As I've already stated in an earlier entry, I'm on the road this week. It's my usual route, which takes me from Savannah, Georgia up to the central North Carolina coast. There's a lot of beautiful scenery along the way, from the moss-crowned parks of Savannah to the deep forests of South Carolina's low country and North Carolina's beautiful coastline. I'm recalling this from what I've seen on television and glimpsed during earlier vacations, of course, as my schedule requires that I scream through each mile with my eyes on the road or glancing back and forth to my notepad while jotting down the details of the next meeting. It's rather like sprinting through a museum, staring at the floor as you grace the paintings with the wind of your passing - but not your gaze. Not even a quick glance.
Take Savannah, for instance. It's one of my favorite cities on earth because of its old, well-preserved/restored architecture and ancient trees that wear Spanish Moss like a tattered blanket that's somehow more comfortable now than when new. Gray hair for ancient trees, they say. It's a beautiful place that just feels haunted with a yesterday which is as alive today as it was then. Savannah seems to exist in a time warp, where the past doesn't slip into obsurity - it keeps its spotlight. But during my trip through there today, I don't think I saw any of that. Oh, I drove through it alright, but I was on the phone and in a hurry... and missed it exactly the way I did last time. Such is the nature of things, though. That's why they invented vacations and long weekends. What you miss today you seek out tomorrow when you have some free time. Great in theory, anyway.
I've developed a love for audio books while traveling. Ok, it's an obsession. But I'm writing this, so I'll call it a good, healthy love. Reading happens to be my favorite pastime, and according to the Surgeon General, reading an actual book while driving causes low birth weight and toe cancer. Or something like that. So I've turned to audio books for over-the-road entertainment and enlightenment. I have a Sirius satellite radio, but you can only listen to so much talk radio before developing an urge to start hording instruments of war. Sure, there's plenty of music to be heard with Sirius' vast channel line-up, but for some reason music doesn't do it for me on long road trips. I need something more.
That's where audio books come in. I get to satisfy my enormous appetite for fiction (sometimes non-fiction), ward off boredom, and most importantly - won't be found wrapped around a tree beside the interstate with a book clutched in my hands. I just finished my first audio book of the trip, though, so it's time to re-load. Yeah, I know... it can turn into an expensive habit when you spend this much time behind the wheel. The book I just finished was Jonathan Harr's "The Lost Painting." It's a mixture of fiction and non-fiction, based on the finding of Caravaggio's painting entitled "The Taking of Christ," which had been lost for several hundred years. It was eventually found in 1993 due to the genius and persistence of various art historians. A fascinating story even for those who don't feel drawn to the art scene. Pun intended. Harr made this book very exciting and attention-grabbing without having to employ the tired gimics used in too many fictionalized renditions of true stories. It would have been a page turner had it not been in audio format. It certainly did its job, which was to make several hundred miles seem a lot less butt-numbingly monotonous.
That's all for now. I have to plan my next day of screaming blindly through countryside that was made for the smelling of roses.
Why call it a "lemonade weekend" when I consumed not a drop of lemonade? Because it was refreshing, like a cool glass of lemonade when you've been working outside a little too long. My life is beyond busy, as is my wife's. This weekend we had a rare opportunity to relax and enjoy ourselves. It was a weekend not bound and gagged by the malevolant masochist commonly known as "a schedule."
We took a drive down to Panama City and laid out on the beach for a couple of hours. Just us, the sun, a refreshing breeze and few hopeful-yet-eventually-dissapointed seaguls. In short - it was perfect. My wife napped, as any decent pregnant woman tends to do, given the opportunity, and I read my book for a while. Stephen King's The Drawing of the Three, by the way. Excellent read. Anyway, I'm pretty sure God created beaches and books on the same day.
After our little beach outing, it was time for a late lunch. When you're in Panama City, FL and have an appetite for seafood, you go to a little dive called The Captain's Table. It's extremely casual, so don't stick your pinky out while holding your coffee cup and make sure you're not wearing anything that would look out of place over a set of flip-flops. Oh, and if you go there without trying the cheese grits (not just for breakfast anymore), I don't know you.
The rest of our relaxing little weekend was equally pleasant. Somewhere in the course of bumming around the Panhandle of Florida (we also visited the outdoor mall in Destin), we managed to watch a total of four movies. I won't go into too much detail, as reviewing four movies in one journal entry would break something, but I will say that I like the new James Bond (Casino Royale). Daniel Craig, in my opinion, looks more promising than anyone else to take the 007 helm since the venerable Sean Connery. He was at once the strongest and most vulnerable rendition of Bond I've seen. It was actually a great movie thanks to Craig's treatment of the character.
We also watched The Holiday, which turned out to be, I think, the most charming movie I've ever seen in my life. Ok, I know what you're saying. That makes the second chick flick I've mentioned in the course of a week, and I just used the word "charming", so I've brought into question my testosterone inventory. I'm secure enough in my supreme manliness that I really don't mind saying I loved this movie - chick flick or not. Cameron Diez, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Jack Black somehow came together to create a large amount of chemistry, and the writing made we wish like hell I'd written it myself. Nancy Meyers is evidently a genius. "The Holiday" proved to me that there's still a place for happy endings in the entertainment industry.
Alas, the lemonade weekend couldn't last forever, and I'll be on the road for the rest of the week. I have meetings with clients in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, so I'll get to relax about as much as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest... but at least I had a perfect weekend with the woman I love. Speaking of the woman I love, we learned a little something about the bun we currently have in the oven. It would appear that our future tricycle motor is of the male variety! We're having a boy! Now that's how you top off a great weekend.
Last night, I did what any good husband must do from time to time - I watched a chick flick with my wife. It was a fairly decent movie called "The Last Kiss". I'm not exactly going to write a true review for this movie, because as a general rule I don't write reviews for chick flicks. It's not a chest-thumping man thing, it's simply that I don't really get into chick flicks enough to offer what you'd call a highly objective, thorough review. If you want to know about such things, I'm not your guy. Call my wife. Actually, don't call my wife - that would definitely provoke one of those chest-thumping man things we talked about.
Back to my point. Though it was a chick flick, and wasn't that great a movie even for a chick flick, there were a few moments that I found impressive regarding the dialogue. Just for the sake of background, and to clarify my point before talking about that impressive dialogue, I'll give a quick synopses of the movie's theme. But don't confuse this with an actual review, because I don't do that for chick flicks. Anyway, this young guy, who will soon turn 30, is having a baby with his girlfriend of about three years. They live together and are settled down, but he is basically against the institution of marriage and wants to continue living together, raising their baby, without bringing the big "M" word into the picture, thus clouding everything up.
Well, not long after the couple learns they're pregnant, this young man starts getting scared of the idea that he's settling into the rest of his life, with no changes or surprises left in store. From here on out, it's vanilla topped with more vanilla. During his moment of weakness and fear, he gets seduced by a young, incredibly non-ugly college student who hits him with every argument she can think of to justify his picking of the college-girl fruit. Obviously, he falls for it or the movie would have suffered. Afterward, he realizes what an idiot he is, how much he loves his girfriend, and that he really wants to be a part of the new baby's life. He admits to everything (well, he's actually caught, but doesn't hold anything back when cornered).
Now we come to the one part of the movie that made it worth watching from my perspective. While talking to the girlfriend's father, trying to get advice on how he can win back his girlfriend, he states that he loves her more than anything in this world. His love is of the truest form and will last forever. This statement provokes a storm of wisdom from the not-so-pleased father, and he says the following (I'm paraphrasing): The feeling of love is crap. It's a worthless notion, because the only person it does anything for is you. It doesn't help the one you supposedly love in the least, because it's an internal, inconsistent thing by nature. The one and only thing that's worth a damn in a relationship is action. It's what you do for and to the person you "love" that actually matters, because it's a tangible expression, unlike some rediculous emotion. Life-long relationships are held together by actions and effort, not feelings.
I think that's a pretty good bit of advice for anyone living in the world today. Way too much value is placed on human emotion. People find it necessary to leave one another these days when that "initial spark" dies out. They don't have the glue of passion holding them together, and that's the only sort of glue that people are interested in now. The truth is, passion comes and goes. Love can be a fairly consistent, eternal thing, but its purpose should be that of dictating action based on the underlying emotion, not just fulfilling some heart-fluttering desire as a condition of devotion. Sometimes it seems the same people who create all the "get-rich-quick" schemes have defined today's version of what it takes to create a successful marriage.
"Take all the work out of relationships and spend all your time making yourself feel good! Call now while this is still a free offer!"
I watched a Mike Judge film called "Idiocracy" last night. As a movie, it was just so-so. It was entertaining enough, flowed well enough to present the story, but was along the lines of your average spoof comedy starring one of the old Saturday Night Live regulars when it comes to overall quality. However, it did an excellent job of fulfilling its true purpose, which was to highlight the growing trend of society-eroding stupidity, frivolity and pettiness in our world. I loved it, of course. It was everything a satire should be - and behind the rediculous nature of its presentation, there was genius at work.
The basic premise, as written by IMDB, was as such: "Private Joe Bauers, the definition of 'average American', is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes 500 years in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed-down that he's easily the most intelligent person alive."
When Joe Bauers, played by Luke Wilson, awoke 500 years later, he found a world populated by what you might expect us to eventually become if allowed to continue along our current pop-culture path. Education basically did not exist, reading was for "fags", television shows (which completely monopolized everyone's time) focussed strictly on violence and sex without any concern for plot, and everyone was just genuinely rock-stupid. Bauers went to sleep as one of the most unimpressive slackers on the planet and awoke as a king among mouth-breathers.
Mike Judge used a commonly known truism as a vehicle for getting his version of the world to the unfortunate condition found by Bauer when he awoke: stupid people, for whatever reason, tend to breed at about 20 times the rate of more productive, intelligent people. As such, it is only natural that the average IQ would eventually drop to something altogether unfortunate. Naturally, I don't think the world will every be quite as Judge portrayed it in "Idiocracy," but I do believe there's a large amount of truth in his satirical message. More so every day, people are taking importance away from concepts such as family, morality and self-improvement and placing it on more critical things like beer, porn, gadgets and gratuitous violence. Eventually, we may indeed resemble a culture way too close to that of Mike Judge's imagination. All it takes is a blind continuation of our nasty little habits like frivolity, political correctness (which strips the truth from basically any issue it touches), and unchecked immorality.
But who cares, right? We'll still have glorious porn and reading is for girly-fags.
I usually listen to talk radio on my Sirius Satellite system while driving to work each morning. And as someone who leans consistently to the right (but not far right), I tend to listen mostly to the conservative channels, though I do on occassion turn to their liberal counterparts for a look at the other side. And honestly, I'm starting to see that there's really no longer any point to politics or political talk beyond its entertainment value.
When it comes to talk radio hosts and other opinion journalists who speak from outside the political sphere, I think they're actually sincere in their pursuit for what they believe to be moral and just. The problem is, in order to help further what they believe to be the worthier cause, they have no choice but "cheerlead" for the politicians who claim to champion that cause, but who in reality are in it for mere personal gain. These polititians adopt a cause as a necessary vehicle for reaching their own personal goals within the "good-old-boy" system that's in place, all the while suckering well-meaning talk show hosts and the like into serving as mouthpieces.
This applies to both sides of the aisle, of course. I think we've all been rooting for straw men who, though clothed in the garb of a champion, are empty on the inside - unless you count their personal agendas. And make no mistake, these agendas are about greed, not the country's best interests. Every one of these straw men, whether Republican or Democrat, is essentially the same. Different clothes, same rotten, narcissistic stuffing.
Yes, it is true that Republicans and Democrats have different ideas about social and defense issues, and work very hard to see their own version of the truth carried into fruition. My point is, however, that I think both sides eventually lead to the same weak position in today's political realm due to the fact that the dollar has taken precedence over principal and sovereignty. There's little difference in "differing" opinions when control and financial gain lie at the juicy center of both. And we, the voting public, will continue to vote these vultures into a position where they may circle over our heads, because we lust after the federal money each brings to his own constituency.
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the
time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for
candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy,
(which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
- Author Unknown
My best good friend and I were talking last night about the state of things, where it's all headed and where we fit in (if we fit in at all). As with all our conversations, it was very philosophical, eclectic and honest. No small talk. Exactly the sort of conversation you won't find at the water cooler or even most coffee shops, unless there are some creepy Goth people involved and then the conversation is more about death than anything else. "We're all so totally gonna die, man. I think I'm a vampire. I need some blood, or maybe just another double latte. Does this black eye shadow make my soul look fat?"
Anyway, the point is, the world seems to be migrating toward an existence devoid of purpose. I hate to sound like a monk here, but I think our lack of struggle and effortless comfort are taking something away from us - something we probably shouldn't lose if we can help it. And these statements aren't meant to imply that I'm any better than the masses. I'm the same frivolous, over-entertained person you see everywhere else. I'm only different in that I openly recognize and admit how ridiculous we are, which probably makes me worse in some ways... because I'm not doing anything about it.
And there's the rub. As much as I despise our frivolity, I'm too addicted to the spoils of technology to sacrifice anything in an effort to regain that "meaning" that seems to be slipping away. It just so happens that I'm happier ridiculing our pettiness from atop its comfortable pillow than from the cold floor.
I think that's why I want to write fiction so much. I don't only want to create other worlds that are less pointless - I want to create people who struggle for survival in a more black-and-white environment that doesn't coddle its denizens.
And in all fairness, I have to admit that this condition of wheel-spinning isn't so much a universal reality for all mankind, but more specifically a product of the West. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those latte-slamming liberal idealists that despises his country. I love my country and most of its history, but the fact remains that we are, more so than almost any other society, losing that spark of necessity that brought us this far. I guess it's only natural, though. The whole point of struggling for a better world, which we did better than anyone else I think, is to arrive at a point where the wolves aren't always at the door. But with that comfortable existence comes a tendency to value entertainment and luxury over everything else.
Anyway, enough of that. I have to go adjust the air conditioner and see what's on television tonight.
As you all probably know (by you all, I mean my best friend, a demographic that constitutes one of my one readers - that's 100% for those of you who failed social studies, or whatever that subject's called), I am currently taking college courses through American Military University in pursuit of a bachelor degree in Marketing.
Marketing...
Ok, I admit... marketing is a fine subject and I am indeed interested in a number of the disciplines and concepts found in this program. However, my interests all focus around those few aspects which involve creative writing.
"So why not just change your major to English and be done with it?" you might ask.
Well, that's essentially telling me to live without fulfilling my body's need to consume food - as I must earn money in order to fulfill that particular need. And I'm sorry, but my ghoulish figure happens to be fueled by tasty vittles. So thanks, but no thanks.
"So why even bother writing this if you're not going to do anything about it?" would be your next obvious question.
After consulting Webster's dictionary, I can authoritatively say this is called bitching. I'm writing this because I need to complain... and since I'm the one controlling this computer, it has no choice but sit here and allow me to rant by way of its helpless keyboard - which I also happen to control. Yep, I'm bitching just because it makes me feel better. In a perfect world, I could simply pursue that one degree that sits at the pennacle of my interests and live happily ever after (with access to food, mind you). But this, as we can see through the fact that Rosie O'Donald is still allowed on television, is certainly not a perfect world.
And besides, my long, illustrious track record would suggest that there is no guarrantee my interests will remain as they currently are for very long anyway. In fact, it is entirely possible that within 30 minutes from now I'll want to be a cobbler when I grow up. Not the tasty kind with peaches or apples, but the kind that makes shoes that are rather less tasty. I know, because my foot, which is generally adorned with a shoe, often ends up in my mouth. So, knowing this, the only responsible course of action would be to stay on the straight, narrow path that leads to a degree in Marketing, which facilitates the purchasing of food and allows me to provide for my family. And besides, I've just modified my academic plan to include a minor in English (only added 6 classes to my overall program).
So there.
For some time now, I have been saying to those around me that I wish I had the time to write again. It's usually a waste of breath, however, as everyone knows I barely have time to look both ways before running naked across the street - let alone write with any consistency. But then, in a rare yet welcome moment of enlightenment, it occured to me: why not simply start the online journal up again? It's not exactly the gripping, thought-provoking fiction I long to create, but it at the very least allows me to exercise that part of my brain... at least what of it still remains.
So here we stand, yet again faced with a world in which Chris Brown has an outlet for unleashing his thoughts, opinions and dreams upon unsuspecting victims who asked for neither. Like it or not, I'm back, I'm writing and I still have disturbing things to say. But that's why you came here, isn't it....