A Few Months & A Few Things
Hey There,
So I’ve been gone for awhile and for that I have to say I am sorry. Not that many people ever even read this blog, but it feels good to just say it. Or, type it, as the case may be.
The past few months have been weird. My dad died in february (laughing and rollerskating, just as he would have liked it I think). His whole estate and all that has been left up to me, his only heir, and I get to deal with it all. I’m an only child and I am used to doing everything by myself, but this is a lot. I am kind of proud of myself for being able to take care this, ok I have a lawyer for all the legalese, but still. I think he would be happy to see me take charge.
I started making and selling pierogies. It’s actually taken off and I find that bizarre, because if you would have told me I would be doing this at this time last year I would have thought you were insane. I mean come on, fucking pierogies? And I sell at least 30 dozen a week at a farmers market? And I now own a pop up tent to sit under when I sell? And a propane burner to make samples? And I deliver all over the city? Craziness.
I got back into booking bands too. I picked up a few nites of booking when I ran into my friend Joe at, of all places, the hair cuttery. He’s such a nice guy that he didn’t laugh in my face when he came upon me wearing the stupid cap thing you have to wear for highlights.
Michael Jackson died. I find that bizarre as well. Like most people my age, I grew up listening to tracks from Thriller and Off The Wall. In fact, when we got our very first VCR, one of the tapes my dad got from a buddy was The Making Of Thriller and that got me interested in moviemaking. I ended up going to film school because of it I suppose. People have these odd reactions to Jackson. My one friend Derek hopes he rots in hell, others praise him like he was Jesus reincarnated. Did he molest those kids? I tend to think no. People who have ridiculous money like that are walking targets, and who is going to be believed: the kid or the rich eccentric pop star? There have been rumors now around the internet that the kid is now old enough to speak and he says his parents made him do say the things.
That court case destroyed anything that was left of Jackson’s career. His odd choices of having kids in a round about way, his goofy living conditions, plastic surgery addiction and overall secretive ways didn’t help. But I have a theory as to why he was the way that he was. And since this is my blog, I’m going to lay it all out for ya.
Michael was a working professional at the age of 5. That is the age you start school. But Michael didn’t start school, he started singing in studios and dancing on tv. It was his life, and the only one he knew. His father, while I don;t know for sure, seemed like he was really hot on pushing those kids to make cash and didn’t give them time to just be kids.
Growing up in the spotlight doesn’t help when you go form a cute kid to a pimpley teenager, which Jackson did. He had a decent transition but I think the self consciousness never left him, and between the plastic surgery and the media, with the fact that he was under constant pressure, I think he snapped. When people have a mental break, it usually occurs sometime in the late teens-early twenties. This seems when he first started becoming weird. Combine that with the fact that when you are that huge of a star, no one tells you no, well, you get MIchael Jackson.
I really feel bad for his kids, who seem like regular kids, which is funny considering that they aren’t, but Jackson did go out of his way to keep them out of the spotlight. I also am annoyed at all these people who are crying and performing at the memorial because none of them would touch him or his career publicly after the court case. Where were they when Jackson might have needed them? Nowhere to be found, for sure.
I don;t mean any of this as a huge fan, because I am not. I grew up with the music, I won’t deny it, but he was just a guy who could write a great song. He’ll be missed and I hope his kids don’t end up in People magazine.
Finally, this month marks the 1 year anniversary of getting my car, of which I call Rover. Rover is a 97 civic hatchback and it is awesome. I love being able to drive myself anywhere without begging for rides or taking the bus/train/trolley/el. People kept telling me I would really love it, but I didn’t get it until I actually bought the car. Awesomeness.
I do have some plans for this blog in the upcoming year. New tags will include thoughts on band management, promotion and all sorts of other stuff. Plus, more updates. So check back, I promise I will try and be here.
Check Me Out On Clique Clack Food!
Hey There,
The good folks over at Clique Clack Food have posted my article on one of my favorite shows: The Travel Channel’s “Man v. Food”!
http://www.cliqueclack.com/food/2009/04/08/man-v-food-everyone-loves-a-challenge/
Check it out!!
Dad
My dad died on friday night. He was, of all things, roller skating at a kids party at a roller rink. He was laughing and saying “it’s not as easy as it looks and fell down. They couldn’t get his heart beating again, even after shocking him 3 times.
My dad was an odd dude. He could be a tremendous asshole when he wanted to be. He could also be the goofiest person you ever met. He was a good dad and a shitty dad. He was full of sayings, advice and stuff his dad told him. He could make you feel like shit in a second or great in a half.
When my parents split, it was so bad and I ended up not talking to him for a few years. While at the time it made sense to me, now I really, really regret it. It was only a few years but now that he’s gone, I feel stupid. I guess I was young and very much influenced by the crazy goings on via divorce.
I was lucky enough to break that pattern of not seeing him after my grandmom died. I think what sealed it was that one day, when I was away at college, he took me out to eat and apologized for being a shitty dad. “I know I can’t make up for the past but I’d like to work on the future”. Mind. Blown.
He was an extremely cheap guy, but we went out to eat almost every week. It didn’t matter to me where we went, but he loved a buffet. Loooved a buffet. It was cool to see him once a week and hear his ridiculous dating stories. he always had some kind of words for me about things going on in my life, sometimes good or bad. He always pushed me to stop being so nice (yes, you can be), to worry about me and not everyone else (which I have a habit of not doing), to get out and see the world, and for fucks sakes have a little more faith in myself. Sometimes the advice was coated in crotchety danny-isms that I might not have been in the mood to hear. Sometimes he wasn’t in the mood to hear my ridiculous crap either.
We are a lot alike. We both love to travel. We both love to try new things. We both got irritated with people who were firmly against trying anything new, especially food. We both work better in non-conventional jobs and NOT in an office. We both have a very goofy sense of humor. We both are moody assholes sometimes. We both are non-caring about fashion or what people think of us. We also both love baseball. I’m sure there are lots of other things I can’t think of right now too.
He was single before he died, having broken up with his soul sucking crazy ass girlfriend+family. I could tell he felt kind of alone. He was creeping up on 61 (in fact his birthday was the day after he died). I knew how he felt, I felt the same way. It was just me, him and my little stepbrother. His whole family was already gone. Maybe he knew he was sick, maybe he knew he had heart disease and that was why he was so adamant on spending more time with the two of us, I don’t know.
As the past few days have gone by the old crappy memories have seemed to kind of fade and the funny stuff is highlighted. I guess that is normal after someone dies, I don’t know. I’ve never lost a parent or anyone in that area of closeness.
All I know is that my dad is gone and I feel like he is going to call me and say “don’t you know how to call?” or have him walk in when I’m looking thru stuff and yell at me.
I really miss him.
I really miss my dad.
Liars and Deny-ers
Two interesting things are going on thee days. One of which is Alex Rodriguez getting fingered as a cheat and admitting it. The other is this wacky bishop who denies the Holocaust ever happened.
Ok, first things first.
1. Hey A-Rod. You cheated, you knew, even tho it wasn’t necessarily against the rules, that you were cheating. Jose Canseco fingered you as a cheat, and you kept your mouth shut. Others got fingered as cheats ad you kept your mouth shut. So when the report finally emerges that you tested positive, you finally decide that you are going to admit you cheated? Oh, you are so, so sorry.
Here’s the deal: if you were truly sorry and believed that you did wrong, you would have admitted it years ago. When the Yankees gave you that giant contract, you didn’t mention it then. If no one found that report, you still would have had your mouth shut. You were also not young and stupid. You were 26 years old, with about 7 years in the big leagues by then. You knew exactly what you were doing (and I am sure any others did as well). You aren’t sorry you did what you did, you aren’t sorry that the fans were lied to, you are sorry YOU GOT CAUGHT.
2. I do not understand these Holocaust deniers. Have they not seen the graphic film from the camps? The bodies stacked 5 or 6 deep? What is the rationality on that? Do they think perhaps they are stunt bodies? How could all the servicemen who found those camps have the same stories?
More importantly, where do these deniers think the victims were instead? Disneyland? 5 million Jews, Catholics, Gypsies, Gays and many others just decided to move to Ohio? How about all those kids who were orphaned? Did they just sprout out from the ground?
It’s been over 60 years since the war has been over. Why are there still people who insist certain things never happened? Frankly, the Bishop (who has rejected the suggestion from The Vatican that he recant his idiotic statements and also to visit Auschwitz) puzzles me and just today the order of which he belongs to kicked him out.
Is it because maybe we are getting further away from war atrocities that it is easier to deny they ever happened? The scope of how many people died in such a heinous way is hard to grasp, so perhaps some people just go that way? Either way, just as with slavery and other assorted nasty atrocities over the years, if people are not reminded how incredibly awful people can be to each other, then this thing could, indeed, happen again. And with the blind faith that people put into religious clerics, that can be super dangerous.
remembering that it’s storytelling
I’ve been home for quite awhile now, trying to work out a few ideas for some stories I have. One I can’t figure out if it would be simpler to do as a screenplay or a book. The other one I don’t really know how to piece it together (I’ll explain another time). I have really been having trouble with all of this, focusing on the mechanics of writing and outlining and details. It’s been a big pain n the ass.
So, last nite I was perusing the On Demand selections (my life is very exciting), and I came across a Turner Classic Movie documentary about, of all people, Ron Howard. It was late and I love documentaries so I gave it a go. It followed his career from when he was three and started acting kind of by accident, and followed him thru his transition from sitcom actor to film director, with Howard himself doing all the narration and exposition.
As he went from stage to stage in his life, he kept talking about developing story, and how it really all boils down to if you can tell a good one. Even his films that didn’t have great box office results (like, say, The Paper), were still interesting to watch and told you a solid story. They were entertaining and almost always gave you something of which to relate.
It dawned on me that while the stuff I have been focusing on is important, I just need to sit down and tell the damn story. Get it out onto paper (or macbook screen as the case may be) and then deal with it. Writing, after all, is rewriting, and any one who tells you different is a liar or an accountant.
It’s so easy to get wrapped up in technical stuff, to lose sight of what it is exactly that you want to do. Maybe I was tired and my defenses were down. Perhaps that led me to actually entertain a new idea.
Who knows.
What I do know is that it’s changed the way I’m doing things and I am hoping to make serious progress today and in the days to come.
Review: The Wrestler
SPOILERS AHOY!!!
I spent some time today watching Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler”. This had to be on of the saddest movies I’ve seen in awhile. What do you do when all your life you did one thing and then…you can’t do it anymore? When you get to that place where you realize you spent your life doing your job and you look around to find no one? Welcome to Randy “The Ram”’s life.
Mickey Rourke plays the crap out of this beat down guy, formerly a huge pro from the 80’s, who only really lives for the crowds and to wrestle. He could easily be one of the saturday morning wrestlers we watched as kids. Now he tours the small halls and gets by with ridiculous amounts of steroids, working in the Acme and selling his merch at old wrestler shows. His heart attack pushes him to look beyond wrestling, to try and salvage some kind of life. This is the most heartbreaking of all. Aronofsky is a fan of the “show don’t tell” school, of which I am a fan. There aren’t any long speeches that try to explain everything. In fact, most of the dialogue isn’t more then a few sentences, and that makes it even more real and totally believable. Yes, I just called a movie about an old wrestler believable.
Maria Tomei is interesting. As Cassidy, the stripper, she walks that line between work and wanting to get to know Ram better and while that could have come off as “the wrestler guy hooks up with the stripper”, it was played more along the lines of “a sad and lonely guy wants to connect and finds a sad mom who has to make serious decisions”. It works on many levels. Evan Rachel Wood as Ram’s daughter Stephanie, well, it was short, sweet, and overall sad, just like most human connections in this flick.
Overall, this tale of failed human connection is one of the best movies I have seen in a really long time. It was a lot more then I expected. Mickey Rourke is so good in this, I hope that he keeps playing complex characters. I just hope he stays away form the collagen, because at certain points it looked like he couldn’t move his lips. Also, if you are a fan of wrestling, or have been in the past, keep a close eye out for lots of old wrestlers and cameos from oddballs such as Eric the midget from The Howard Stern Show.
This flick is totally worth your time and your money. Aronofsky has created a world that is worth watching.
Change Of Plans
Hey there,
Just thought I would let everyone know about a small little change of plans around here. I have decided to post all of my tv related blabbity-blab over at http://www.yatesy.org. All the rest of all my blabbity-blab will still be right here. I hope you check out both sites!
Thanks!
Nick
Star Wars Explained By Someone Who Has Not Seen It
This is too good not to post.
A Fresh Start…What Now?
So, today was inauguration. Everyone is seemingly feeling pretty good (except for people like my mom and stepdad who are republicans. My mom actually wore black to work today. Ridiculous.), and there seems to be a good feeling worldwide.
That, my friends, is awesome.
What worries me are 2 things:
1. What is going to happen when Obama has to make the first unpopular decision? This is happening right now here in Philly with our mayor. He is dealing with a ridiculous budget deficit and the backlash has been awful. Indeed, the honeymoon is over. So, once Obama has to make the hard and not popular decision (akin to a parent making the child eat the vegetables or finish the sport season or turn off the tv to do the homework), how happy will all these people be? It’s not a matter of *if* it will happen, more *when*.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m pulling for the guy. I have heard that he is reaching out to McCain to try and bridge the party problems, which is awesome. I don’t however, have unrealistic expectations. There will be no walking on water here. I’m just hoping that people realize someone has to make those hard decisions and sometimes you just won’t like it.
2. I have seen some really super racist stuff over the past few weeks regarding Obama. While most people say things on the internet that they would never, ever say in real life (the internet is an amazing thing), there are some wingnuts out there (ever catch any of the white supremicist stuff on The History Channel? Crazy.). Is the FBI, NSA & CIA ready for this? I’m hoping. Go for it, boys in blue!
So here’s to a great 4 years! You just never know.
