I archived the radio documentaries I worked on at Columbia in this handy hip muxtape format in hopes of landing a job at KQED. Please only leave very positive comments about my comedic timing and ability to write short declarative sentences on the off chance that they see this blog post.
Last summer I lived in the Lost Boys (and Girls) camp of 206 Classon Avenue, across the street from the well-appointed complex for retired Catholic nuns, and down the block from the Hasidic housing “bldg” and the Pratt art school. I wrote on the history of 206 for the Syncopated 3 anthology, from dairy pasteurization compound to illegal loft (to luxury condos?). While I still think that piece did the place justice, I don’t think it captured some of the subtleties of the 206 petri dish. Subtleties like Rick.
Rick was an ex-ad photographer and current dolly grip for film and television, and a former resident of a small Midwestern town, Venice Beach, Canada, various rehabilitation facilities and the L train. He had an impressive collection of stories that involved a colorful cast of characters including, but not limited to, Ron Jeremy, David Bowie, Katey Sagal of Married with Children; and though nearly 50, he showed no sign of slowing down. I haven’t spoken with Rick in nearly eight months, but here I recount Rick’s Greatest Hits: some of my favorite things he ever said to me and various other roommates. Rated M for Mature.
On Jocelyn’s family complaints: Why don’t you just kill everybody in your family and live like me?
On John acting douchey: I’ll jump on you like a fuckin’ lizard. I’ll never get off your face. [Pause] It’ll be like you stepped on a landmine.
On Stephanie joking that 206 uses resources like a community center: We are a fucking community center.
On me, to Chris: Don’t you wanna just bash her in the head?
On himself, wearing my sunglasses: I remind myself of Jackie O. Don’t I look like Jackie O?
On himself, forever young: The Picture of Rick Morrison. How about me? 48 and I have a zit! Do you have a zit?!
On himself, waiting to get old: I can’t wait to get Alzheimer’s. I can say crazy shit and people will just feel sorry for me.
When I first started volunteering at 826 New York City last November, I was warned, as “a journalist,” that I was not to use my role as a tutor to facilitate my “career” as a “writer;” i.e. no interviewing, no poking around, no pursuing of stories behind the secret book-case-come-door panel that leads to the back room at the Superhero Supply Company on 5th Avenue in Brooklyn. Considering I was using the opportunity more to clarify if I really did hate kids or not (not, mostly, it turns out) the warning struck me as particularly laughable. But then I found myself writing down all the cute stuff they said…
In April I (temporarily) ended my once-a-week stint disciplining the children at 826–and a few weeks later, I started getting nostalgic for their youth. I realized that my favorite part about the kids was that they weren’t as boring as most of the people I interacted with each day. Examples:
-Do you live with your dad?
-Nope. I live with my friend.
-… How old are you?
-Yeah, like real vegetarians. I have friends who don’t even wear leather…
-Oh my god!
-Fish sleep with their eyes open.
-So do some people.
-Yeah, the ones in jail.
-If my calculations are correct, love is a feeling.
Next time: a collection of quotes from my former grizzled, formerly-homeless-alcoholic 48 year old housemate. I’m all about fair and balanced.
New York Magazine somewhat recently published a cover story on how (and how not) to praise kids such that they grow up into unmotivated twixter brats who have no self confidence and/or work ethic. In a nutshell: don’t tell them they’re smart (or stupid); do tell them they worked hard (or didn’t). This seems to explain a lot of the nearly life-long problems for a surprising number of my friends: instead of being properly mirrored by their parents and teachers, they got the fun-house version, a warped kind of reality where being smart gets you ahead in life–plus makes you superskinny.
It’s Generation Me Me Me! Or at least that’s how Jean Twenge sees it in this NPR interview. She blames the “self-focus [and] inflated expectations” on 1. schools (and their self-esteem programs [any first-hand evidence of this? sounds like madness to me]), 2. the media (aww, Jean), 3. parents (cum-NYM). She really lets the sarcasm fly in this piece, saying parents act as though “feeling good about yourself is the most important thing in the world–more than working hard or having talent or caring for other people.” And that the citizens of Generation Me (like, um, me!) are entirely self-focused, care only about becoming rich and famous, and feel “entitled and like [we] deserve special treatment.” I think she spits a little on the mic at that point.
After I wiped the hysterical tears from my eyes, this stuff came off like salt in my narcissistic wound. But then I realized that this seems to breed a special, deep-seated and ugly kind of guilt in people who know/think they’re capable of more, but don’t know how to apply themselves to get it. At least they feel good doing it, whereas I blame myself for my failures (like not updating this blog nearly enough). I think the answer is to aim lower. It usually works.
It’s only been like, six days! And it was great! Lots of Mr. Brendan Burford’s Syncopated Three’s on hand for the buying and viewing pleasure of all. Depicted: the lovely and talented Ms. Caroline Dworin and myself. Caroline did a bang-up job copy-editing the book. You should really go buy one! Except that you can’t yet. But maybe you should write it on a post-it note and put it on the wall above your desk or something so you don’t forget by the time it’s available in stores. Which will be, like, really soon!
Between yesterday afternoon and this morning, four of my flights from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina have been canceled due to weather. I’ve been stuck in Charlotte, North Carolina for a few hours now. They guarantee I’ll be back to New York by Sunday (or else my money back?)! Hopefully I’ll make it til then: I’ll have to ration these three Clif Bars. And who knows where and when my luggage will show up.
Fortunately the Charlotte airport has free wireless internet. But there are conditions: they block all websites that are flagged “Adult/Mature Content.” The ones I’ve discovered so far: Nerve and MySpace. VeganPorn’s okay though. Oh, Charlotte, a woman after my own heart. Now if only she could get her act together and get me on one of these damn planes before my computer battery dies (in 33 minutes…).
Update, 4:59 p.m. E.T.: Six canceled flights, down to one bar. But I found an outlet. I’m not sure what my total is then: negative twenty-three hours?
The third volume of the excellent reportage comics anthology Syncopated is debuting in a couple weeks. I wrote an article and illustrated an illustration for this volume — it is otherwise crammed full of excellent talents. And we all know that comics + excellent talents = free beer! I’m third down, third across. Hope you can make it! except if you don’t like comics, talents and/or beer, in which case you should just stay home. And maybe stop reading this blog.
Last week Radaronline.com broke the story that there’d been allegations of cheating on the open-book, take-home ethics final (there must be a j-schooler interning there). The story was later picked up
by the Times and now everyone’s freaking out about the immoral Columbia j-student body. The strangest aspect of this story is that no one is attempting to address the central issue: how, in fact, do you cheat on an open-book, take-home ethics final? It’s also strange that people seem to find this surprising, though perhaps this surprise is just hiding their glee at watching the privileged falter. Or something.
A current j-school student has started a blog dedicated only to this topic, which I might express surprise at just to hide my glee at watching the privileged be idiots. S/he vehemently defends Mr. Sam Freedman, the unfortunate new professor lecturer of the ethics course. “He’s the captain and we’re just sailing on his ship right? As long as we get to our final destination, who the hell cares?”
No comments. Now that’s surprising.
This is the first in what will hopefully be a regular occurence of Quick Mondays, a short spot on something short and sweet.
This past weekend was the Tokion Creativity Now conference. If you aren’t familiar, Tokion is a beautifully designed, less beautifully written cultury magazine based in NY and Tokio. Each October they put on a two-day conference on “the arts.” This year, all the scheduled speakers were men. They claimed more women would show up, but I haven’t heard word on whether this actually occurred or not - if you went and could shed light on this point, I’d be very interested to hear what happened. In any event, here is an interesting e-mail exchange between the artsy Wooster Collective and Tokion’s editor in chief Ken Miller, regarding this gender disparity.
Coming soon, some less-quick and less-regular: cookie recipes, trials and tribulations, and other things of brief interest.
While attending the University of California at Santa Barbara, I met a young, goofy man named Graham Talley. Graham had an infectious laugh and a “FUN” club, and I loaned him some ketchup one time, and you know, things progressed from there. Graham said his ultimate goal was to have his own scavenger/treasure hunting company, designing hunts for clients and their friends/enemies, and he and some other FUN club members organized dry runs throughout our four UCSB years.
The most elaborate hunt (to my limited knowledge) took place during our sophomore year, when Graham tricked my friends Chris and the aforementioned Ari, among several others, into following a several week-long hunt around the UCSB campus and the nearby slum of Isla Vista. The best part was that much of the hunt was caught on video by surreptitious FUN club operatives. The second best part was for some reason, the participants thought they’d win money, and were annoyed when they simply won being blindfolded, led into a huge party and publicly humiliated. If they sound a little thick, remember, this was UCSB.
Now nearly three years later, Graham is using his talent for manipulation and tomfoolery to – surprise! – win himself some money. He’s started Whim Hunts, a company which crafts scavenger/treasure hunts individually for each client. Whim was even featured in the Santa Barbara News-Press last week, in part to promote the public scavenger hunt Graham and his cohorts will be organizing to begin tomorrow, Friday, July 28.
I’ll admit, I was rather skeptical about Graham’s goals back in the day, but that just makes me even happier to see him successful now. Yay, Graham.
Incidentally, the same day Whim was featured in the News-Press, my friend Jason sent me an invitation to participate in Midnight Madness, the ten-year-old scavenger/puzzle hunt game taking place in Manhattan on August 5th. “It is exhausting and difficult and ridiculous and fun,” says Jason. The game was created in 1996 by two Columbia University undergrads; the name is inspired by the 1980 Michael J.Fox film. 
There are only two rules: no motorized vehicles, and no tampering with clues. And not that there was really a question, but I read this on an old message board circa 2004 re: the typical player:
The average profile of the late night walkers is pretty homogenous, and not surprising if you consider that we’re talking about a scavenger hunt involving electronic gadgets, a central messaging program and analytical puzzles. if your guess was ‘20-something geeky types’, you would have been pretty right on.
And even though it’s not Mandatory, east or west coast, you have no excuses – get outside, run around, solve some clues and, like, have some Fun. Or whatever.
