough final cut, our film was one of the three or four best films in the competition. (sadly, we didn't win anything, though our DP was told by several other competitors that he should have won best cinematography.)

This was the third film that I've worked on, and by far the one I learned the most from, especially about my ideal role as a director. It lent me more confidence for my current goal of shooting three shorts in the next six months, and taught me several things that I need to know before starting any project.

"I don't think I can be the girlfriend you want me to be."

That's what my until-last-night girlfriend told me...last night, when I walked her to her car. I really can't say I disagree-there had been problems for the last couple of weeks, with her not calling me to cancel plans (just not showing up instead,) and cancelling plans to hang out with someone who spent a good deal of time trying to get her to date him before she and I started going out. The problems actually extend even further back then that, too. From the first time we had sex, I had the feeling that this might not work out, as our sexual compatibility was slightly better than cats and dogs living together. Opinions differ, but I tend to think that if sex feels like a chore (especially within the first month or so) the relationship is not long for this world. Subjectively, I thought back on other women I've dated, and the fact that they generally felt that the amount of sex was "just right" or "too much," and I've gotta say that I saw this coming.


The question I have is about the statement I quoted above: what does it mean? I suppose if I had somewhere posted a "Dylan's girlfriend needs manifesto," she could be responding to that. But she never asked what I wanted or needed from a girlfriend, so how did she know? I know that the obvious answer is that she noticed the same things I did about sex and so on, but everytime someone makes a decision based on what they think someone else wants (without asking first) it makes me wonder where this insight comes from.

Hellspawn: first offense
First off: if any of the three readers (two? one?) of this thing are parents, please take time to consider the following. I am sick and tired of having people come into my restaurant with their howling spawn and halfheartedly trying to control them while the brats fling shit across the room and generally make everyone elses' lives a living hell. Here's the bottom line right out front: if you think your kids are too young to be out in public, they are. If they start crying at any point during the meal, you have a responsibility to your fellow diners to take them outside and deal with them outside. For people too stupid to follow these instructions, I'll break it down even further: no restaurant should have to stock booster seats, high chairs, or those ridiculous cradle holders for your sake. If you can't afford a baby sitter, you can't afford to eat out. It's bad enough that you feel you shouldn't have to sacrifice for your progeny, you should never feel you have the right to make other people do so. The worst part is that you stupid, selfish parents never seem to realize that your waiter's consideration in not committing infanticide, much less providing good service, is worth at least doubling the tip you would normally leave.

Fuck you, Sex and the City writers!

A friend of mine just finished a book the other day called He's Just Not That Into You, a sort of women's self-help guide to dating. It's written by two writers from Sex and the City, something that should be a warning sign to anyone who considers reading the book. After all, these are two people whose only other qulification is having written a soap opera that largely consists of women bitching about their shitty love lives while holding up impossible ideals of what they want from men. The second warning sign should be that when looking the book over, it took me fifteen minutes to get through two chapters (there are 8 chapters in the book.) This would indicate that the book severely oversimplifies a complex issue, a conclusion backed up by the thread clearly running through the book: if he's not doing everything, he's not worth it. So let me respond to that with: if you don't put out, you're not worth it. Ladies? How'd that make you feel? Yeah, I thought so. Fact is, as much as I want to, if I were to write a book that countered the sentiment in HJNTIY, I would be attacked as a misogynist. If not by anyone else, by this guy, who seems to think anything with a penis qualifies as some level of misogynist. Luckily I have better people than that to rely on.



Considering that this was all inspired by a book a friend of mine bought because she couldn't understand why her relationships weren't working out, it should be mentioned that I find it sad when people can't figure out why things don't work out. I've never bought a book to explain to me how other people thought, because I fucking ask them. What happens to people that they are so scared of talking to each other about how they feel? Don't get me wrong, it's happened to me, recently, but I got over it. Quite happy about that. My friend Alejandro once told me that he could not understand pursuing therapy as a career, because he felt that things like therapy should be provided by your family and friends (as should housing, clothing, and food-Alejandro feels that all of your basic needs should be free, and I can't say I disagree.)

The sad thing about my friend buying this book is that like someone converted to fundamental Christianity, she will feel she has the answers until those answers fail her, and then she will go back to square one. What she needs is to internalize the philosophy of "if you meet Buddha on the road, kill him." Most Americans do. If you see something that seems to answer it all for you, it's not and it won't. Get that thought out of your head, it's completely wrong. After all, the only thing that this book tells you is that if guys don't call, don't ask you out, whatever, they're not worth it. Well, if someone says they'll call and they don't, they may be an asshole, or they may have a reason. My relationship advice is "think about how you feel. If more than half the time you've been going out, you've felt bad, the relationship is bad. If the average is feeling good, you may have problems, but it's worth working on."