Dirty

That's right, kids. I'm now officially old. This makes me feel slightly better in that now I can feel a tad more justified in being a crotchety old man. Other than that, things don't feel much different otherwise.

So I'll warn you advance, this is going to be one of those sappy "glass half full" kind of blogs where I remind myself that turning thirty is no big deal, and it's just another day in my life, and all that business.

"So what has been going on in the land of Bill?" you ask.

I suppose the main thing is getting settled in the new house, which is always an adventure, but based on the fact that there haven't been bile-filled blogs about how horrible my roommates are, you could say things are going well. Granted, having people around to interact with after midnight has a rather direct relation to the downturn in blog productivity.

One of the pleasant upsides to the current setup is the fantastic quality of coffee in my cup each day. We're blessed to have two fantastic coffee shops a stone's throw from our front door, and they're always a short walk away. Better still, I have two wonderful french presses in my cabinet, and top-notch beans in my cabinet. I get to remain wonderfully caffeinated all day and night, which makes the days skate by easily. Unfortunately, I haven't spent a whole hell of a lot of time in the cafe, but that's due in part to the fact that I have an incredibly comfortable couch that sits in front of an almost stupidly big TV screen and my entire collection of books. I can crank my music as loud as I want (well, while keeping the neighbors in mind, at least) and can do so in the comfort of my underpants if I so choose, so the lure of the cafe isn't quite what it once was, despite it's ridiculously close proximity.

Coffee and my mailing address aside, life just kind of keeps plodding along. Hello Monster is busy kicking ass, taking names, and trying to figure out the most efficient means of fundraising while we start pushing towards recording a full-length disc. I will say that that, even at 30, playing in a band is one hell of a wonderful way to retain grasp of your youth. I tell ya, I feel like a high school kid when I'm onstage. Albeit an out of shape and sometimes tipsy high school kid, but a kid nonetheless.

So as I look forward to this coming year and my new decade, I am excited with everything around me - a new home, great friends (many of whom are expecting offspring soon), great music, and even fantastic coffee. Hopefully a job will finally be something I can add to my glass-half-full list, but other than that, I wouldn't really change much.

The Big Day.

First off, I am writing this from my phone since all my computers are packed away, so if there are a lot of typos, don't be shocked.

I am lying here in my bed, in the comfort of my hovel for what may very well be the last night. Tomorrow is the big move, and by the evening, I don't expect much of anything of mine to be left here in the hovel. I don't want to get all sappy, but I really feel like I'm approaching a turning point: I am entering a new house with new roommates (old friends, just new as roommates), I am inching dangerously closer to the big three-oh, and, for the first time in recent memory, my car is actually working absolutely like it should. Yes, to be able to make that last statement, I had to shell out almost $750 to my friendly and talented mehanic, but for the way I feel today, it was definitely money well-spent.

I was honestly caught off guard by how happy a properly functioning car made me. I think it's twofold: first, I have been car-less since early Wednesday morning, so I was just plain itching to get back in my driver's seat, better yet without the worries of overheating. Secondly, I think that being in a car that's struggling and not performing correctly, I am immediately transported back to the last year or two that I drove my old hooptie, the '78 Cadillac. I re-live the stress of trying to understand why your car just won't do what you ask, the feeling of helplessness when it starts to break down or idle roughy or sputter when you accelerate. It is a broad, broad comparison, I know, but it's kind of like being alongside a friend or relative in declining health. That car was my first car, I understood it and it understood me, it really felt like a family member at times. And for me to see it slowly slipping, and eventually sitting idly in front of my house when I got my current car was a hard thing for me to do. Harder still was watching someone drive off with it.

But alas, I digress. Today I feel like a kid in a candy store: I have a new home to get all set up, and I honestly feel like someone has handed me the keys to a brand new car. It's rare that I can sit back and enjoy these rare moments of undiluted joy. At this very moment I am not worrying about my finances (something that is short lived - the worrying not the finances themselves I hope), I'm not wondering about a job (again, just a momentary reprieve), and everything else is coming up Bill. I'd say I should play the lottery, but I'm not that dumb.

So here's hoping for a good move, good times, and a great weekend to all of you. I might be sans Internet at the house for the next couple days, but I'll try to update as best I can via either my phone again or by free cafe Internet.

Pages of the Past.

Yes, this is another "packing everything I own into boxes post", but luckily for you it isn't a bitter or cynical one. Rather, it's a nostalgic one.

This afternoon I tackled one of the final boondoggles in my packing: the top drawer of my dresser. Save for getting out the occasional pair of sunglasses, I don't ever even look into this drawer. I open it once every two to three months, and it served as a refuge in my youth for many random whatnots that didn't have a place elsewhere in my bedroom. I found a very stylish beret (yes I am saying that completely without sarcasm, I promise), old cub scout projects, science fair ribbons, and a giant bag full of old letters.

I did what any good person would do, I went to the couch, put a recycling bag at my feet, and spent almost an hour walking down memory lane. It was one of the more enjoyable and heartwarming experiences I've had in quite some time. I saw letters from friends back in grade school and high school, kids from confirmation camp, a pen pal I'd forgotten we'd set up in the third grade, and, naturally, lost of old schmooze letters from former girlfriends. It was so fun, I damn near want to find addresses for old friends just to send them an honest-to-goodness letter.

Naturally, this made me think about what happens these days. Do kids still write letters to each other? The girl I dated when I was a freshman in high school and I used to write letters all week long to each other, and give each other overstuffed letters with everything in there - pictures, guest notes from our friends, all that cute high school stuff. What do kids do now? Is it all reduced to cell phone conversations at lunch, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and constant text messages? Is there no permanence to their communication? It makes me a little sad to think that freshmen in high school these days will not be able to look back seventeen years from now and see what kind of inane stuff you used to write about that special someone you were completely convinced was going to be the love of your life forever and ever. I got to today, and it was amazing.

The other thing about this reminiscence is that, probably for the best, that era has passed. Imagine if now, at almost 30, I sat in the office all day writing about how much I missed my hypothetical girlfriend. I could talk about how the boss busted my balls, and how if she had been there to give me a hug, it would all be okay again. I could go into the lunchroom and have my friends that I sit with write little notes to them, and say how much they can tell that I miss her. I could even doodle a little picture of me, bored in my cubicle, with a thought bubble of the two of us just cuddling. But do you know what would happen? Either the girl would run screaming because that's kind of insane, or everyone around would refer to me as "that guy". Then again, if I found a girl who thought 14 year old Bill affection was just the bee's knees, I might be a little worried too. But I suppose the opposite would be true - if I found a girl when I was 14 who was content with a meal and some drinks every now and then, I probably would have convinced myself that she didn't give a damn about me.

It's Been Done.

In the madness of my moving and packing, I have officially packed away my DVD player, PS2, and Xbox 360. This means that I have to watch regular television. Yes, there are far worse fates than watching television, but it also means that I am once again exposed to commercials, which is a little foreign to me.

I saw one commercial, today, that was truly jarring. Apparently, as of today (or yesterday, or some time recently) you can purchase the DVD or Blu-Ray of Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2.

Yes. Let that sink in. Smell it. Taste it. Root around in its hideous mess.

Now, let's think logically about this. This is a sequel to a movie that starred primarily latino actors doing voice work for a bunch of CGI dogs who make bad puns and discuss how hard it is to be a lapdog for a spoiled princess. I am sure it's chock full of fart and poop jokes, which, don't get me wrong, are great, but it's not enough to carry a whole movie. Which leads me to my inevitable follow up question: why in the hell do we need two of these movies? Hell, why did we need the first one? Why do we need a third "Fockers" movie? How many more Scream movies are they going to make? I thought the whole idea was that was a trilogy. Why the hell are they doing a fourth?

So just for funzies, let's take a quick peek at what's out there right now:

- True Grit, a re-make of the John Wayne classic. Yes, it was fantastic, and if anyone can pull of a remake, it is the Cohen brothers.

- The Green Hornet - This one double dips: it was both a television show and a comic book.

- Little Fockers - I don't even have to go there. The first movie was great, but yeah, that's all I want to say.

- Tron: Legacy - I have to admit, I really want to see this one. It may be derived from a movie made nearly thirty years back, but I feel like they're at least going about it the right way. Plus Daft Punk does the soundtrack, so it can't be that bad.

- Yogi Bear 3D - Of course, used to be a pretty legit cartoon, but I heard the movie is so bad even the kids don't give a damn. Might be the very worst movie made all year. Might well be the worst idea for a movie I've ever heard, and it makes me shed a little tear when I think that Tom Cavanaugh agreed to do it.

This is just of movies that you could go out and see tomorrow. I won't try to catalog the number of re-makes, re-workings, adaptations, or needless sequels are out there from the past few years, or are in development. Naturally, this makes me think: has the state of entertainment gotten so dire at this point that we can't come up with decent original movies, and if we do make decent ones, can't we leave it at just one? I know, I know, everyone makes their money opening weekend, and the current economic system of movies is to churn out as much drek as humanly possible. I just wish it were a little more sustainable.

However, there is another way of thinking about this that I don't know if many people consider, and that is that the amount of borrowing ideas is not entirely unique to movies. I would never think to re-write something like Hamlet, nor would I try to change punctuation of an e.e. cummings poem and try to re-sell it as another poem. I suppose the closest comparison on the literary front would be adaptations like "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" and "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" but having read both the originals and the re-imaginings of both those titles, I can tell you that a NUMBER of liberties were taken with the originals. Still, aside from parody, you don't see a lot of replication of work in the literary community. Yes, I realize in music it is much more prevalent; a point that was driven home with a vengeance when I saw a couple of cover bands last Thursday. So I suppose in that respect, re-making a movie is pretty comparable to covering a song. Despite that similarity, cover bands make money and get people to come out at shows, but the primary difference is they're not re-recording albums from the bands they cover and selling those.

So what are your thoughts? Is this whole movie-remake gripe limited to me? Should I look at it like theater arts, where people re-imagine and re-invent plays all the time? Or am I just a crotchety old coot who should just be happy they still make movies and that I can then get them months later on Netflix and gripe about how much I didn't like them to the internet?

Here's to the Experts.

As my Facebook pals have seen, I have been having some car issues. Now, there was once a time in my youth, where I could be considered a "car guy". It's still true to a greater degree: I love cars, I love classic cars, and hot rods and all those wonderful things. I have a great appreciation for classic Detroit steel, yet at the tender age of about 23 I abandoned my good ol' 1978 hooptie Cadillac in favor of an Isuzu Rodeo. Though I will say, it has served me admirably as long as I've had it.

That is, until about two weeks ago. It started overheating, acting all weird, and leaking coolant like hell. But therein lies the problem: I am generally handy with a lot of things, but there's no fix-all like "unplug it and plug it back in again" with a car. I did what I could: I re-filled the coolant reservoir, checked the oil, topped it off, and walked around the car while scratching my chin. Then I gazed deeply into the depths of my engine, much like the gentleman to the right. Then I wiped my hands and got back in the car and kept on driving.

So what did I do when the problems persisted? What any reasonable guy my age would do: I asked my dad to look at it.

See, unlike me, my dad is from that generation. You know, the generation of guys who change their own oil, who know how to snake a drain (and own a snake to do it with), the guys who know metric-to-standard conversions off the top of their head. The generation of guys who build, measure, draft, re-wire, and repair, all without the aid of our good pal, the google machine. It's not necessarily a knock on our generation; we just have different skill sets, and I guess that's indicative of the change in times. Yeah, we know html, we can work in Photoshop, and we can even assemble Ikea furniture when necessity dictates, many of us just have no idea how to gap spark plugs.

It is an interesting generational chat I had with my folks just today that brought this all together. We were discussing cooking, and my pops made the offhand remark that more males in my generation, and his to an extent, cook for themselves. My grandfather, who was a true man's man of the previous generation (he was a logger, a longshoreman, and for a time a demolitions worker) would never set foot in the kitchen unless it was to eat or to get a fresh beer. Anything else was women's work. But I think it really speaks volumes to the differences in generations, with different skill sets, different knowledge, and really different talents. And while I may not have been able to discern that one of my spark plugs in my poor car had gone kaputski, and that my radiator was leaking, I was able to go on Facebook, ask everyone if they knew a good mechanic, and find a friend who I went to high school with who was an amazing help, and saved me a trip to the auto shop. So sometimes my skills can pay off too. Yes, it was pops who replaced the radiator and the plugs, but it was a high school pal two years younger than myself who identified the issue in the first place.

If You Didn't Blog It...

Hey all, I'm back yet again. It's been too long yet again. Let's move forward from there. Recently I read a rather fascinating blog written by Anil Dash, who is kind of famous to a lot of us interwebby folks. In it he claims "If You Didn't Blog It, It Didn't Happen", and that title alone really got me thinking; I have been so lax in my blogging in the past year or so. I often attribute it to being busy or just plain not having much in life to blog about. Plus, I figure a lot of the folks who read this probably either check my Twitter or Facebook or Foursquare or something to that effect, or else you just see me in real life. But that's not blogging. That's "having a blog that stagnates while you don't write on it." Still, I have to constantly remind myself that pithy quips or check-ins at local drinking establishments does not online content make. (well, it kind of does, but it ain't great reading) I have prized myself for quite some time now on my ability as a wordsmith; I like to think that I have a certain pizzaz when it comes to writing interesting stuff that most of the general public, or more importantly you folks who read this blog, find both readable and enjoyable. Yes, I get a bit verbose at times, and I also have a rather undesirable habit of dropping a few f-bombs here and there when I get worked up, but all in all, I like to think I spin a good yarn about whatever it is I happen to be writing about.

So, let's get this train back on the tracks and steaming towards something fun and interesting for both myself and for you. The biggest news that has transpired since I last sat in front of this composition window is that I will soon be re-locating from my beloved basement hovel to a posh (posh for yours truly at least) and swanky new bachelor pad by the beach. I am finally laying down stakes (rented stakes at that) in the Outer Sunset. The good news is that I will be a mere five or six blocks from my beloved coffee shop, rather than like two miles, so I should be back on my home turf for classic blogging. The down side, if any, is that I will be sharing this swank bachelor pad with two of my good friends. That will be an ongoing adventure which shall unfold and I'm sure much of it will end up on this fine blog.

On a somewhat more philosophical note, I had a fascinating discussion with a friend tonight about happiness, and more importantly, my own personal happiness. Those of you who know me or have met me all would consider me a fairly happy-go-lucky guy, and you would be absolutely right. By and large I am a very upbeat and cheery gent. Still, overall, I tend to find myself being dissatisfied with various aspects of my life, whether it be the basement hovel, the lack of a sweet young thing to call my own, or the current lack of gainful employ. None of them completely set the ship off course, but overall, and when added together, they can cause for the occasional rough patch in what is usually a pretty smooth sail. I had to admit that the last time I felt completely satisfied with my life, and felt like everything was really coming up Bill was back at the tender age of seventeen or thereabouts. I was finishing up high school, doing well in classes, enjoying playing music as well as playing sports, and I had a fantastic group of friends as well as the general good wishes of most all of my classmates. In other words, I had the world by the balls and the future looked bright and sunny for me. Since then, I can't say that anything major has changed. I am blessed to be healthy still, I still pride myself on the wonderful friends I am surrounded with day in and day out, I still get to play music that makes me feel invincible. None of these things have gone unrealized or unnoticed. Still, there are a lot of nagging thoughts about potential realized and all that jazz. Maybe I was just brought up in a nature of a lot of positive support or something, but I felt (and still feel) that there's something great that I'm meant to do, and I feel like I've spent a number of years searching to find that thing. I have to remain optimistic that it is still possible, but in the meantime I need to also think about paying bills and all that fun stuff.

Plus, the more I thought about this question, I began to realize the other, perhaps more positive, interpretation of why I am seldom completely happy and content: I love challenging myself to live up to my expectations. Yeah, I beat myself up at times or get down on myself when things don't go my way, but by constantly challenging myself do to something bigger or better with my life, I can make sure that I don't get caught up in the day-to-day mundanity that people sometimes get stuck in. Clearly I'm not knocking a regular 9-5. If someone offered me something that would pay the bills that I found even moderately interesting, I'd swoop it up in a heartbeat. But I think a little dissatisfaction goes a long way in challenging yourself to be better at whatever it is you do, whether it's work or school or music or writing or anything else.

I don't really know where I was going with all this, and it's late, so I'm sure I'll re-read this when I wake up in the morning (afternoon) and scratch my head and wonder what in the hell got in to me, but it was somewhat cathartic to get all this out. Sorry if I've rambled a bit, but the mere act of sitting here and writing has been wonderful. Hopefully this is a harbinger of things to come, and I get back on the ol' blogging pony on the regular.

No Flow

A caveat before you read this: I'm kind of irrationally cranky these days. This may be tinting my perception of the world around me the last few days. I'm also listening to my playlist which I call "Old Sad Bastard Music" so that may also have a little bearing on my current mood. Having said that, I will do my best to put this in a comedic light...

Arright, so I was out buying bread tonight to bring to dinner at my friends' place, and (as those of you who follow my Twitter, Tumblr, or FB already know) Trader Joe's, the universe's standby for bread, was completely tapped out. I am not exaggerating or doing anything for effect. There wasn't a damn piece of bread to be had in the whole store. I'm talking like end of days Y2k stocking up kind of lack of bread. From the right side of the entire aisle of bread to the area where the muffins and cookies are sold, there was not a single item to be purchased.

So, I came up with the brilliant thought to try the Boudin bakery just down the way in the mall. If you are from SF, and have been to Stonestown Galleria, you probably know the geography of this story well, and if you don't, let it suffice to say that I had to trapse the entire distance of a moderately sized mall in order to get from point A to point B. As I made this journey, I decided to make the whole experience a little more interesting by seeing if I could walk the entire distance without breaking stride. It's these little challenges I do from time to time to attempt to restore my faith in the common sense of humanity, and oh what a mistake that was.

If there is one thing I came to realize from this trek through the mall was that the heads of my fellow man are so deeply embedded into their own rectums (recti?) that I might as well have been walking around a herd of misguided cattle. Sadly, I can't count on my fingers the number of people who were just wandering slack-jawed, completely content to meander their way through the evening. (see image at right) Yes, I know people window shop, and I know that not everyone places the value on ambulation that I do, but I can't help but get a little frustrated at families walking four abreast who have to stop to examine spots on the ground, what kind of mannequins are in the window, or how it is that the little garage door-style grates come down to close off stores at closing time. They might as well be like monkeys picking nits from each others' fur for an early evening snack. Even worse is the people who stop to answer their cell phones as if walking and talking were a herculean task that just shouldn't be attempted in public. I damn near ran over two separate people whom I happened to end up behind because they came to an immediate halt to stand stock still, check their phones to see who was calling, and then begin a conversation as if they were the only people within a hundred yards.

Yes, I'm an old coot. I think that there are conversations that can wait. I think that yelling into your phone in a public place to try to carry on a conversation over the general humdrum of the mall is dumb. Still, my bigger gripe is not having the slightest concern for those around you and the fact that they might actually want to walk at a normal pace or not have to constantly side step these odd techno-zombies. I can't help it; I'm a man of decorum - I still look behind me whenever walking through a door that might need to be held open for someone behind me. That happened too tonight - I was entering the mall maybe two strides behind this couple, and I almost caught a faceful of door because I mistakenly assumed that when the guy turned around and almost flicked his cigarette into my chest, he might have realized there was someone right behind them headed in the same direction.

Sorry, I digress. The world is not a sad and terrible place. There are still plenty of things that uphold my faith in humanity, like kitties that wear people clothes, free Tetris, good music, olympic weightlifters who look like they might explode at any moment, Star Wars rock and roll motivational posters, 90210 reruns, and finally, this video of a Corgi doing bellyflops.