Fiction #1

When I was young I used to wonder about blind people.

You may be saying to yourself something like, "Well, sure. Everybody wonders what it's like to be blind, don't they?" But that's not what I mean when I say that. I don't mean that I used to wonder what it was like to not see. That didn't fascinate me very much. I would imagine that just closing your eyes would give you a pretty accurate idea of what that's like. What I mean was that I used to just wonder endlessly about blind people. Does that make any sense?

What's interesting was that I didn't find out about the existence of blind people for a very long time. For my discovery I have Barney to thank. If it weren't for Barney I would have spent the majority of my prepubescent life totally oblivious to the existence of blind people.

On the episode of Barney in question - the one that clued me in - they had a blind person on the show. Of course. She was a little older than me, but of course a little older back then felt like decades or centuries older. She was basically on the show because she was blind. I don't mean that as an insult or anything; it's the truth. What they did was follow her around her house for a day with a camera to see what her life was like. It wasn't very exciting. The point they were trying to make was that blind people aren't really any different than normal people, except for the fact that they can't see, which really wasn't that big of a deal.

(So that's what I mean when I say that she was on Barney because she was blind. If she wasn't blind there wouldn't have really been any point to it. It'd just be showing a normal person walking around their house and eating breakfast and playing with toys, and I think you can expect even a five year old to figure that a normal kid is just like other normal kids.)

I think they failed with me, though. Because when I was done watching that episode, I didn't think, "Wow, she's just like me." I wondered, "Wow. How does she not fall asleep all of the time?"

Let me back up. I've always been a heavy sleeper. I was never very good at naps; inevitably fifteen minutes became a half hour became an hour became two hours. (So I guess you could say that I was too good at naps.) So I wondered how a person could basically have their eyes closed the whole day and not just conk out there and then. It's immature logic, I know, but that's what I wondered for a long time.

It didn't help that I never actually met a blind person. But that changed in middle school.

10:36 PM Friday Night

It's about 10:36 at night. My iPod was on a good shuffle streak and so I was considering driving aimlessly until it ran out, but the battery died and I was left with the radio, so I decide to head home.

I'm flipping through the channels on the radio. It's nothing but country and ads and big Friday night anthems. But there is one station. Through heavy static I hear this:

And from the shelter of my mind
Through the window of my eyes
I gaze beyond the rain-drenched streets
To England where my heart lies.

It's Kathy's Song by Simon and Garfunkel. Screw Mrs. Robinson and The Sound of Silence and all that; this is their best song. It's simple and to the point. It's about as close to perfection as you can get with just a voice and a guitar.

But there's that static. That static that static that static. It's going in and out ever now and then, gobbling up the song. I'm not sure what the problem is exactly - I would say it's a weak signal from far away, but it gets incredibly strong every now and then, so that rules it out. But there's this little silver car in front of me. It seems like when I get close to it, the signal gets better. This must be an iPod transmitter or something. They must be playing this song and I want to hear it to the end.

But the car speeds ahead and it's not possible. Now the song is competing with what sounds like a pastor talking about God or something. So that's the end of that.

I get off the interstate and the man keeps talking. But then I hear this:

And as I watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There but for the grace of you go I.

That's the end of the song. I'm far away from wherever that silver car is. I guess it wasn't the other car transmitting it; it must be some patchy signal from far away.

I keep driving and I'm struck with the urge to write this all down. I don't know why. Something about the moment feels important and worth remembering.

Aqua

In commemoration of my eight years of blogging post, an anonymous commenter said:

"Keep posting stuff like this i really like it."

I'll do my best, anonymous commenter. Every February 12th I'll do my best.

I've been hit with the strong urge to blog. I think that has something to do with what I'm reading at the moment, Richard Brautigan's Revenge of the Lawn. It's the only collection of short stories Brautigan ever wrote. And boy are they short. Very short. Sometimes a page long at the most. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that his stories have a tendency to veer from the usual beginning middle end thing. One story is about a man who replaces all of the pipes and appliances in his house with poetry. The story is written so plainly that you can't help but feel like Brautigan didn't mean to have any sort of hidden meaning in the thing; like that it's probably just a story about a guy who replaces stuff in his house with poems.

Anyway the shortness of his stories remind me of blogging. That's what I meant by that.

I'm back again on my quest to listen to all of the unrated songs in my library - about 1500 to go! - and while making my way through the A's I hit Aqua's Aquarium. I'm kind of - actually, really - ashamed to admit that this was one of the first albums I ever owned. I got it in second great and listened to it over and over. I didn't think the other songs were as good as Barbie Girl, but that didn't stop me from really enjoying the album. At the time.

So I was kind of dreading listening to it more than ten years later. But I'm glad to say that listening to Aqua again isn't as painful as I thought it'd be. That's not to say that it's not annoying. But it's definitely a lot funnier to listen to now than it was then. I think Gunther is to blame for that. It's kind of hard to listen to a song like, say, Roses are Red without thinking of Gunther commanding you to touch his tra-la-la.

Something else it took me ten years to realize about that song: I'm pretty sure the lead singer's think European accent causes her to refer to "violets" as "wiolets," which makes me think of the Count. Gunther and the Count. Now there's a combination for your imagination.

Dancing At The Bus Stop

Whenever I happen to mention Sesame Street to my mom - which happens a lot more than you'd think, I think - she inevitably would start talking about a clip from the show that I never remember seeing.

"It's this guy and he's waiting for the bus," she says. "At the bus stop. And he's dancing."

With that description - which is honestly kind of unexciting - I wasn't too thrilled to go a'hunting for the video. But after some nagging, a quick search for "bus" on the Sesame Street website lead me to the video in question. And I gotta say: it's really pretty awesome.

Open Mic Night

Last night I did standup for the first time in a couple of years. I'm glad I did it. The set went about as well as I'd expected. More importantly, I want to do it again.

Other people weren't as lucky. That wasn't because they were unfunny or untalented; it was instead because the open mic night happened to take place just an hour before a band was set to perform at the bar. And all the fans of the band showed up to watch them. Sounds cool, right? Lots of people, more opportunities to make the people laugh, right?

Nope. Because, see, there was a catch: almost all of the people who were there to see the band were talking. Very loudly. So not only could you barely hear the people onstage, but even worse, you could barely hear the laughs of the few paying attention. Eventually the whole set devolved into bitterness. "I've always wanted to perform to a crowd of people not paying attention to me!" one guy said.

One comic took a passive aggressive (more aggressive than passive) approach.

"I'm going to talk about jobs tonight," he said, already close to shouting.

"Joooobs! JOOOOBS! JOBBBBS!"

Unfortunately, because of the talking people, Thane didn't get a chance to perform. "Oh, what a shame," he said. "I missed out on performing to a crowd of talking people."

In Other News, Another Person You Went To High School With Who's Doing Things More Exciting Than You

There's this film coming out called The Crazies. Apparently it's part zombie movie, part everybody's going crazy movie, and the majority of it was filmed here in Iowa. George Romero, director of Night of The Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead - essentially this guy did for zombies what Bram Stoker did for vampires - wrote the original script that this remake is based on.

Now for how you relate to this: Valley graduate Adam Dingeman has a brief role in the film as a character called Snickering Boy. The story (so my sister tells me) goes like this: Adam auditioned for the role. The casting directors thought he was okay, but they asked him something: "Could you give us a crazy laugh?" He did. They were blown away and he was immediately cast.

In celebration of his success, here is a video of him lip synching.

A Film I Helped Make, Saying Nothing About Nothing

I can't believe I haven't mentioned this yet. Jordan and I made another short film. This one is called Survey. It's been in script form since last April and we only just recently got around to actually making it. Life kind of got in the way.

I've been pretty silent on the social media front lately - e.g. few blog posts, Twitterings or Facebooking. That's because I haven't had a whole lot to say. Things have been pretty static lately. Part of me is satisfied with stasis, but the other part likes things to get shook up every now and then. I think a lot of people are like that. You leave them alone and they get bored, but you confront them with change and they get a little anxious.

By the by: I just now realized that the word "change" has been totally damaged by Obama. It's difficult to use the word without connotations of him and the 08 election popping into one's mind. That's kind of impressive, taking claim on a word like breast cancer awareness folks have taken claim on the color pink. (And for the sake of bipartisanship: it sucks that the Republican Party managed to take the word "maverick," too.)

Anyway, basically this post exists to let you know that I don't have a lot to say. But what does that say about me? Do you really need to know that I have nothing to say? Do I really need to say that I have nothing to say?

No.

Today I found my headphones in the wash. Again. This has happened three times over the past six months. They worked the last two times, and I'm assuming they'll stick around this time too.

Happy Eighth Birthday

Eight years ago I made the first post on this blog, which linked to a cute yet mildly disturbing Flash animation set to a Japanese song about alcoholism and heaven. I wish I could say that I've become less weird over the years, but that'd be an outright lie.

It's kind of interesting how this blog has come from being a neat little novelty to me to a full fledged part of my life. It's like there's a little spot in my head reserved for my blog, a part that goes, "Hey, wait a second!" when it hears or sees something blogworthy.

I started this blog when I was in sixth grade. In September I'll be twenty one. Holy shit I'm old. Well, not really. But seriously.

I Got a Job

In Hugh MacLeod's book Ignore Everyone, he gives a piece of advice toward creative people that is borderline cliché: "Don't quit your day job." The thing is, though, he doesn't say this because he's cynical and is assuming that your creative venture is going to fail; it's because having a day job - something to pay the bills - keeps you grounded and connected to the real world.

I'm reminded of a musing Bob Newhart shared in his autobiography about how some standup comedians become less and less funny as they get more and more successful. The reason, he argues, is because they become more and more disconnected from society as time goes on, and audiences find it harder and harder to relate to them. A comic is far more likely to get inspiration while riding the bus rather than in their private limo, however snazzy the prior option may be. (Then again there's the issue of whether or not the successful comic would be able to have a moment to theirself while riding on the bus, but that's another story.)

I have a job again. I'm neither super excited for it nor dreading it. It's a job, and that's not a bad thing.

But here's one thing I already realized from orientation: the good thing about a job is that it makes you realize how precious time is. I find that when I have nothing to do, I don't want to do anything either. Then getting out of that bubble of nothing-to-doness becomes really hard. But that changes when you have, say, a job or schoolwork.

(Of course this doesn't work if you spend all of your time working and the only time you have off is just enough for eating, sleeping and pooping. But, again, that's another story.)

It's sort of like finding twenty dollars on the street. If a homeless person found twenty dollars on the street, they'd probably appreciate it. But a millionaire? Probably not so much. The more money one has, the less value it retains. The more time one has, the less value it retains.

Sushi

Yesterday evening my sister and I went to get sushi.

"If they ask us if it's our first date say yes," she said.

"Buh?!" I replied.

"It happened when I was with my friend Christina," she said. "If you say it's your first date, it's free."

"I'm not sure if I'm willing to do that," I said. "That's like, compromising my incestual ethics for the sake of sushi."

Luckily they didn't ask and my incestual ethics remained untarnished. And it was damn good sushi, too.

Super Bowl

The Big Game's on. For a while there was this urban legend that broadcasters or advertisers couldn't use the phrase "Super Bowl" since it was a trademark; instead, they had to refer to it as "the Big Game." I'm not sure about the validity of that, nor do I feel like interrupting myself and Snopesing it.

I don't love football, but I don't hate it. I don't even like it. I'm pretty neutral about it. There are a lot of people who enjoy resenting people who like football - almost as many as there are people who like football. I don't fall into either category. I have a basic understanding of how it all works, but it's not for me.

A lot of people say they watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. But it seems like the more time goes on or the older I get, the commercials get less and less appealing. People seem to agree with me on this one; I remember seeing an article last year about how there were no "big commercials" that everyone talked about at the watercooler. I don't think the advertisers are to blame, though. I think we are.

See, with YouTube and in the internet and all, we get our fill of entertaining short clips on a pretty regular basis. It's gotten to a point where we've become very discerning about what short clips appeal to us. There are literally thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of videos of people being injured in unorthodox ways on YouTube and only a few of them will do the trick in entertaining us.

So where does that leave the funny talk-about-it-for-days-afterwards Super Bowl commercial? Almost obsolete. I'm not saying it's impossible to make a Truly Great Super Bowl ad anymore; I'm just saying that it's become a hell of a lot harder.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong. My parents are having some friends over for the game. As I speak, I'm hearing some pretty intense laughter from them.

Who Released The Hounds?

This meme's been floating for a while - but then again "a while" in internet time is like two weeks in regular time - but I just discovered it. Old timey portrait plus rap lyrics made archaic equals brilliance. My favorite one's the "put your hands up in the air" one.

And leave it to Know Your Meme for more info, with hundreds more variations where those 20 came from.

Following, Lost Ideas, Texting

In my last post I mentioned that my bookstack was growing huge. Here it is. It's now in two stacks for the sake of gravity.

Went on a walk yesterday. I'm pretty sure the woman ahead of me thought I was following her. She'd occasionally look back and quicken her pace when she saw that I was still there. This isn't the first time I've been in that special kind of awkward situation and yet it's still plenty awkward. There's nothing you can say or do - other than change your path - to rectify that situation. Going "Hey! I'm not following you!" just doesn't do it. Not that I've tried.

I've had this awful habit lately of thinking, "Hey, that'd be a good idea for a blog post," and then totally forgetting about what I wanted to post. I think it's happened twice over the past couple of days. Typically I'm pretty good about writing things down, but not so much when I'm outside and it's cold or if I'm driving.

On our drive back from Chicago over the weekend I saw signs that said "If you can read this, then you're not texting! Thank you!" And then I wondered how I would feel if I read it and I was texting. I'd probably feel cocky. "Those bastards have no idea." And then I'd probably be like, "I'm so good at texting and driving. If I can fool them I can keep doing it!" And then I'd probably crash into a tree.

Thoughts

My bookstack is huge. Something like twenty books. That's not even counting the two that I checked out from the library. I wasn't too interested in reading over the past month, for reasons that I've kind of touched upon here, so I didn't read a single book for about a month. Then I finished one a couple of days ago, and I was like, "Why did I stop doing this? This is actually a good way to pass the time."

Embarking on the college search thing again. It freaks me out. Part of the freaking out comes from a nagging fear that I'm not capable of making good decisions (which is a totally bullshit fear; it's just a matter of convincing that little voice in the back of my mind otherwise) and the other part comes from reading reviews of institutions on the internet. The problem with reading reviews of colleges by students is that the negative reviews tend to overwhelm the positive ones. There's nothing wrong with that on its own - the only thing is that it's hard to tell if the majority of people disliked an institution or if only people who felt like complaining wrote reviews.

I'm reading a book called Blindness. It's about a disease that's spreading around a city. It causes its victims to become blind. It's a really horrifying book, albeit in kind of an understated fashion. I heard they made a movie out of it and the movie sucked. I'm not surprised. The scariness in Blindness can't be translated well to the screen. It's just too damn subtle and cerebral to be represented in a medium like film. Actually, I guess it could be represented in a movie. It'd just be really, really hard.

When I was going on a walk today I heard a bird. It sounded like this: MWA-HA-HA-HA-HA. Seriously. I'm not exaggerating. I was kind of terrified. Then I decided that it was either a bird or a crazy neighbor. And frankly, I find the prior to be a lot more terrifying than the latter. Seriously. Who wants birds going around going MWA-HA-HA-HA-HA? I don't.

I wonder who the first person to do that evil laugh was. Were they a bad person? Maybe they were a really nice guy. Maybe they went to church regularly and worked in their gardens and loved their children, except they happened to laugh like this: MWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA. And everyone was terrified of the man and they all left him alone and he turned into an evil scientist. MWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA. The end.