Vanillafy

A coworker used the word "vanillafy" today, meaning to simplify or make more ordinary, as in "we could vanillafy these examples so that they apply to all operating systems." I love this word.

Where am I?

I have gotten a few questions lately from readers about where I have been and whether I am OK. The answer (in a nutshell) is that I have been very busy at work over the past few months. So I have not had time for blogging, and have been too stressed out to write anything even if I did have the time. I do plan to return to regular writing here soon.

A new poem I wrote

Our Suburban Day


we wake dress get in the car
drive stop drive stop drive through traffic
breakfast at Denny's or Shari's
whichever is more on the way to the mall

I wear a baseball cap but
one of my more formal ones
since we are going out
I don't take it off to eat
only for a solemn moment like
the national anthem before hockey games
(and even that Canadian one to be polite)

then the shopping at the mall oh yes
the peak experience
do we support the Gap or are we
Banana Republicans
so many choices that's the best part
we could stay all day and we do
buying things
returning them
buying them back again
(is there a more lovely sound than
that of the receipt
printed and torn?
send me the MP3 of that)
we like cashiers because we feel how they
really understand us
for they are the Brand made flesh
and It touches us when they smile

we eat at Olive Garden because we always crave that
multiculturalism
I hear Italy is nice too but it's far
even farther than the Venice in Vegas
and besides
we already feel like we're there from
reading this
authentic menu

walking out the door we know (we just know)
this is it
this is what they are all so jealous of
this is what fanatics hate
who hate freedom
and we don't blame them for
feeling left out
but if they'd only work hard
be reasonable
learn English
someday their time would come

No personals

A good friend of mine said that I am "the most gay-acting straight man" she knows. I told her how my brother jokes that you can find Personal Ads for men seeking "straight-acting" gay men, but there don't seem to be any equivalent ads for women seeking "gay-acting straight men."

I had forgotten all about this remark until this evening, when I was putting an herbal clay mask on my face, and I thought, "oh, this is one of those things, isn't it?"

Driving

Driving home tonight, I was getting on the freeway and there was a lot of oil on the road. The car started to slide and got almost sideways. Then my "skillz" kicked in and I did a perfect "floaty powerslide" and saved it. A few seconds later I thought, wow, I almost totally crashed my car back there. A few seconds after that I thought, wow, I feel like James Bond!

Movie ideas

They can make anything into a movie these days: a comic book, an old TV series, a Saturday Night Live skit, just about anything. You know what I'm waiting for? Victoria's Secret: The Motion Picture. That's what I'm waiting for.

Music

My friend Bob creates some interesting electronic music using thumb pianos and other instruments. I like the way he explores the overtones and subtle distortions of the tones.

Cat Reddick

OK, here's my theory. Right before today's game, Cat Reddick was bitten by a radioactive spider and acquired super-powers. I don' t know how else to explain it -- In the U.S. victory 3-0 over North Korea, she was all over the field, scoring two goals and making numerous incredible defensive plays. I've never considered her a star before, just an average player, but today was her day.

Mia Hamm, part 2

In a comment to my previous Mia Hamm post, koshtra says:

Some athletes have such a purity of concentration that it seems like you're watching a transfiguration or a transcendence -- this is what all human life could be if we just paid attention for once...

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about! Watch Mia when she is on the soccer field. Look at her face. There is a transcendent beauty there. It is not because she is physically attractive, although she is. It is an intensity, a kind of purity of intent and purpose that could be terrifying if it weren't so beautiful. Many players have a lot of skill with the soccer ball, but few have this.

And I think koshtra is right: if only we paid attention . . .

Mia Hamm

I'm sorry, but I'm a bit crazy. When I see Mia Hamm do something wonderful on the soccer field, I get kind of choked up. Several times when she has scored a goal, I have actually started crying a bit -- especially if it happens during a World Cup. (The only other player I've ever had that reaction to is Pele.) Today when Mia scored her second goal against Nigeria on the free kick, well that was one of those times.

Outsourcing, our road to paradise

Offshore outsourcing is good, because it drives down costs, which drives down prices. The rise in unemployment is balanced out by the cheaper cost of everything to consumers. If you follow this to its logical conclusion, eventually no American will have a job, but we won't need (or want) jobs or incomes because everything will be free. We will live in a slacker's paradise. ("Been spending most their lives, living in the slacka's paradise . . .")

Supply Side Jesus

The comic parody The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus is pretty funny (via boingboing). But I thought Jesus really was a supply-side thinker. It's right here, Matthew 13:12:

For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

(Note: this is a joke, so please no flames from theologians. Hey, I like saying that.)

Stand up and be counted

Howard writes:

Wedding Bell Blues: I've always wondered what it would take for me to stand up and be counted when the person officiating at a wedding said: "If there is anyone gathered here today who knows why this couple should not be united in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your piece."

Now I know -- a reception that included a Krispy Kreme wedding cake.

The problem is, they never ask that at weddings except in the movies, because they know that somebody in the audience won't be able to resist the temptation. It's the ultimate invitation to rant! If they ever asked that at a wedding I went to, it would be really difficult not to shout out something like, "Stop, man! She's just marrying you for your Pokemon card collection! Can't you see that?"

We Need More Irregular Verbs

Irregular verbs are the spice of life. Admit it, saying swim/swam/swum is much more fun than swim/swimmed would be. Irregular verbs have more character, more of what food marketers call "mouthfeel."

When we coin new words, we should make a little extra effort to make the verbs irregular. For example, the verb "to Google" is a fun word, but "Googled" is boring. Instead, try the irregular version:

• I compulsively Google for my own name.
  
• Yesterday she Gaggled for a Keanu Reeves fan site.
  
• That web page was frequently Guggled.

Ahh, that's so much better.

On a platter

Social Reject blogs about this news story:

Adventurous ladies looking for new ways to flirt, here's a suggestion from New York's Museum of Sex -- go to a restaurant, head for the bathroom, take off your panties and put them on your date's plate.

If someone did that, I would put my socks on her plate. I mean, really -- that might fly in a movie or an episode of Sex and the City, but I think in real life it would just seem weird and disturbing.

MP3 of the day

Killing Sugar, by Sahina. (MP3.com site requires free registration.)

Independent music

Last night I ordered some more music from CD Baby. From their "About" page:

• We only sell CDs that come directly from the musicians. No distributors. Musicians send us CDs. We warehouse them, sell them to you, and pay the musicians directly.
• Cool thing: in a regular record deal or distribution deal, musicians only make $1-$2 per CD, if they ever get paid by their label. When selling through CD Baby, musicians make $6-$12 per CD, and get paid weekly.

It's not too hard to find interesting music there, either, since it is well organized and described, and you can listen to the tunes online before you buy. Considering how bad major label record deals are for musicians, I think supporting independent music is essential. Independent artists are like the bloggers of the music world.

The Joy of Sharing a Computer

Rachel writes:

I did what I could to fix the computer, and yet I woke up to a note from the roomie informing me that he'd changed my admin password and that I was to never delete anything off his machine again (This is the version minus all the expletives). So, imagine my satisfaction when we got the new copy of Nortons and it showed that all FOUR viruses were on his side of the computer. I'd have loved to have slammed his face against the monitor and rubbed it there, like a big, dumb puppy.

Computers are already one of the most frustrating things around; "cohabiting" one can only make things more maddening.

The Threat of Gay Marriage

The biggest threat to straight people from the prospect of same-sex marriage has got to be the knowledge that all of our straight weddings will be completely upstaged by the gay ones. Their weddings will be more hip and fabulous, and we will look bad by comparison. We can picture our guests standing in one corner, saying, "this reception is OK, I guess, but it's not nearly as cool as the reception for that gay wedding last month. Phil and John really know how to put on an event!" "Tell me about it. They had better music, better catering, the whole deal. Straight weddings are a bore. These days, I only go to them as a show of support for heterosexuality."

Mulholland Shire

[Warning: Mulholland Drive spoilers ahead. If you haven't seen Mulholland Drive and the Lord of the Rings movies, the following won't make much sense.]

Cross Mulholland Drive with Lord of the Rings and you would get a dark, edgy movie called Mulholland Shire.

Mulholland Shire picks up where Two Towers left off, but with a shocking twist. We learn that the character "Frodo Baggins" is actually a burned-out loser named Lou Gollum whose long-term abuse of drugs has left him friendless and unemployed. He lives in a slum apartment in the bad end of Mulholland Shire. One of his few posessions is his drug pipe, which he calls his "precious."

Lou had come to the Shire expecting fame, fortune, and opportunity. But fate seemed to deliver all of the advantages to another man, Bill Sauron, who kept lucking into adventures, finding valuable antique rings and armor and becoming extremely popular. At first Lou befriended Bill, and the two had a brief but thrilling homosexual relationship. But later Bill rejected him to climb the social and political ladder in the Shire, and Lou Gollum sank into a deep depression.

The events of the first two Lord of the Rings movies have been a dream that Lou Gollum was having, in which he idealizes how his life should have turned out. In his dream, he is the imaginary Frodo Baggins, loved and trusted by Bill(bo), who recieves a precious magic ring and must go off on an adventure to save the world. Frodo is a tiny "hobbit" representing how small and powerless Lou feels at this point in his life. On the other hand, Bill Sauron has been transformed into larger characters, showing the large role he plays in Lou's life. The part of Bill Sauron that Lou hates has been transformed in the dream into the giant figure of Sauron, the dark lord responsible for all the evil in the land. But the Bill he still loves has turned into the tall Gandalf, a wise magical father-figure. (The invisibility episode near the very beginning provides an early clue that all is not what it seems -- Lou wishes he could just make Bill(bo) "disappear." And as we will see later, he already has.)

Though in the dream Lou imagines himself as the saviour-hero, the "Gollum" character manifests to remind him of the insecure, selfish, evil aspects of himself that he tries to deny. "Gollum's" babbling about the "precious" is a warped representation of Lou's drug addiction and crazy behavior. Indeed, the physical appearance of "Gollum" suggests an addict: the thin, wasted body, the hollowed, sunken face, and the crazed eyes are a giveaway.

Various bizarre images in the first 2/3 of the story suddenly make sense when understood as Lou Gollum's dream. For example, consider the scene where the Ents release floodwaters that destroy Saruman's machines and drain into deep holes in the ground. This absurd image of powerful talking trees and watery destruction would make little sense if taken literally. Instead, the giant "talking plants" represent the drugs that Lou is addicted to. They unleash a "flood" of problems, destroying the things that matter to Lou, and the image of the water draining into the ground shows Lou's life "going down the drain."

Sauron's powerful "giant magical tower" is an obvious phallic symbol in the dream, relating to Lou's prior relationship with Bill. The fact that the tower is no longer "available" to Lou/Frodo but instead guarded by giant gates and monsters shows Lou's frustration.

As the dream story goes on, Frodo looks more and more exhausted, and wonders if he can go on. This represents the crumbling of Lou's denial. The dream Frodo has been involved in many violent episodes, rationalized as combat with various "monsters," but really representing Lou's violent behavior in the real world.

At this point in Mulholland Shire, viewers will wonder how we possibly could have been taken in by the first 2/3 of the story and believed it to be real. The plot was so full of absurdities -- talking trees, wizards, Orcs, giant flaming winged demons with whips -- that it could only have been the deranged dream of a violent drug addict who has lost his hold on reality.

Frodo's quest to destroy Sauron is really about Lou Gollum's decision to take revenge on Bill Sauron by killing him. All of the obstacles that block Frodo's quest show that Lou's subconscious mind deeply regrets his decision to murder his friend, and wishes that his plan had been derailed. When Gandalf is killed by the balrog, but later miraculously appears alive again, it shows how Lou wishes that his murder, too, could be undone.

But wherever the hero Frodo goes, "Gollum" -- the real, deceitful, murderer Lou -- keeps tagging along. The evil "black riders" who constantly search for Frodo and the Ring are really the police detectives who are looking for Bill's killer. Some black riders are even mounted upon flying monsters (police helicopters).

In the end, Lou can no longer deny his situation. He must acknowledge that, far from being a hero, he is "Gollum," a twisted, evil man who killed his ex-lover in a fit of jealousy and rage, and has only his "precious" drugs left to console himself. Finally taking responsibility for his evil deed, Lou kills himself.

Though depressing, Mulholland Shire is an interesting look at the tricks our minds can play on us. As far as Lou Gollum has fallen, some part of him still desperately wants to be a hero, on a grand adventure to save the world from evil. At some level, he wants to save the world from himself.