2019 Northeast Concerts

2019 will be the year of awesome shows I get to see. I have a new job, and lots of cash show, So i'm going to be going all over the place and seeing some of my favorite bands/acts. But all the dates are hard to remember soOooOOo here we are...


Thru Feb 28th: The Kooks -Terminal 5 NYC

Thru Mar 14: Weezer + The Pixies - Albany Times Union Center

Fri May 17: Frank Turner - House of Blues, Boston

Fri June 21: Death Cab for Cutie - Cooperstown, NY

Fri July 12: Dave Matthews Band - SPAC

Fri July 19:  John Mayer - Albany Times Union Center

Fri Sept 6: Vampire Weekend - Madison Square Garden 

Fri Oct 11: Suicide Girls - Acadamy of Music NoHa, MA

Fri Nov 1: Milk Carton Kids - New York, NY


'Bout to have a fun summer. It can't come fast enough with all this f@cking snow.

Curriculum Vitae: A Cynic's Attempt at Using Irony to Cope with Underemployment.

I hate writing resumes and CV's and any other administrative documents of acclamation. So I made this ironic version of one, because I'd rather just make myself laugh than actually apply my skills, my time and talent. There's actually a lot of truth to this display of self-effacement, and when one is in the midst of a (seemingly perpetual) job hunt, it can be draining, and you start to become really jaded about certain things, and you start to get really, really, really, really down on yourself because the fact is, your worth is reduced to a piece of paper that is simply tossed into a pile of other papers just like it. So then you start thinking that maybe if I just cater my cover letter to fit each job I apply to individually, that might give you a leg up. But after about the 12th stock rejection email, you start to add up all the variables in your head to figure out why you aren't being selected for interviews. You think "okay so they didn't want me for who I am, they didn't want me for who I think they want me to be, so maybe it's just me." So then you erase your CV, your cover letter, and your resume, feel sorry for yourself for like 15 non stop minutes, and then you jot down something to make you smile. Something honest... 

[Obviously you should never put any of these things in a CV or resume. You'd think I wouldn't have to point that out, but you never know. Anyway *fart noise* let's have a laugh. ]

Curriculum Vitae:

Colin Mackey is a writer. But mostly he’s just a lazy beta male who grew up thinking that he was the center of the universe. He always craved praise, and was noticeably upset anytime he wasn't the center of attention. His delusions of grandeur were fed into at a very early age, so he never learned humility, but instead, convinced himself that he was good at everything and didn't need to learn new skills; he'd just get by on being himself. He floated through school achieving the bare minimum in order prove that a mediocre lifestyle is worth preserving. He puts in very little effort, which is why he perpetually feels like he's at a terrifyingly dull stand-still in his life. The worst part is that he’s aware of it, but still struggles to take the necessary steps to change his situation. It’s a mix of fear, self loathing, and a general sense of hopelessness that keeps him from honing his talents and achieving the impossibly high standard of success that he has set for himself. He also likes to complain about the poor circumstances he’s in, even though he could definitely take control of things if he put in even the smallest of efforts, but he’d rather paint himself as a victim, because it validates his sense of put-upon righteousness. He’s also aware that blaming other people is much easier than looking inward. He applies the principal from Hemingway “If you can’t write, don’t write” in a very literal sense, so don’t count on him meeting specific deadlines or anything. He will produce eventually, and it will be passable work, sometimes even profound and insightful, but again, don’t expect too much. Oh, also, he likes dogs. You should hire him to write for you.


So obviously that's just me being snarky and detached. My actual cover letter and CV makes me sound like some type of well-traveled, accomplished humanitarian with goals and skills. But we're all secretly frauds until we make it, so if you don't want to play the game, you'll just spend life on the sidelines, I suppose. How's that for some little-league-coach-level philosophy?

Anyways, thanks for indulging me while I continue my search for more work in a field that seems actively disinterested (i know, oxymoron, but it's how I feel) in hiring me. Lately I've been receiving rejection emails as if they were credit card offers in the mail. Even as late as MIDNIGHT last night, I get emailed from this publication that, to be honest, I don't even remember submitting to, and it's just an adorable little notification to keep my mood down. Like "This is just a reminder that you're not good enough. have a nice night."


But fuck them. It's easy to take those things personally but you just CANNOT. Especially when you are trying to "make it happen" so to speak. Rejection is just part of it. Everyone in this (or any) line of work ultimately has the same goal as do you, and those who can hack it, those who can just keep plugging despite having their work be ignored by friends, colleagues, peers et al, they're the ones who achieve success. And it's never overnight, though it might seem that way from the outside. It's never about you, it's about the needs of the conglomerate, the company, the other person looking for your product. You've got to be a salesman, and you've got to know that salesmen get doors slammed in their face and hung up on...a lot.

Keep searching for opportunities. The world needs your voice, your art, your contribution any way you can give it. So keep an open mind, keep plugging away, and eventually you will meet the needs of someone who is willing to give you compensation for your time and talent. Until then, keep working on your resume's and CV's and just basically give yours that big dick swagger that will set it above the competition. Even if you have to make shit up.

I'm not above that tactic at all.
Give me money.
"I'll do things for you better than other people will if you'd just give me a fucking CHANCE."
I mean seriously the amount of people I run into on a daily basis that are complete troglodytes who somehow have well-paying jobs...it's amazing. 

You got this. I believe in you.

A Return. A Full Exposure.

I'm back again after another long hiatus of self loathing and substance abuse.

Just kidding. Well, half kidding, I mean we all have our vices. But I'm just joking. I really just took this summer to get lots of reading done, find a higher-paying job, write some more articles, and also finish a weird little dystopian play I had been working on for way longer than I care to admit. But it's done, bitches. My long hiatus away from this blog is at an end. Thanks for being here for me when i need you, waiting patiently. Also, full disclosure, I had to search for how to spell the word "hiatus". I've always tried to be honest with you from the start, dear reader, and now you know the frightening truth: that I'm a pretty terrible speller (luckily I've chosen to pursue a career where spelling isn't a hindrance, that is, writing. Ha.) That's it, the veil has been lifted, there are no more secrets.

Phones and Fears
Summer is now officially over. I took that time to continue to build my writer's resume, to network, and to continue to grow as an artist and creator. The elephant in the room, I suppose, is that I barely ever write on this platform. I suppose I could justify it by saying "well, I've been working on so many other writing projects, diving into so many other things," and while that is all true, it's still just an excuse. See every writer, every artist is faced with two choices throughout their day: create, or don't create. There are obvious times when one cannot create, of course, like when you are at your day job, or driving home, or showering, but it's what you do in between those times that matters. It's the push and pull of boredom and distraction, the balance between fear and motivation What you do defines you. And I find myself so often unable to write, and when I do write, I find myself just venting into the void that I'm unable to write. Now there's a terrifying paradox. It's okay in small doses to write about not being able to write, but eventually you just turn into a bitter asshole because you are personifying your worst fear: being too cowardly to have a voice.

It's hard enough to write really compelling characters with interesting, rewarding plots, but now there are so many more things getting in the way of our imaginations. Our phones keep us distracted more than anything this world has ever known. The need for a validating response for the work we do has never been higher. Especially for creators that are desperate to make a living off of their creations, like, there's a huge problem in creative industries where gate-keepers don't want to, you know PAY for the time and talents of creators. As though we pay our bills with Likes, comments, bylines, and "exposure". Yuck. The gate-keepers know this, and they prey on the creators who might be financially set otherwise, but they want to share their creative gift with others. But if your dream is to make a living off of your creative product? You have a tough road ahead. I certainly haven't figured it out yet. But in the mean time, the praise and acknowledgement keeps us pacified as creators, so because we love what we do, it's very easy for us to be taken advantage of financially. Even now I'm salivating over the notion of sharing this blog post and receiving validating responses or praises from anyone and everyone. And when we do ask for more money (or any at all) it comes as a huge surprise to those benefiting from our hard work.  We have to be careful of that as creators. We, as Hemingway says, "have to be okay not writing for an audience." This is a difficult thing for me in the fact that I grew up as a performer. I received immediate, raw responses from audience when I told a joke, sang a song, did a jig on the stage. Our phones are a technological version of this clap-trap.

Bo Burnum observed that America raised a generation of performers, and the market said "okay, here you go, perform everything all the time."

Louie CK once made the observation that young people aren't bored anymore, and he's so right. that's why we get our best work done when our phones are out of our faces, when the TV is off, when we have a moment to process all the superfluous junk that is hoisted upon us, when we have a chance to be still and just be. We need the time to be bored so we can learn how to discover shit about ourselves and not get criticized by a bunch of snarling jackals on twitter. We need time to just be sad, so that wave of happiness, of clarity can follow.

Full Frontal
Anyway, listen to me casually dropping the wisdom of such a controversial figure without even acknowledging the most recent news surrounding him. Okay wait here it goes'...

Louie CK recently made a return to stand up comedy. He went away for a while, and I miss him. He's my favorite stand up comedian. I try not to lionize people, but I always did look to Louis in particular as a voice of hilarity and reason. Obviously his comedy is crude and brash and unfiltered, but I always felt that his shtick came from a very honest, human place. It's adult materiel, which means it's up to us as audiences to take everything at face value, to understand that he's a man sitting down with a pad and a pen just trying to make us laugh while he makes sense of the world. But recently his work is being viewed through the lens of him being some machiavellian sex offender, as though his offenses (that were never criminally charged, mind you) are comparable to a Weinstein or Cosby power dynamic. And so every awkward moment, every self aware dig at his own sexuality or desire to be desired, is coming under fire as him "hiding his perversions through media."

Here's an article of a bunch of writers talking about whether or not they should ostracize him from their community.  

https://variety.com/2018/scene/news/full-frontal-bobs-burgers-writers-louis-c-k-return-sublime-primetime-1202939782/

That article, by the way is a round table discussion of writers from Samantha Bee's and Bob's Burgers on whether or not Louis should wait longer to return. Funny that none of the writers from Bob's Burgers had anything to say about their buddy Aziz who was himself publicly shamed for having a date go poorly. Aziz's "victim"aided in a smearing piece against the comedian. I revile her for remaining anonymous, and find it ironic that the entire smut piece shows her absolute complacency and disregard for her own agency, and she then hides behind the brutally ironic pseudonym "Grace" as she wines about how her attempts to bag a rich boy didn't go as planned. I do feel badly for the girl to an extent, she's under pressure like we all are while this #Metoo movement fills us all with confusion and defensiveness and anxiety about our sexuality. She had a shitty night with a guy who was under the assumption that she wanted to f@ck after she came up to his apartment and performed various sex acts with him. But according to her, he was too forceful with wanting to take it further, and he didn't pick up on her "nonverbal cues", so you know, let's ruin this promising young minority's career because he planned on using you for sex the way you planned on using him for status.

Sorry but when feminist writers like Margaret Atwood and Bari Weiss reject your narrative, and even liberal thinking Whoopi Goldberg drops knowledge on you, you know you've done your "movement" a disservice. Men are not mind readers. Now, Aziz is back doing stand up, and it hasn't been nearly as controversial as Louis' return, so I guess we've unanimously decided to pour all our hatred and angst into Louis. I suppose it's easier that way. All these evil sex criminals are hard to keep track of, after all.

Anyways, back to Louis. Can we talk about the hilarious irony that the article about Louis starts with "full frontal"? I don't care where you stand on the issue...shit is funny. Obviously if you've been living under a rock for the past 8 months, you'd not know that Louis was accused of some version of this: He jerked off in front of some female stand-up comedians in a hotel room. There are other stories from other accusers like he jerked off while being on the phone with someone, and also he made suggestive advances so you know, mild ass sh!t when held up to actual cases of violent assault. Regardless, he's perceived now as a creepy guy whose actions are innately predatorial in every context. Despite the fact that all accounts tell us he asked for consent from these women, he then realized that he may be using his professional power over these women irresponsibly, and then he even reached out to them and tried to right the perceived wrongdoings. Still FX, Netflix, and other studios cut ties with him. They have every right to terminate a contract with someone that they feel will be bad for their brand. That's the free market. They made a purely financial decision, and that is their right.

"Louis didn't step away long enough, it should have been at least a year," some say.

Oh is that the official decree from on high? Who made you the judge and jury to a situation where no crime was committed and no charges were filed?

"He should have acknowledged what he did"

Maybe. Would you work on a tight five of the most humiliating months of your life and then announce "mea culpa" to a room of strangers? Probably not. Who are you who gets to decide what a creator's content aught to be? Would you really come to an understanding with him if he decided to apologize through his self-deprecating humor, and see him as the pitifully flawed person he has always been? Or would you just use his words against him as a way to vilify white men? Just something to think about I guess.    

It's also come to light that he used to ask his friend Sarah Silverman if he could j@ck off in front of her, and she used to allow him to. So do we now blame her in part for enabling his behavior to thrive? Should studios cut ties with her? OF COURSE NOT. People, this is a generation of humans, and Louis' show explores this often, where the systems in place were deeply repressive to the male and female sexuality alike. Everyone was shamed for wanting to experiment, or discover themselves sexually. Male, female, gay, straight, whatever. And it was Louis' and Sarah's generation that fully experienced the leftover sexual liberations of the 60's. But now we're all just openly deciding to shame people again. Cool. This behavior is only now being exposed because the media enables it, so you have these two completely polarized and over-simplified narratives where a woman is either an infantilized, lionized victim by default, or they are a toxic witch armed with the excesses of feminism in search of a pay day. And the media wins again, because all they have to do is dig up these endless moments of sexual confusion and BAM, they have their quota for the week. 

My ultimate question for the people who don't want him to return to doing the thing he loves the most, what do you actually want? Should we publicly execute him? Should we give each of the women he "misconducted" their own Netflix specials? Should he no longer be able to make money on stage or in front of a camera? I'm really asking.

The clear answer is that (hold on to your butts) no punishment aught to be given that has no authority to punish. If any of these alleged criminals were to be prosecuted as such, then we have this thing called a justice system to dish out the proper punishment for crimes committed against its citizens, and then we also have this thing called a free market where you, the consumer, get to spend your money on the media, on the art, on the voices that you want to see and hear. Nobody can tell you that you can't go see a particular performer, and nobody can force you to see one either. But if you find yourself advocating that someone cannot make a living because you do not like them as a person, even though they have never been charged with a crime, you are the definition of an authoritarian. You are poisoned by an ideology that only seeks to serve itself, brought upon by out of touch bourgeoisie bureaucrats in malignant think tanks that just want to fabricate social unrest in order to gain power.

So Louis steps up on stage unannounced and does some comedy. Some were offended that they were not given a choice of whether or not they could see him. There are several levels of irony to this, of course. The first layer being that this controversy arose because Louis was allegedly trapping women in a room with him and forcing them to look at him while he jerked off. The second layer of irony is that of course he was not forcing these perfectly capable women to do anything they didn't want to do. They had every right and opportunity to get up, call him a creep, and leave the room if they didn't want to be in it. They were not assaulted by any measure. But we don't know really what was actually happening in those hotel rooms, and we don't know the context of the consent, or whether he was really leveraging these women's careers based on whether or not they let him... um...do his business? Well whichever narrative you prescribe to, you'll find the situation ironic for sure; I did.

The conclusion I came to:
A comedian entering a space that's entire mode of existence is a come-and-go environment where freedom of expression is paramount, is not a direct assault on your person. Therein lies the entire crux of the issue: the attempt to redefine "assault" as anything that a person might be made to feel uncomfortable with. This is what Johnathan Haidt has labelled The Coddling of the American Mind. So the way that this club has solved this issue is to put a disclaimer on their tickets that they do not control which controversial figures may or may not pop in for the evening and do a set. If you feel uncomfortable, you are free to leave, and they'll even pay your tab. I think that's pretty fair.

I don't know. I'm getting off this subject for now. I've done some dumb, selfish sh!t in my life. We all have. And I think part of the very human impulse to join the angry mob of the virtuous call-out culture, is that we're afraid that if we speak up, we'll be guilty by association, and the skeletons in our closet will be the next on the docket, being analyzed like a microscope. Sorry, that point reminded me of Eminem's song Cleaning out my Closet, and also lyrics from White America.

And they connected wit' me too because I looked like them
That's why they put my lyrics up under this microscope
Searchin' wit' a fine toothed comb
It's like this rope waitin' to choke
Tightenin' around my throat
Watchin' me while I write this like 
"I dont like this, no!"
All I hear is
Lyrics lyrics constant controversy
Sponsors workin' round the clock
To try to stop my concerts early
Surely hip hop is never a problem
In Harlem only in Boston
After it bothered ya fathers
Of daughters startin' to blossom

So in conclusion, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." I think that was Jesus who said that.

Look, Louie is a gross dude, he's always been pretty upfront about that fact, we just liked pretending it was harmless because we all have gross, perfectly human thoughts running through our head. But now that outrage culture has reached its most pernicious peaks, it's become very popular online trend to moralize, through a trendy new lens, every single thing that's ever happened or been said. But that's the thing I try to constantly remnd myself of-- it seems to just be an online thing. It's on twitter where the only thing to do is to pound our opinions against the wall of the void as though practicing for an ideological tennis match, and see what bounces back. I listened to the taping, and it seemed like people were overall pumped to see Louis' return to comedy. I certainly was and I'm not ashamed of that. The only "outrage" comes from a fabricated media frenzy. A group of snarling sjw's on twitter and some columnists looking for something to write about is not a "public outcry." Again, it seems to me that every day working people have so much more to worry about than what the sexual habits of rich people are, and this machine that keeps feeding off of our outrage will soon consume us all. You might not feel it yet, and you might think that a lot of these issues brought out to the light are for a just cause-- but it's very easy to lose sight of a liberal culture if you are willing to persecute and sacrifice even 1 innocent person in the name of an ideology. That's no longer liberalism, that's cowtowing to fear.

Liberalism: Allowing people to live a life free of social percussion when they have committed no crimes, and despite the fact that the things they say may offend your sensibilities, you do your best to coexist with your neighbor.

Authoritarianism: Co-opting and weaponizing an unearned sense of moral virtue in order to persecute others and purge the world of anyone and anything that goes against your current orthodoxy or which makes you upset.   

Neitszche says "distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful," and I think that's my takeaway from this controversial issue. If you don't want to see him, you don't have to buy tickets to his shows and you can protest him if he appears on SNL or Conan or what-have-you. You have that right. Exercise it all you like. But as far as public punishment, or atoning for his sins of being a creepy dude...we already have a rather intricate system in place that seeks to bring criminals to justice based on the set of laws that we, the people, put in place. It's called the justice system.

There's more important things to worry about. There are more and more school shootings that we, as a society are becoming dangerously indifferent to. There's psycho b!tches from Florida making plans to drink other kid's blood, and there's moron Republican foot-soldiers mailing bombs to our former heads of state (that dude's also from Florida, but I swear, that's just a coincidence). The media machine wants you to constantly be up in arms about all these issues no matter how large or small. They want you to take a stand, they want you salivate and constantly need to be on the right side of things that they search out, dissect, and moralize through the lenses and doctrines. Remember that very few of the voices on twitter have law degrees, very few have sat down to write or edit major works, very few understand how or why this country even exists. And remember that YOU are in control of what you pay attention to.

 Here's a song to enjoy when you're a little lost in life and unsure what the next move is or why you might be feeling a bit lonely or confused or overwhelmed. Then just go outside and breathe, and try to be nice to one another. Points if you can find the theme of why I chose this tune.

Anyways, I'm glad to be back after what seemed like an incredibly short summer. I'm hoping to keep this up for as long as it serves me. It really helps get my motor going, get my writer muscles moving. I'll plan to post some poetry here, some more thoughts on topical/ important issues, probably vent about everyday life etc... but next couple blogs, I want to talk about music. Something happened this past spring that changed music for me forever, and I'd like to dive in and talk about it. We'll see how it goes.

I'm glad Louis is back doing what he loves. I'm going to feel free and comfortable to quote his body of work as a point of reference, and I'm not going to feel the need to defend his wisdom in relation to the controversy surround him. The incidents do not diminish his body of work for me. I hope this is the beginning to some road of redemption and healing. For the women that he made feel uncomfortable, for him, and for the culture.

If you don't know where to start, Start Anywhere

 Anyways, moving the subject away from sexual stuff and controversy and forgiveness and judgement, sometimes it's just a bitch to sit down and write. Whether it's because you're imagining a lynch mob persecuting you for your thoughts, whether it's because some imaginary critic is taking a dump on every mediocre creative thought you've ever had, or because you couldn't get out of bed this morning and your head hurts, sometimes the writing just does. not. flow. And that's okay. It happens to everyone. Writing anything is a tiny accomplishment, and if everyone could write War and Peace or To Kill a Mockingbird, then they wouldn't be considered that great of accomplishments, would they? Not everyone can do that sh!t. So here are some quotes that help me start writing. Lots are from Hemingway because I've been reading him a lot lately. Some you might find to be tired aphorisms found on motivational corporate posters etc, but together they are an antidote to the chaos of the creative mind.

On being stuck:
"The secret of getting ahead is getting started"- Mark Twain

On perfectionism:
"...perfectionism is very dangerous. Because of course if your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything. Because doing anything results in (sacrifice)...it's actually kind of tragic because you sacrifice how gorgeous and perfect it is in your head for what it really is." -David Foster Wallace

"Have no fear of perfection. You'll never reach it." Salvador Dali

On the need for validation:
"One must be okay not writing for an audience"- Hemingway (paraphrased)

On putting too much pressure on yourself in front of the computer:
"Do not worry, you have always written before, and you will write now." -Hemingway

On putting too much pressure on yourself away from the computer.
"Don't think about writing when you're not writing." - Hemingway

On filtering your thoughts and stepping on taboo eggshells.
"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak because a baby can't chew"-Mark Twain 

On fearing other people's opinions.
"I've already settled it for myself, so criticism and praise go down the same drain"
-Georgia O'Keeffe

Words I have trouble spelling off the top of my head, but am getting better at:
 -hiatus (obviously)
-address (1 "D" or two, I ask myself every time.)
-exaggerate
-existence
-exercise
-drawer
-censorship
-incident
-acquire
-correspondence
-privilege
-endeavors
-Nietzsche (not exactly in common vernaculer, but I read and quote him enough so I should learn it.)
-vernacular

See you next time. Tell me your thoughts on some of these issues I talked about. How was your summer? Have you forgiven Louis, and many of the other males (and females) in media that have done some shady stuff that might not qualify as assault per se, or are you hoping for more punishment for this behavior and accountability? What about someone in your past that wronged you? Maybe they didn't coax you up to a hotel room and jerk off in front of you, maybe it was something else, and you've finally come to a place where you can offer forgiveness to them. Or, maybe there is something you've done that you wish to be forgiven for, if only someone would extend to you the ability to be forgiven. We all deserve that don't we? If the will to change and better one self is present, I believe that. Also, What gives you the most trouble when you create? What are the worst distractions you face when trying to achieve your goals?

Just some stuff to think about until next time.

--CjM

It's Okay. Sometimes It Needs to be Said. So Often It Needs to be Heard.

Just a reminder.
It's okay.

It's okay to feel the way you are feeling. It's okay to feel trapped or bored or scared or inadequate. It's okay to do shit wrong the first time so that way you know that you are human, and that to be human is to error, and the only way to get better at something--to improve-- is to fail. Yes; fail. It's okay to fail. It's okay to want to give up. It's okay to want to escape because you realize that the version of yourself, the self that you are right now is trapped in an simulation of unrewarding, unsatisfying banality that will never change and worse, never end. It's okay to feel stupid. It's okay to have an unpopular opinion. It's okay to disagree. IT'S OKAY TO DISAGREE. It's. Okay. To. Disagree. It's okay to want to scream out loud when you are waiting in line for something that you don't want to be waiting in line for in the first place. It's okay to feel judged, like the kind of judgement you feel when you walk into a restaurant, or a coffee shop you don't think you belong in, because all the people are rich, or snooty, or of a different ethnicity, or loud, or clueless, and you think they're all staring at YOU because you are DIFFERENT, and it's almost like the entire room is conspiring against you, they are planning, they are in cahoots so that they can reveal what a jerk you are, what a loser you are, what a monster you are, but they are actually so IN-different to your existence that you might as well not exist, which is why they all bumped passed you without saying "excuse me," or "my apologies", because you are just meaningless wind to them. It's okay to not know which of those two scenarios would be worse. It's okay to want to feel safe, just like it's okay to want to protect someone you care about, just like it's okay to assume that the only person watching out for you is you, and so you might as well take precautions. It's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to find your strength. It's okay to people-watch. It's okay to find strangers fascinating or sexually attractive. It's okay to introduce yourself to strangers just like it's okay to want to curl up into a ball when someone you don't know makes eye contact with you. It's okay to be traumatized and it's okay to overcome your traumas. It's okay to blare your music. It's okay to be sexually liberated just like it's okay to be sexually reserved. It's okay to fear technology while you use it day in and day out, struggling with the notion that all you want to do is pull the screen away from your face and live and breath and experience something totally fresh and original and exciting, but if you do that then you might miss out on something inside the screen. It's okay to space out because life has overall not given you the fulfillment that someone, at some point in your past told you it would. It's okay to feel down and be hard on yourself.
It's okay to struggle.
It's okay to contradict yourself.   
It's okay to be lonely.     
It's okay to miss someone. It's okay to miss someone. It's. Okay. To. Miss. Someone.

It's okay.

It's okay to lionize someone even if they were cruel to you because you believe people are, overall, good and you know that if they were given a second, or third, or fourth chance, that they might finally treat you the way you'd like to be treated; the way you've tried your best to treat them. It's okay to want the best for someone that wants the worst for you. It's also okay to walk away from someone and leave them in your past. It's okay to forgive. It's okay to forget. It's okay to finally be okay with who you are just like it's okay to want to change something you don't like about yourself. It's okay to be imperfect. It's okay to improve. It's okay to escape reality. It's okay if you are fascinated by things that carry an enormous societal taboo, because you stay up all night contemplating the pain and suffering you've endured, or the hurdles you've overcome, or if pain is temporary then what might death feel like or if God exists or truly, if anything actually exists at all. It's okay to want to read more fiction because reality pisses you off.
It's okay to feel weird and misunderstood.

It's okay to feel weird and misunderstood because nobody can relate to your taste in movies, or your love for the satisfying sound a book makes when you close it because you finished a chapter, or because your real hero is the person who comes back with the pizza and it's still warm when you open the box, or because you love to take baths in the winter because something about the mystifying steam and loud rushing of scolding hot water behind a closed door is the best defense from the cold, dark, nothingness of the of the solemn season, or because whenever someone tells you to look at the stars, you'd rather look up at the moon, or because you play out a million little stories in your head whenever you listen to music on your morning commute, stories you are desperate to tell, but often times too distracted by clouds or politics or pretty girls to write them down, or because sometimes you feel like everyone has abandoned you and you are destined to die alone, or because when you look in the mirror, you don't see what everybody else sees, or because you feel like you were born in the wrong time period, or because you're passionate about politics but you hate people that are passionate about the politics you disagree with, or because you never quite got over that teacher in seventh grade that called you stupid, or that girl who called you fat, or that boy who called you ugly and retarded and a faggot, and sometimes when you're taking a bath at night in the middle of wintertime you wonder and hope desperately that you're not the only person who thinks these thoughts, otherwise what will they think of me?
It's okay to be weird and misunderstood.   

It's okay to hate social media but still have to incessantly check it even though you know it's just going to make you upset somehow but you fear irrelevance in a fast-paced post-truth word, and you know that these platforms have become consumerist parodies of themselves, and people are seemingly more divided than ever on topics because we seek labels in order to belong, and we are no longer conditioned to get along, but conditioned to be staunch and stubborn in our oh-so-correct view of the world, however solipsistic or myopic that view may be. It's okay to have opinions about issues that affect everyone just like it's okay to laugh at people's close-minded, over-opinionated statements. It's okay to be an idealist without being an ideologue. It's okay to want to share without being a communist. It's okay to seek power without being a fascist. It's okay to be a democrat. It's okay to be a republican. It's okay to be an independent, or to sit on the fence, or to check out of politics entirely.

It's okay to fucking curse. It's okay to pray even if you don't know if anyone or anything is out there listening. It's okay to not know. It's okay to be distracted and--oh hey an online quiz that tells me what Disney villain I am based on my astrological sign--
It's okay to get yourself back on track. It's okay to show respect for your enemies. It's okay to learn from someone older than you, younger than you, different from you. It's okay to be different and have differences and celebrate diversity just like it's okay to have traditions and look out for your own.
It's okay to be White, Black, Hispanic, Middle-Eastern, Asian, Native, Aborigine, Polynesian or wherever else you came from. It's okay to be a man. It's okay to be a woman. It's okay to be confused about which gender you are. It's okay to be straight or bi or gay or somewhere in between. It's okay to hate identity politics. It's okay to have feelings and cry and yell and lash out into the void. It's okay to fight with your addictions. It's okay to want more.

It's okay to get rejected. It's okay to freeze and feel uninspired. It's okay to say what you feel. It's okay to have certain thoughts and even write them down.

It's okay to be you. 

  
   

Social Mania. Also Depression, Distraction, Motivation, David Foster Wallace, Albert Camus, and Other Subjects

"For believers, no explanation is necessary. For nonbelievers, no explanation is possible."

        Is it normal to be distracted? What is it about those days of ineffectiveness, those days of sloth that make us so resentful of our lives? We get up, we glug glug our cups of coffee, then we shove off to our place of employment begrudgingly, or if we are lucky, with some sense of inspired optimism. At the end of the work day, we bust out the door with the setting sun tickling our eyes and we experience that euphoric sense of freedom, of limitlessness, of potential that the evening might bring...
        But this brings us only a temporary joy because when we get home what do we do? Well, a wide range of banal but necessary tasks that we've been putting off; errands and the like, and then we get home with just enough daylight left to cook dinner and melt away in from of the Television. Why do we continue this cycle? Routine and comfort.
        Look, I thought freeing myself from the shackles of full-time servant work in the city would allow me the time and stress relief necessary to achieve some real personal goals. I was (and still am) so over the city. And while I'll admit that freeing myself from said useless drudgery has allowed me to accomplish a great deal this past year, I still feel so small. So is it me? Am I the type of person that is resentful of his own existence just because I haven't achieved some vague, abstract version of "success"? No I don't think so. But success would sure be nice.

        Is that what being a true artist is about?! Suffering with yourself until you vomit out something (hopefully) profound, relatable and consumable? Are we all doomed to live our own Dostoevsky Hell in order to escape ourselves? Am I simply impatient, or just outright untalented; or both?!
        Or perhaps I am human, perhaps longing for routine and seeking the comfort of sloth and lazy entitlement is just a part of every day life. In this culture of Netflix binges, in the thralls of the never ending Facebook feed of people I barely give a sh!t about...I sometimes find myself a helpless addict. It's not because I am useless, or evil or anything like that, it's because I actively silence the voice that says "Hey, you should probably not lose yourself in another YouTube hole, and rather dig into your creative process instead. You know, the only thing in your life that gives you any sense of joy or fulfillment?" That. Why are you putting that version of yourself so far into the background?"  We have to constantly battle that inclination to indulge our sense of stagnancy. Our id knows what we like: safety. But our ego is constantly pinching us to remind us of our wasted potential, our escape and isolation.

        It's because growing, in any sense, is a risk. It's scary, and takes effort, and distractions, however non-nutritious, can protect us from having to face that growth. That thing that might bring us to the next level, the next tier of being, the next plain of existence we know we belong on, or as Neitzche puts it: "Becoming the Ubermench," is put on hold, and consumable distraction enables the numbing passivity that prevents us from being who we are. That's why high rates of depression are correlated with high rates of drug use (heroine), that's why the male suicide rate is so high when industries evolve into no longer needing manual labor. Because distraction is so readily available, and the craving to be comfortably numb is so happily indulged. The search for meaning is pacified. Ennui.

        I know I know, it all sounds so daunting and I often receive criticism from my friends and family to not be so hard on myself. This is completely valid and offers me peace-of-mind, especially when I get that same "You should be writing" tick in the back of my head on holidays or special occasions or family events. This is the other side of the extreme. It's okay to enjoy life every now and again but I feel so f@cking guilty when I'm not writing. Which I suppose is a marvelous thing because it means that I'm aware that I'm not doing the thing that I was meant to be doing. This is a good sign. Also, especially in a country and time as this one, I can find some sense of empowerment in knowing that it is UP TO ME AND ONLY UP TO ME to make that change.   
You already know the thing that will change you for the better...you're just frozen. Unfreeze.
   
SOCIAL MEDIA: Compare, Compete, Judge, Repeat.


You cannot stop people from indulging in their sense of vindicated societal dread. Truly you can only, within your own heart choose to battle with it, or succumb to it. Change (societal or personal) is an inevitable, sometimes necessary fact of life, but do not let that fact stop you from finding some peace and contentment with the here and now.

        One of my music teachers once told me "Colin, you're not a guitar player until you can take apart a guitar and know the name of every piece of which you put back together. " Okay, so I'm paraphrasing, but essentially what he was telling me is that if you want to dedicate your life to something, you better know your sh!t inside and out. You better eat, sleep and breath the thing. You better make sure that the thing you dedicate your life to is something that without it, your life would be void of meaning. I suppose this is why I've joined an online review site: To work on my writing craft and formulate opinions, yes, but to also understand the value of constructing stories. Sure, I'll be reviewing media and offering subjective opinions, but my aim, rather than gleefully deconstructing something with salty undertones, will be to better understand the art of structure and be inspired by others speaking their creative voice.

Unrelated:
        I found myself asking some very cynical, perhaps jaded questions of myself this afternoon before stomaching the notion to sit down and write:
        Why do we seek out wisdom from pampered celebrities whose only true wish is to be worshiped? Why do we give platforms to people that pander and tweet empty platitudes and truisms? Why are we given such easy answers to such complex solutions? Why do we find ourselves aware of the problem but are always one step away from solving them? Simple. We are seeking for answers in all the wrong places, because the wrong places are presenting themselves to us in every dark corner throughout our day. And those voices are loud; too loud. We have the power to silence these monsters, leaving less room for the toxicity of drama and opening ourselves to the noble virtue of reason and peace.

The FACEBOOK Monster

Writing is constantly having to 'reel it in' and stop being a spectator for the majority of your day. This is not to say that being a spectator is a bad thing. Absolutely not. BUT, (again, I'll return to this theme) be mindful of the things that you are allowing to consume your time. Your time is all you have, dear reader. Your attention is a precious thing. This is something I have struggled with immensely. You see social media has more or less conditioned people (me) to be a spectator throughout my day. Their format is so vapid and dangerously addictive, especially when you really let it take you. Scrolling, scrolling, There's someone you knew back when your life had such promise and vigor. Look at me now, so ugly and so alone. There's that professor you so admired back in your junior year...oh Jesus, he's posted another insipid video about micro-aggression with a quippy, overly enthused headline. Dude, didn't you lose your job because you had an affair with a student? Oh, there's my very first girlfriend...she's aged terribly. Cute kid though... and she's a...really passionate Trump supporter. Oh and there's all her friends cussing her out for being evil. Geez I feel like I should say something in her defense, I mean I don't agree with this post at all but this is a toxic witch hunt...naaa, I've lost interest. I'm about sick of politics for the day anyways. OH! A celebrity scandal! A video of a CUTE CAT! Holy hell, it's been 25 minutes and I've literally done nothing. Nothing. I don't deserve the precious gift that is existence.  
        I wrote an article recently reviewing South Park's new episode where they mercilessly tool on the immoral corporatism of Mark Zuckerberg. They turn Zuckerberg into this weird caricature of a video game boss and it's absolutely hilarious. He takes the very literal embodiment of what I now refer to as the Facebook Monster. It's in our homes, in our beds, it's waiting for us when we get out of the shower. And it's our fault, we invited it into our lives so it's not going anywhere. It's very plain to me from listening to interview after interview of celebrities crushed by the weight of fame and public opinion and over exposure to the mob...that A. none of us need any of this. and B none of us really want it either. We are all left so empty after our brief encounter with the Monster, but it keeps us coming back with little notifications that are scientifically engineered to "keep us playing." A playful little token, a reward, a lie that lets us think for one brief moment in our visit to the Meta-verse that somebody gives a sh!t. But then why do we still feel so empty, so unsatisfied?
        Maybe if I keep scrolling I'll find something that will really scratch my itch. I can write later tonight. After dinner. And after a couple episodes of The Office.    
        Unfulfilled, empty addiction from unwavering technological leaps is precisely the thing that David Foster Wallace was concerned about in is Magnum Opus: The Infinite Jest. The Infinite Jest being the title of a film made that is so perfectly done, once you see it, you never ever want to do anything else.

        Don't wait for permission. Don't keep that Facebook mindset where you just watch sh!t go by and let things bother you until you just lash out on some comment section. And I also don't want you to take from this "Hey, you're right, I'll be more active on my Facebook, that will bring me more fulfillment. No. F@ck that, it won't. It will buy you temporary acknowledgement from your smug group of 12 sh!tty people that actually follow you. Donate your time to something better. All of Facebook is passive. It's not real. Don't live a passive life, live a bold one. The bold ones are the successful ones. People want to guilt you into being passive, to stifle your brilliance, to shout you down or nay-say. The loudest voice among them though? You, muthaf@cka, so don't let people with slave mentality convince you that you aren't virtuous if dare to overcome adversity and make something of yourself.

Sometimes when I'm out writing in cafe's like I am today, I get distracted with the fearful anxiety that not only my writing, but life itself, is pointless. So yeah. That's always fun. Sometimes I turn that energy into more writing, but sometimes the dread is so powerful that I can only curl up into a ball and either listen to music or watch YouTube. This morning I did both: After some light chords behind smooth, harmonic voices, I turned to the tube because I had nothing to read in my bag. Sometimes I use dread as a muse and other times I use it as an excuse to wallow and feel sorry for myself and the doom of humanity. It is what it is. Soren Kierkegaard talks about this dread paradox thusly: "dread is a sympathetic antipathy and and antipathetic sympathy," meaning simply: dread is a desire for what we fear and a fear of what we desire. It's a snowball of anxiety that traps you and distracts you from who you really are. You're funny, you're kind, you're curious and smart and motivated. Or at least you once were. Remember?

"The really important freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline. and being able to truly care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad, petty, unsexy ways, everyday. That is real freedom. That is being educated and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting. The rat race. The constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost some infinite thing."
- David Foster Wallace

 DFW also brings up what he calls an an old cliche, but I call a juicy piece of observational wisdom that applies to this mad, technological age:

"The mind is an excellent servant, but a terrible master."

 So we have to live our lives as though we have control over these thoughts, even though that is an illusion in itself. Take these rambling writings for example. I do them as unplanned exercises (sometimes with intent to review media, but again it's an exercise) for my writing chops. Upon sitting down to write, I may have an idea about the subjects I'd like to touch upon, but nothing ever exists as specific as it does until I breath life into it; until I allow my mind to wander and my fingers to type. So what is it that you are trying to breathe life into? As a creator, your thoughts can imprison you if you do not find the time to sit and explode every now and again. Our thoughts can very easily become the master as life continues to be thrust upon us, and day by day we feel that the world rotates around the sun with such pristine purpose, yet our existence, without some purpose, can feel completely erroneous. So, if I may throw out a little didactic witticism: We must identify the sun within our own life, and we must find the rotation that works best for us, and keeps our world on access, in balance, in harmony.
        "In the adult life," DFW says, "there is no atheism." So what he is saying is that we are all creatures of worship, so it is up to us to pick a God (capitol G) that actually has some substance. Are their morals and ethics and codes to your God, your purpose, your life? There are, of course, both good and bad gods (small g). Maybe you worship money, sugar, or that feeling you get when you refresh your phone and that little red notification invites you to indulge the illusion that you are important to someone (you aren't, or if you are, it's temporary).  
     "It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience," he says. "Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly...worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out."


**Let me digress for a moment and tie in some other famous people's wisdom while on the subject of celebrities...

Seinfeld's humor of exposing and over-analyzing humdrum, everyday events are timeless. The combination of "Oh my goodness I've been in that situation a million times and never thought of it that way," added with the fact that the characters' reactions are always ones of selfish indecencies which expose our own selfish reactions--it's perfect. ,We all have our group of friends and sure, you probably know at least four or 5 guys/gals that are wayyyy funnier than that Jerry guy who had a sitcom like 20 years ago right? They could easily do what he does and they've even made those observations before! Exactly. We all have. But none of us have the guts to stand up there and present those very clearly HOKEY DAD JOKES in font of anybody, let alone millions of people! His delightfully pedestrian observations on the everyday fly-buzzings of our lives are so relatable because they are so obvious in terms of subject matter. What he does though, better than everyone else out there, is respect the craft and formula of joke telling. He delivers in a way that is so essentially "everyman", so monotone, so flat, so, pedestrian, then he walks you into the most involved, eloquently worded scenario where you feel like you're sitting comfortably on a friend's couch, and laughing your @ss off as he so urgently cusses out the airline pilot or the bank teller or the stupid commercial or cussing out yet another insipid award show ...and that's the key right there: urgency. Everything maters to Seinfeld. Nothing is trivial. Even laundry is a cause to be theatrical in the mind of Seinfeld. It is in our banal, frustrating routines that we can encounter the most rigorous challenges...Seinfeld chooses to dissect these moments with whit and observational, judgmental humor that--as far as sitcoms go-- none can rival.** 

David Foster Wallace recognizes those frustrating little errands, obligations, and obstacles too. They weighed on him during his brief time in this existence. But he was able to turn those thoughts into poetry and raw lessons.

This speech by David Foster Wallace 
     



Putting An End to Crippling Dread and Depression Derived from Helplessness.

A favorite philosopher and novelist of mine, Albert Camus in his "Myth of Sisyphus" begs us to accept our fate, and understand that the drudgery of Sisyphus is inescapable...up, up, up, he pushes and pulls and sweats and toils with that bolder until he finally reaches the top of the hill, only to watch the bolder fall back down again. This is of course meant to illustrate the utter futility of life's struggle. But what Camus offers us is a simple twist: Imagine as Sisyphus pushes that boulder up the hill, he has the biggest, silliest, warmest of grins on his face. He loves the challenge, he wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world than where he is right now. And when he reaches the top only to watch the bolder come plummeting back to earth? Why, he lets out a bout of hearty, melodious laughter! It's a moment of sheer joy in the accomplished ridiculousness. It's what he had been looking forward to the whole way up. It's an earned moment of reflection on a job well done. It's no longer a story of witless drudgery, it's an empowered sense of duty and a loving embrace of the mundane yet necessarily journey uphill. It is the embracing of Nietzsche's Amor Fati (the love of fate), the enjoyment of Aristotle's talos, and reinforced by Kierkegaard's Ethical Mode of existence .   

        Of course, we are only humans. And sometimes the mundane is f@cking dogsh!t and we know in our hearts that we deserve more, but we aren't there yet. So I think the exercise is to get you to see that even when life feels completely futile and your dreams so out of reach...you DO have a choice...you can dread the struggle, refuse it and break down into nothing, or you can lean into it, and enjoy every step of the way as you push that bolder up the hill. Sure, some days will be dreadful and tiresome, but some days will seem easier and easier if you approach it with a positive outlook and embrace the challenge.
        Think of your goals as that mountain. Let's take something concrete like mine, I want to be a published novelist. The novel is the bolder. The act of writing it is the climb, and finishing/ publishing/ sharing it will be at the top of this particular mountain. I can choose to dread it, choose to put it off, choose to detest it...and that would be misery. In fact, I don't know why I'd want to write a novel in the first place if both the idea and process of it were such hell. So that's a telling sign right there as far as your goal is concerned: is it something that brings you joy? Now I'm not suggesting that every time I sit down to the computer rainbows shoot from my fingers and every word scribbled is a piece of some profoundly orgasmic manifesto of divinity. No f@cking way. I wouldn't be trailing off in this mindless blog if every time I sat at the computer I had "it," I don't. We're not all Charles Bukowski. Sometimes that mountain is daunting as all hell.
        But what I do know is that every time I have a good, engaging thought, every time I bridge a gap between plot points, every time I find a nice character moment, I'm filled with a sense of joy and fulfillment. Sure, pushing that bolder is heavy, but nobody else but me is strong enough to bear my own burden, and there is something beautiful about that. We all have that bolder (or that cross if you prefer the Christian narrative) to carry. We have the choice of what that bolder represents, and we have the freedom to enjoy the climb.    


Some random thoughts:


This blog is unapologetic about how self-indulgent it is, and I kind of like that. If something isn't self-indulgent, it's probably shallow and safe and formulaic. The self is far more interesting thing than any conglomerate or system can concoct anyways. Or maybe I'm fetishizing the individual.

I don't like guns, but I'd like to own one.

Sometimes big ideas make you feel small (macro) and the best way to alleviate that stress is to focus on a small and simple (micro) joy. February is a torturous month of wet spring and earthly smells and birds chirping and also bitter cold snow and death. I haven't written poetry since the summer.

I get an irrational lump in my throat when sirens go by. As if crimes I've never committed have caught up to me and the boys in blue have come to enact frontier justice on this sensitive sad fool.

Hope is for those that believe the fire will burn itself out before it reaches them, faith is for those that dive into the fire headlong, confident that they can survive the scourges and come out safely on the other side. I may have come up with this, or I can contribute it too my my over exposed sense of cryptomnesia.

I haven't seen a good television show in a long time because I wrote my own and have since been rejected by the powers that be. But I'd like to invest time into a show, but there are too many, and the burden of choice is overwhelming. So I just watch porn instead.

I haven't been to the gym since October, but I don't get fat. I get weak. Weak like a tired dog in an alleyway desperate to feast out of the garbage.

I start to believe in God again when I hear a really pretty song.
Certain people fill me with murderous rage, and that's not very Godly.

If you don't tell the stories you want to tell, then someone else will control the narrative, and they might not tell it as well as you can, and that will fill you with a resentment so powerful that you'll start to hate everyone around you for daring to want to have a pleasant day, or for wishing you to have one too. The fear is worth overcoming.  Even when you think it's cheating to be a vacuum that just spits out a collection of thoughts, it's not. It's just research. Tell the story. If you don't control the conversation, someone will misrepresent your argument; someone will speak for you that doesn't represent you. Be loud.

I'm hyper aware of the power technology has over me when I wake up in the morning. It's very easy to base your whole day around whether or not someone texts you back. It's very easy to ignore people but impossible to ignore your phone.

It's very easy to get discouraged. It's very common to feel that everyone hates you. It's the enlightened person that understands that not everyone is going to like you and there is nothing you can do about it other than smile.

People aren't commodities.

Art is not pointless. Pointlessness is not Art.

"Don't ever let fear turn you against your playful heart."- Jim Carey


-CjM

Brief Reflections On the New Year: "Seventeen-Going-on-Eighteen" and Other Strange References.

"I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone's away. There's something so sensuous about it-- overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands"

-The Great Gatsby


I spent the capital N New, capital Y Year in New York City. It was the coldest few days I've experienced in a long, long time, which ironically reminded me of one of my favorite descriptive quotes in F. Scott Fitzgerald's romantic masterpiece concerning summers in NYC (long island technically, but don't derail me). Oh how I longed for summer on that bitterly cold excursion to Manhattan. And, no, I did not do the Time Square Thing. I know enough after spending much of my time pounding the pavement on those very streets for very little pay, that there is little I can gain from returning there on holiday. Though, I do not cynically begrudge anyone who might want to subject themselves to the buzz, to the electricity, to the sheer magnitude of the "ball-dropping ceremony".

In fact, my friends tried (and failed) to make it to the countdown. It being the coldest NYE in NYC night on record, I can't imagine the sheer masochism and willpower it would have taken the thousands of people who had done the thing. Did you know (or so I've heard) that they don't allow any outside beverages, nor do they have any place to go to the bathroom during the event? Do that mo'f@ckin' math for a hot second. Nearly a million people congregating  for several hours and no bathrooms? Yea. Right. That square is probably covered in all manner of piss and sh!t and booze et al and I shudder just thinking about cleaning all that up. Of course people "shouldn't just go to the bathroom out in the streets..." but they do. They so do. Am I misinformed? Do people just wear adult diapers or hook up catheters to their pee holes? EWWWW okay I'm getting off this train of thought. Maybe someday I'll do the Time-Square- New-Years thing and document my suffering/ shenanigans. That would be amazing. Alas, my friends were sensible and left when they felt that they were about to--ummm-- die, and they met me in a more sensible area.

I on the other hand spent the evening traveling into the city (one of my favorite treks) after work. It was foolish of me to try and read quietly on the train while being subjected to all the commuters on the Metro North, pregame-ing in preparation for wherever their New Year's destination happened to be. Putting my book away, I accepted an offer to drink a few beers with some diverse, excitable college students in clubbing attire jamming out to some Raggaeton. Why the f@ck not, right?  

So now I'm good and lubed up.

Upon arrival, I for some reason hear Louis Armstrong singing "What a Wonderful World" in my head. I hear it every time I enter Grand Central. I don't know why. Perhaps I heard it being played by a street performer in the Terminal once before when I crossed over through the station's threshold. Perhaps the hectic human hustle in powerful juxtaposition with the meandering melancholic melody of the song has stayed with me. And when I enter the station and behold its prowess in all its grand (apt adj), golden glory... I think to myself: what a wonderful world. Maybe. All the Christmas lights and wreaths hanging up were lovely and picturesque to boot.

As I headed to the hotel in the West End I'd be staying in, swaddled in scarf and hat and hood in an effort to shelter myself from the cold, I could actually hear the million voices in midtown counting their way into the new year. It was like a shuttle launch filled with a mix of hope and angst and resentment and excitement and revelry.

But I was elsewhere in a sanguine trance, away from the madness, focusing way more on finding the location of my hotel with a busted-up smartphone than anything else. There was no pressure in fabricating some fleeting magic moment with a temporary ingenue, there was no worry of whether my guests are having an awesome time. It was just myself, on a journey completely separate, completely removed from the norm, as though I were an alien life form visiting from another planet. 
It was different. It was nice. Passerby's on the street were wishing one another a happy new year, but mostly, people had their own thing going on, uninterested in the fact that 11:59 was happening. Then 
midnight happens and, to nobody's surprise, 12:01 comes and the air is let out. We give so much meaning to a minute.            

Reactions in Twenty Eighteen 

As far as the year so far...we-are-seventeen-going-on-eighteen... and it's awkward. Online we appear to be a leaderless cult of emotional reactionary noise, virtue signalling and projection. That's not really different from last year. Or the year before that. There were too many memes of cynical, adolescent douchery where we piss and moan about how the year didn't go the way we wanted. If you want to blame a succession of numbers for the fact that your life sucks at the moment...well I don't think there's a whole lot a different succession of numbers will do for you. Let's stop being bratty teens about everything, stop expecting that everyone else needs to change this year, and start enacting change and motivation in our daily lives. We cannot change some things, but we do have control over how we react.

I hope you had a lovely new year, dear reader, and that you are settling in nicely after all the holiday madness. I'll be doing my best this year (because new years does serve a purpose to self reflect, change, improve, if you allow it to) to tackle some social/ political issues and shed a reasonable light on some of the polarizing topics that are guaranteed to creep up this year. Just remember, you do have control over how you react to things. In times when it seems like there are no moral, sensible voices, it's because they are being drowned out by the over opinionated, the extreme thinkers with an unreasonable view of the world, with an agenda to do nothing more than control the way you live your every day life. Remember, if nothing else this year, to take a deep breath, think, and remove your phone from your beautiful face.

That's all. Live your best life this year. Get inspired. Rise above the noise.         

Lady of the Flies

Hey folks.

Do you ever feel that there is a deep and honest singularity to the universe sometimes that is obviously based upon a coincidence, but it makes you feel like you are so in touch with the cultural conversation and you want so desperately for scientists  to preserve your brain for millennia in order to study how f@cking brilliant you are, or at the very least, how it's possible for a human to conflate minor coincidences into messages from the beyond? Me neither. Well okay, I did this week.

I just finished reading "Lord of the Flies," because, well, I don't need a reason. It's a classic. It's such a smooth, interesting read that explores society, male socialization, violence, tribalism peer-pressure, and bullying among many other themes, through the eyes of a group of private-schooled English boys.  imagine my serendipitous surprise when I see that they are planning a Gender-bended remake of William Golding's delightfully deconstructable novel found in most 9th grade English curriculums.      

Gender is now, apparently meaningless. Creators want to pander to feminists who don't understand feminism, with their own warped, capricious version of feminist pandering .
This is yet another appallingly lazy co-opting of an established cultural narrative that actually does more harm to the feminist cause than good. There is no need for this film to exist other than to say "we don't understand the point of this story." The implications of this new project is that every plot point, every masculine trait, every petty pissing contest, every inclination to suppress ones feelings for the good of the conch-shell, and the fire, and the prospect of being rescued, every pig slaughtering tribal dance, and instinctual desire to hunt and kill...that would all just be so very similar in the context of 2017 with a group of females. It's completely disingenuous and, by design, against everything we humans tend to understand about natural socialization.

The desperately hilarious part of all this gender-bending (inherently harmless, unless of course you are remaking a film that's entire purpose and structure is commenting on a specific gender) is that a man is going to direct this movie to better bring us the vision of what Lord of the Flies from a female perspective would be.

SO in case you keeping score, this movie, on top of ruining a classic piece of literature, misrepresenting biological and widely understood social behavior in order to depict females inaccurately exhibiting said behavior. This is all for the sake, of course of girlz being #bad@ss #vengeful #empowered, and in case you couldn't wait to bathe in the feminine glory of exploiting literature in order to make a cash-grabbing crudfest with no point, well rest assured that this will all be done carefully with two males at the helm. Talk about mansplaining.

For a good laugh, here's 
the New Yorker taking the piss out of the lost conceptual guidance of this laughably bad idea.

Would there even be a character called Piggy? They'd obviously be socially aware of the fat-shaming implications wouldn't they? They'd probably just call her "Thyroid Problem" or "Big Bone," or "Stop it Karen you aren't fat at all and your asmar is just the Patriarchy giving you limitations." Oh well. Not like those details are important.

Let me be clear. If you wanted to make a story about women crashing on an uninhibited island and dealing with the trauma, do it, that might be interesting or an idea worth exploring (negating the fact that you probably have only male screenwriters at the helm.) But don't call it LORD of the Flies, you ignorant pussbag. How in the hell did they even obtain the creative license for this? I'm beyond confused.

 This is just another instance of attention-grabbing, post-modern drudgery leaking into the mainstream.
But. I haven't seen the film yet. So. Who knows. Maybe it'll be a brilliant piece of satire and I'll happily shut the eff up. I just...I just so doubt it.

Final thought: Lady of the Flies is actually just the story of how Themyscira
is formed and we get to watch Gal Gadot prance around with her #empowered lady bits on display again. Yes, I'm all for more of that just as long as Patty Jenkens is signed on because she knows how to create sympathetic females characters.

Anyways, Stay tuned for next year's release of The Boy with the Dragon Tattoo.


-CjM