Until Further Notice

Blogging over here about my novel.

Light's Cool

I have been unemployed for about ten weeks now. It's a little crazy to think that I've gone that long without a job. It's also a little crazy to realize just how much I've enjoyed the free time. The ability to write, read, relax at will -- what joy. Can I retire yet? The best part is that my unemployment runs for another 20 weeks (aka, five months). I don't want to run it out, but the temporary security it provides helps me sleep at night. Since mid-December, I've written four short stories, about 70 pages total. The first two stories, Your Father's Records and Funny Car, were not the best stories. But it was important to get back into the habit of writing regularly; they helped me dust off the cobwebs. The more recent two stories, Scary Bells and Stockholm in Drought, are longer and more complete in vision. I'm actually really proud of them. I have at least ten short stories I wrote in college, and of them, I'm really only proud of a couple. Yet during college, I was never really interested in writing short stories. I only wrote them because that was what was required of me. I have recently begun to appreciate the short story format. This is due to a number of reasons; Emily has been working short stories in classes for a couple years now, and we talk about them a lot. This ongoing discussion about short stories and how to craft them has refined my view of them and given me a better understanding of how they should work. I also respect short stories because they are the tried-and-true path to becoming a "real writer." My plan has remained the same since late January: Write a truck-load of short stories, send them out constantly, and force myself onto the scene. I haven't executed the plan as forcefully as I would have liked. Two stories in about two months. One story has been sent out, and I twiddle my thumbs waiting for a response. I'm obeying the plan, just not at the pace I had desired. I refuse to be lazy about this anymore. I did fuck all for two years, and I've started applying myself for the last few months but it's not enough. Am I going to be a writer, a professional writer, or am I going to be a middle-aged bum who wishes he had given it a better go when he was younger? I refuse to be lazy about this anymore. Starting this week, I'm going to bed earlier, waking up earlier, and writing more. I will write for at least three hours every day. I will read for at least one hour every day. I refuse to be lazy about this anymore. As last time, not a very introspective post. But I've lost a lot of my desire for introspection. Scratch that -- it's not that the desire is gone, but the need is gone. I don't need to spend time thinking about myself because I have, for the most part, figured myself out. There will always be more to know and learn about myself, but I am completely comfortable with who I am now. Sam at the age of 24 knows what he likes, what he wants to accomplish, and how he prefers to live. The past couple months have been extremely useful for me to understand those aspects of myself. Now I do, and I am putting myself to work. I refuse to be lazy about this anymore. I know who I am, and I know what I must do: I must write.

Fight Song

My life is undergoing a transition right now. I was laid off from my job last week (well, I was laid off two months ago, but they "let" me stick around for two months so I could knowledge dump onto those who would be paid to do my job). The situation has forced to me take a number of things in my life a little more seriously. I realized early on in this process that I had become very secure in my working life. Besides a handful of writing projects (Alcova, my novel), my writing had really fallen by the wayside. If I was lucky, I'd write a few pages a week. That usually didn't happen. Writing outbursts were few and far between, and resulted in the 40 or so pages that currently constitute my novel. I was content to make my money as an editor, to spend that money on video games and nice dinners, and let that be that. My hobbies filled up the rest of my time (music and sports, duh!). Writing was just barely a concern. An afterthought. I see now that I was well on my way to becoming yet more like my father. He is very comfortable in his lifestyle. He works a job that doesn't seem to really fulfill him, and his hobbies fill up the rest of his time (music and sports -- duh). My biggest fear in life is to wind up exactly like my dad. It's no knock on him -- I think he's relatively happy. He's more of a loner than I am. But it's not for me. I want to be surrounded by friends. And I want to write. I fervently believe that the only thing I'm really good for is writing. Writing is what I am meant for. So here I am. No job. Lot of savings, unemployment coming in for six months. And a burning desire to subduct all other interests to my writing fire. My plan crystallized a couple weeks ago. I want to be a professional writer, but as I have no contacts in the writing world, I'm going to have to do this myself, I'm going to have to become a writer through sheer force of will. As long as I am unemployed, and even when I become employed, I'm going to churn out short story after short story. I'm going to send planeloads of stories to fiction magazines and journals. I will get stories published. I must. When I get my first story published, I will not celebrate. I will send more stories out. I will build up as big a published portfolio as I can, I will get my name out there and keep it out there. I will make contacts with publishers and printers. Through all this, the goal is to find an agent. An agent or a publisher willing to publish my first novel. And then... well then we have to hope the marketplace is interested in my novels. I've finished -- for the most part -- my first short story. I'll send it out hopefully by the end of this week or the beginning of next week to a few magazines. I want to start writing my next story though. Something sci-fi oriented; a lot of the "fast turnaround" outlets are sci-fi or fantasy oriented. So with that second story, I should be able to send it out repeatedly throughout the week after it's done being written. I've been trying to start this second story for a couple of days now. I've been going through various ideas in my head. But really -- considering how many stories I want to write -- the idea doesn't matter too much. I'll get to them all in due time. I just need to start putting pen to paper. This entry is less introspective than usual. I'm using it more as a personal declaration, a manifesto of what I hope to accomplish in 2009. I've been given the gift of time, time to write, and I don't want to squander it. I feel very deeply that this is an important moment in my writing career, an opportunity to rise to the occasion. I must rise to it, I must seize this moment. If I don't, I'll regret it for the rest of my life. I must rise to the occasion -- I will rise to the occasion.

Holy World War Will Come For You

I've never cared that deeply about politics. Well -- okay, that's not entirely true. I've never cared that deeply about politicians. Politics concerns me greatly, insofar as the state of the world concerns me greatly. But I became aware about the world, in a global sense, during the fall of Bill Clinton, and I came of age during the reign of W Bush. As such, I never really felt a powerful connection to the presidency; I felt more of a dull frustration, like an ache you've had for a couple days. You almost forget it's there. The general election in 2004 provided me my first real opportunity to vote for president. I was 20 and, vote in hand, I was prepared to help get Bush out of the Oval Office. Except I didn't really care about John Kerry. He didn't inspire me. He spoke flatly; he felt like a paper tiger, like the Democratic party said, "Oh shit, we need someone to run for president." So I fully expected to feel the same way about the 2008 elections. I figured it'd be some old gentleman kindly explaining that Republicans were wrong, we were right, and vote for him because he's not a Republican. Boring, partisan politics. But I'd rather a limp-wristed Democrat in there than a military-sponsored Republican, so all right let's do it, let's get fucking John Kerry in the White House. Except in 2006, there were hints that Barack Obama would run. My ears perked up; ever since his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, I had been a pretty ardent Obama supporter. In that election year, I didn't care about any of the candidates running for president, but I did care about one of the up-and-coming Democrats who gave a speech. I wanted him to run. I wanted to vote for Obama. Now, of course, I've gotten my chance. Unlike every politician in my lifetime, he gives me hope, and further, he makes me care about politics. For the first time, I find myself engaging in lively debates about which politician is better -- and I surprise myself by how much I mean what I say. For the first time, I care about a politician. In much the same way, my feelings towards music have been evolving to the point where I actually care about contemporary rock. For a long time, I didn't love this era of independent music so much as I hated this era of popular music. I liked the indie stuff but I didn't feel a need to champion it, to tell everyone about it. Either people knew about it and liked it already, or they wouldn't care either way. Like politics, everyone had already picked their sides, they were just voting the party line. But in 2004, I started to get really into punk and underground 80s stuff. Not just the Ramones and the Clash and Sonic Youth, but bands like (and I know I've mentioned them already but for the sake of rhetoric) Gang of Four, the Replacements, Wire, Superchunk. I started to care more about music. I wanted to play it for people, so I started making mix CDs. I imagine the same thing happening to my father, back in the mid-70s. I don't know this for sure, perhaps I should talk to him about it, but I can see him, in 1976, getting excited for Jimmy Carter and some cool music that was being played in New York City. A little band called the Ramones were recording that year, a record that would, unbeknownst to them or my father, drop a match in a powderkeg. As I find myself vocally supporting Obama, I also find myself telling everyone I can about some new bands. I am not only enjoying independant music, but I have found some that most people haven't heard -- and I am genuinely excited for it. Truly underground music that needs championing. And so I will. For as long as I keep finding music that genuinely excites me, I will spread the word. The day I find myself hyping bands that two hundred people have already hyped, that sound like easy listening with a slick drumbeat, (re: Vampire Weekend), that is the day I get out of it, get away from rock, and who knows, maybe I take one more step to becoming my father and start listening to Count Basie and Frank Sinatra. I don't know when that will happen, or if it will; John Peel rocked til he was dead, and he spent a good amount of time among the living. But there's nothing more respectable than realizing you're playing a game that the world stopped playing ages ago and getting out, no matter if the getting is good.

I Don't Wanna Be Your Friend, I Just Wanna Be Your Lover

My whole life, there are a few things that I've made routine, a part of my life. Some of these are things that are in your routine as well. I've eaten food my whole life. I love eating food. I've also slept my whole life: every night, I get in bed and I try to sleep for over 7 hours. Sometimes I get my necessary 9 hours, sometimes I get closer to 6. But I still get in that bed every night and I conk out and I love it. I've also listened to music my whole life. From my earliest memories, my parents played music for me and I was fascinated by it. My dad, well when I was a babe in arms my dad was the tender age of 30. He listened to the Ramones, Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, Pavement. My mom listened to The Clash, Jimmy Buffett, Al Green. The Ramones and The Clash were the first two bands that I ever really liked; can you imagine a five-year-old just loving his Ramones CD? Because that was me. I listened to it constantly. Over time, I found my own music loves, but the Ramones and The Clash never left me. As I mentioned in one of the last couple entries here, I've become increasingly addicted to finding new music, and I don't mean new in the chronological sense -- I mean it in the John Peel sense, in the "I want to hear something I haven't heard before" sense. Occasionally during my gluttonous hunts for new music, I overdose and just can't take any more new music. When Oink crashed, I lost one of my best sources of new music and summarily took a sabbatical from this ongoing search. The break lasted about six weeks. Before I knew it, I was waist deep in new bands, adding songs to my library at a breakneck pace. This firestorm has not let up since, and the result has made me question the focus on this ... dare I say it ... blog. My girlfriend has told me numerous times, and indeed I had the thought myself once or twice, that I should write about music. I listen to a lot of it and I like to write: The fit seems natural enough. I resisted for a couple of reasons. My first reason is that I'm not very critical of music. I like what I like, don't ask me why. It's catchy or it's interesting or the lyrics are fun; I don't give a shit about syncopation or harmony. It either moves me, that is, moves my soul, or it don't. As a result, I don't have a lot to say about music. This does not lead to great music criticism. My second reason is that I still feel like I haven't heard enough. I listen to a lot of music, but I don't know enough music in the historical sense. There is a lot, you will agree, and I still feel like I'm playing catch up. The goal of this blog may have shifted some over the last six months, a period when I wrote only a couple entries. I have -- okay, you and I have -- gotten further and further from the EPL season that I was once discussing in minute detail. Arsenal are in much better form this season, but I can't just jump onto their backs, half way through the season, and pretend that was the point all along. So instead I have simply decided to throw away the old framework: I will still regale you with boring sports statistics and treat you like a seven-year-old when it comes to music, but I will do so without the guidelines of irrelevant soccer games. I also want to broaden my view. I love talking about sports, music, and my life, but I want to give it heightened relevance by framing those things within the larger context of the world and humanity. You see, a third reason I abstained from music criticism is that I found little worth in the criticism; perhaps this is because my enjoyment of music is rather visceral. What does some goofball in Seattle care what I think? Why does the indie scene reverently follow Pitchfork's every word? The lack of relevance appalls me. I steered clear of music blogging because I saw no value in it. I did however find value in talking about myself and how I felt, what sports mean to me, and what music at large means to me. Thinking about music and sports in the context of the world interests me, and I think the juxtaposition creates relationships that my generation will find worth in. Listen to one of Radiohead's latest songs, House of Cards, while reading an article about a teacher who has molested a student. The song informs these events, not just singularly but also as a continuum. The pairing is important, because they are both contemporary things. It would be worthless to slap a Beatles song on that event, as it would be equally silly to play that Radiohead song while discussing the Vietnam War. I think music blogs can be platforms to larger issues, and I'd like to think they can help our generation get a grip on the rapidly evolving state of the world. This space will be my attempt to explore these larger issues, but it will also explore being a 20something in said world. Through the lens of contemporary music and sports, I will give my generation a voice in these chaotic times. Every Monday, I will post a new entry here and a list of music I am currently listening to over there. The list will heavily focus on current music, but might occasionally slip into anachronistic territory. Sometimes the post here will discuss the music, sometimes not. I am creating a flexible project so as to achieve maximum impact: I don't want to be restricted by imaginary walls. I think the entries prior to now have been good practice, but it is now time to spread the wings and see if this puppy can fly.

And We'll Turn to Salt

30 December 2006

Sheffield United 1 - 0 Arsenal

Oh Christ. I remember this game. Terribly muddy, sloppy, and utterly depressing. Maybe it was the rain? I wish I was writing within the frame of the 07/08 season instead of the 06/07 season; we're doing so much better this year. Maybe, when all I have to say is said and written down, I'll go back and quietly edit it, adjust it, such that that is true. It'd be so much more triumphant. Okay I should probably keep my mouth shut, the season is only half over, God only knows if it'll really be triumphant, maybe it will end in the most spectacular collapse ever witnessed in modern sports and I'll renounce my faith and stick solely to American sports. Knock on wood. We have more pressing matters to deal with, friends. Luckily we're working under Arsenal's poorest effort last season, a one-nil loss to a terrible team. This sort of showing (or lack thereof) requires our greatest ability to ignore and forget, and so I draw your attention to the recently released Mitchell Report. Quick aside: If, for some reason, you don't know what the Mitchell Report is, well, it is a report that attempts to document the use of steroids within professional baseball. It was a good idea but a sorry execution; it had little support from anyone, and as such it presents very limited evidence. But anyhow. So: The Mitchell Report. About 80 names were dropped, either directly saying certain players did steroids, or implying that sentiment. None of the names are terribly surprising or concerning: Oh no, Gregg Zaun did steroids? Fuck me. What's that you say, Mo Vaughan and David Justice did steroids? Who, exactly, gives twelve shits? So I'm taking all this in, and it's just kind of a ho-hum affair, and then one name appears that gives me pause: Roger Clemens. Wait, what? I mean. I guess it's not entirely shocking. He did play major league ball until he was, what, 44? And he got startlingly good when he was 34. That... that generally doesn't happen. In any sport. Your best years are mid-to-late twenties for baseball. Sure, you can get into a holding pattern for your thirties, but to get better? Here's a quick peek into this phenomenon. In 1995 and 1996, when he was 32 and 33, he won 10 games each season. In 1997, at the age of 34, he won 21 games. In 2001, at the age of 38, he won 20. He went 20 and 3, as a matter of fact. He lost only three games that whole season. Back to 1997, though. He had 292 strikeouts. 292! And 271 strikeouts in 1998. He compiled 563 strikeouts those two seasons, aged 34-35. That's the most he achieved in any two-season period, and the 292 total is his career high. He had a career high at the age of 34! God, of course he did steroids. Of course he did. Yet it still never fails to break my heart to think that Roger Clemens, greatest pitcher since Nolan Ryan, and one of the greatest pitchers ever, did steroids. Suddenly I feel like everyone in San Francisco. What am I supposed to do with this? Roger Clemens is - was? - one of my favorite ball players. I mean, yeah he was a legendary player and that's fucking cool, but more importantly he had an incredible attitude and swagger to go along with that talent. He didn't give a flying fuck about anybody but himself (and hopefully his team, sometimes, maybe just a little?). That's a big parallel you can draw between him and Barry Bonds actually: neither really gave a fuck about anybody but themselves and their family. I think that's what allows a player, who has great talent, to take steroids and tarnish that reputation by achieving hitherto unknown levels of success. Barry Bonds is the home run king. Roger Clemens is second on the all-time strikeouts list, eighth on the wins list. In order for Bonds to overcome all previous home run kings, and for Clemens to assemble staggering numbers, they took steroids. They... they cheated. It sounds so trite. So childish. "They cheated!" I scream at my television, pouting, furious. How could they! It's like they have affronted me. Who am I kidding? They can sleep at night. Who knows if they REALLY did steroids. I prefer the "assume they lied" route, it's much more torturous, much more artistic. I am pretty confident in the knowledge that Bonds took steroids, and in the same spirit, I am confident enough that Clemens did too. I indict them not because I believe they are guilty, but because the majority of society will believe they are guilty and my opinion matters not. Much like American politics, my voice matters little-to-none. I can have my own opinion and voice it as I please, but it doesn't really effect anything. So I accept society's determination, and I expect it will be basically what we have awarded Barry Bonds. At the end of the day, the real problem this creates is twofold. First, it removes most, if not all, the value contained within the given athletes triumphs. Suddenly it's no longer impressive that Roger Clemens, at the age of 34, had 292 strikeouts. That at the age of 36, Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs. Second, it removes the value of the time I spent watching them strive towards these achievements. I used to be so proud of that fact that I got to see Clemens play in Yankee Stadium. Now? Now I feel like a moron. I feel stupid for having believed in him. I feel duped. I feel tricked. Of course, is it surprising that this man, who publicly cared so little for the feelings of those around him, cared so little for mine as well? No, no it's not.

Anyway That You'll Take Me

26 December 2006

Watford 1 - 2 Arsenal

Wrongfully, I have only discussed music in brief mentions. I think the most music talk I've given was about 1970s punk, a long ways back. This spartan representation is partly due to my fear of this turning into a music blog. Not that there's anything wrong with that! But it's not my intent; my analysis of music often boils down to whether or not I enjoy it, and therefore my opinion is probably worthless in the scope of criticism. Still, music is one of the most important things in my life, and it should be addressed. So: let's begin. Since some point in 2005, I can't really say when, but for the last couple of years I have grown more and more addicted to finding new music. It might have started when I realized I would never love any band as much as I loved the Smashing Pumpkins. That was freeing; for a long time, I was searching for music that would match the connection I feel with the Pumpkins. Yet once I was not searching for a replacement, I was available to just like music. I don't have to love this song, I can like it, and that's cool, that's fine, I'll listen to it for a while and then I'm done. So I slowly began to reach out through the layers of music that exist in this world. I started with the Indie Rock Standards of the day, all the usual bands that you will certainly like. There are a startling amount of bands in that category, the indie rock canon, and they include Sufjan Stevens, the Flaming Lips, Spoon, the Postal Service, Broken Social Scene, the Arcade Fire, &c &c. It is almost pointless to say you like these bands because, in my mind anyhow, if you say like indie rock I will just assume you like those bands. I haven't ever met anyone who liked Modest Mouse but not Iron & Wine. Once those were under my belt, the next step became unclear. You can stay a fairweather indie fan, picking up Wolf Parade and Say Hi to Your Mom as their shit hits the ceiling, or you can start exploring. You can go backwards in time, to the dirty underground rock of the late 80s and early 90s, 80s new wave, punk or arena rock of the 70s, to the bands that started modern day rock like the Beatles and the Velvet Underground, or further back, to Muddy Waters and B.B. King. So you hit the major bands of the past, the touchstones of bygone eras, and maybe you grab a compilation. For me, the comp that opened the floodgates was the Rhino Records-issued punk compilation, "No Thanks!," in 2003. Well, that and the Sarah Records compilation "Air Balloon Road." No Thanks! is a 4-disc treasure trove of amazing music. Unfortunately, you cannot just listen to it all the way through; five hours of music is impossible to digest. So, to this day, I will just put it on randomly, and find a new song to like somewhere. When you think of old punk, you think Sex Pistols, the Clash, Ramones, New York Dolls, maybe Iggy Pop, Buzzcocks. "No Thanks!" introduced me to The Jam, The Fall, Television, Wire, The Vibrators, The Mekons, The Only Ones, The Soft Boys -- the list goes on. Some of those are standards (the Fall in particular), but others are very small time acts with delicious singles. The sheer depth that the brief punk explosion yielded made me wonder: how many bands are flying under the radar now? So I started to put more effort into the hunt for new music. The internet, thankfully, makes this a relatively easy task. I can sign on to a couple websites and hear new bands for as long as I like. I avoid thinking about what I would have had to do twenty years ago; join mailing lists, spend money on 7-inch singles that only have a 25% chance of being good, and so on. As it is, the only investment I have is time. I read music blogs voraciously, I comb through MySpace and music websites, for that diamond in the rough. For ten boring songs that I hear, I find one song that comes across as sincere and genuine. I add some of their songs to my collection and move on: ever forward, up, up, up! Sometimes I worry. I worry that perhaps I am moving through music too fast. Specifically, I'm frightened that my life is falling into the Kierkegaard Narrative. There are three aspects to this narrative: the Aesthete, the Seducer, and the Repeater. The first and the third speak very much to me. The Aesthete is the side of a person who is obsessed with art and aesthetic experience. I don't have to spell this out for you, right? I'm obsessed with finding new music, with experiencing new musical emotions. I'm obsessed with films and their representations of the human condition, and I'm obsessed with writing and novels for the depth and personal exploration. The Repeater is someone who is caught up in past experiences, with a fatalistic approach of recreating them. To me, this is signified in my writing, in this very writing here, what you are reading, which is exploration of my past, repetition of events that already happened. Instead of facing the future, I am perpetually looking backwards, criticizing, analyzing, evaluating. Furthermore, much of my life has been spent with the foreboding feeling that things will return to what they were before. That I will be back at square one soon enough. The Seducer then, is a fancy name for someone who wants something they cannot have (when they have it, finally, they no longer want it). Which, up until about a month ago, would describe me. I have already discussed this topic, at great length, but the new twist (and the way out of the Kierkegaard narrative) is the sudden finding of something (okay, a person) that which, when you have them, you still want them. In the past, when I've found out a girl reciprocates my feelings for her, and is ready to pursue a relationship further, I have panicked and backed down. Again, you know all this, you've been following from the beginning, right? That happened with Michelle, at the start, but our relationship was built so much on being drunk that the feelings I initially had for her are unclear to me now. What I do know is that once alcohol left our relationship, it felt passionless. Drunken hookups do not a stable relationship make. The point should be obvious by now; I've got a new girlfriend, and it is, thankfully, a relationship not based on alcohol. True, I did first kiss her while I was drunk (I have the backbone of a squid), but since then we've both been completely sober. When we kiss, it is something wholly different than anything I've ever experienced. I don't want to go over board with the platitudes, because no one really enjoys reading that. What our young relationship has taught me, though, is that The Seducer is not some condition I have: it was symptomatic of a relationship that just shouldn't happen. In the past, when girls would suggest we go on a date, I became hesitant and would try to avoid the matter. When Emily suggests a date, I don't freeze up or want to duck the conversation. I know my answer will be an enthusiastic yes. The Seducer is not here; in his place is just a boy crushing really hard on a girl. I haven't written that much here about the beginning our relationship; partly because I don't want to jinx it, and partly because I spend most of my free time talking to Emily. Mostly though, mostly it is because I sense something uniquely special here, and I just don't think I can do my feelings justice on a blog. Even if it's a blog that wishes it were a book. Well, there is a fourth reason I haven't written much about Emily. I just, I don't need to. She doesn't confuse me, nothing has been difficult between us. I don't need to analyze anything, or figure anything out about myself. I don't know if I've ever felt this grounded. My whole experience with Emily has been a positive whirlwind. I met her five weeks ago, and we've been dating for close to three weeks. I haven't written anything in that time because I know what I want: I want this.