I had rehearsed this in my head. I had sincerely hoped that I wouldn’t make an ass out of myself the first day of college.I was, like so many other times during my life, wrong.
I think on the first day of college their freshman year, when they are moving their things into their dorm, they just try to keep their heads down. Nobody wants to be seen with their parents. Nobody even wants to acknowledge that they have parents, and sooner, or perhaps presently, rather than later, in the privacy of your other place of residence, they will talk at length about their college life.
My father, darling of a man as he was, was about to go into one of these monologues, “Ah, this reminds me of my first day of college. It seems like just yesterday,” he said, pulling his wife – my mother – by the hip at just the scripted moment. That was the last box: marked “Misc.” with an angry face next to it, in Sharpie.
“Right, no internet and all this, yes I’m sure it all seems very familiar. I’ll phone you if I need anything, alright?” I said, making no particular effort to hide the fact I was shoo’ing them out the door.
My father gave one of those deep, fatherly, sagacious laughs. He seemed to enjoy these moments of fatherness (fatherdom? patritude?). I enjoyed this moment only a little bit more than when he was cleaning his hunting rifle when I brought home my first boyfriend back in primary.
My mother looked at me with quite a pouty face. She reached, two-armedly pulling me into some last deep hug, as though I was about to go off to some boarding school for some indeterminable amount of years. Her prized daughter was finally going off to the wide world of higher education. She was eager to see me pursue a dream she had to abandon. We said our tearful goodbyes and followed them as far as my door before I shut it, leaning exasperatedly against it after I had slid the lock closed.I surveyed my new living space: my bed, or the bed I had chosen by the windows (and also the heater), was only about seven or eight feet away from my mystery roommate’s bed, which made the room no more than thirteen by ten, maybe? Tiny, certainly, but not undoable. Being a surprising credit to my gender, I tend to pack very light. I had a box of sheets and a comforter, and of course a thermal blanket. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been terribly adjusted to New Jersey’s cold snaps, so any advantage in warmth was a plus. I had a couple of boxes with neatly folded summer clothes. It was still too hot in September to really be thinking of anything like cold too seriously, however.
The final box, the one of miscellany, was the one that contained my laptop, and Fonzarelli, my teddy bear. What? I think I’m well within my rights as a girl to have a teddy bear. I had began setting up all of my accoutrements when I finally got a chance to meet my roommate.
I had a friend, a couple years older than myself, who said once that everyone has a weird roommate their freshman year. It’s inexplicable: all of these weird people seem to vanish, or perhaps find each other, after Freshman year, but for the duration of that first venture into real life, they are present in everyone’s lives.
Julianne would prove this for me. She wasn’t weird, per se, as much as she was just dynamically different from myself. Actually, I could see her viewing me, in the near future, as “the weird roommate,” but regardless, my first memory of her would be her crashing into the room with what seemed to be a blonde Zac Efron impersonator: complete with white V-neck t-shirt.
“Yeah, just put it right there,” she commanded, and the automaton obeyed. She was bleach blonde and wearing those obnoxious, bug-eyed sunglasses. Perhaps I was judging her pre-emptively, but she seemed rich, entitled, and showed a strong lean towards a habit of listening to whatever song happened to be popular in the clubs that she was allowed to get into underage, “Just be careful, alright. That’s the box with my shoes in it.”
No, I think I was just about right.
“Oh!” She seemed genuinely startled by my presence, “Are you my roommate?”
“No, I just like hanging out in random rooms. This one was empty, so I thought I’d park it here for a while,” I don’t know what drove me to sarcasm right off the bat. Maybe it was the knee-jerk instinct from dealing with these girls in high school.
“Oh, well… you can like… stay, until the other roommate comes, I guess.”
And just like that, I had cemented my status as the Weird Roommate From Freshman Year.
Friday, April 10, 2009
The Colonel
I learned the despise the colonel quickly. As an officer, he was good: not particularly great, but certainly better than she whom he replaced, but instead of chronic inefficiency, we received debilitating degradation.
I had a sense of humor that kept me in his good graces. While he wouldn't agree with many of the things I did, I at least had the ability to make him laugh and temporarily forget the differences that we would have.
He was of the Cold War school of thought in regards to the Army. Culture, and anything that was in the remotest way related to things that didn't belong to America, were, at best, gay, and at worst, subversive. He constantly complained about his wife who would be nagging him to take her to see a Broadway show, or a ballet. I wonder for who's benefit his public diatribes were. Were they his carthasis, or subtle notes for us to take, as to say: "This is how you should run a battalion: in being completely closed off to the outside world".
God help any of us who might have mentioned that our weekends might have included a show, or a concert by a band whose name did not immediately conjure images of death and chaos. Even ignorance of a band's style, or a movie's plot would not spare him from making some jab if it had a "faggy title". We would just simply sigh and say, "yes sir", and continue to count down the days until we commissioned.
I had a sense of humor that kept me in his good graces. While he wouldn't agree with many of the things I did, I at least had the ability to make him laugh and temporarily forget the differences that we would have.
He was of the Cold War school of thought in regards to the Army. Culture, and anything that was in the remotest way related to things that didn't belong to America, were, at best, gay, and at worst, subversive. He constantly complained about his wife who would be nagging him to take her to see a Broadway show, or a ballet. I wonder for who's benefit his public diatribes were. Were they his carthasis, or subtle notes for us to take, as to say: "This is how you should run a battalion: in being completely closed off to the outside world".
God help any of us who might have mentioned that our weekends might have included a show, or a concert by a band whose name did not immediately conjure images of death and chaos. Even ignorance of a band's style, or a movie's plot would not spare him from making some jab if it had a "faggy title". We would just simply sigh and say, "yes sir", and continue to count down the days until we commissioned.
The Lie - Chad Kultgen
Every now and again, I worry that I will never publish a book.
My next step in this process is to go out and buy a book, and at least begin to read it.
This will accomplish one of two things. Either:
1) I see what is worthwhile about this book, and can begin to apply the fundamental and commercial elements to my own work or
2) Realize that there is so much crap out there that gets published, if I have some modicum of patience, someone will publish it.
The Lie by Chad Kultgen falls into this later category. Previously, when I would see "Also author of..." I assume that this means there is some reason I should know that name. This is a clever technique to place some measure of high value on them(he's done it before!), and some low value on you (Oh of course you wouldn't know about it). Well, regardless, one of these labels is not just affixed, not just added as a post-production clipart atop of the cover, but printed in, quite obviously by the writer's devise, upon the front cover.
From as near as I can reason, which is a result of paying as much attention to the characters as I would people who actually act like this, the book is about how Heather is sleeping with Kyle to get to Brett, or some other similar college (though sounds more like high school) nonsense. I think college is only a clever device to be able to have frat parties and dorms as a story expedient.
The story is told from the perspective of three narrators, sequentially: Kyle, the self-loathing chode who is apparrently a sexual savant, Heather, the self-absorbed valley girl you had in that one intro to criminal justice class back in Freshman year, and Brett, the pretentious rich asshole, whom you hate a little less only because he hates other rich kids too.All of the narrators just seem a bit unrealistic. I mean, characters aren't supposed to be actual people: they're representations of people, but regardless, Kultgen overshoots a little bit and ends up closer to characature rather than character. To be fair however, all of his characters have completely unique voices.
Kyle talks a lot like you or I might, except with a measure of self-loathing that is stereotypical of a nerdy college freshman. Despite only ever having slept with one girl, he is apparrently a whiz kid at sex, which is not a digression, but painfully relevant to the plot.
Heather's telling of her parts of the story are sometimes interesting, but only when dialogue isn't concerned. Kultgen's attempt for realism involves Heather retelling in the following style:
"She was like, 'blah blah'
I was like, 'blah blah'
Then he was like, 'blah blah'"
Yes, quite. It was endearing once or twice.
Brett, however, despite being immensely popular with women, talks with a massively eruditic vocabulary. Actually, when he talks, I think of Dr.Manhattan from The Watchmen. Supposedly "the hottest guy in school" and "one of the richest", he has a detachment from women that views them as "whores," not in the literal sense, "that [he] wasn't paying them to fuck [him], they were whores nonetheless becausethey would fuck [him] and they would do this because they understood [him] to represent money that could potentially be theirs in various forms of gifts, dinners, et cetera. Furthermore, if one were lucky or skilled enough to sink her hooks in and eventually wed [him], the money [he] would represent would be more than any common whore would make in ten thousand careers" (Kultgen 36).
Yeah, actual quote. It was as though Kultgen has just read I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell and thought, "Ah! That's what my story is missing! A self-entitled, rich, college kid with absolutely no compassion towards women, in fact, quite the opposite!"
The entire reading feels very asinine. The banality is occasionally broken up by clever little usages of the round-robin style narration:In the midst of Heather meeting Brett for the first time in person, she begins to remember why it was she was sleeping with Kyle, and begins thinking amorously of Brett:"Kyle was really the best guy I'd ever had sex with, but I was pretty sure Brett was probably better." - Heather
And then the resounding first line of Brett's narrative on the next page, in bold face:
"She was a cunt"I chuckled. All in all though, these little diversions were nothing more than that: diversions from an otherwise uninspired novel that has sought to give me a bit of hope.
My next step in this process is to go out and buy a book, and at least begin to read it.
This will accomplish one of two things. Either:
1) I see what is worthwhile about this book, and can begin to apply the fundamental and commercial elements to my own work or
2) Realize that there is so much crap out there that gets published, if I have some modicum of patience, someone will publish it.
The Lie by Chad Kultgen falls into this later category. Previously, when I would see "Also author of..." I assume that this means there is some reason I should know that name. This is a clever technique to place some measure of high value on them(he's done it before!), and some low value on you (Oh of course you wouldn't know about it). Well, regardless, one of these labels is not just affixed, not just added as a post-production clipart atop of the cover, but printed in, quite obviously by the writer's devise, upon the front cover.
From as near as I can reason, which is a result of paying as much attention to the characters as I would people who actually act like this, the book is about how Heather is sleeping with Kyle to get to Brett, or some other similar college (though sounds more like high school) nonsense. I think college is only a clever device to be able to have frat parties and dorms as a story expedient.
The story is told from the perspective of three narrators, sequentially: Kyle, the self-loathing chode who is apparrently a sexual savant, Heather, the self-absorbed valley girl you had in that one intro to criminal justice class back in Freshman year, and Brett, the pretentious rich asshole, whom you hate a little less only because he hates other rich kids too.All of the narrators just seem a bit unrealistic. I mean, characters aren't supposed to be actual people: they're representations of people, but regardless, Kultgen overshoots a little bit and ends up closer to characature rather than character. To be fair however, all of his characters have completely unique voices.
Kyle talks a lot like you or I might, except with a measure of self-loathing that is stereotypical of a nerdy college freshman. Despite only ever having slept with one girl, he is apparrently a whiz kid at sex, which is not a digression, but painfully relevant to the plot.
Heather's telling of her parts of the story are sometimes interesting, but only when dialogue isn't concerned. Kultgen's attempt for realism involves Heather retelling in the following style:
"She was like, 'blah blah'
I was like, 'blah blah'
Then he was like, 'blah blah'"
Yes, quite. It was endearing once or twice.
Brett, however, despite being immensely popular with women, talks with a massively eruditic vocabulary. Actually, when he talks, I think of Dr.Manhattan from The Watchmen. Supposedly "the hottest guy in school" and "one of the richest", he has a detachment from women that views them as "whores," not in the literal sense, "that [he] wasn't paying them to fuck [him], they were whores nonetheless becausethey would fuck [him] and they would do this because they understood [him] to represent money that could potentially be theirs in various forms of gifts, dinners, et cetera. Furthermore, if one were lucky or skilled enough to sink her hooks in and eventually wed [him], the money [he] would represent would be more than any common whore would make in ten thousand careers" (Kultgen 36).
Yeah, actual quote. It was as though Kultgen has just read I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell and thought, "Ah! That's what my story is missing! A self-entitled, rich, college kid with absolutely no compassion towards women, in fact, quite the opposite!"
The entire reading feels very asinine. The banality is occasionally broken up by clever little usages of the round-robin style narration:In the midst of Heather meeting Brett for the first time in person, she begins to remember why it was she was sleeping with Kyle, and begins thinking amorously of Brett:"Kyle was really the best guy I'd ever had sex with, but I was pretty sure Brett was probably better." - Heather
And then the resounding first line of Brett's narrative on the next page, in bold face:
"She was a cunt"I chuckled. All in all though, these little diversions were nothing more than that: diversions from an otherwise uninspired novel that has sought to give me a bit of hope.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love (or: the century's longest ballad to date)
It's a shame that the artistry of building an album as a cohesive story-telling unit is just about dead. Fortunately, The Decemberists are holding the shock paddles, insisting that the failing art, "Better not die on me, Goddamn it!"
These are my words, but I like them, so I'm sticking with it.
The Decemberists recently released their ballad "The Hazards of Love", which takes Crane Wife to the next level. From three mere songs to an entire album dedicated to telling one story, the Decemberists have created an epic that isn't rarely seen in the modern music scene. Fortunately, this ballad ends up to be closer to Pink Floyd's non-pareil "The Wall" rather than Catch 22's forgettable "Permanent Revolution".
I've been anticipating this release for a while, and only now, after digesting it a bit, do I feel like I can make any sorts of comments on it. First of all, I think this is going to be the Gateway Drug for the Decemberists. This is probably the most accessible album to the mainstream pop community. None of the songs have that carnival, bouncy feel with the folk guitar singing. In fact, the entire album feels dreadfully like a dirge compared to their other works. Ironically though, the lyrics are actually less dark than the standard fare. Compared to their earlier songs referencing rape ("The Bachelor and the Bride" or "We Both Go Down Together"), cannibalism ("16 Military Wives"), or war ("Yankee Bayonet"), songs about love, loss, and jealousy almost seem banal.
Also, Meloy's trademark doctorate level vocabulary is noticably absent: not that it is necessarily a bad thing. As an English major, The Decemberists always sort of intimidated me, as I'd have to pull out my dictionary (or in some cases, the OED) to understand the songs. If I have trouble, I only imagine that the masses who spend their time doing other things, like working or going outside on a sunny day, would have even more trouble.
The Decemberists always manage to pull in this amazing talent that you've never heard of to put on their tracks. In a change befitting the direness of moods, Colin Meloy put two female vocalists from other indie bands: Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark, and My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden to play parts in this opera. I have to say that as much as I enjoy Meloy's awkward boy-voice, I was absolutely stunned by Shara Worden. Upon hearing "The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid", several things happened:
1. I acquired everything I could of My Brightest Diamond
2. I wished desperately that Shara Worden would become a regular part of the Decemberists
3. I got a hard-on
With a bone-chilling vibrato, the darkness that seeps through the role of the jealous queen is everything from smokey to amazingly sexy. This isn't to say that Becky Stark is any slouch either. Her voice is a lot like a female version of Meloy's voice. There is a sort of childlikeness to it: something coquettish and ephemeral: something altogether maddening.
All in all, it is a little depressing to see some of the staples of the Decemberists change, in addition to there not being any standalone, throw-away type songs that are easier to quote for away messages and livejournal posts, but here's hoping that this was just a one shot project. It's a phenominal album, but I have a hard time with ballads and operas because there is often little you can do with them out of their context other than discuss diction, but I'm praddling on about English major things.
Happy listening!
These are my words, but I like them, so I'm sticking with it.
The Decemberists recently released their ballad "The Hazards of Love", which takes Crane Wife to the next level. From three mere songs to an entire album dedicated to telling one story, the Decemberists have created an epic that isn't rarely seen in the modern music scene. Fortunately, this ballad ends up to be closer to Pink Floyd's non-pareil "The Wall" rather than Catch 22's forgettable "Permanent Revolution".
I've been anticipating this release for a while, and only now, after digesting it a bit, do I feel like I can make any sorts of comments on it. First of all, I think this is going to be the Gateway Drug for the Decemberists. This is probably the most accessible album to the mainstream pop community. None of the songs have that carnival, bouncy feel with the folk guitar singing. In fact, the entire album feels dreadfully like a dirge compared to their other works. Ironically though, the lyrics are actually less dark than the standard fare. Compared to their earlier songs referencing rape ("The Bachelor and the Bride" or "We Both Go Down Together"), cannibalism ("16 Military Wives"), or war ("Yankee Bayonet"), songs about love, loss, and jealousy almost seem banal.
Also, Meloy's trademark doctorate level vocabulary is noticably absent: not that it is necessarily a bad thing. As an English major, The Decemberists always sort of intimidated me, as I'd have to pull out my dictionary (or in some cases, the OED) to understand the songs. If I have trouble, I only imagine that the masses who spend their time doing other things, like working or going outside on a sunny day, would have even more trouble.
The Decemberists always manage to pull in this amazing talent that you've never heard of to put on their tracks. In a change befitting the direness of moods, Colin Meloy put two female vocalists from other indie bands: Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark, and My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden to play parts in this opera. I have to say that as much as I enjoy Meloy's awkward boy-voice, I was absolutely stunned by Shara Worden. Upon hearing "The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid", several things happened:
1. I acquired everything I could of My Brightest Diamond
2. I wished desperately that Shara Worden would become a regular part of the Decemberists
3. I got a hard-on
With a bone-chilling vibrato, the darkness that seeps through the role of the jealous queen is everything from smokey to amazingly sexy. This isn't to say that Becky Stark is any slouch either. Her voice is a lot like a female version of Meloy's voice. There is a sort of childlikeness to it: something coquettish and ephemeral: something altogether maddening.
All in all, it is a little depressing to see some of the staples of the Decemberists change, in addition to there not being any standalone, throw-away type songs that are easier to quote for away messages and livejournal posts, but here's hoping that this was just a one shot project. It's a phenominal album, but I have a hard time with ballads and operas because there is often little you can do with them out of their context other than discuss diction, but I'm praddling on about English major things.
Happy listening!
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Why Edward Is Edward
I understand women. In fact, I understand women better than most women understand themselves or their own motivations. I'm fascinated by what makes people come together in relationships, and it is this knowledge that actually keeps me from wanting to be in one. People are too neurotic.
Naturally, given a love story, I have to decode it. I have to deconstruct it to see if it makes sense, and yes, despite the fantasy elements, and in some ways, because of them, the attraction does in fact seem to be appropriate, which I think is actually unintentional on Stephanie Meyer's part.
There's an old saying that "people always want what they can't have". However, "people always despise what they have," is probably a little closer to the truth.. Women are notorious for that, since it is usually the females, in our social structure, that are on the defensive in courtship situations. They are the ones approached at bars; they are the ones asked out on dates. It is simply a situation where even mediocre looking women have to sift through their potential suitors in order to find the one who is most suitable to live indefinitely with. Understanding this, you realize that women are most amorous of people outside of their grasp, or at least outside of their immediate grasp. A guy who is just as hot as Brad Pitt might hit on her at a bar, but she'll turn him away, only to swoon over the real thing. Why? Brad Pitt has money, fame, and a beautiful wife. Between the physical barrier of distance, and the more existential barriers of class and marital status, it is safe for a woman to swoon over this icon, because it is a fantasy.
Let's deconstruct Mike in Bella's eyes: he's not described as being homely, nor is he viewed as being particularly attractive. However, he is sought after by other women. He must have something attractive about his personality. In the movie he is personified with a little bit more of an energetic personality than is conveyed in the books. All in all, he is exceptional by the class standards, and stands out to Jessica, but to Bella, who regards the entire class as a sort of backwards, small-town type of people: he is unremarkable. On top of this, being one of the first people that Bella meets in Forks, he is associated with all of the negative memories that her image of Forks brings. In a way, he represents Forks to her, and thus is sort of backwards and drab.
However Edward from the get-go is an outsider. He is not a part of the world of Forks, neither physically nor socially. His physical distance represents a sort of condemnation that Bella can get behind, and an impenitrable distance through which Bella cannot immediately see. Really, if he was just a pale, attractive kid from New York City, the same effect would have been reached. He is a sort of kindred spirit in that way. Humanity, particularly in Americans, revel in challenges. Telling us that something is unattainable, or forbidden makes us want something more. We want to experience it. We want to know precisely why it is bad. Like the fruit of knowledge, we don't know what we don't know, and by the same token, we assume that it is pleasure, and not pain, from which we are being spared.
Josephine, lover of Napoleon, was known to write letters to him during the war, at first cursing his absence, then next professing her undying love. This coquettishness is an attributing factor to his downfall at Waterloo. It catches us off guard, and is a power gaining trick. The reason why it works is because at the surface level it is completely illogical: there is no reason why someone could possibly be hot, then cold when no physical decision was made in the intermediary period. It makes one question oneself, and then try to find some meaning deep down. The accused person, Bella in this case, tries to rationally come up with some reason for the changes. It eventually makes her play her hand, when in actuality it is decidedly lacking. Of course, we recognize this in other people's relationships, and could easily label it as manipulation, but in the heat of the moment, most of the time we forget what this looks like when it happens to us. Of course, there is the other interpretation where the lover's actions are just veiled in some guise of mystery where they just seem aloof and troubled, which activates the female's inborn desire to want to be the force in someone's life that heals them: cures them of all their demons.
Bella doesn't know all of this. She is a seventeen year old girl who has never been in a relationship. She doesn't realize that she is dealing with a hunter, both in the vampiric sense, and also the male sense. Here is a man who has spent lifetimes among people analyzing, calculating, learning. Even if he didn't prey on humans, he watched how they interacted: how they lied to one another: how they loved each other. He is aware.
What teenage girls don't understand is how little they understand, particularly about relationships. Bella is a key example of this: willing at first to give it all away to be with some handsome guy she met at school, but this isn't surprising. She's young and foolish and infatuous. In a way, so are all of the fans of Edward: they have all fallen for his charms and what he seems to represent: eternal youth and beauty. After all, isn't that what everyone wants?
Naturally, given a love story, I have to decode it. I have to deconstruct it to see if it makes sense, and yes, despite the fantasy elements, and in some ways, because of them, the attraction does in fact seem to be appropriate, which I think is actually unintentional on Stephanie Meyer's part.
There's an old saying that "people always want what they can't have". However, "people always despise what they have," is probably a little closer to the truth.. Women are notorious for that, since it is usually the females, in our social structure, that are on the defensive in courtship situations. They are the ones approached at bars; they are the ones asked out on dates. It is simply a situation where even mediocre looking women have to sift through their potential suitors in order to find the one who is most suitable to live indefinitely with. Understanding this, you realize that women are most amorous of people outside of their grasp, or at least outside of their immediate grasp. A guy who is just as hot as Brad Pitt might hit on her at a bar, but she'll turn him away, only to swoon over the real thing. Why? Brad Pitt has money, fame, and a beautiful wife. Between the physical barrier of distance, and the more existential barriers of class and marital status, it is safe for a woman to swoon over this icon, because it is a fantasy.
Let's deconstruct Mike in Bella's eyes: he's not described as being homely, nor is he viewed as being particularly attractive. However, he is sought after by other women. He must have something attractive about his personality. In the movie he is personified with a little bit more of an energetic personality than is conveyed in the books. All in all, he is exceptional by the class standards, and stands out to Jessica, but to Bella, who regards the entire class as a sort of backwards, small-town type of people: he is unremarkable. On top of this, being one of the first people that Bella meets in Forks, he is associated with all of the negative memories that her image of Forks brings. In a way, he represents Forks to her, and thus is sort of backwards and drab.
However Edward from the get-go is an outsider. He is not a part of the world of Forks, neither physically nor socially. His physical distance represents a sort of condemnation that Bella can get behind, and an impenitrable distance through which Bella cannot immediately see. Really, if he was just a pale, attractive kid from New York City, the same effect would have been reached. He is a sort of kindred spirit in that way. Humanity, particularly in Americans, revel in challenges. Telling us that something is unattainable, or forbidden makes us want something more. We want to experience it. We want to know precisely why it is bad. Like the fruit of knowledge, we don't know what we don't know, and by the same token, we assume that it is pleasure, and not pain, from which we are being spared.
Josephine, lover of Napoleon, was known to write letters to him during the war, at first cursing his absence, then next professing her undying love. This coquettishness is an attributing factor to his downfall at Waterloo. It catches us off guard, and is a power gaining trick. The reason why it works is because at the surface level it is completely illogical: there is no reason why someone could possibly be hot, then cold when no physical decision was made in the intermediary period. It makes one question oneself, and then try to find some meaning deep down. The accused person, Bella in this case, tries to rationally come up with some reason for the changes. It eventually makes her play her hand, when in actuality it is decidedly lacking. Of course, we recognize this in other people's relationships, and could easily label it as manipulation, but in the heat of the moment, most of the time we forget what this looks like when it happens to us. Of course, there is the other interpretation where the lover's actions are just veiled in some guise of mystery where they just seem aloof and troubled, which activates the female's inborn desire to want to be the force in someone's life that heals them: cures them of all their demons.
Bella doesn't know all of this. She is a seventeen year old girl who has never been in a relationship. She doesn't realize that she is dealing with a hunter, both in the vampiric sense, and also the male sense. Here is a man who has spent lifetimes among people analyzing, calculating, learning. Even if he didn't prey on humans, he watched how they interacted: how they lied to one another: how they loved each other. He is aware.
What teenage girls don't understand is how little they understand, particularly about relationships. Bella is a key example of this: willing at first to give it all away to be with some handsome guy she met at school, but this isn't surprising. She's young and foolish and infatuous. In a way, so are all of the fans of Edward: they have all fallen for his charms and what he seems to represent: eternal youth and beauty. After all, isn't that what everyone wants?
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Don't Die In Florida Pt 1
Travel. It is supposed to be one of the most glorious things about living life in the modern era. Of course, the person who said that failed to account for 9/11
I hate to be the sort of guy who blames the world's problems on 9/11, but this one is legitmate. I even accept that the TSA guys were and are just doing their jobs, but I always use at least three of those little trays every time I go through the security checkpoints: one for my shoes and the contents of my pockets, one for my laptop, and one for my messengerbag proper. Sometimes they make me put my jacket in one too. There is no dignified way to collect all of your belongings after such a diaspora of personal goods.
It seems that with travel, air travel especially, that something always goes wrong, which is maybe a factor of how many things CAN go wrong, between tickets, luggage, security thinking your candy bar is a loaded magazine for a .45, shuttles taking you to the wrong terminal, screaming kids, engine failure, fat women whose fat envelops the arm rest, angry bitches who accuse you of taking their seats, old men who smell of rotting wood, "Fool's Gold" being the in-flight movie, condescending foreigners speaking condescendingly about you in languages they think you don't understand, talktive middle aged family-men who want to tell you about their vacation, talkative middle aged family-men who want to talk to you about YOUR vacation, etc.
None of this keeps me from travelling, it just causes me to occasionally go on a veteran tirade: "My buddies died face down in the sand/swamp/snow/etc...". It's our right to be both resistant to change that inconveniences us, as well as to call the changers out on it taken as a personal affront to our patriotism. To think, a small investment of 12 years of my life gave me all of this. I'm speaking deliberately in the future tense. I will have invested. I am investing. Whatever, I'm doing more than you are.
I hate to be the sort of guy who blames the world's problems on 9/11, but this one is legitmate. I even accept that the TSA guys were and are just doing their jobs, but I always use at least three of those little trays every time I go through the security checkpoints: one for my shoes and the contents of my pockets, one for my laptop, and one for my messengerbag proper. Sometimes they make me put my jacket in one too. There is no dignified way to collect all of your belongings after such a diaspora of personal goods.
It seems that with travel, air travel especially, that something always goes wrong, which is maybe a factor of how many things CAN go wrong, between tickets, luggage, security thinking your candy bar is a loaded magazine for a .45, shuttles taking you to the wrong terminal, screaming kids, engine failure, fat women whose fat envelops the arm rest, angry bitches who accuse you of taking their seats, old men who smell of rotting wood, "Fool's Gold" being the in-flight movie, condescending foreigners speaking condescendingly about you in languages they think you don't understand, talktive middle aged family-men who want to tell you about their vacation, talkative middle aged family-men who want to talk to you about YOUR vacation, etc.
None of this keeps me from travelling, it just causes me to occasionally go on a veteran tirade: "My buddies died face down in the sand/swamp/snow/etc...". It's our right to be both resistant to change that inconveniences us, as well as to call the changers out on it taken as a personal affront to our patriotism. To think, a small investment of 12 years of my life gave me all of this. I'm speaking deliberately in the future tense. I will have invested. I am investing. Whatever, I'm doing more than you are.
Friday, March 6, 2009
The Road - And My Nightmares
Cormac McCarthy manages to do it. He manages to play upon innate human fear in a way that is more than a little unnerving. It isn't just abject horror. It isn't merely ghosts popping up and saying "boo". It is a cerebral horror. It is a horror of knowing. Not unlike McCarthy's other novel, "No Country For Old Men", and the scene where Llewellyn has to evade a psychopath who is hunting him down through a tiny bed and breakfast, and down the streets of a city at night, the Man in "The Road" has to face a sort of brooding, terrible threat of mortality.
"He ducked his head and then flicked the lighter and swung the flame over the darkness like an offering... On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the hip and the stumps of them blackened and burnt... Then one by one they turned and blinked in the pitiful light. Help us, they whispered. Please help us." (110)
I can't speak for others, but somewhere deep in my subconscious, I am innately afraid of the night, and the dark. So much so, that this strikes the very essence of a nightmare: you have a light, but the darkness is so impenetrable that no form can pierce it. What is more frightening is not what you discover in the light, but rather the details that exist right outside of it.
This device is infrequently used in horror. It is a shame then, that most horror movies would rely on the scares of monsters popping out at you, or perhaps merely just being more gory than the others. However, I recently had the good fortune to play the second installment of the "F.E.A.R." game series, a game about a Paranormal Paramilitary unit investigating a psychic disturbance which levels half of the city in a Veidt-like explosion. Trapped in the basement of a school made for the breeding of psychics, you have to turn on the backup generator, which involves you going down to the basement, alone. Very, very alone. Your flashlight suddenly isn't enough and where it might be enough to illuminate the sector of the room, the darkness is so thick that your tiny circle of light is the only knowledge you have.
This is what McCarthy accomplishes.
It changes the pace as well, and makes it distinctively darker. Survival took on a new aspect. You didn't have to worry about just the dangers of the fallout, or starvation, or raiders, but also cannibals. They were very real, and very close. In fact, close enough that you could walk up to them with no warning.
These then are all of the dangers of the human psyche, living just outside of the light that we like to pretend we have with the torch of civilization, an inconsistant, flickering flame that doesn't destroy the darkness, but merely makes us retreat out of its sight. This is the terrible, bloody reality of humanity that exist and invade all of us.
"He ducked his head and then flicked the lighter and swung the flame over the darkness like an offering... On the mattress lay a man with his legs gone to the hip and the stumps of them blackened and burnt... Then one by one they turned and blinked in the pitiful light. Help us, they whispered. Please help us." (110)
I can't speak for others, but somewhere deep in my subconscious, I am innately afraid of the night, and the dark. So much so, that this strikes the very essence of a nightmare: you have a light, but the darkness is so impenetrable that no form can pierce it. What is more frightening is not what you discover in the light, but rather the details that exist right outside of it.
This device is infrequently used in horror. It is a shame then, that most horror movies would rely on the scares of monsters popping out at you, or perhaps merely just being more gory than the others. However, I recently had the good fortune to play the second installment of the "F.E.A.R." game series, a game about a Paranormal Paramilitary unit investigating a psychic disturbance which levels half of the city in a Veidt-like explosion. Trapped in the basement of a school made for the breeding of psychics, you have to turn on the backup generator, which involves you going down to the basement, alone. Very, very alone. Your flashlight suddenly isn't enough and where it might be enough to illuminate the sector of the room, the darkness is so thick that your tiny circle of light is the only knowledge you have.
This is what McCarthy accomplishes.
It changes the pace as well, and makes it distinctively darker. Survival took on a new aspect. You didn't have to worry about just the dangers of the fallout, or starvation, or raiders, but also cannibals. They were very real, and very close. In fact, close enough that you could walk up to them with no warning.
These then are all of the dangers of the human psyche, living just outside of the light that we like to pretend we have with the torch of civilization, an inconsistant, flickering flame that doesn't destroy the darkness, but merely makes us retreat out of its sight. This is the terrible, bloody reality of humanity that exist and invade all of us.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Stephen
There was something off-putting about Stephen. In fact, if one were to judge, he was probably the one who fit in the least with the rest of us, this is even considering the 42 year old Army Captain from Maryland, and the overweight pilot from Iowa.
Part of it was the way he dressed: as though he was preparing for an 80's Lounge Party. His balding also made me a little suspiscious. Not of steroids, of course, he was far too skinny for that, but just in general; I made it a rule a long time ago to not trust balding people.
As soon as he opened his mouth, I recognized his accent: he was from Georgia. He always had a question to ask: some clarification to the point that had been plaguing him. He was taking from our valuable time.
When we all shared our goals, most were simple: to become more social and be better with goals. He had a slightly different cant. He had been training and practicing NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It was a study of how the mind learns and interprets language, medically used to treat traumatic disorders. When used by guys like Stephen, it was a way to use language to take emotional shortcuts. In short, it was like little, linguistic hypnosis. He wanted, he explained, to use all of these skills in conjunction and be a life coach. It was a glorious lifestyle, to be sure.
Sandy blonde whisps clung desperately atop his head as he craned his neck back to ask a question in his Southern drawl. I was ashamed of my Southernness for a moment, that I should be lumped in with him.
Part of it was the way he dressed: as though he was preparing for an 80's Lounge Party. His balding also made me a little suspiscious. Not of steroids, of course, he was far too skinny for that, but just in general; I made it a rule a long time ago to not trust balding people.
As soon as he opened his mouth, I recognized his accent: he was from Georgia. He always had a question to ask: some clarification to the point that had been plaguing him. He was taking from our valuable time.
When we all shared our goals, most were simple: to become more social and be better with goals. He had a slightly different cant. He had been training and practicing NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It was a study of how the mind learns and interprets language, medically used to treat traumatic disorders. When used by guys like Stephen, it was a way to use language to take emotional shortcuts. In short, it was like little, linguistic hypnosis. He wanted, he explained, to use all of these skills in conjunction and be a life coach. It was a glorious lifestyle, to be sure.
Sandy blonde whisps clung desperately atop his head as he craned his neck back to ask a question in his Southern drawl. I was ashamed of my Southernness for a moment, that I should be lumped in with him.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone - Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wizard
I always bore a deeply seated hatred towards the Harry Potter novels. It was something about the idea of it: children shouldn't be heroes. Even as a kid, I realized this was rediculous. Of course, I only believed that after my own dreams of being a knight in shining armor were dashed. Incidentally, I got them back, embarassingly, around the first couple years of high school. As Vonnegut periodically said, "So it goes".
Foreseeably, this whole series reeked to me, in my ignorance, of, at best, pandering to the masses of children who loved the idea of being famous or magical, and at worst, Mary Sue fan-fiction.
That echo of the past came to mind when Hagrid mentions Harry's heritage:
"'But yeh must know about yer mom and dad,' he said. 'I mean, they're famous. You're famous.'" (Rowling 50)
It pissed me off. Even though I knew that Harry came from an unusual lineage, I don't like the text referencing that, or destiny, or another of the other stand-bys of fantasy lit that exist as a means of cheap literary exposition.
The quest narrative worked for myths, mainly because they didn't have to originally entertain us, they were the stories that we believed were true. Fantasy lit, and video games, have this nasty habit of trying to echo their forefathers, but only accomplish in sounding trite and uncreative.
I realized, eventually, that stories are rarely interesting when they are average people. They have to be average in the ironic sense. Often there are terribly average, crippling mediocre, in fact. If they even start to stand out, then they lose their credibility, because there is the expectation that they will become mighty and extraordinary. It is almost easier to start out in an adventure with some sort of destiny, because there is the expectation of trial and tribulation. If you're slightly above average, then you will constantly be held to a higher standard. I'm rambling.
To risk sounding vain, I am going to liken this to one of my current projects. The idea is for a fantasy comic with no spectacular heroes. While the one character is a veteran, he isn't particularly famous outside of his circle of influence. He isn't trying to save the world, and it is only through his eventual fame in being good at his job (dungeon clearing) that he begins seeing a bigger picture. At most points though, at first, there isn't a bigger picture. He isn't a reluctant anti-hero who initially refuses the quest, and chooses to instead build his riches. There simply is no quest, no great evil. The world as he knows it is repairing itself, and in the meantime, there are dungeons to be cleared, and treasures to be acquired. Of course, eventually he will have to become more spectacular as a result of experience, but is that too predictable?
I guess there is nothing new under the sun.
Foreseeably, this whole series reeked to me, in my ignorance, of, at best, pandering to the masses of children who loved the idea of being famous or magical, and at worst, Mary Sue fan-fiction.
That echo of the past came to mind when Hagrid mentions Harry's heritage:
"'But yeh must know about yer mom and dad,' he said. 'I mean, they're famous. You're famous.'" (Rowling 50)
It pissed me off. Even though I knew that Harry came from an unusual lineage, I don't like the text referencing that, or destiny, or another of the other stand-bys of fantasy lit that exist as a means of cheap literary exposition.
The quest narrative worked for myths, mainly because they didn't have to originally entertain us, they were the stories that we believed were true. Fantasy lit, and video games, have this nasty habit of trying to echo their forefathers, but only accomplish in sounding trite and uncreative.
I realized, eventually, that stories are rarely interesting when they are average people. They have to be average in the ironic sense. Often there are terribly average, crippling mediocre, in fact. If they even start to stand out, then they lose their credibility, because there is the expectation that they will become mighty and extraordinary. It is almost easier to start out in an adventure with some sort of destiny, because there is the expectation of trial and tribulation. If you're slightly above average, then you will constantly be held to a higher standard. I'm rambling.
To risk sounding vain, I am going to liken this to one of my current projects. The idea is for a fantasy comic with no spectacular heroes. While the one character is a veteran, he isn't particularly famous outside of his circle of influence. He isn't trying to save the world, and it is only through his eventual fame in being good at his job (dungeon clearing) that he begins seeing a bigger picture. At most points though, at first, there isn't a bigger picture. He isn't a reluctant anti-hero who initially refuses the quest, and chooses to instead build his riches. There simply is no quest, no great evil. The world as he knows it is repairing itself, and in the meantime, there are dungeons to be cleared, and treasures to be acquired. Of course, eventually he will have to become more spectacular as a result of experience, but is that too predictable?
I guess there is nothing new under the sun.
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Golden Compass - Relativity of War
It is unfortunate that all children eventually become adults, and in doing so, realize what war really means. I've realized as of late that when I was a child, and my father was away doing "Army things" I never had any traditional grasp on what that meant. Of course, as I got older, but truly not until I did join the Army, did I fully understand what exactly what war meant.
I laughed then, when I read about the little games Lyra and the other children would play, finding it quite amusing, and also, in a way, tragic, that they should use the term war:
"In many ways Lyra was a barabarian. What she liked best was clambering over the college roofs with Roger, the kitchen boy, who was her particular friend... [in] racing through narrow streets, stealing apples from the market or waging war... What could be more innocent and charming?... of course, Lyra and her peers were engaged in deadly warfare." (Pullman 31-32)
It goes on to explain the "Endless permutations of alliance and betrayal" (Pullman 32) that this children fight through, but there is never an example of a child dying, or even really getting hurt at any point during these battles. It is unfortunate, then that kids watch adults and wish to be them to the point that they emulate them. In some twisted comedy, these sorts of habits are perpetuated and remembered through the generations, creating causes for more violence and needless wars.
This all becomes training for Lyra, in some form or fashion, which is ultimately helpful to her in her later adventures. She is able to lie and manipulate those around her in such a fashion that she can get closer to her goal. This as well sets her up in a position where betrayal is a relatively minor concern where loyalty might have been a virtue. This, however, was not in the prophecy, and serves to indeed settle things later on in the trilogy, regardless it is hard to ignore the idea that this was not some form of conditioning for later life.
I laughed then, when I read about the little games Lyra and the other children would play, finding it quite amusing, and also, in a way, tragic, that they should use the term war:
"In many ways Lyra was a barabarian. What she liked best was clambering over the college roofs with Roger, the kitchen boy, who was her particular friend... [in] racing through narrow streets, stealing apples from the market or waging war... What could be more innocent and charming?... of course, Lyra and her peers were engaged in deadly warfare." (Pullman 31-32)
It goes on to explain the "Endless permutations of alliance and betrayal" (Pullman 32) that this children fight through, but there is never an example of a child dying, or even really getting hurt at any point during these battles. It is unfortunate, then that kids watch adults and wish to be them to the point that they emulate them. In some twisted comedy, these sorts of habits are perpetuated and remembered through the generations, creating causes for more violence and needless wars.
This all becomes training for Lyra, in some form or fashion, which is ultimately helpful to her in her later adventures. She is able to lie and manipulate those around her in such a fashion that she can get closer to her goal. This as well sets her up in a position where betrayal is a relatively minor concern where loyalty might have been a virtue. This, however, was not in the prophecy, and serves to indeed settle things later on in the trilogy, regardless it is hard to ignore the idea that this was not some form of conditioning for later life.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Day 1 - Bootcamp Conclusion - Or One of the Most Bizarre Conversations Ever
I quietly opened the door to my hostel. I was exhausted, physically and mentally. I hadn't been this tired since LDAC. Something about walking so much of the day, lack of sleep from the anticipation, and four hours of high-energy "sarging" had left me completely depleted.
My one and only roommate in the hostel was still awake in the same position I left him in when I went to leave me things: laying on his side, watching television. His bald head facing the door.
"You want... I should turn this down?"
"No man, whatever you want to do, it's cool."
He turned the television off.
My first guess was India, the accent, the few features on his face I could see. I wasn't going to assume anything. After all, I just desperately wanted to go to bed.
"So, you-you-you were at a bars or someting?"
I took a long intake of breath, the reverse sigh, "Yeah, me and my buddies went out to a couple of bars."
"Did you... have fun?"
"Oh yeah, it was a blast. You know, had a couple drinks, hung out with my friends."
This, like so many other things I had said that night, was a lie. They were my friends, I suppose, now at least. Until about twelve hours previous, they were just guys who were bad with women.
"So what brings you to New York, pal?" I interjected,
"I am visiting my seniors here," by seniors, he meant those who were senior to him, like the Japanese use the term "sempai", not seniors in the term we use it, like a senior class at a college, "They all have jobs here now. I am meeting up with them."
"Good stuff, man"
"What... brings you to? City?"
Here we go.
"Well, a bunch of my friends, we are all over the country now, so we get together every once in a while. Reminisce about old times, check on the wives and kids, you know what I mean?"
"Yes, yes. So you have wife and child?"
"Uh, me? Oh no. I'm single, some of the other guys do," Jesus, this guy is like a conversational parasite.
"Oh, oh. So you enjoy the bars?"
"Oh yeah man. I go, I meet women, got a few numbers."
He perked up, "So you 'Got Lucky'? And got a number?" It sounded so mystical when he said it. It sounded some treasure locked deep in a temple in the Amazon.
"Hah, yeah man. I got a few numbers."
"Oh, so I shouldn't be surprised if you don't come back tomorrow night?"
"God, I hope so," we both laughed, though mine was polite. One of the things we were trying to accomplish was to not "get lucky", or course, this wasn't a cultural nuance, this was a sub-cultural nuance, maybe even a sub-counter-cultural nuance, if you really want to think about it.
There was a pause. I rolled over. I thought I was done. I was wrong.
"So, what do you, do for work?"
I fought the urge to tell him that I was a Disposable Lighter Repairman. That was my line all night to the ladies, but he, even less than the targets, would understand the joke.
"Uh," another reverse sigh, "I'm a soldier."
"Sol...dier?"
"Yeah."
"What do you think of... the political policies? Would you change them?"
Oh Christ.
I gave him some answer about how we should love babies more, and how it isn't really my job to second guess the commander-in-chief. I have a paycheck to get. This seemed to satisfy him.
"You know, I'm glad I'm here. I feel like, I can be honest. Like after two days from now, we will never meet. I can tell you anything. I can be honest. Frank."
"Yeah, I know what you mean."
I didn't of course. I'd been lying to strangers all night.
My one and only roommate in the hostel was still awake in the same position I left him in when I went to leave me things: laying on his side, watching television. His bald head facing the door.
"You want... I should turn this down?"
"No man, whatever you want to do, it's cool."
He turned the television off.
My first guess was India, the accent, the few features on his face I could see. I wasn't going to assume anything. After all, I just desperately wanted to go to bed.
"So, you-you-you were at a bars or someting?"
I took a long intake of breath, the reverse sigh, "Yeah, me and my buddies went out to a couple of bars."
"Did you... have fun?"
"Oh yeah, it was a blast. You know, had a couple drinks, hung out with my friends."
This, like so many other things I had said that night, was a lie. They were my friends, I suppose, now at least. Until about twelve hours previous, they were just guys who were bad with women.
"So what brings you to New York, pal?" I interjected,
"I am visiting my seniors here," by seniors, he meant those who were senior to him, like the Japanese use the term "sempai", not seniors in the term we use it, like a senior class at a college, "They all have jobs here now. I am meeting up with them."
"Good stuff, man"
"What... brings you to? City?"
Here we go.
"Well, a bunch of my friends, we are all over the country now, so we get together every once in a while. Reminisce about old times, check on the wives and kids, you know what I mean?"
"Yes, yes. So you have wife and child?"
"Uh, me? Oh no. I'm single, some of the other guys do," Jesus, this guy is like a conversational parasite.
"Oh, oh. So you enjoy the bars?"
"Oh yeah man. I go, I meet women, got a few numbers."
He perked up, "So you 'Got Lucky'? And got a number?" It sounded so mystical when he said it. It sounded some treasure locked deep in a temple in the Amazon.
"Hah, yeah man. I got a few numbers."
"Oh, so I shouldn't be surprised if you don't come back tomorrow night?"
"God, I hope so," we both laughed, though mine was polite. One of the things we were trying to accomplish was to not "get lucky", or course, this wasn't a cultural nuance, this was a sub-cultural nuance, maybe even a sub-counter-cultural nuance, if you really want to think about it.
There was a pause. I rolled over. I thought I was done. I was wrong.
"So, what do you, do for work?"
I fought the urge to tell him that I was a Disposable Lighter Repairman. That was my line all night to the ladies, but he, even less than the targets, would understand the joke.
"Uh," another reverse sigh, "I'm a soldier."
"Sol...dier?"
"Yeah."
"What do you think of... the political policies? Would you change them?"
Oh Christ.
I gave him some answer about how we should love babies more, and how it isn't really my job to second guess the commander-in-chief. I have a paycheck to get. This seemed to satisfy him.
"You know, I'm glad I'm here. I feel like, I can be honest. Like after two days from now, we will never meet. I can tell you anything. I can be honest. Frank."
"Yeah, I know what you mean."
I didn't of course. I'd been lying to strangers all night.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
A Historical Echo
It started in a pub.
That's how all good stories start, right? Especially when they start in Ireland. In fact, if that isn't the start to your story about Ireland, you're probably making it up.
So, it started in a pub.
When I met him, I was pretty unimpressed. He had short, spiky hair, a collared button down shirt and a hemp, seashell necklace. He looked like half of the guys that were in my English class Senior year.
When he opened his mouth, his voice was both blessed by an Irish accent, and cursed by a gamer lisp. I looked him over.
"So, tell me, I'm clearly not from around here," I said, "What is there to do in Galway on a Sunday night?"
"Well, you know Race Week started today, but ya know what I do, mate?"
"Lay it on me pal."
"I'm a pick-up artist, like that show on VH1"
"Uh-huh," he certainly stood out in Ireland. Prep hadn't caught on, but he looked like an average guy to me. Hell, I was pretty much wearing the same thing, "Like that creep, Mystery?"
"Yeah-yeah," His double agreement affirmed quickly.
"So what, you can like, pick up a girl..." I was at a loss for words, "Tactically?"
"Something like that, come upstairs."
I followed. We sat down at a table for an hour and a half while he asked me about my romantic history and explained something he called "The Emotional Progression Model".
"Relationships," he pontificated, "All share three common stages: attraction, comfort and seduction,"
The conversation diverted from mechanics of "The Game" to his own relationship past:
"I was in a relationship for two years, then she cheated on me and I was left back where I started. I was okay with women, but I heard about this book, and it changed everything."
I realized that my friend Lorcan, Erik Von Markovik (A.k.a. Mystery), and Neil Strauss (A.k.a. Style), all shared a common bond: discontent with their romantic lives, and a will to change it molecularly.
"Me and my mates are going out to a club later, you should come with us," and with that I was the American on another Irish adventure. Lorcan and his friends looked like any preppy kid you would see in America, and I fit in, but that made us all stand out.
"American fashion sense," he told me, "was still yet to really pick up in Ireland. It makes you stand out, and that's good for women." He called this "Pea-cocking". I, however, doubted this in a society which dresses its soon-to-wed members of society in awkward costumes to be paraded about Dublin. I, however, was the student.
We stepped into the club. It was surprisingly empty for a club, but given the lack of a club scene in Galway, Lorcan figured this to be a good night. One shot of Goldschlager later, we were crowded around a table. Slamming his hand on the table, he exclaimed, "Let's do this!" and turned to face his prey.
He spied a girl against a pillar, and pulled her on the dance floor. Within a minute, to The Fratelli's "Chelsea Dagger", no less, he was making out with her on the dance floor. Maybe there was something to all this after all.
"You've got to perform, otherwise you're just talking shite."
Fair enough.
I jumped onto the dance floor and pulled a girl to dance with me. Mirroring every move that Lorcan had done, to The Killer's "Mr.Brightside", I kissed a girl I had not shared a single word with. It was "vibe", or an amalgm of raw charisma and body language. I had vibed my way into a kiss-close.
I learned bits and pieces of their lexicon: DHV, IOI, vibe, kiss-close, seduction, state break, and most importantly: Lorcan. Lorcan was his real name, not a moniker like most other pick-up artists, but is also the Gaelic term translated as "Cruelty". Fitting.
At the end of the night, I was reeling. I was a lightweight, especially compared to the Irish company I kept, even though I had at least twenty pounds more on me, and as a result, I retired, but not before exchanging information. He was my one friend I had kept in touch with i Ireland.
I thought I was done with it all, just merely an amusing chapter in the book, but I was wrong, as I so often am.
I had told my Ireland stories at parties. I was the bard, the diplomat, who had excellent adventures in a far away land. The best of all was when I seduced a girl by explaining the very progression of a relationship, as Lorcan had explained to me. Piece by piece, I laid every stage down, giving examples, and being "in-state". I vibed. I story-told. I negged. I kino'd, and most of all, I escalated.
But this was just a distraction, I told myself. There was already mutual attraction. It was nothing. This was all hocus-pocus.
During my correspondence, I received an e-mail.
"Hey mate!
I know you're a little skeptical of this Pick-up thing, so I had something arranged for you. I'm good friends with one of the teachers in your area, so I had him make a little exception for you. If you're available, he'll let you sit in on his "bootcamp" for free, because I know you.
Don't worry about thanking me, the Guinness will be on you ;)
-L"
And just like that, I was on another adventure, only this time I knew exactly where it would end up, I just wasn't entirely sure how I'd get there.
That's how all good stories start, right? Especially when they start in Ireland. In fact, if that isn't the start to your story about Ireland, you're probably making it up.
So, it started in a pub.
When I met him, I was pretty unimpressed. He had short, spiky hair, a collared button down shirt and a hemp, seashell necklace. He looked like half of the guys that were in my English class Senior year.
When he opened his mouth, his voice was both blessed by an Irish accent, and cursed by a gamer lisp. I looked him over.
"So, tell me, I'm clearly not from around here," I said, "What is there to do in Galway on a Sunday night?"
"Well, you know Race Week started today, but ya know what I do, mate?"
"Lay it on me pal."
"I'm a pick-up artist, like that show on VH1"
"Uh-huh," he certainly stood out in Ireland. Prep hadn't caught on, but he looked like an average guy to me. Hell, I was pretty much wearing the same thing, "Like that creep, Mystery?"
"Yeah-yeah," His double agreement affirmed quickly.
"So what, you can like, pick up a girl..." I was at a loss for words, "Tactically?"
"Something like that, come upstairs."
I followed. We sat down at a table for an hour and a half while he asked me about my romantic history and explained something he called "The Emotional Progression Model".
"Relationships," he pontificated, "All share three common stages: attraction, comfort and seduction,"
The conversation diverted from mechanics of "The Game" to his own relationship past:
"I was in a relationship for two years, then she cheated on me and I was left back where I started. I was okay with women, but I heard about this book, and it changed everything."
I realized that my friend Lorcan, Erik Von Markovik (A.k.a. Mystery), and Neil Strauss (A.k.a. Style), all shared a common bond: discontent with their romantic lives, and a will to change it molecularly.
"Me and my mates are going out to a club later, you should come with us," and with that I was the American on another Irish adventure. Lorcan and his friends looked like any preppy kid you would see in America, and I fit in, but that made us all stand out.
"American fashion sense," he told me, "was still yet to really pick up in Ireland. It makes you stand out, and that's good for women." He called this "Pea-cocking". I, however, doubted this in a society which dresses its soon-to-wed members of society in awkward costumes to be paraded about Dublin. I, however, was the student.
We stepped into the club. It was surprisingly empty for a club, but given the lack of a club scene in Galway, Lorcan figured this to be a good night. One shot of Goldschlager later, we were crowded around a table. Slamming his hand on the table, he exclaimed, "Let's do this!" and turned to face his prey.
He spied a girl against a pillar, and pulled her on the dance floor. Within a minute, to The Fratelli's "Chelsea Dagger", no less, he was making out with her on the dance floor. Maybe there was something to all this after all.
"You've got to perform, otherwise you're just talking shite."
Fair enough.
I jumped onto the dance floor and pulled a girl to dance with me. Mirroring every move that Lorcan had done, to The Killer's "Mr.Brightside", I kissed a girl I had not shared a single word with. It was "vibe", or an amalgm of raw charisma and body language. I had vibed my way into a kiss-close.
I learned bits and pieces of their lexicon: DHV, IOI, vibe, kiss-close, seduction, state break, and most importantly: Lorcan. Lorcan was his real name, not a moniker like most other pick-up artists, but is also the Gaelic term translated as "Cruelty". Fitting.
At the end of the night, I was reeling. I was a lightweight, especially compared to the Irish company I kept, even though I had at least twenty pounds more on me, and as a result, I retired, but not before exchanging information. He was my one friend I had kept in touch with i Ireland.
I thought I was done with it all, just merely an amusing chapter in the book, but I was wrong, as I so often am.
I had told my Ireland stories at parties. I was the bard, the diplomat, who had excellent adventures in a far away land. The best of all was when I seduced a girl by explaining the very progression of a relationship, as Lorcan had explained to me. Piece by piece, I laid every stage down, giving examples, and being "in-state". I vibed. I story-told. I negged. I kino'd, and most of all, I escalated.
But this was just a distraction, I told myself. There was already mutual attraction. It was nothing. This was all hocus-pocus.
During my correspondence, I received an e-mail.
"Hey mate!
I know you're a little skeptical of this Pick-up thing, so I had something arranged for you. I'm good friends with one of the teachers in your area, so I had him make a little exception for you. If you're available, he'll let you sit in on his "bootcamp" for free, because I know you.
Don't worry about thanking me, the Guinness will be on you ;)
-L"
And just like that, I was on another adventure, only this time I knew exactly where it would end up, I just wasn't entirely sure how I'd get there.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Day 2 - The Un-Dubliner
An early start greeted a temperate Dublin day. Gearing for a walk, I made way for the St.James gate and the Guinness storehouse. It should be noted, however, that one should not under any circumstance visit the Guinness storehouse, which features four bars, one of which gives a complimentary pint, and then visit a culture hallmark such as Kilmainham Gaol, the prison used to hold Irish Revolutionaries. This is bad for business.
After the three click trek back, I then decided to wander aimlessly about Dublin, which brought me to the National Botanic Gardens by Glasnevin. Honestly, I was there to see the cemetery, as I heard they have some beautiful gravestones, but I figured that I am more like Heller than Poe, so perhaps going the road less morbid might be a good idea for a vacation.
The gardens though were absolutely spectacular. At one point I was greeted by a group of Irish kids. Despite only just being outside of the main areas of Dublin, they stood agape when I replied to their question. At first I thought that they must have been asking it to someone else, then I realized that these kids, way aways out from Dublin’s heart, have probably never heard an American except for in the movies.
Walking back was an adventure, as it always was. I made sure to stop in at every little store I could make an excuse for: ranging from convenience stores for a drink, pubs for a Guinness, to an old church turned into a lighting store, which was just weird. I chatted up everyone I could, usually females, who would light up, whether at the presence of my razor wit, or at the novelty of talking to an American. I don’t know for sure which was actually the case, but I know that it was mutually enjoyable, and that I drank a lot of Guinness.
Of course, I was doing well for myself until night started to fall. After finally making it back to Grafton street, where I felt most comfortable, I dropped my extra gear and decided it was time for me to work my game. On the way to the famed Temple Bar area, I ran into a group of guys, some wrestling, most watching and cheering. They were dressed like hillbillies: flannel, suspenders, straw hats, fake mullets, and fake bad teeth. Now the Temple Bar area, which has been likened to, by an American grad students studying James Joyce named Emily, the French Quarter of New Orleans, does not have a “no shirt, no shoes, no service policy,” so my good friend without either managed to do just fine.
But that is later, I am getting ahead of myself. Right now, these men are writhing on the ground. Being a glutton for talking to strange characters, I decided to ask what was going on. What followed was largely in comprehensible drunken Irish blarney,
“Oi! Itzaparrteefermmeematesitzastagparrtee.”
“Uh…. Huh.”
“Oi mate! Are you from Ah-merrrika?” As it turns out, I found the one Scot in Ireland.
“Yeah, yeah I am.”
“Oi! Where ya from mate?”
“Uh, Washington D.C.”
“Ah! D.C. United! D.C.! D.C.!” They all started cheering. Everyone began high-fiving, “Tell me mate, are they even a real team?”
“That’s the rumor.”
“Oi! All they got is Beckham, and he’s English!”
“Yeah well-“
One of his large, even drunker friends at this point interrupted by dragging him away, “Wir goin’ tu ah strip cluob layter. Yu should come!”
And just like that, they were gone, off to cause trouble in some other part of town.
Now, it is worthwhile to note that the Garda, or the Irish Police, do foot patrols about every city block, which might be reassuring, if they all did not look like they were picked from their college chess teams. I never sawone intimidating looking Garda in my stay in Dublin.
I say this, but I was always on the right side of the law. Being an officer in one form or another, I took the chance to talk to one particularly unintimidating Garda who was being harassed by sizable drunks who were grabbing his hat and making faces behind his back. Credit where credit is due, he had a lot more patience than I would have. He managed to vibe it off, which was impressive. He began walking away from them towards me.
“Does that kind of thing happen a lot?”
He chuckled, “Weyll, it’s a Saturdayee naight in the Temple Bar.”
“I got to admit man, you’ve got a lot of patience. Where I’m from, they would have been pistol whipped and handcuffed to a post if they had done that shit.”
“Hah, and where’s that? Iraq?”
“Well, yeah,” I paused, “There too, but there I am the one doing the handcuffing and the pistol whipping,” Cue laughter. Good, he laughed, “But I meant New York,” I am just going to say I’m from New York from now on. Its easier.
“Oh is that so? Is it rough there?”
“Eh, it’s a city, ya know? There are bad parts, but there are good parts.”
“Aye.”
“Say, is there anything to do in this city except for drink?”
“Heh, on a Saturdayee naight? Not really. You maight try tomorrah, there is a club down the ways on Harrrcourt Street, it’s mainlee nurses dere and the like. Open reel late tu.”
“Oh yeah? Sound awesome man. I’ll have to check that out. Hey look, I’ll let you get back to your job. Thanks for the info.”
“No problem mate, enjoy your stay in Dublin!”
After parting ways from the Garda, I wandered again around Temple Bar, trying to work up the courage to stay gaming. Starting was always the hardest part. Fortunately for me, it was Guinness Time, which they say is from “10 until 2”, but I am not sure which “10” and which “2” they are referring to there. Given the amount of Off-license stores, and the fact that there really is a pub, or at least a “restaurant and lounge, with a bar” every three to four store fronts.
So I set my parameters. No getting sloppy. One drink every hour. One Guinness per bar. Oh how plans change quickly. Looking for the Stag’s Head Tavern, on a recommendation from Emily, the grad student, I ran into the International Bar, which was surrounded by what would have been considered the concert going audience from a Pavement show. I step in, order my Guinness, and try my luck starting a conversation with the bartender about the stickers on cigarettes. No dice; this bar is called the International bar apparently because they only hire German barmaids. Well scratch that goal for Cat. No flirting with Irish barmaids here. I finish my beer and walk out with my tail between my legs. Fuck it. It wasn’t my crowd anyway.
Next stop. I have the O’Connor’s pub on the left, and the Auld Dubliner on my right. The Auld Dubliner also currently has the party of Hillbillies I saw earlier. Never made it to the strip club, I guess. Now, a logical person might say, “Ya know, I should probably just avoid them, it might not end well for me,” but I am in Ireland to have an adventure, and the Guinness probably helped, so I chose the Auld Dubliner, which, by the way, I would refer to as the Auld Lang Dubliner as the night progressed.
So I went in, actually managing to sneak past the ogres at the door in straw hats, and made my way to the bar where I ordered another Guinness. Sure enough, one of the party stepped up to the bar next to me.
“Ey mate, could I get a Guinness?”
I looked up at the man leaning over me, “Oh shit,” I said, exasperated.
“Oi! Its D.C. Boy!”
This started another conversation, where he told me about his time in America when he was twenty and not able to legally drink. It was interesting to talk to him, but I was more interested with the females that were right behind him. I stayed through the conversation to be polite.
“Oi mate! Wir go’an tu a strip cluob latar. Yu should join us!”
Recognizing that they had already invited me, I obliged, saying that I would need another drink before this adventure. Guinness number three.
Having to piss, I had the honor of using the urinal trough next to a guy who was wearing a polka dotted apron: another stag party. I love this city more and more. It turns out that unlike in the US, where they celebrate a bachelor’s fleeting days of fun in one mediocre night of debauchery, the Irish usually celebrate for a good week before hand. I would later meet a man whose friends are each getting married on weekends for the entire month of August. How does the entire country function?
In a moment of better judgment, however, I decided that going to a strip club with a bunch of big, burly, as well as small and burly, Irish and Scottish men just might not end up in being the best night in the world. Feeling it was time to bounce, I slipped out the door unnoticed by the Irishmen who were currently trying to work their best drunk game,
Temple Bar. The Temple Bar. I was here the day before, and it was a lot more packed. From what I could tell, there were three or four stag parties, as well as two hen parties. Hen parties, I’m told, are the opposite of Stag parties, or as we might know them: bachelorette parties. There is the same sort of revelry in their debauchery as their male counterparts. Ireland gets better and better.
Interestingly enough, I have the hardest time meeting Irish women. The night before at The Temple Bar, I ended up chatting with a group of French exchange students. Unfortunately for me, the only female in the group, who was digging me, was also the linguist for her two friends who had just dropped in country. I spoke a little French, she spoke a little English. It was a romance for the movies. Sonia, if you ever read this… scratch that. I honestly hope that for what follows later in this story, that you never read this book, and more importantly completely forget we ever met.
Moving along, I straight line it to the bar in the back. Unsure whether or not this place is actually chartered for a particular group, I pretend to be following someone who is dressed like everyone else. Upon reaching the bar, I am just about to chat up these two females to my left, when they engage me first by asking for the time. Irish? No, American. These two lovely young specimens were actually from California. A true East Coast – West Coast romance. It would never work. Regardless, I chatted them up but whether it was personal inexperience or Guinness four, I was unable to move past the attraction phase. It was a shame, the one was a solid eight, or at least she was with my good friend Guinness. I will never know. They excused themselves off to a club nearby.
I dropped the ball on that set, but it would have been hard to isolate anyway. There was one of me, two of them, and that would have left one girl sitting them in the wildest bar in Dublin, alone. Not an enviable situation, especially not from the American mindset.
Moving right along, I opened a three set in a nearby room, spinning a lot of the same lines from before. Are these girls Irish? No: Australian. I need to stop visiting these touristy places. Seriously, fucking tourists. Anyway, I introduce myself to everyone, and they are getting a kick out of my stories. Olivia, Scott and the name of the other girl which was something to the effect of Jayden or some such were the three. The third, we’ll say Jayden for the sake of simplicity, was actually the knockout here, but given on attempt three I still did not get her name right, as pointed out by the laughing at me, I decided I would try a greener pasture.
I worked on Olivia, and tried to maintain good rapport with Scott, asking the whole, “If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?” gig. The problem with that gig is that it really often takes a long time for people to come up with an honest answer, which leads to awkward pauses. I spun some more of my stories, and took the old Mystery line of saying that I would be a magician, and that I was good at making things disappear, like Guinness and virginity. Great work, Thom. Guinness makes you more of an asshole than you already are. America is proud.
I had them rolling for a while, but the set wound down and I dropped the ball. I could have isolated Olivia, because it was actually whats-her-face who pulled her and Scott away. Live and learn.
“I’d be a rally car driver,”
“Huh?”
“The answer to your question: I’d be a rally car driver,” Scott said as he was being pulled away.
Well played, Scott.
By this point, my opened set tally is most than halfway to my mark, which is what is important. So, undaunted, I sit back at the bar. Now, somewhere between the Americans and the Australians, I met Joe. Joe Thomas Something. The details of that were lost in the noise. Another drunk Irishmen, we started with small talk and moved onto talking about America. If it is one thing that people in Ireland are fascinated by, or so it would seem by the amount of times I was asked the question, it was who I was voting for in the next election. Given that I did not think that there would be a particular opinion one way or the other, I went with honesty. This was perhaps the first choice to talk about myself that I had that I did without any re-creation of my character.
I was right. There was no fiery opinion one way or the other, except that Bush was an asshole. Got it. So we talked politics and he asked where I was from, when I told him New York, he mentioned how he had been there to visit, and how “fecking harrrd it is tu find ah pub”. I laughed and told him that New York is built to keep insiders in, and outsiders out. We laughed.
No surprise here, but Joe was part of a stag party. The uniform, though I don’t think it was intentional, was white button down shirts with vertical stripes. I wore mine yesterday, shit.
“Ey mate! Yu should come out with mah boys. Wir go’an to a strip cluob layter.”
You have go to be shitting me.
Okay, okay, God, I get it. You want me to go to a strip club.
Of course, I did not know that half of the adventure would be wandering drunkenly around Dublin trying to find this alleged lapdance bar. Somewhere around Guinness seven or eight, I have managed to make it outside where I meet the lucky man, who is quite possibly the most Irish looking man I have ever seen in my entire life: red hair, roman nose, weighed about 250 and looks like he could intimidate steel bending. I don’t remember his name, but I am going to call him Patrick, because in my mind: his name was Patrick.
One of their friends also bore a striking resemblance to Dante Hicks. It was uncanny, and I regret not having my cell phone or my camera on me. Of course, when I brought up the Clerks movies, they likened him to Silent Bob. Trust me, ringer for Dante Hicks. It seems he was also a former Royal Marine. Shit, stay on this guy’s good side. No problem there. They were all stand up guys.
Dave was trouble however. I actually had met him earlier in the bar when I tried to open a set.
“’Ey! Where are yu from, mate? You from Ah-mer-ika?”
Christ, everyone has the same amount of canned material that I do, at least when they are drunk.
“Yeah, New York.”
“Oh fuckin’ New York,” he tried to affect his best American accent, which was only a slightly less Irish accent, “Fuckin’ Sopranos an’ shit.”
Yeah, and Bruce Fucking Springsteen. That’s New Jersey, asshole.
“Oh, don’t mind me, mate. I’m a bit drunk.”
“No problem, no problem.”
Well, flash forward an hour, and what do I hear?
“Fuckin’ New York!”
I chuckle and continue my conversation with Dante and Patrick, “Oh I love the way you talk man!”
“Would ya preefar I talk like this, mate?” I tried in my best Irish accent, which, gauging the reactions of the crowd, was only a slightly less American accent. They laughed. Hard.
After finally collecting all eight of us, we go walking back down Grafton street, over past St.Stephen’s Green, and by a bunch of places I had never seen during the day. Of course, while I was talking with everyone, all I was thinking about was: please God let me be able to find my way home.
I remember doubling back at least once, or at least I think we did because I remember saying, “Oh good, it’s near Grafton street. I’ll be able to find my way back.”
An hour into the search, we wind our way to a corner where we debate, at length, whether or not this lapdance bar even exists. The weediest guy of the bunch insists that it is right up ahead, and that we are so close we can taste it.
Anything you have ever heard about the Irish loving their beer, is absolutely true. In the middle of this debate, we decided that it is not a good time to get a pick-me-up drink. Also, I have to drain Guinness’ three through nine. I am not going to drink more. I’m not. I am going to be responsible.
Patrick motioned to me, “Hey, aintcha got something ta drink?”
“Nah I didn’t get anything.”
“There, I got that for my mate, but he wandered off to the club, its yours. Jack and coke.”
Good. Excellent. Once you start introducing names into the mix, you know it is going to be a long night. Right I was. Now, I had reached the point where a drinker feels invincible. Great. You know, no matter how grounded you are, the whole impaired judgment thing really does terrible things.
We did eventually make it to the club. Apparently it was one of the more legitimate clubs: no hands on, no sex, no blowjobs. What's the point? I was just going to play it cool and close to the chest.
The first dancer saw I was not actively engaged in the conversation at the bar that my mates were having. After politely declining, I realized that if I was going to survive this without having to wash my soul, I was going to have to get my head in the game.
Now, nothing against these girls, because they were drop dead gorgeous, but they were not interesting to me. I was a big game hunter in a zoo. My prey was right there, but they were just as useful to me as I was to them. If anything, the advantage was out of my hands. The lion was mocking the hunter, unable to mount its head over his mantle.
The second girl, a beautiful German girl (again, no Irish girls, what the Hell?), approached me.
“Vould you like ah dans?”
“No thanks,” I said, returning to Heineken one.
“Oh! You’re American.”
No shit.
“Guilty as charged,” There was a pause. I chuckled, which cued her to do the same. I think the one thing I have learned in this country, or I suppose while travelling abroad, or even anywhere that is noise, is the importance of mirroring. Specifically, if they are laughing, you should laugh too. I cannot think of any situation where everyone else laughing could possibly be an indication not to laugh as well.
“Vere in America are you from?”
“New York.”
“Oh yah! I spent some time in Las Vegas a few years ago actually.”
Fascinating, were you a stripper there too?
“That’s pretty cool,” I said diffidently, looking over to the other side of the bar.
I really thought she would get it. I was not interested. I guess she thought I was shy, but I thought the glamour of drunk Irish money would be more appealing than a quiet, silently disturbed American.
“So vat do you do? Vat ees your job?”
“I’m a soldier.” I said coldly. Here was where I was going to lay the deathblow. If this next topic of conversation did not get her kilometers away, and in a hurry, then I am doing the wrong stinking thing.
“Oh ya? Do you like it?”
“It is what it is. You like it some days, and you don’t like it others. You end up with a lot of shit on your mind. Issues and shit,” I laid it on thick, “You get nightmares sometimes. All the things you do, all the things you couldn’t, but at the end of the day, its just a job; a means to an end. Slainte”
Immediately she looked very uncomfortable. Good, run away, as far as you can. She wrapped her arm around my waist before asking me again:
“Are you… sure you do not vant a dans?”
“Yeah, thanks. I need to make sure my buddies don’t get in trouble. Got to stay lucid,” God was that a joke. I had not been lucid for about six Guinnesses.
She walked away and I had to wonder though: do you stick 1 Euro coins in a stripper’s G-string over here?
I rejoined the mainstay of the group, and Joe, who appeared to be the heaviest drinker with the worst tolerance of the group, was looking to bounce from the club. Paul, and the littlest Irishman also joined us. Where did we go? Back to the bar, of course. So we return to the Temple Bar, and the crowd looks exactly the same two and a half hours later.
Joe and I talked about nothing in particular for the remainder of the evening until the lights shone brightly, the international sign for, “Okay you rotten drunks, get out of my bar”. We mainly talked about how beautiful Irish women were, and he tried to convince me that in Northern Ireland, the women are even more beautiful, and that Americans are regarded with the same sort of mysticism that Australians and Irishmen are seen with stateside. During all of this, I refrained from mentioning that I felt that Northern Ireland was “Fake Ireland”. God save the Queen and all that.
Somewhere along the line, we switched from Guinness to whiskey. Bushmills. My old friend. That church door shaped bottle had helped me get through a lot of rough times in college, but for the sake of my host, I allowed him to Christen me to the experience.
“Dis shit. Dis is da good stuff, mate. Four-hundred years and they are keepin’ everythin’ da same. Yu know dere doin’ somethin’ raight.”
This, however, was not the whiskey I was used to drinking. This was the sixteen year old whiskey. It burned, but how exquisite of a taste. As a bit of a whiskey snob, I was only mad that I was far too drunk to truly appreciate the nuances of the taste.
The lights came on and we prepared ourselves mentally for the trek back to our respective hostels. He got my email address, promising me that I would have a place to stay when I go to Belfast. Of course, even my drunken eyes could tell that he botched my email, and instead of being able to fix it, my clumsy hands just hit “save”, or it could have been “delete” who knows? I would not expect him to open his house up to me, but it would be an interesting time none the less.
I stumbled back to my room, where I stripped and passed out in a heap. Day two in Ireland: huge success.
After the three click trek back, I then decided to wander aimlessly about Dublin, which brought me to the National Botanic Gardens by Glasnevin. Honestly, I was there to see the cemetery, as I heard they have some beautiful gravestones, but I figured that I am more like Heller than Poe, so perhaps going the road less morbid might be a good idea for a vacation.
The gardens though were absolutely spectacular. At one point I was greeted by a group of Irish kids. Despite only just being outside of the main areas of Dublin, they stood agape when I replied to their question. At first I thought that they must have been asking it to someone else, then I realized that these kids, way aways out from Dublin’s heart, have probably never heard an American except for in the movies.
Walking back was an adventure, as it always was. I made sure to stop in at every little store I could make an excuse for: ranging from convenience stores for a drink, pubs for a Guinness, to an old church turned into a lighting store, which was just weird. I chatted up everyone I could, usually females, who would light up, whether at the presence of my razor wit, or at the novelty of talking to an American. I don’t know for sure which was actually the case, but I know that it was mutually enjoyable, and that I drank a lot of Guinness.
Of course, I was doing well for myself until night started to fall. After finally making it back to Grafton street, where I felt most comfortable, I dropped my extra gear and decided it was time for me to work my game. On the way to the famed Temple Bar area, I ran into a group of guys, some wrestling, most watching and cheering. They were dressed like hillbillies: flannel, suspenders, straw hats, fake mullets, and fake bad teeth. Now the Temple Bar area, which has been likened to, by an American grad students studying James Joyce named Emily, the French Quarter of New Orleans, does not have a “no shirt, no shoes, no service policy,” so my good friend without either managed to do just fine.
But that is later, I am getting ahead of myself. Right now, these men are writhing on the ground. Being a glutton for talking to strange characters, I decided to ask what was going on. What followed was largely in comprehensible drunken Irish blarney,
“Oi! Itzaparrteefermmeematesitzastagparrtee.”
“Uh…. Huh.”
“Oi mate! Are you from Ah-merrrika?” As it turns out, I found the one Scot in Ireland.
“Yeah, yeah I am.”
“Oi! Where ya from mate?”
“Uh, Washington D.C.”
“Ah! D.C. United! D.C.! D.C.!” They all started cheering. Everyone began high-fiving, “Tell me mate, are they even a real team?”
“That’s the rumor.”
“Oi! All they got is Beckham, and he’s English!”
“Yeah well-“
One of his large, even drunker friends at this point interrupted by dragging him away, “Wir goin’ tu ah strip cluob layter. Yu should come!”
And just like that, they were gone, off to cause trouble in some other part of town.
Now, it is worthwhile to note that the Garda, or the Irish Police, do foot patrols about every city block, which might be reassuring, if they all did not look like they were picked from their college chess teams. I never sawone intimidating looking Garda in my stay in Dublin.
I say this, but I was always on the right side of the law. Being an officer in one form or another, I took the chance to talk to one particularly unintimidating Garda who was being harassed by sizable drunks who were grabbing his hat and making faces behind his back. Credit where credit is due, he had a lot more patience than I would have. He managed to vibe it off, which was impressive. He began walking away from them towards me.
“Does that kind of thing happen a lot?”
He chuckled, “Weyll, it’s a Saturdayee naight in the Temple Bar.”
“I got to admit man, you’ve got a lot of patience. Where I’m from, they would have been pistol whipped and handcuffed to a post if they had done that shit.”
“Hah, and where’s that? Iraq?”
“Well, yeah,” I paused, “There too, but there I am the one doing the handcuffing and the pistol whipping,” Cue laughter. Good, he laughed, “But I meant New York,” I am just going to say I’m from New York from now on. Its easier.
“Oh is that so? Is it rough there?”
“Eh, it’s a city, ya know? There are bad parts, but there are good parts.”
“Aye.”
“Say, is there anything to do in this city except for drink?”
“Heh, on a Saturdayee naight? Not really. You maight try tomorrah, there is a club down the ways on Harrrcourt Street, it’s mainlee nurses dere and the like. Open reel late tu.”
“Oh yeah? Sound awesome man. I’ll have to check that out. Hey look, I’ll let you get back to your job. Thanks for the info.”
“No problem mate, enjoy your stay in Dublin!”
After parting ways from the Garda, I wandered again around Temple Bar, trying to work up the courage to stay gaming. Starting was always the hardest part. Fortunately for me, it was Guinness Time, which they say is from “10 until 2”, but I am not sure which “10” and which “2” they are referring to there. Given the amount of Off-license stores, and the fact that there really is a pub, or at least a “restaurant and lounge, with a bar” every three to four store fronts.
So I set my parameters. No getting sloppy. One drink every hour. One Guinness per bar. Oh how plans change quickly. Looking for the Stag’s Head Tavern, on a recommendation from Emily, the grad student, I ran into the International Bar, which was surrounded by what would have been considered the concert going audience from a Pavement show. I step in, order my Guinness, and try my luck starting a conversation with the bartender about the stickers on cigarettes. No dice; this bar is called the International bar apparently because they only hire German barmaids. Well scratch that goal for Cat. No flirting with Irish barmaids here. I finish my beer and walk out with my tail between my legs. Fuck it. It wasn’t my crowd anyway.
Next stop. I have the O’Connor’s pub on the left, and the Auld Dubliner on my right. The Auld Dubliner also currently has the party of Hillbillies I saw earlier. Never made it to the strip club, I guess. Now, a logical person might say, “Ya know, I should probably just avoid them, it might not end well for me,” but I am in Ireland to have an adventure, and the Guinness probably helped, so I chose the Auld Dubliner, which, by the way, I would refer to as the Auld Lang Dubliner as the night progressed.
So I went in, actually managing to sneak past the ogres at the door in straw hats, and made my way to the bar where I ordered another Guinness. Sure enough, one of the party stepped up to the bar next to me.
“Ey mate, could I get a Guinness?”
I looked up at the man leaning over me, “Oh shit,” I said, exasperated.
“Oi! Its D.C. Boy!”
This started another conversation, where he told me about his time in America when he was twenty and not able to legally drink. It was interesting to talk to him, but I was more interested with the females that were right behind him. I stayed through the conversation to be polite.
“Oi mate! Wir go’an tu a strip cluob latar. Yu should join us!”
Recognizing that they had already invited me, I obliged, saying that I would need another drink before this adventure. Guinness number three.
Having to piss, I had the honor of using the urinal trough next to a guy who was wearing a polka dotted apron: another stag party. I love this city more and more. It turns out that unlike in the US, where they celebrate a bachelor’s fleeting days of fun in one mediocre night of debauchery, the Irish usually celebrate for a good week before hand. I would later meet a man whose friends are each getting married on weekends for the entire month of August. How does the entire country function?
In a moment of better judgment, however, I decided that going to a strip club with a bunch of big, burly, as well as small and burly, Irish and Scottish men just might not end up in being the best night in the world. Feeling it was time to bounce, I slipped out the door unnoticed by the Irishmen who were currently trying to work their best drunk game,
Temple Bar. The Temple Bar. I was here the day before, and it was a lot more packed. From what I could tell, there were three or four stag parties, as well as two hen parties. Hen parties, I’m told, are the opposite of Stag parties, or as we might know them: bachelorette parties. There is the same sort of revelry in their debauchery as their male counterparts. Ireland gets better and better.
Interestingly enough, I have the hardest time meeting Irish women. The night before at The Temple Bar, I ended up chatting with a group of French exchange students. Unfortunately for me, the only female in the group, who was digging me, was also the linguist for her two friends who had just dropped in country. I spoke a little French, she spoke a little English. It was a romance for the movies. Sonia, if you ever read this… scratch that. I honestly hope that for what follows later in this story, that you never read this book, and more importantly completely forget we ever met.
Moving along, I straight line it to the bar in the back. Unsure whether or not this place is actually chartered for a particular group, I pretend to be following someone who is dressed like everyone else. Upon reaching the bar, I am just about to chat up these two females to my left, when they engage me first by asking for the time. Irish? No, American. These two lovely young specimens were actually from California. A true East Coast – West Coast romance. It would never work. Regardless, I chatted them up but whether it was personal inexperience or Guinness four, I was unable to move past the attraction phase. It was a shame, the one was a solid eight, or at least she was with my good friend Guinness. I will never know. They excused themselves off to a club nearby.
I dropped the ball on that set, but it would have been hard to isolate anyway. There was one of me, two of them, and that would have left one girl sitting them in the wildest bar in Dublin, alone. Not an enviable situation, especially not from the American mindset.
Moving right along, I opened a three set in a nearby room, spinning a lot of the same lines from before. Are these girls Irish? No: Australian. I need to stop visiting these touristy places. Seriously, fucking tourists. Anyway, I introduce myself to everyone, and they are getting a kick out of my stories. Olivia, Scott and the name of the other girl which was something to the effect of Jayden or some such were the three. The third, we’ll say Jayden for the sake of simplicity, was actually the knockout here, but given on attempt three I still did not get her name right, as pointed out by the laughing at me, I decided I would try a greener pasture.
I worked on Olivia, and tried to maintain good rapport with Scott, asking the whole, “If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?” gig. The problem with that gig is that it really often takes a long time for people to come up with an honest answer, which leads to awkward pauses. I spun some more of my stories, and took the old Mystery line of saying that I would be a magician, and that I was good at making things disappear, like Guinness and virginity. Great work, Thom. Guinness makes you more of an asshole than you already are. America is proud.
I had them rolling for a while, but the set wound down and I dropped the ball. I could have isolated Olivia, because it was actually whats-her-face who pulled her and Scott away. Live and learn.
“I’d be a rally car driver,”
“Huh?”
“The answer to your question: I’d be a rally car driver,” Scott said as he was being pulled away.
Well played, Scott.
By this point, my opened set tally is most than halfway to my mark, which is what is important. So, undaunted, I sit back at the bar. Now, somewhere between the Americans and the Australians, I met Joe. Joe Thomas Something. The details of that were lost in the noise. Another drunk Irishmen, we started with small talk and moved onto talking about America. If it is one thing that people in Ireland are fascinated by, or so it would seem by the amount of times I was asked the question, it was who I was voting for in the next election. Given that I did not think that there would be a particular opinion one way or the other, I went with honesty. This was perhaps the first choice to talk about myself that I had that I did without any re-creation of my character.
I was right. There was no fiery opinion one way or the other, except that Bush was an asshole. Got it. So we talked politics and he asked where I was from, when I told him New York, he mentioned how he had been there to visit, and how “fecking harrrd it is tu find ah pub”. I laughed and told him that New York is built to keep insiders in, and outsiders out. We laughed.
No surprise here, but Joe was part of a stag party. The uniform, though I don’t think it was intentional, was white button down shirts with vertical stripes. I wore mine yesterday, shit.
“Ey mate! Yu should come out with mah boys. Wir go’an to a strip cluob layter.”
You have go to be shitting me.
Okay, okay, God, I get it. You want me to go to a strip club.
Of course, I did not know that half of the adventure would be wandering drunkenly around Dublin trying to find this alleged lapdance bar. Somewhere around Guinness seven or eight, I have managed to make it outside where I meet the lucky man, who is quite possibly the most Irish looking man I have ever seen in my entire life: red hair, roman nose, weighed about 250 and looks like he could intimidate steel bending. I don’t remember his name, but I am going to call him Patrick, because in my mind: his name was Patrick.
One of their friends also bore a striking resemblance to Dante Hicks. It was uncanny, and I regret not having my cell phone or my camera on me. Of course, when I brought up the Clerks movies, they likened him to Silent Bob. Trust me, ringer for Dante Hicks. It seems he was also a former Royal Marine. Shit, stay on this guy’s good side. No problem there. They were all stand up guys.
Dave was trouble however. I actually had met him earlier in the bar when I tried to open a set.
“’Ey! Where are yu from, mate? You from Ah-mer-ika?”
Christ, everyone has the same amount of canned material that I do, at least when they are drunk.
“Yeah, New York.”
“Oh fuckin’ New York,” he tried to affect his best American accent, which was only a slightly less Irish accent, “Fuckin’ Sopranos an’ shit.”
Yeah, and Bruce Fucking Springsteen. That’s New Jersey, asshole.
“Oh, don’t mind me, mate. I’m a bit drunk.”
“No problem, no problem.”
Well, flash forward an hour, and what do I hear?
“Fuckin’ New York!”
I chuckle and continue my conversation with Dante and Patrick, “Oh I love the way you talk man!”
“Would ya preefar I talk like this, mate?” I tried in my best Irish accent, which, gauging the reactions of the crowd, was only a slightly less American accent. They laughed. Hard.
After finally collecting all eight of us, we go walking back down Grafton street, over past St.Stephen’s Green, and by a bunch of places I had never seen during the day. Of course, while I was talking with everyone, all I was thinking about was: please God let me be able to find my way home.
I remember doubling back at least once, or at least I think we did because I remember saying, “Oh good, it’s near Grafton street. I’ll be able to find my way back.”
An hour into the search, we wind our way to a corner where we debate, at length, whether or not this lapdance bar even exists. The weediest guy of the bunch insists that it is right up ahead, and that we are so close we can taste it.
Anything you have ever heard about the Irish loving their beer, is absolutely true. In the middle of this debate, we decided that it is not a good time to get a pick-me-up drink. Also, I have to drain Guinness’ three through nine. I am not going to drink more. I’m not. I am going to be responsible.
Patrick motioned to me, “Hey, aintcha got something ta drink?”
“Nah I didn’t get anything.”
“There, I got that for my mate, but he wandered off to the club, its yours. Jack and coke.”
Good. Excellent. Once you start introducing names into the mix, you know it is going to be a long night. Right I was. Now, I had reached the point where a drinker feels invincible. Great. You know, no matter how grounded you are, the whole impaired judgment thing really does terrible things.
We did eventually make it to the club. Apparently it was one of the more legitimate clubs: no hands on, no sex, no blowjobs. What's the point? I was just going to play it cool and close to the chest.
The first dancer saw I was not actively engaged in the conversation at the bar that my mates were having. After politely declining, I realized that if I was going to survive this without having to wash my soul, I was going to have to get my head in the game.
Now, nothing against these girls, because they were drop dead gorgeous, but they were not interesting to me. I was a big game hunter in a zoo. My prey was right there, but they were just as useful to me as I was to them. If anything, the advantage was out of my hands. The lion was mocking the hunter, unable to mount its head over his mantle.
The second girl, a beautiful German girl (again, no Irish girls, what the Hell?), approached me.
“Vould you like ah dans?”
“No thanks,” I said, returning to Heineken one.
“Oh! You’re American.”
No shit.
“Guilty as charged,” There was a pause. I chuckled, which cued her to do the same. I think the one thing I have learned in this country, or I suppose while travelling abroad, or even anywhere that is noise, is the importance of mirroring. Specifically, if they are laughing, you should laugh too. I cannot think of any situation where everyone else laughing could possibly be an indication not to laugh as well.
“Vere in America are you from?”
“New York.”
“Oh yah! I spent some time in Las Vegas a few years ago actually.”
Fascinating, were you a stripper there too?
“That’s pretty cool,” I said diffidently, looking over to the other side of the bar.
I really thought she would get it. I was not interested. I guess she thought I was shy, but I thought the glamour of drunk Irish money would be more appealing than a quiet, silently disturbed American.
“So vat do you do? Vat ees your job?”
“I’m a soldier.” I said coldly. Here was where I was going to lay the deathblow. If this next topic of conversation did not get her kilometers away, and in a hurry, then I am doing the wrong stinking thing.
“Oh ya? Do you like it?”
“It is what it is. You like it some days, and you don’t like it others. You end up with a lot of shit on your mind. Issues and shit,” I laid it on thick, “You get nightmares sometimes. All the things you do, all the things you couldn’t, but at the end of the day, its just a job; a means to an end. Slainte”
Immediately she looked very uncomfortable. Good, run away, as far as you can. She wrapped her arm around my waist before asking me again:
“Are you… sure you do not vant a dans?”
“Yeah, thanks. I need to make sure my buddies don’t get in trouble. Got to stay lucid,” God was that a joke. I had not been lucid for about six Guinnesses.
She walked away and I had to wonder though: do you stick 1 Euro coins in a stripper’s G-string over here?
I rejoined the mainstay of the group, and Joe, who appeared to be the heaviest drinker with the worst tolerance of the group, was looking to bounce from the club. Paul, and the littlest Irishman also joined us. Where did we go? Back to the bar, of course. So we return to the Temple Bar, and the crowd looks exactly the same two and a half hours later.
Joe and I talked about nothing in particular for the remainder of the evening until the lights shone brightly, the international sign for, “Okay you rotten drunks, get out of my bar”. We mainly talked about how beautiful Irish women were, and he tried to convince me that in Northern Ireland, the women are even more beautiful, and that Americans are regarded with the same sort of mysticism that Australians and Irishmen are seen with stateside. During all of this, I refrained from mentioning that I felt that Northern Ireland was “Fake Ireland”. God save the Queen and all that.
Somewhere along the line, we switched from Guinness to whiskey. Bushmills. My old friend. That church door shaped bottle had helped me get through a lot of rough times in college, but for the sake of my host, I allowed him to Christen me to the experience.
“Dis shit. Dis is da good stuff, mate. Four-hundred years and they are keepin’ everythin’ da same. Yu know dere doin’ somethin’ raight.”
This, however, was not the whiskey I was used to drinking. This was the sixteen year old whiskey. It burned, but how exquisite of a taste. As a bit of a whiskey snob, I was only mad that I was far too drunk to truly appreciate the nuances of the taste.
The lights came on and we prepared ourselves mentally for the trek back to our respective hostels. He got my email address, promising me that I would have a place to stay when I go to Belfast. Of course, even my drunken eyes could tell that he botched my email, and instead of being able to fix it, my clumsy hands just hit “save”, or it could have been “delete” who knows? I would not expect him to open his house up to me, but it would be an interesting time none the less.
I stumbled back to my room, where I stripped and passed out in a heap. Day two in Ireland: huge success.
Day 1 - The Portrait of An Author as a Young American
I reached my hotel after a half hour of looking. The furnishings were not like a hotel, or a motel at all, merely a bed with unmaid covers. The accommodations are… Spartan… enough that even Spartans might complain. As it turned out, I had arrived before the housekeeping did. Oh well. I used to wonder what the difference between a 50GP hotel room and a 10GP hotel room in video games. Now I know.
I experienced my first which I believe to be one of nine Ireland rains I will experience on this trip. It drizzled, and then rained, and then ceased with a quickness. For the first time, it was quiet. Even the streets outside of the park were peaceful after the rain, and then, as if suddenly made aware of the absence of the timpani call of water droplets, humans began filling up the spaceagain.
At The Temple Bar was the first time I experienced the concept of Bodhrain, or to summarize an abstract concept, the ability to appreciate good spirits and cheer. The songs these men sing in the bars: old and young men singing old drinking and folk songs paint the picture of Ireland’s history as vividly as Ireland could herself.
I experienced my first which I believe to be one of nine Ireland rains I will experience on this trip. It drizzled, and then rained, and then ceased with a quickness. For the first time, it was quiet. Even the streets outside of the park were peaceful after the rain, and then, as if suddenly made aware of the absence of the timpani call of water droplets, humans began filling up the spaceagain.
At The Temple Bar was the first time I experienced the concept of Bodhrain, or to summarize an abstract concept, the ability to appreciate good spirits and cheer. The songs these men sing in the bars: old and young men singing old drinking and folk songs paint the picture of Ireland’s history as vividly as Ireland could herself.
Prologue Part Deux - The Flights
“I looked down, down, down, and down some more,
I looked and saw clouds that sat like ice floats on the ocean,”
Prologue-
After a bit of looking, I found my seat on the plane. The Irish don’t mark their seat numbers as readily as American airlines do, so it was a small chore in basic arithmetic to figure out where I was actually supposed to go. My two “single serving friends” were an older white family with an accent I could not quite place.
With age, and probably language against me, I chose to take the opportunity to instead attempt to sleep after three delays that had kept me from the Emerald Isle. Ironically, this was the one flight where I was not the annoying flyer who talks to everyone, but instead the annoyed who can’t get any sleep on the plane.
“Where. Are. You. Travelling? From?” said the old woman.
“Uh, I’m from the US.”
“Hah. Hah. Hah. Americans”
I narrowed my eyes. How insulting. I guess half of what they say about peoples’ opinions of us is true, “And where are you all from?”
“South. Africa.”
I chose the route of the higher man, though I really wish I hadn’t. “Oh,” I replied uninterested. And that concluded quickly our conversation on the plane.
I looked and saw clouds that sat like ice floats on the ocean,”
Prologue-
After a bit of looking, I found my seat on the plane. The Irish don’t mark their seat numbers as readily as American airlines do, so it was a small chore in basic arithmetic to figure out where I was actually supposed to go. My two “single serving friends” were an older white family with an accent I could not quite place.
With age, and probably language against me, I chose to take the opportunity to instead attempt to sleep after three delays that had kept me from the Emerald Isle. Ironically, this was the one flight where I was not the annoying flyer who talks to everyone, but instead the annoyed who can’t get any sleep on the plane.
“Where. Are. You. Travelling? From?” said the old woman.
“Uh, I’m from the US.”
“Hah. Hah. Hah. Americans”
I narrowed my eyes. How insulting. I guess half of what they say about peoples’ opinions of us is true, “And where are you all from?”
“South. Africa.”
I chose the route of the higher man, though I really wish I hadn’t. “Oh,” I replied uninterested. And that concluded quickly our conversation on the plane.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
One Adventure Begins - Exposition
"What's there for you?"
What is in any adventure for anyone?
"Who are you going with?"
Myself? Alone? Anyone I can find along the way? What is the right answer?
"You're so lucky."
Luck has nothing to do with it. This is an adventure hard earned. Here we go.
-----------
He stepped into the airport. The taxi drove off behind him. People were coming and going through the airport, utterly unconcerned with him or his travels. All he had now, was what he had on him.
He had a list of requests ranging from typical to ridiculous that he knew he would not be able to return without fulfilling.
What is in any adventure for anyone?
"Who are you going with?"
Myself? Alone? Anyone I can find along the way? What is the right answer?
"You're so lucky."
Luck has nothing to do with it. This is an adventure hard earned. Here we go.
-----------
He stepped into the airport. The taxi drove off behind him. People were coming and going through the airport, utterly unconcerned with him or his travels. All he had now, was what he had on him.
He had a list of requests ranging from typical to ridiculous that he knew he would not be able to return without fulfilling.
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