Mother-$@#%&!!

Request by (and blame to be attributed to) Fritz.
Alright…you may have seen the “NC-17” rating at the bottom of this page. That’s not an official government-slapped certification… just a silly little “find what your website is rated” kind of thing. Someone made a program that does it for you, and it’s solely meant for entertainment value. And even though I don’t think I get too nasty or controversial on this blog… the program gave me “NC-17” because of the occurrence of certain words… most of them stemming from my very first post… which was about a movie-premiere party for a Light-Bondage and Discipline Porn Film. So, I wasn’t getting violent or writing anything blatantly and purposefully offensive… I was just peripherally talking about Sex. (Go figure)

Well… today, let’s EARN that NC-17 rating! And talk about some Mother-Fuckin swear words! Huzzah!

Now, I can’t say I particularly *like* cussing… nor can I say I hate it.

Actually, my views on it are probably a little contradictory.

On one hand, I see the point of view of them being “bad words”… and in the interest of manners, civilization and appropriateness… I can see why some wouldn’t want them to be said. In fact, sometimes I have to watch myself to make sure I don’t say any “bad words” around kids.

Which of course, then begs the question… what makes them bad? For instance…. Shit, Poo, Doo-Doo and Crap are all talking about the exact same thing. All synonyms of the same noun… and when using it as a metaphor, they can be interchanged there as well. So what makes one phonetic formation worse or more offensive than the other? What exactly is so offensive about “Doo-Doo”? (Wait… is that the one? Or is it Poo?)

Which leads me to the other hand… my “Fan of Lenny Bruce” hand. He used a lot of naughty words in his stand-up act… because he felt they were only words. If certain words were offensive or had any kind of “power” to them, it was because we gave it to them. As Saint Lenny himself said:

“It's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness.”

So… to battle this idea… he used them. A lot! He was actually thrown in jail numerous times for violations of “indecency laws”. Later on, his entire act would be just reading the transcripts of his Indecency Trials… trying to point out how hilarious the whole situation is… because they’re only words.

One of the first bits of his that I ever read about involved using pretty much every racial slur imaginable inside of 45 seconds. He would go on to say:

"Now why have I done this? Is it only for shock value? Well, if all the niggers started calling each other nigger, not only among themselves, which they do anyway, but among others. If President Kennedy got on television and said: 'I'm considering appointing two or three of the top niggers in the country to my cabinet' -- if it was nothing but nigger, nigger, nigger -- in six months nigger wouldn't mean any more than good night, god bless you... -- when that beautiful day comes, you'll never see another nigger kid come home from school crying because some motherfucker called him a nigger."

Holy crap… shock comedy with an actual POINT! I think that *would* be a beautiful day… but we’re not there yet… and he was talking about this in the early 60s. (It’s probably worth noting that I’m *only* comfortable writing or saying the N-word when I’m quoting Lenny Bruce.)

It’s there… they’re just words, and we have “Freedom of Speech” in this country… so go nuts. What’s the big deal?

That’s when I think that personal tastes come into it… because I actually try to watch my OWN language, (even as a Lenny Bruce fan). I wholeheartedly agree that a lot of words need to be stripped of their power… but to let a *few* of them retain some power and strength to them… isn’t entirely a bad thing.

Take “Fuck” for instance.

There was a guy in High School… looked like he was straight out the 70’s. He had a poofy kind of mullet, always wore jeans, a heavy-metal t-shirt, a brown leather jacket… I think he fancied himself some kind of “rebel without a care”. And he used the F-bomb, literally, as every other word in a sentence.

“What the fuck is this fuckin shit? I fuckin, don’t fuckin care about the fuckin homework. Fuckin, why the fuck do I fuckin gotta do this fuckin stupid fuckin thing?”

It literally took him twice the time to say anything, because he was adding so many “fucks”. Wow… I’ve never heard a swear word mean LESS coming from anyone else. Now, I highly doubt he had the wherewithal to be pulling a “Lenny Bruce” here… no, he didn’t have a social message he was trying to impart… he just thought he was “playing by his own rules”. (I think he actually sounded more like an idiot.)

I’m sure we’ve all seen the chain e-mails and gags that illustrate the variety of uses for that word… it can be a noun, adjective, a title, a qualifier… pretty much anything you need it for. Because it CAN be used in so many ways… it’s important that you’re careful not to overuse it. Think of “Fuck” like Spider-Man… “with great power, comes great responsibility.”

So I say be careful where you use it… because it’s such a great word.

Especially when an attractive member of your preferred sex is using it as a verb, in a request involving you and saying it with a particular look in their eye. But I digress…

I remember when I was a Senior in High School… walking down the hall with a few acquaintances of mine. And in our conversation, I swore. I don’t remember if I was angry about something (I don’t think so) or what… or even what I said, but I used a swear word. One of the ones I was walking with was a young lady and was suddenly a bit shocked, saying, “I don’t think I ever heard you swear before!”

Well… I *had* sworn before… but I think I realized that I didn’t really do it that often (at least in public). Hence the shock when I did.

A few years later, I went through a period when I swore a lot more often… don’t know why, I just did. After one particular instance of interspersing several curse words, a friend of mine actually paused and studied me for a second… then saying, “Nah, swearing doesn’t work for you.”

I think it doesn’t necessarily “work” for me… because I’ve always looked younger than I was. It was like hearing a young kid, or a toddler, say “Motherfucker”. Shocking yes… but also freaking funny as hell, so you can’t take it seriously. So, me looking more “innocent” and young… the extreme swearing just didn’t “feel” right when hearing it from me. Nowadays, even if I look younger than I am… that younger-looking age is old enough that hearing swears and cusses from me sounds a little more normal.

Still… I do like to be careful of my language. Being a writer, I like to consider myself as having a decent-sized vocabulary… (and find it a point of pride that I’ve been able to use the word “Machiavellian” in a normal conversation) and I think its more interesting to not have to rely on the same old words time after time. Which makes it give the words a little more punch when a well-placed “bitch” or “fuck” is thrown in.

Course, there are some swears that don’t have a lot of meaning to me, so they’ll be thrown in willy-nilly to a conversation, and it just feels like saying a preposition or any other word. Like “hell”, “ass”, “damn”… whatever. Those are no big deal.

Now “Jesus”… is a special case. You may notice in this blog, that I don’t use it. Rather, I use “Jeebus”. Now, I don’t consider it “taking the Lord’s name in vain”… because I don’t think I’m using it in vanity, nor am I even a religious person. So… it honestly doesn’t really mean anything to me… not in a positive or negative way. I don’t use it that way… NOT because I’m afraid of offending people… but rather, I say “Jeebus” (of which that pronunciation comes from The Simpsons) solely because I find it funny. That’s it.

There ARE some words that I don’t use at all. The aforementioned “N-word”… because it is still MAJORLY taboo. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if that word simply went away… and NOONE used it at all. (It’s hypocritical to say that one group can use it, and another can’t. Even if that one group is using it to “take away its power”… the fact that you won’t let other groups use it is only FEEDING it that power.) The word is associated with so much hate… that it would be better to just erase it from everyone’s brain. And in 100 years, if the word is rediscovered, the context will be completely lost to history and won’t make any sense to those finding it. They’ll say, “Who cares?”… and then it will truly be finished.

I also don’t use the “C-word”… and I’m not sure why I think it’s on that level of “that bad”. Maybe it’s the hard consonant sounds at the beginning and end of the word… makes it sound harsh and uber-insulting. But it’s a female body part… that’s it. We have no problem using the synonyms… especially in the heat of the moment when that type of language is appropriate, and even encouraged from your loved one. Even amongst many people that advocate swearing and freedom of speech… the C-Word is still seen as ultra-taboo and very few seem to want to even touch it.

But the first time I ever saw The Vagina Monologues… a friend of mine was performing the piece entitled, “Reclaiming C*nt”. And… Holy Crap… she made that word sound SOOOO freaking Sexy. Wow! And the point of the piece was really to take away that negative power to it… and in the context of that monologue, it totally works. (Not to mention that my friend totally nailed it... it was awesome!) Unfortunately, outside of that… it’s still a harsh, unforgiving word. That is one I’d like to see have its power taken away. Not so that *I* can say it… I have no desire for that… but rather because no part of the human body (especially a woman’s) should be presented as a negative.
Which reminds me of another Lenny Bruce quote:

“If something about the human body disgusts you, the fault lies with the manufacturer.”

Yeah, it really does all come back to Saint Lenny. (His autobiography How to Talk Dirty and Influence People is great… one of the extremely few biographies I ever had an interest in reading.)

I’m actually going to make a recommendation here… if you’re interested in learning more about cussing and some different viewpoints on the social implications… the show Penn & Teller’s Bullshit!... has an episode all about the subject of profanity. Very much worth watching… entertaining and even a bit educational.

There. Don’t ever say I don’t promote education.

I’ll end off with another quote… this time from the late, great George Carlin. A very poignant moment from one of his most famous routines:

“Shit, Piss, Cunt, Fuck, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, Tits.”

The Psychic Circle

Request fulfillment for Agent Cake…

I consider myself to be a fairly scientific guy.

I like to have evidence. Hard, actual, touch-it-look-at-it-feel-it-rub-it-on-your-happy-parts-kind-of-serious-proof when a fantastical claim is made. Even still… I never buy the “you’ll believe it when you see it” arguments… because I *don’t* trust my own senses, and don’t consider that to be solid enough proof. No, senses can be influenced and tricked… by others and even ourselves… so “firsthand experience” isn’t as reliable as most people think, in my eyes. We need actual informed, 3rd party-science to back it all up.

Simply put… I find Scooby-Doo to be more scientifically realistic than The X-Files.

(The talking dog part is simple… we all know Shaggy is a Hippy with Constant Munchie Syndrome, so we all know what he’s on. In fact, he’s doing so much of it, that all the others are on a continuous contact-high as a result. Notice how Fred, Velma & Daphne never talk to Scooby without Shaggy around? But I digress…)

Yes, I’m a skeptic. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing to be. Being skeptic doesn’t mean “ultimate non-believer that can’t be swayed”… it just means that I don’t take things for granted. I got questions that I would like answered before I swallow the “miracle elixir that cured a hundred European villages in the 17th century”… or whatever it is I’m being asked to swallow. Just because the sales-pitch, label and a so-called “doctor” reading a cue card (badly) say its good for me… doesn’t mean I’m going to believe it.

So, I think I’m a fairly tough sell when it comes to “the Unexplained”… that is, if you want me to take it seriously. For pure entertainment value, however, I’ll sign up on it in a second.

That’s kind of the trick to it… at the bottom of the screen on every Psychic Hotline commercial… in tiny letters on every daily horoscope… hidden away from obvious view on every pack of Tarot cards and store-bought divination method… there are the words “For Entertainment Only”.

Which seems a bit hypocritical when you think about it, actually… because aren’t these practices and items based on religions and practices from other parts of the world? So wouldn’t it be a slight infringement on the right to Freedom of Religion to insult it by saying it’s “For Entertainment Only?” I’ve never seen a similar disclaimer in the front of the Bible… nor do I think you’ll find a church bulletin that mentions the subject of that day’s sermon, along with an asterisk telling you that.

Though it would be a VERY interesting way to piss people off. (That almost makes it worth it to try…)

Hypocrisy aside… there are a lot of people that DON’T look at them as “Entertainment Only”, and in fact put a lot of stock in them. I’m not one to say one way or the other that “your belief is crap”… I wouldn’t do that to anyone, no matter how silly I think the logistics are. It’s important to have SOMETHING to believe in… and I hope that in believing in whatever you choose, you don’t get fleeced, betrayed, molested or are ever referred to as a “mark”.

But for myself… if you want me to swallow that “wonder elixir”, then you better be able to back it up… and NEVER say, “Well, you just have to ‘trust me’” (or anything resembling it). Ironically, that’s when I *won’t* trust you. I can’t blindly trust on something like that… it’s just not in me. I’m way too suspicious of humanity.

So, it’s the Path of the Healthy Skeptic for me. I’m able to stay open-minded and yet critical at the same time. Nevertheless, I’ve known many people that were determined to make a “believer” out of me. More often than not, they were talking about Psychic readings, tarot cards, or other methods of fortune-telling and divination.

I’ve had several friends that read Tarot Cards… a few of them took it WAY too seriously. I came in late to a gathering one evening, where this ultra-serious-pseudo-Wiccan (“pseudo” because she called herself that… but really didn’t know that much about it) was doing Tarot readings. When someone suggested that I get mine done… she was hesitant, saying she was “feeling so drained”.

Uh… aren’t you just dealing out CARDS? I don’t exactly see what’s so physically or mentally “draining” about that. Other Tarot readers I’ve known have been more realistic… they knew it was only card-dealing, and didn’t mind doing more than one on a particular evening.

Most times, I kept hearing that my future holds great riches and wondrous happiness. (Or was it wondrous riches and great happiness?) The first time I had a friend that practiced Palmistry, she looked at my hand and said that I had the “longest Fame line” she’d ever seen. “This is like… Robert De Niro-type famous! It goes right off your hand!” Now, I’m not one to criticize the gods or my Fate or anything like that… but I’m just saying: I’m hurtling towards my mid-30s. De Niro had already done Godfather Part 2 and Taxi Driver at my age… tick tock tick tock, know what I mean, guys?

Too bad my Psychic visits were never that optimistic. There were 2 times that I’ve talked with a professional Psychic… I say “professional”, because I assume they make money at it normally. I didn’t pay them anything.

First time was just after I graduated High School. The school had a big all-night Lock-In After-Party for the graduating class at the YMCA. They had a bunch of activities, carnie-style games, and one of these was a group of Psychics giving free readings. Now my love-life hadn’t even begun at that point, never had a relationship… so naturally the first thing I asked was what my love-life was going to look like in the near future. I had recently met, in person, a pen pal (female), and we had been hanging out a bit, and becoming good friends. So when the Psychic asked if I’ve met anyone new recently… well, that was my answer. The Psychic got a big smile and started spouting, “WELL… I see you two dating for quite awhile, and while it won’t ultimately last, you two will be mature enough to remain good friends.”

Now, I found this slightly comical… because we DID talk about the possibility of dating prior to this… and both mutually decided that we didn’t want to. We just wanted to be friends. And that’s how we remained… as good friends.

What I found even MORE comical was when she concluded the reading with, “Now remember… this is all in the future, so nothing is set in stone… it can easily change.” Even at my 17-year-old-about-to-be-18-naïve state of mind… I still had the intelligence to think, “What the F did she just say? Did she just give herself an ‘Out’? So that even if/when the predictions DON’T come true, she can still have credibility? Are you F-ing kidding me????”

That… was a complete sham. An obvious one.

The second time was a few years later when I was at college. The school hired a few psychics for a “Psychic Fair”, to give free readings to the kids. I managed to get in line fairly early (I had to get in there about 2 hours early and wait… because it filled up FAST). When I got my turn… I soon realized I got the “low-rent” psychic. She said she was a Numerologist… so with all the questions I was asking, she was basically saying, “oh… Numerology doesn’t answer that. Nope, not that either.” (What the hell DOES it answer?) Again, I was asking about my love-life (because our priorities never *really* change, do they?)… and I kept insisting that she give me SOMETHING to justify my 2 ½ hour wait in line. She relented and asked me to slowly count to 10 aloud. I did, and while I was counting, she closed her eyes and put her hands to her temples and “concentrated”. When I finished, she said that she saw, “A girl… thin, a little shorter than you, with straight black hair, and an ‘Up’ personality”. Okay… that sounded pretty specific… and the first person that came to mind was a friend of mine… who was like my long-lost twin sister. And… frankly, it would have felt incestuous to even think of dating her. (Not to mention her long-time boyfriend who is now her loving husband)

Just after I left, I spotted a group of my friends, and I ran over to join them. They asked what I was doing over there, and I described my “totally bogus psychic reading” I just got. And I described exactly who she said I’d be dating… just as I’m finishing, expecting us all to laugh together… someone else approaches us. A young lady named Erika… who was a little shorter than me… was thin… had what could be considered an “Up” personality… and while she was a straight-haired blond… on this occasion, had dyed her hair jet black. I suddenly start having a brain hemorrhage over the coincidence… all my friends are cracking up laughing, and Erika is saying, “What? What? What did I miss?”

And later that night… ended up being mine and Erika’s first date.

Now… it does sound like the low-rent Numerologist totally pinned me on that one… but the description she gave, wasn’t exactly *that* specific. I was just a little taller than most women. EVERYONE is trying to be thin. An “Up” personality is really someone that isn’t completely depressing… so that was most people. And the hair color? 50-50 shot at the two most prominent hair colors… blond or brunette. In actuality, that woman probably described 75% of the sorority girls on campus. It’s called playing the odds.

Not to mention that I could have made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now, Erika was extremely attractive… but I had never conceived the idea of dating her prior to that. Given this description, maybe I was ON THE LOOK for someone like that… and since Erika was the first one to come along that fit that… well, maybe that’s what made me interested, and not for her actual personality. (Which, I’m sad to say, is admittedly an insult to her, as SHE was interested in me at the time. Sure, we didn’t last long, and broke up under unpleasant circumstances… but I do hope she’s doing well today.)

I told you… I’m skeptic. I don’t take personal experience as stone-cold fact. No matter how convincing.

Now, my best friend has told me about a “Great” Psychic that she’s seen… an older woman named Ramona. Apparently, my friend never gave her much information… and Ramona started spouting back specifics and all-too-freaky-hit-the-nail-on-the-head kind of things. She said that if I’m interested in seeing a Psychic… she’s the one.

And I’ll tell you… I *am* interested, still. I never paid for those other two… and well, you do get what you pay for. Maybe I’ll have a different experience when currency is exchanged… or maybe I’ll just lose the money. I’ve gone to the store/liason that Ramona deals through… a new age store about 45 minutes north of me. I’ve stopped in and inquired about making an appointment… turns out Ramona only does the “Psychic Fairs” they put on about once a season. (Hmmm… I don’t fare well with the Psychic Fairs… but still, I’d be paying, and my best friend, whom I very much trust… highly recommends her. And she’s a tough cookie to pull the wool over.) So whenever the next one is… I’ll try to make an appointment.

If the experience is at all note-worthy… I’ll do a follow up about it on here.

But I’m going in ultra-skeptic… because maybe she’s just REALLY good at cold-reading (the technique used by con artists to pass off fake psychic abilities)… or has a crack-team of Super-Google Search Engines sitting in the next room, on the other side of a wireless microphone. Because ultimately… it doesn’t hold a lot of outward credibility for me. It has to be earned, and psychics, tarot cards, reading tea leaves, throwing stones, examining goat entrails… they haven’t earned it yet.

Now, I’ll flat out admit something… that probably will make me sound very hypocritical.

I own a set of Viking Runes. Yep… I own my own set of a divination method.
I got them in 1993, just after I graduated High School. In my town, there’s this little train caboose that just sits by a set of unused tracks… and it’s rented out as actual business space. Tiny business space, sure, but business space nonetheless. At this time, I think it’s rented by a massage therapist. But back then, it was a New Age Hippy selling New Age-Hippy stuff. He was a very friendly guy… and I bought two things from him in total. One was a shirt with about 1,000 skulls all over it (I thought it was cool), and the other was this set of Viking Runes. They were in a bag that was hand-made by some little old lady on consignment… and I was under the impression that runes themselves were also hand-made, but I’m not exactly sure on that. They also came with a small book that detailed what the runes meant. I’d seen similar sets in regular stores… runes and a book in a shrink-wrapped-mass-printed-box (looked very commercial)… but these were just the bag with the runes and book inside. Basically, the way I keep them now, is the exact way they were purchased. The non-commercial simplicity of it kind of appealed to me. Felt genuine. (Though it’s entirely possible that one of those mass-produced sets was bought, unwrapped and dumped into a $2 cloth bag. But it FELT genuine.) When I went back the second time to pick up the skull shirt (it was a special order), the Hippy told me that the woman was “so happy someone bought her runes”… so I thought that was nice.

It didn’t come with a “playing field”… usually a piece of cloth used to simply lay out the Runes when doing your “readings”. I was in Spencer’s and found a placemat… that had a big picture of the moon on it, with stars and other planets dotting the outside. Since I’m a Moon Child 3 times over (I’m a Cancer, born on a Monday and in the evening… any one of which makes you a Moon child… I’ve got all 3), I thought it was appropriate for me. Sure, the moon has a big cartoon smile… but still…

Anyway, I looked over the book… trying to learn how the darn things work. It had several examples on doing different kinds of readings… and how you could do them to look at once specific issue in your life… or do it to look at your life as a whole. I was interested in the “life as a whole” reading… but I was hesitant. I mean… I only have one life… from birth to death… so logically, I can really only do ONE reading of it to get the overview. Doing any more after that simply invalidates the first one. “Oh, I didn’t like that one… I’ll do another until I get something I like.” No, I don’t roll that way. If I’m going to do the “Life Reading”… I’m only ever doing one. None of the models they gave appealed to me that much… so I made up my own. Nothing too imaginative… I just laid out all 25 Runes in a circle. (I was thinking of a whole “circle of life” thing… and this was well before The Lion King.) I also copied the layout on paper, and marked where I began.

I looked at the whole layout, and didn’t see anything that had earth-shattering meaning… I wasn’t really expecting that. But at the very end of the circle… the last two runes did seem a bit symbolic. You see, out of all 25… the last rune is the “unknowable” Rune… or the Blank one… is supposed to hold the most mystery. I was partially hoping to get that as the very last one… maybe symbolizing jumping into the next life/plane of existence/whatever. Because that truly is “unknowable”. It wasn’t the last rune… it was the second-to-last on mine. The very last one… when I looked it up… was the “Rune of the Self”. It kind of represents who you truly are (and is the first Rune in the set). So… according to this… I encounter the unknown… and then Myself.

Metaphysically speaking… whoa, that’s heavy. (isn’t it?)

Now I never did another reading like that… true to my word. From then on, the way I used or “read” the Runes was reaching my hand into the bag… mixing them around until I’m sure I’ve at least touched each one. Then I pick them all up in a mass, and while still buried in the sack, start to shake and move my hand, causing them all to fall out… until only one remains in my hand. Then I pull it out of the bag and look at it. I never did more than one a day at any one time. Sometimes going a long time without selecting one… other times doing it for several days in a row. Sometimes I’d pick a Rune before a performance for whatever play I was in… just as a personal tradition, to see how that performance would go. (It helped keep me on my toes)

I never looked at it as “the Gods were guiding my hand in picking the Runes, and this is their divine wisdom”… because reading the meanings of the Runes… they’re pretty darn generic, actually. EXTREMELY generic. Downright vague. In fact… ANY of those Runes could apply in “some way” to my current life… So I know I’ll never get an earth-shattering answer from them… but I saw them as “a different way to look at things”. If something was bugging me… they gave me a suggestion to meditate on it in a manner I probably hadn’t yet considered at that moment. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it doesn’t. Its credibility is similar to me directly asking my cat what the solution should be. (Which, according to her… usually entails eating a snack and sleeping in the sun for 5 hours. Admittedly, that *does* often help…)

So there’s my Hypocrisy. I know it. I admit it. Bite me.

Book Me!

Suggestion by fritz.

I’m an avid reader… who doesn’t read that much.

That’s the fantasy as compared to the reality.

I love books… always have. I just don’t actually sit down and do a lot of reading. Maybe the more accurate term for me would be “book lover”… because the words don’t actually imply the act of reading.

Yeah, I like that. That’s what I’ll go with:

I’m a book lover.

You know that silly crap they spew about books being “doorways to another world” and other magical metaphoric terms? Yeah… I buy into that 100%. To me, that’s not crap.

It is one of my long-term dreams to have a library in my house… and not just a small room to keep my books on a couple of makeshift shelves. I’m talking a full-on, two-story LIBRARY… with high shelves in which you need to climb a rolling ladder that’s permanently attached… with a balcony section with even more shelves up there, all filled to the brim with books.

And hardcover… lots of hardcover books. Sure, there’s no difference in content between the hardcover versions and paperback copies… but having a hardcover version just seems… I don’t know… more permanent… longer-lasting than a softcover. If I find a book series I really like… I’ll try to find it in hardcover. That’s what I did with Lord of the Rings… I wanted a really nice, classy, hardcover set that didn’t have pictures or references to the movies on them (even though I love the movies, I always find it cheesy to have “now a major motion picture” permanently printed on it). I even got the hardcover, complete collection of Calvin & Hobbes… even though it probably would have been cheaper to get the few remaining paperback collections I was missing. Hardcover is just… better. That’s why I like it when I find the inexpensive copies of old stories… like a collection of H.G. Wells stories, Thoreau’s Walden, or short-story collections. I even have nice little hardcover versions of the 2 original Winnie-the-Pooh books. Opening a solid cover, as opposed to a paper one, really feels more like “opening a door to another world” (I told you I buy into that 100%).

Too bad I acquire more books than I actually get around to reading…

The earliest book I remember reading and loving was The Little Bear books. There were only three of them (that I remember)… and one of them had him flying to the moon, another had him having a birthday party with his other little animal friends (because… well, he was a bear. A little one.), but I don’t recall the plot of the third one. I remember about 7 years ago, I was walking through a bookstore (as I was often want to do) and saw The Collected Little Bear… which was ALL three of those original books, bound together, and it was even hardcover. It had the one where he went to the moon… the one with his birthday party… and I still can’t recall the third one. *shrug* Needless to say, I made the impulse buy right then and there… because that’s one of those books that I wanted to definitely have for MY kids one day (when and if I should have them). Now I do (somewhere… I just have to remember where I stored it).

I remember doing a lot of reading in Middle School… probably because I wasn’t doing too much else, social-wise. That was the time I discovered John Bellairs… who I would probably consider to be one of my all-time favorite authors, solely because I enjoyed his books so much at that age. He wrote in the “Junior Readers” category… so you’d most likely find his books in the kids section… but they were SPOOKY. I’m talking these things had atmosphere to spare… creepy old houses, cobwebs, dark corridors, secret passages, old dormant mysteries, scary figures lurking about… if those books were written and reviewed today, I don’t think they’d have been put in the kid’s section… (but only because people are too damned sensitive these days.) The first book of his I ever picked up was A Figure in the Shadows, which was actually the second book in a trilogy that featured the same characters. I used it for a book report… and I thought it was absolutely fantastic! I went and found the other books… The House With a Clock in Its Walls, and The Letter, The Witch and the Ring… and enjoyed them just as much. Then I collected the Anthony Monday mysteries, and the Johnny Dixon mysteries… all characters of John Bellairs, and all had that same style of atmosphere. Even after I reached adulthood (an arguable statement, I know), I went back and re-read a couple of them… and they’re STILL really good. I say… F the “kid horror” writers like R.L. Stine and his ilk… they’re gross-out hacks that churn out bad plots for a quick buck… doesn’t impress me. You want to hit me with a good spooky story? Look to Bellairs… who rarely had blood… no gross-out scenes… just solid mystery and tension with well-written characters… in a kid’s book.

Plus… the guy’s from New England. Yep… he’s a local boy. Or was… he died in 1991. I was sorry to hear his passing… as I credit him with getting me into the Gothic Mystery genre… and even horror in general.

Come to think of it, he was probably the only “horror” writer I liked… I couldn’t find any others I considered memorable. The only other horror books I liked were short story collections like Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (and its sequels More… and Even More…) and The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and other stories. Something about the “extreme” scary stories (that add in more gross-out and visceral ideas) that makes it fit into the short story form so much better in my eyes. They’re short, sweet… quick and to the point, not wasting any time… like getting to the punchline in a joke. Probably because I love the idea of “telling scary stories around a campfire”… and if you try to tell a Stephen-King-length novel in that situation… you’d get a Boy-Scout-style-Lynching. (Which I think involves being tied up with very complex knots and whittling) Edgar Allen Poe wrote mostly short stories… and pioneered the whole horror genre that way. Even the Bellairs books… are very quick reads, all things considered. Sure, there’s always the examples like Dracula (which I did my Senior Year Book Report on in High School… and covered the title page in fake blood) and Frankenstein…(who have both earned their pedigrees for a reason) and plenty of others. But I would consider those “exceptions”… because I think it takes considerable skill to write a horror story that big and still remain interesting. (And no… I’m personally not that crazy about Stephen King… his best works are short stories and novellas.) At best… most horror novels, especially the ones of today… elicit a “that wasn’t too bad” from me. But again, there are always exceptions.

So, in my youth, with the quality of literary horror lacking (movies were a much different story… and my standards were lower for those), I had to move to other genres. Back then, I did a lot of literal “judging a book by its cover”. Look at the cover illustration, read the blurb on the back... am I still interested? If I was… I checked it out of the school library. I remember finding one book that way… but I can’t remember the name of it for the life of me. It was about a kid inventor… who got his hands on a time machine and went looking for his adult friend who looked like a cartoon version of Ted Nugent. He went back to Camelot and cured the king with aspirin and even traveled to a future utopia/dystopia where he finally found his hippie friend. I think it had a long title… like “The adventures of (so-and-so) and his amazing (thing-a-ma-bobber)” But that’s all I remember. I want to re-locate it… pretty much solely out of nostalgic curiosity.

Another book I’ve been keeping an eye out for is a telling of the Hercules tale from Greek Mythology… this particular one had a head-on picture of Hercules on the cover, while wearing the pelt of the Nemean Lion… the full head of the lion being the headpiece of his armor. Seriously… it looked really badass. And the version was well-told and kept my interest (well… to the 12-year-old Me)… and went all the way from his birth to his death. Me want. Still.

Anyhoo…

When I hit high school… I still kept my technique of finding books to read… and now I was doing it in a bigger library. I then found the book that probably kick started my love of the “pulp adventure” genre (in the books, that is… of course I loved Indiana Jones and all those kinds of high-adventure movies set in the 1930s)… it was a more modern book written in that style… a series called Agent 13: The Midnight Avenger. Book 1 was The Brotherhood of Evil… it looked neat, it looked scary, it looked exciting, it looked like I was checking it out of the library. I read it. I loved it. It was just a fun, exciting read with international espionage, action and lots and lots of teenage-geek-style coolness. After that, I immediately checked out and read the sequel… The Serpentine Assassin. Again… it was great! Just as good as the first! I then went to get the third book, The Acolytes of Darkness… and they didn’t have it. I tried looking elsewhere… to some bookstores… but they didn’t have them either. In fact, all the bookstores didn’t even have the first two books… that school library was the ONLY place that I could find, in which those two Agent 13 books actually existed in reality. (It was kind of a frustrating search) Even after I got out of High School… I searched in vain for these books… especially because now I couldn’t check them out of the school library anymore, and I wanted to own them for myself. Nope… they were no where to be found.

Fast-forward to years later… when I first head out to California for Grad School… it’s actually the week I flew out there in advance to find a place to live and scope out this school I was about to attend, but had never seen before. There was this big 2-story used bookstore right on the edge of the downtown area… definitely the biggest and most well-stocked used bookstore I’ve ever seen (before or since), and right across from a really nice little old-style movie theater. The very first time I stepped in there to check it out, I look straight ahead where they had a huge rack of sci-fi/adventure paperback books… and I hadn’t been in that store for more than 5 seconds when my eyes drifted downward slightly… and I saw a copy of Agent 13: The Midnight Avenger – The Brotherhood of Evil. Out of sheer instinct I grabbed it, before ANYONE else could! (Even though there was no one else in the store) I opened the front flap to see how much they were asking for it: 2 dollars.

I walked out of there owning that book, needless to say. After years of search, I had the first book in my possession. I eventually even acquired the second book… through an online seller. Had to pay a little more, plus shipping… but it was still less than 10 bucks, and it was in good condition as well. And imagine my glee when I FINALLY located a copy of Acolytes of Darkness! It was printed along with another spy-thriller called Web of Danger (which I still haven’t read)… I now had all three! I re-read the first one… it was still fun! Re-read the second one… it was still great! I then, for the first time, got to read the conclusion to the whole story & series… and it blew.

Wow… probably one of the biggest disappointments I ever read. They took away the cool gritty exciting espionage action… and replaced it with lamely thought-out supernatural half-assed sequences that made no sense in the context of the previous stories. *shrug* Oh well… I still have the first two… and I just look at the ending of the second to be a cool cliffhanger that will never be resolved… which is all the more exciting for it. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

As you can probably see… my “leisure-time-reading” was solely about my own personal entertainment, not so much about expanding my own mind with the “classics” and examples of great, intelligent literature. The closest I came was reading Dracula for that book report… and that’s one I really WANTED to read, and just wanted an excuse to do so.

Whenever I did hit the “classics”… well, it was for a class. Frankly, when you HAVE to read something… you don’t really want to. They weren’t all bad… Freshman year I got to read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World… which I liked, because how often did I get to read science fiction in school? And I remember Camus’ The Stranger being pretty interesting (Senior Year)… but most of the others, not so much. Junior year especially… the year you focus on “American Literature” solely… I actually HATED every single book we had to read. Though, I actually blame my teacher for that. He just made everything seem so mind-numbingly boring. He was this pretentious a-hole that thought everyone was stupid (and if he didn’t think that… he sure acted like it), and was overly-tough on his classes. (Now, I have no problem with tough teachers… I’ve had plenty… but they were fair… and interesting, which is why I did well in those classes. This guy was ONLY tough… and neither fair nor interesting) The first book he made me utterly hate was The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

That’s a book I will NEVER give another shot to, I hated it so much. When I discovered that Hawthorne actually died in the town I went to college, it actually made me happy. Whenever I walked by his memorial plaque in the park, I gave it the finger. Granted, the hatred was more of a result of this teacher’s work then Hawthorne’s. When explaining why he took five pages to describe what a garden looked like that was sitting outside of someone’s house, the teacher would talk about how brilliant Hawthorne was, and how poetic his prose was, and how it paints such a detailed picture, blah blah blah. (When in actuality, the reason for the overly-long descriptions? Authors back then were paid by the word. The longer the book, the more money you made, and they all had house payments to make.)

The other books I was made to hate? The Great Gatsby, The Adventures of Huck Finn and The Catcher in the Rye. Now… years after I got out of high school… I decided to give The Catcher in the Rye another chance… mainly because I started hearing that it was tied into so many conspiracy theories. (Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald both supposedly had it in their pockets during their respective killings… so did Mark David Chapman, John Hinkley Jr., etc) Whether it was true or not, I don’t know… but it intrigued me enough to try and see what the fuss was about. I still don’t know the fuss… but I did enjoy the book a LOT more when reading it on my own time… and I don’t think it had to do with my maturity level now as opposed to then. To try and describe the book to someone… it wouldn’t sound interesting. But actually reading it… I thought it was well-done, and it actually kept my interest.

I’ve started Huck Finn a couple of times… but always got distracted with life before I got too far, and ended up putting it down for so long, that I would have to start over. Maybe I’ll have to give The Great Gatsby another try sometime. Maybe I’d like it. Just *that* teacher made it unbearable.

Fortunately, I had other teachers that were better at it. Hell, it was my Graduate Advisor that insisted I get into the Harry Potter series. I resisted for awhile… mainly because it was “popular”… but when I finally did, I was completely hooked. Sure, Potter lives… but Longbottom kicks ass! Boo-ya!

(I could probably do a whole geek blog on Harry Potter alone.)

These days… I still try to read every now and then... and my tastes have opened up more. I actually find pleasure in reading non-fiction books these days (the subjects I’m interested in, obviously)… and I’ve been trying to get to books and series that are modern “classics”, but I just never got around to reading before. I started reading the original James Bond books by Ian Fleming… I’m on the third one, Moonraker (though I haven’t picked it up in a while). And I was very happy to see that they were re-publishing some of the old The Shadow pulp stories that came out in the 1930s (Since really discovering him in the early 90s, he’s become one of my absolute favorite characters of all time), so I’ve been collecting some of them when I can. Plus, as I am a proud geek, they still occasionally publish new Doctor Who books (featuring the older versions of the character… taking place in between the episodes of the old series) that I occasionally indulge in.

Maybe its just pure escapism… I’m okay with it. I just love the feeling of buying a new book… and I frequent book stores as often as I can. With the bigger stores, I tend to browse around the Bargain section a lot… if there’s a specific book I want… I’ll usually order it cheaper online. But I like digging through and taking chances on books in the hopes that I’ll find a really neat treasure somewhere in there… a great story, or an interesting subject… or maybe just an outdated horoscope (if it looks funny enough).

Because I think there are perfectly acceptable times to judge a book by its cover.

Literally, that is.

Bad Dubbing, Cool Flips and Rubber Suits… Gimme!

With encouragement by Fritz

I don’t know why… but I *love* Asian Entertainment.

Martial Arts films, Monster Movies, Anime… yes, please. Right here!

Now, I am not Asian. Not even partially. I’m not related to anyone Asian, nor have I ever been to Asia. Yet, when my fascination for it started, the only real-world exposure I had was seeing the owners/operators of the China Moon Restaurant in Stoneham, Massachusetts. The first time I recall even having an Asian Classmate was in 5th grade, when a girl actually from Taiwan suddenly appeared in my class. I don’t remember how long she was there… but she wasn’t there at the end of the year. The next was in 6th grade when we moved to New Hampshire… and that guy was a Prick. (AND his family owned the local Chinese Restaurant… hate to sound like I’m perpetuating a stereotype, but that was a fact. *shrug* Good food, though…)

So, most of my experience… was movies.

Saturday afternoons… just after lunch… the “Creature Double Feature”. Almost invariably, one of those films would be a Godzilla movie. Well, I say “Godzilla”, but that’s basically what we called EVERY giant monster movie with a guy in a rubber suit; a “Godzilla Movie”. My oldest brother was the bigger Godzilla fan… his favorite character was Jet Jaguar, a tiny robot that grew huge, who was only in one of the movies. (I have to admit… he *was* pretty bitchin) I had a personal preference in the Gamera series… he was the giant Turtle. Probably only because he was *different* than Godzilla, and hence, I didn’t have to feel like I was copying my brother. Now, these were the old 60’s and 70’s monster movies… which veritably SCREAMED of “Cheese”. But when you’re a young boy whose age is in the single digits… they’re the greatest cinematic achievements known to mankind, hands down. Despite the fact they all had the same plot:

Godzilla appears. Another monster appears. Godzilla and Other Monster fight. Godzilla gets hurt, Other Monster reigns supreme. Japanese people try to find and exploit weakness of Other Monster, and fail. Godzilla comes back. Godzilla and Other Monster fight again. Godzilla kicks Other Monster’s Ass to Bloody Hell. Credits roll.

One time I was watching Rocky III, and it hit me… it’s the same damn plot! Rocky has moved out of the Sports Movie genre… and is officially a Japanese Giant Monster Film.

When I got into my late-teens… I cast aside such “silly pursuits”. (At least, that’s what I told people… I still watched them as a guilty pleasure.) Then, as I got towards college, my brother discovered that they were making “new” Godzilla films… and they were really good. He bought a bootleg of one from a mail-order in the back of a Fangoria magazine (or something)… Godzilla vs. King Ghidora. Still the whole man-in-a-rubber-suit… but the filmmakers got *good* at it… adding in a few modern-type special effects, and I had to admit, it was pretty darn entertaining. When I got to college, I made friends with a guy who was ALSO a Godzilla fan… but he had MORE of the new movies. So, I got to watch them… some were still a bit cheesy… but still enjoyable nonetheless. They satisfied my inner-creature-double-feature-watching-Kid with the badass monsters and wanton destruction… my slightly-more-mature-cinematic-sensibilities with the effects and storytelling… and my sense of humor with just the right amount of cheesy-looking silliness. They were the perfect movies!

Then… my friend told me that there were re-makes of the Gamera series as well. I was intrigued… because he was my favorite. So when he said he was making a trip down to Boston’s Chinatown, to hopefully pick up the final Godzilla movie he didn’t have (Godzilla versus Destroyah… the one where Godzilla dies!)… he asked me if I wanted him to pick me up a copy of Gamera, should they have it. I said, “Yes, please!”, gave him the money… and as luck would have it…when he came back, he had Gamera: Guardian of the Universe with him. (This was back in the end days of VHS… about 2 years before DVD came out)

That… was a Freaking Sweet movie. The effects were on par with the new Godzilla movies… and the story was great! Seriously… the actual tale being told was a good one! It was my new favorite Giant Monster Movie. All hail the Turtle!

They made 2 sequels… and I saw and bought the third one… now on DVD. Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris. Now… watching this movie… you know it’s a guy in a suit… but it *doesn’t look* like a guy in a suit! Holy crap… this movie was better in most every way to any Godzilla film I’ve ever seen… Story, effects, action… Oochie Mama! It was freaking brilliant! Never mess with a turtle that’s so determined to kick your ass, that it blows off its own hand with a fireball. I’m just saying… that’s probably good advice.

My oldest brother even admits that the new Gamera Trilogy (as it’s known as)… are the best Monster Movies ever made. Now, we both swear by them. So, if you’re ever in the mood to satisfy your inner-six-year-old-destruction-craving-self… the Gamera Trilogy is the way to go.

Though, recently… I did pick up the Original Godzilla movie from 1954… the first one that started the whole trend of a guy in a rubber suit. I bought the special edition that has BOTH versions… the one with Raymond Burr spliced in for the American audiences… and the Japanese original… Gojira. First, I watched the Raymond Burr one… and fell asleep. The Japanese version, is longer, and no Raymond Burr… and now I’ll never see the Raymond Burr one again. Supports the theory… “Always go with the original”.

The other kind of movie that Japan does really well (at least that I watch)… is their Animation. But it’s better than Animation… it’s just “Anime”. Because apparently, when you get cool, mature and edgy… you don’t bother to say the end syllables. The first Anime I saw was Vampire Hunter D. Very dark, very gothic and very violent… so naturally, it was loved by me and my pre-teenage self. The first time I realized that there’s some animation that wasn’t for kids… and look what it started; a whole new area of Geek for little ole me.

I was always a bigger fan of the Sci-Fi and Horror Animes (big surprise, right?). The “period” pieces that dealt with the Samurais and high fantasy… weren’t my cup of tea. Nah, I prefer my Anime to be set in the 20th century or later.

My absolute earliest exposure to it was the old Force Five series that played in the mornings before school. Each day of the week was a different show. There was Grandizer; an alien outcast disguised as a farmhand who discreetly hid his giant robot behind a waterfall... Danguard Ace; a flying battleship that also turned into a giant robot… Starvengers; 3 badass ships that combined in 3 different badass ways to make 3 different badass Giant Robots… Gai King; the baddest-ass of all the Giant Robots, and sort of the flagship show of the whole Force Five lineup… and as awesome as they all were, my personal favorite was Spaceketeers; 3 guys with little mini-ships escorting a galactic princess across the galaxy… and the only show that didn’t focus on Giant Robots.

Since my resurged interest, one that became amongst my favorites is the series Bubblegum Crises Tokyo 2040. It’s a reboot/remake of the original Bubblegum Crisis… and while more fans apparently swear by the original… I prefer the newer one, because there’s more episodes and better animation… but that’s just me. The concept is basically just hot chicks in super-armor kicking the crap out of robots that are going bonkers. It’s a dangerous combination of appealing to my geek side and my inner 13-year old that’s entering puberty. Call it a guilty pleasure… I just call it entertaining.

Other favorites are Ghost In the Shell (that’s a big one), Spriggan, Hellsing, Wolf’s Rain, Witch Hunter Robin, the original Fist of the North Star and the ultra-violent Guyver. (It’s a testosterone thing)

I’ve never seen Dragonball Z, but have heard its praises… but I’m still not desiring to see it. Yes, I’ve been subjected to Pokemon… and the sheer concept baffles me to no end. I’ve also seen some of the more “romance” series… like Love Hina, Please Teacher! (which was… odd), Please Twins (the not-so-odd sequel) and a few others. While I’m fascinated by the idea that this comic-book and animation medium has so many different genres and stories (the number of various titles produced in Japan is staggering!)… those just aren’t my cup of tea.

And a word about the “Hentai” genre: Uh… Why? It’s just porn… which is fine. Plenty of people want to see that. But conceptually… why? The comics (or “manga”) are easy enough to make, that’s fine. There are plenty of smutty comics and drawings out there… go nuts. But knowing how much work and time goes into ANIMATION… even for just a half-hour show (about 9 months), it just seems so… pointless to put all that effort into something that could more efficiently, more quickly, and much more easily be filmed in ONE day with live, willing actors. (I think it’d be sexier too… but that’s just me.) Granted, it would be funny to be a fly on the wall when they’re doing the voice recording of that. For the voice-actors… it’s gotta be humbling, just moaning into a microphone.

Oh, and for the Hentai that involves the “Naughty Tentacles”… uh… I’ll be over here, just let me know when you’re finished. For those readers that have no clue what I mean… Trust me… You don’t want to know. *shudder*

I don’t want to seem like I’m only having a thing for Japan. That’s not the only country I think of when I think about “Asian”. Hell, it’s really just a small island in comparison to the rest of it. Face it… China completely dwarfs it in size, though I don’t know about populations. But Japan is the specific place that’s associated with Anime and Giant Monster Movies (“Kaiju”, I believe it’s called).

China, on the other hand… that’s where I generally go for my Kung-Fu movies! (Not literally, as I’ve never been there… but one day!)

Now my standards for Kung-Fu movies are actually pretty low, I think. With most movies I want a good, believable story, solid acting, and (ideally) a slightly better understanding of the human condition. With Kung-Fu movies… I just need really neat-looking butt-kicking. I don’t normally care who the main butt-kicker is… (but Jackie Chan, Jet Li or Bruce Lee are always solid options)… it just has to have lots of flips, kicks, acrobatics, and imaginative attacks/counter-attacks/counter-counter-attacks. Plot? What’s that? Who cares? I’m only here for the action. (Hmmm… that’s an odd parallel to porn, right there)

The old Bruce Lee movies didn’t have a whole lot of the super-fancy made-for-movies type of choreography… Jackie Chan and Jet Li definitely have a lot more flipping and acrobatics in their movies… but Bruce Lee had far more straightforward, high-intensity-level Smackdown being laid upon any who dare mess with him.

I think a great comparison between those 3 is in the following situation… and how their movies handled that with their particular stock characters: 1 vs. 100

If Jackie Chan were alone, facing 100 enemies at once, he panics and tries to run away and dodge in a Buster Keaton/Charlie Chaplin-type comedic style. When cornered, he fights and takes out a few characters… dodges, takes out a few more… always moving, always dodging, never letting up as long as he’s being pursued. But not normally engaging more then 3 guys at any one instance. Highly entertaining with the best comedic value of the 3. Total sequence time: Probably 10 minutes.

Jet Li… facing 100 enemies at once. With Zen-like calmness he stands his ground… taking out each enemy one at a time (sometimes two or three at a time). Realizing he can’t be fazed… the majority back off, while the big bad Heavy steps forward to take him on one-on-one… who gets his ass handed to him in a more thorough manner than any of the other 99. Highly entertaining with an “Oooh… did you see that?” Factor. Total sequence time: Anywhere from 5-10 minutes.

Bruce Lee… versus 100 enemies. You know without a doubt going in, the odds are AGAINST the 100. He may be preaching Zen-like coolness… but he looks majorly pissed off. He actively walks *into* the fray… taking on 5-8 guys at any one instant, bodies dropping in his wake, ripping everyone a new bunghole in record time. Entertainment value is determined after picking your jaw up off the floor. Total sequence time: 2 minutes… tops.

While those three are most well-known… you definitely can’t discount many of the other great Martial Arts stars out there. Tony Leung, Stephen Chow, Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, Michelle Yeoh (mmmm…. Michelle Yeoh. *drool*)… there’s really too many to list. All have distinctive styles and do their jobs VERY well.

You also can’t discount some of the non-martial arts action films that come out of China. If you’ve never seen John Woo’s Hard Boiled or The Killer both starring Chow-Yun Fat… then you may be confused why they call John Woo a “Master” when you see his American films. Just see the opening action sequence of Hard Boiled and you’ll have your answer. Seriously.

Now, as much as I love Asian movies and entertainment… I won’t automatically think its great if it comes from there. I have to admit, I’m not really a big fan of the Asian Horror movies I’ve seen. I really enjoyed The Ring, and after constantly hearing how “the original was better”… well, of *course* I’m going to track it down and watch it. So, I did find Ringu, and saw it. Honestly… I liked the American version better.

But I think that comes down to a cultural thing. In the Japanese original, when the Ex-Husband character comes into the story, he completely takes over the investigation… and the main female character takes a backseat. I seriously forgot she was there in some scenes. They also figure in psychic powers and telepathy into the story, so one character (usually the Ex-Husband) will simply touch another, get a psychic flash of all the convenient information they need to get to the next scene. Not only does it make the movie a half-hour shorter than the American one… it just all seems “too easy”... like the story was handed to them, and it would have happened whether they did anything or not. In the American… there’s no psychic-stuff… so all the clues and answers are found by actively investigating. No answers are handed to the characters… they have to take initiative and find them. Plus, it’s the main female (Naomi Watts) who’s doing most of the work (as well she should… because it’s her story). The Ex is useful in his own way, and he’s much less of a dick then the original guy. The scares and creep factor in both are probably about the same… but overall, I’d rather see the American one. *shrug* (Which goes AGAINST my theory of, “Always go with the original”)

So yeah… I pick and choose the stuff I like from that side of the world. But then again, who doesn’t? Hell… THEY do it themselves. But while “being Asian” isn’t a guarantee that I’ll like it… it will intrigue a small part of me enough to probably give it a chance. (At least enough to read a synopsis) And it’s led me to discover a lot of shows and movies that have made me smile for one reason or another. Isn’t that the most important thing?

And without my fascination for that side of the world… I never would have tried sushi. Which is probably my favorite part of the whole thing.

Mmmmmm... Sushi.

Doing it Well, Doing it Well-Done

From a suggestion by my friend "Fritz".

I’m a man that likes to cook.

I often say that if I never went to school for Theatre, I would have gone for Culinary Arts… and that’s 100% true.

When I was in middle school (6th-8th grade)… they had the “Extra” courses of Music, Gym class, Shop Class and Home Economics. Over the course of each year, you’d hit all of them, one per quarter.

Music class… I was passable. One year I did piano, the next the trumpet, and the third was saxophone. If you asked me at any point in the last 20 years to pick up any of those instruments and “show you what I got”… you’d see I got nothing. “Passable” simply meant I faked it enough to pass the course, and that’s it. Once the class ended, the information left my brain.

Gym class… I was miserable. I was small, scrawny, geeky and made fun of. I was also yelled at by the other kids for screwing up during the games, and being called an “idiot”. The fact that no one ever took 5 minutes to actually explain the RULES of the games… may have contributed. The coach just assumed everyone inherently knew ALL the rules to ALL of the games. I knew None to None, because I wasn’t a competitive person... nor did I ever watch sports. I preferred the activities where I didn’t have to compete against anyone but myself… so even if I didn’t follow the rules, no one cared. I’d be lucky to hit maybe one of those activities during any particular year.

Shop class… I was okay in… I liked woodworking and making things, only I never really got to do the big elaborate projects, because the more “macho” guys were hogging all the equipment. The first year was leathermaking… and while most people were making elaborate wallets and cases… I managed to make a leather wristband. With my initials punched into it. I didn’t even get to do my full name, because I was only able to wrangle those 2 letters. Second year was a CO2 Derby Car… sans cool designs, carvings and paint job like most others… and the last year I made a very simple clock.

Home Economics… I actually did really well. The Home Ec course was actually divided in half… one half doing the cooking/baking, and the other doing the sewing portion. So, you actually didn’t get as much of a focus as the other Extra courses, that could pick one activity and do it over the whole quarter. Here, just as you were really getting into the project, it was suddenly over, and you were moved to the other area.

The sewing was kind of relaxing. You’re still “making” things like in Shop Class, only these are softer, cushier, and my cat could sleep on them. (I don’t think my cat wanted to sleep on my octagonal wooden clock) Most of the other guys obviously hated being in Home Ec because it challenged the “manly” views of their 13 year-old selves. So, they half-assed it just to get it over with. (Kind of like what I was doing in Music and Gym class) But I liked it. It was quiet… I was pretty much left alone, and materials were more plentiful then in Shop Class. First year, I made a pillow in the shape of my first initial… I even did an extra one, and had both first and last initial. Second year, the project was another pillow… but a more elaborate one. I did a pizza-shaped one, and I still have it. The last year was a pair of Jams. (Ah, Jams… the lame late-80s euphemism for “ugly shorts”. No, they weren’t Pajamas… that’s “Jammies”. This was just “Jams”.)

But the other half was over in the kitchen area. No big main project… just several little recipes we learned. And by “learned”, I mean they were photocopied and handed to us. But we were shown and practiced the specific “techniques” like sifting, creaming, rolling, etc. I do still have those recipes (somewhere)… but most of the cooking was all “baking”. We never learned to do any stove-top stuff… only the stuff where all the work was in the prep, and the oven did the rest. Nothing about messing with the food WHILE it was cooking in a pan or pot.

To me, *that’s* real test of “cooking skills”. Most people can follow a baking recipe to the letter… but I think it’s more impressive when your own judgment is involved in the process… by putting in a “dash” of this, or a “smidge” of that… or looking at, or even tasting something and saying, “yeah, this seems ‘done’”.

They never offered Home Economics in High School… least that I can remember. If they did, I for some reason wasn’t eligible to take it… why, I don’t know. They still had shop, music and gym. But Music and Shop were now fully “Electives”… Freshman were forced to take a full year of Gym Class (which isn’t fully a bad thing)… and all other Gym Classes for the rest of the years were all Elective. But the next time I started to learn any kind of cooking… was when I was being paid for it.

My first job was washing dishes at this little family-style restaurant (well, if you don’t count the paper route from 8th grade). After a while, they moved me up to train as a short order cook… and within a month, moved me back down to Dishwashing. Yeah, I wasn’t picking up on that menu as fast as I hoped. It was intimidating, not knowing how to cook a whole heck of a lot, and then suddenly having to manage an entire grill full of different orders. I was overly self-conscious… and easily got flustered, and made a LOT of mistakes. If I had chilled out a little bit… I think I would have done much better. But I did get another chance several months later… and did succeed. Wasn’t the best cook they had, but I did okay holding my own. The food itself was fairly basic… mostly burgers, salads, fries, a stir-fry, stuff like that. Occasionally, you’d get something a little different, but it still entailed throwing it on the grill, flipping it, and then setting it on the plate.

Though I will say… when I was moved down to the Ice Cream section to make sundaes and desserts… I was the Undisputed MASTER. You see, you can’t just slop down a couple of half-assed scoops, randomly spray on some chocolate sauce, and call it a decent dessert. The whole secret was “eye-appeal”… people want their dessert to look JUST like it does in the picture when they order it from the menu. I was complemented by the owner and Big Boss himself when he flat-out told me that *My* sundaes had the best eye-appeal of anyone. They looked BETTER than the pictures. The scoops were perfectly rounded… the sauces poured over just right, the whip cream symmetrical with no chance of falling over into a glop… I was the king of a very chilly and messy little castle. But I took pride in it, as sad as that sounds.

Life in the food service industry comes with it very interesting stories, and any short order cook or wait-staff will tell you such. Because of my years of experience in it, I always try to be generous with my tipping, I never raise my voice to my server… and even when a horrible mistake is made (or finding a bug on the food), I never insist on anything more than a quick apology. I try to be the kind of customer they would *like* to serve… plus, it’s generally just not a good idea to f**k with the people that are handling your food.

Probably the biggest leap in my cooking education… came when I started living on my own, and HAD to cook for myself. No longer did I have parents or a school cafeteria to rely on to make my food… I had to start doing it myself. It’s about that time when you start to realize that you need to get in the habit of making MORE for yourself than just Ramen Noodles or Macaroni and Cheese.

So, I started experimenting.

I’d actually try recipes that I saw and liked the sound of. I tried to learn how to cook fish, or cook chicken in different, healthier ways. (Not to say everything was a resounding success… quite the opposite.) Eventually, I got me a George Foreman Griller (that was such a great appliance!). Also, I learned about Flavored Olive Oil.

No matter what I’m cooking… if I’m using Flavored Olive Oil… I feel like a Gourmet. I’m a big fan of the Basil-flavored. A close second would be the Garlic flavored.

Speaking of garlic… that is such a wonderful thing to add to so many dishes. I used to know a professor in Grad School that believed “have garlic-press, will travel”. I learned from an Asian roommate I once had about 4 years ago… to add a clove of garlic into your Ramen Noodles. Actually ups the health-factor of the cheapo 13-cent package of noodles, and really helps give it an extra kick when you bite into it. Now, whenever I make Ramen Noodles… I put a clove of garlic in. I can’t imagine it *without* it now.

Just go easy on the garlic if you have a sweetie… for their sake.

In most of my relationships… I was “the one who did the cooking”. Occasionally, they would cook… but admittedly, it never got too fancy. It was usually pasta or something like that with not that many steps. I’m definitely not complaining… just knowing someone was making the effort to cook something, anything for me, gave me the warm fuzzies. But I was mainly the one doing the occasional “experiment” with new dishes.

I don’t claim to be the greatest cook… but I do think I’m pretty darn good at it. Much better than a lot of people I know. My best friend, at once time… quite literally … burned water. Don’t ask.

And I’m still willing to learn. One thing I’ve always wanted to do is learn to roll my own sushi. I *love* sushi, and would like to have it more often than I do. I have an actual Sushi-Roller pad… and a nice little serving set for sushi… (a good part of cooking is in the presentation)… and I know where to get the nobi and rice vinegar. I just don’t know where to get sushi-grade fish (cause I want to do the kind with fish), nor do I know how to cook the rice “just right” (so it’s fluffy and sticky in just the right way). One of these days, I’ll learn… and hopefully be in company that’s willing to try it. (My family isn’t too big on the idea of sushi… even the all-vegetable kind.)

I like cooking. I like cooking FOR people, especially. For a sweetie or just dinner guests. Give me the opportunity for a PotLuck… I’ll always break out one of my favorite recipes… and my favorite form of Chicken… Chinese Chicken Wings. If you have a pot big enough, you can make enough for a small army. Growing up, I remember EVERY family party having Chinese Chicken Wings to munch on (not so much in the last few years… unless I was the one that made them. But my memories contain chicken wings. Grilled or baked in the oven… then hot or cold… them is always good eatin). And they’re fairly simple to make… but you do have to start them at least 12 hours in advance, because they need to marinate. Usually I’ll start them the night before a party or event… let them sit overnight, and then throw them in the oven about an hour before I leave (leaves enough time for multiple batches).

Would you like the recipe? Well, here it is:

Chinese Chicken Wings
Ingredients:
5 oz. Soy Sauce
Chicken (12-15 pcs.)
¾ cups brown sugar
1 ½ cups water
1 Tbsp oil
garlic powder (approx. 1 tsp)
ginger (approx ½ tsp)

Put all the ingredients in a large pot and bring it to a boil. Let cool and place in refrigerator overnight. Next day, warm up pot just enough to easily remove chicken pieces. Place chicken on baking sheet. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or cook over grill until brown, and skin is crispy.

See? Easy. Normally, I’ll double or triple the recipe for a party, and also because I just want lots of leftovers. No sense going through all that marinating and trouble just to eat all the chicken in one sitting…

I always get compliments on it… I hope you do as well.

On the DVD for the movie Once Upon a Time In Mexico, the director Robert Rodriguez has a special feature called, “10 minute cooking school”, in which he shows you how to cook a slow-roasted pork dish that’s featured in the movie. (“Puerco Pibil”…I’ve yet to try that recipe… I don’t know where to get banana leaves) But he nicely (if not bluntly) sums up a neat little philosophy about cooking:

“Not knowing how to cook… is like not knowing how to f**k. You have to eat for the rest of your life… might as well do it well.”

(Forgive me if I’m misquoting at all.)

I agree. Especially if you’re open to learning how to do BOTH those things well. Now, *that’s* what I call quality of living.

Divining Definitions of Diversity

This comes from a request by an individual I’ll call “Candy Cane”… because she’s striped, can hang on a Christmas Tree, and when you use her to stir hot cocoa… it tastes better. (Better than saying, “No reason at all”)

She asked me to write about “What is Diversity, and what does it means to me?”

The simplest definition is just using a synonym. Variety. You know, variety is the spice of life… shall we go for Italian, Chinese, Indian or Mexican food tonight? We play a variety of hits from the 70s, 80s, 90s and today. Et cetera, et cetera et cetera. I like diversity in my food selections, I have more than one color of shirt, I love good cinema regardless of genre, and my music tastes range from Classical to Rock to Pop to Blues to Showtunes (with a spattering of Rap, and VERY little Country).

There we go, case closed. Have a nice day!

Only, to leave it there, that would get some people pointing the finger and saying, “You’re avoiding the real issue! You’re wimping out!” (poke poke poke)

Stop poking me! Chill out! Besides, my blog posts are never that short.

“Diversity” is one of those odd words in the English Language. Odd in a very particular sense… when the word “diversity” is used, people usually assume you’re talking about race and culture. When using other synonyms… variety, variousness, multiplicity, multiformity, heterogeneousness (yes, that’s a word… it means “diversity”), wide-selection… no one ever uses *those* words in that context… even though they mean the exact same thing. In the English Dictionary, that is.

In the Public Opinion Dictionary, however… “Diversity” is associated with the issue of race and culture. Always. Colleges advertise how they have a “diverse” campus; if they mention the word “variety”, it’s probably talking about the cafeteria menu.

“Diversity” is one of those political buzzwords… I almost think it was purposefully altered, by careful design, to be connected to that issue, solely. It’s now part of that “P.C. vocabulary”… and that’s just a notion that Lenny Bruce tried to nip in the bud long before the term “P.C.” was even thought of. Being “politically correct” was just an effort, by POLITICIANS, to make sure everyone liked what they said. You can’t make everyone happy… but it doesn’t stop them from trying. If they’re happy with what you say, they won’t complain when you pass crappy laws, raise taxes, or solicit prostitutes in your off-hours. So the word, “Diversity” became adopted into their fold… and now it’s permanently stapled to only one facet of its original meaning.

Despite my cynicism on its origins… I *like* the idea of diversity. No, I’m not saying that to be P.C… (I actually find the idea of being an “equal-opportunity offender” to be better than that) I’m saying it because it’s a fact. I love to personally explore the multiplicity of options this world has… how could you not? You want a thousand different blends of coffee, but want the sociological world to be just *one* way? That don’t make sense to me.

I’ve had an interest in Asian cultures since I was young. (Except for Russia… no offense, it’s just too cold there and too much like New Hampshire winters. Hey… Russia IS in Asia!) Sure, maybe it was sparked by Bruce Lee and Godzilla movies, but at least I got the interest. (Better than nothing) I’ve lived in several different types of neighborhoods, each one predominantly populated by a different race than my own… I have friends of all different colors and choices, and I’ve been rejected for dates by Blacks, Whites, Asians, Latinas, Armenians, etc etc.

In fact it was during a particular 2 month stretch, I realized I was being pretty diverse in my search for love… wherein which I was separately told by a short, white goth chick, and a subtly-thick black semi-professional that they were both going back to their Ex-boyfriends to “give it another shot”. So, while my choice of dates may be diverse… apparently the brush-offs I get are not so. Go figure.

Sometimes I wonder where I got such open attitudes. Naturally, we always look to the parents that raised us to see what our “normal” attitude to such things should be.

So let’s not mince words: My dad is a Bigot.

Okay, let’s mince them a *little* bit… I say he’s a Bigot, but I *don’t* mean he’s a Racist. The first time I ever put that concept to words, was in the presence of my first therapist. She asked, “What’s the difference?”

A Bigot talks the Talk. A Racist walks the Walk.

You see… my Dad talks a big game. He throws out the racial slurs and insults at will, and doesn’t really care too much. Only because his immediate family (all of us who are the same race as he is) are the only ones listening. (Somehow, he thinks we want to hear it… even after I’ve told him I don’t) Say he’s watching football, and a story comes up how a fairly new player to the league just suffered a really bad injury, and will probably never play again. If that player is black? He usually says something like, “and you *know* that he only went to college to play football… he doesn’t know anything else, and now look at him. Injured and his life is thrown away. Figures.” Oddly, I haven’t heard him say that about a white player that gets injured. (Gee, I wonder why?... he says rhetorically.) I’ve heard him say that on a few occasions, and I honestly never thought my eyes could roll that far back into my head. The idiocy of that statement is so much greater than any football player could ever be, even after 3,000 sacks to the head.

That’s a tame example… but he’ll never TREAT anyone differently who is of another race or creed. To their face, he’ll be decent, even friendly. Hell, he even voted for Obama in the Primary. (Though, I suspect it’s because Hillary *really* frightens him… not because she’s a woman… It’s just Hillary.) You might never know by his actions that his mind houses this prejudiced viewpoint.

In many ways, I consider the Bigots to be more dangerous than the Racists. It’s easier (comparatively) to see, recognize and stop Racist Actions… how can you see someone’s Bigoted THOUGHTS? Thoughts can be more dangerous… because it keeps that attitude in existence. You can arrest a Klansman, take him out of the equation, and tell his son, “Killing is wrong, it never solves anything blah blah”… and that boy could live the rest of his life and never kill or harm anyone different then him. But he can still THINK it… and there’s no way to know for sure if he is or not. Then, he can pass it on. That’s a scarier idea to me, overall.

I suspect my grandfather had some similarities in his attitude. Of course, as I remember him, he was old and chilled out. But apparently, the one complaint he did always make to people was about a neighbor of his… who was referred to as “that damn Cambodian”. Maybe he didn’t shovel the snow close enough to the curb, or he didn’t recycle his cans, or whatever… Grandpa bitched about “that Cambodian” a lot. Then, when my grandfather passed… “The Damn Cambodian” came to the funeral to pay his respects… and the rest of the family finally got to meet… “The Damn Cambodian”:

His name was Jesus (Hay-soos). He was from El Salvador.

Yeah… never let it be said that actual Logic dictated the thinking in my family.

As for other family members? Well… I have a vivid memory of one of my Uncles talking to me and my brothers (being the only males in the “league of grandchildren”, and the ones carrying on the family name, whether we like it or not) and saying, “Just so you guys know… you can date whoever you want, but when it comes to marrying, make sure it’s someone of your own race.”

I’m not completely sure if he was joking or being serious. This is the Uncle who keeps a straighter face than anyone I’ve ever met in my life, so it can be hard to tell.

Now the cycle of silly (and sometimes downright comical) prejudices has to stop somewhere, or it just keeps going and going, infecting everything. Now, that’s not something I want MY kids to have… so it has to stop with me.

I believe everyone would agree with that… anyone who reads this might say the same thing… “it has to stop with me”. And I think we all feel we’re up to the challenge. In fact, I think most people might even say, “I’ve never had a racist or bigoted thought in my whole life!” Trumpets blare, medals are handed out, etc…

But that’s an easy answer. TOO easy, in fact. And I’m far too introspective to just throw that statement out there willy-nilly, buy it and sell it at face value.

To be honest… I don’t know if I can say that.

When I was in Elementary School… girls were icky. No surprise there. They were for most little boys. Girls were icky, boys had cooties… there’s balance in the universe, that’s how it works.

There was one girl in particular. She didn’t seem to be friends with other girls… at least I don’t recall. Her name was Rachel. (Name not changed… because she was innocent. I don’t want protecting.) I’m sorry to say I don’t remember her last name. Though, this was about 25 years ago…

Rachel was the only girl in our class… nay, probably the only girl in SCHOOL… who was black.

Granted, our school was small… all 6 grades combined (Kindergarten through 5th) totaled about 200 kids, if that. But it was suburban Massachusetts in the early 80s… not a lot of “heterogeneousness” there.

I seem to remember we were particularly mean to Rachel… on a regular basis. I remember that if she touched one of us, one of the others would mime this imaginary “spray” to disinfect where she touched. We *did* do it sometimes when other girls touched us too… (the whole “icky” thing) but most often it was with Rachel. We never used names or specifically said any reference to her skin color… at least that I ever heard/recall… I think the most directly insulting thing that I recall was during Valentine’s Day when handing out your Valentines (You had to give one to EVERYONE or none at all)… on Rachel’s card, just above the “Please be my Valentine”, kids would put a strategically-placed “Don’t”.

I remember one time, she actually called me on the phone, just to talk. To say hi. I wasn’t a big phone talker, and wondered why this “icky girl” was calling me, preventing me from going outside to play. She only called once. (I think it was after the one Valentine’s Day I *didn’t* put the “don’t” in.)

Eventually, she just disappeared. A summer came and went… school started again, and she wasn’t there. Figured her family moved or something. No one ever seemed to bat an eye.

I think back on it now, and I feel bad… this girl just wanted a friend. I’m especially surprised that *I* took part in that behavior, because I wasn’t the most popular kid myself… I was pretty awkward, too. Maybe that’s why she called me that one time… she thought we had something in common.

Were my actions the seeds of true Racism/Bigotry? Were we treating her that way because she was black? Or was it just another of the “icky girls”, and I only remember it BECAUSE she was the only black girl in school? I honestly don’t know… and that uncertainty kind of scares me. To think that maybe those attitudes could have been in me at some point… really humbles me.

I hope she’s doing well. I hope she dreamed of touching the stars, and now gets to do so… on a regular basis.

(I mean that metaphorically… I know commercial space-travel isn’t up to an affordable level yet.)

But… if there’s one good thing that came out of that… it reminds me that all people are deserving of respect, and color ain’t nothing but a crayon name.

The only other “people of color” that I would have considered ever having a personal problem with… was after we moved to New Hampshire (an even LESS diverse neighborhood then in that part of Massachusetts, if that was possible). A few months after we moved in… on Halloween night, I remember… directly across the street, moved in a black family.

Now the oldest brother and sister, were good people. At least when I got to know them. The sister was in my brother’s grade, and the brother was in mine. We became friends in the 6th grade. We even won a “contest” together… some book sale was coming to the school, and there was a competition to write an “ad” that you would get to say over the loudspeaker during the morning announcements. The winner… got a whole 5 dollar gift certificate. I actually suggested that we do it together. And we did. When we were presenting it in the “competition”, I was shocked that there was only 1 other kid, out of the whole school, that wrote a prospective ad. It was the team of me and my neighbor… against this one other kid. We won. That’s 2 dollars and 50 cents in free books apiece… yeah, baby! Though, in retrospect… I think I’m the one that actually did all the writing, and in the performing, he did ONE line. *shrug* Eh… what can ya do?

As we got into High School… we ended up not having any classes together… eventually, he melded into the “Jock crowd” (I think)… I remained my freaky oddball-among-oddities self.

The ones I DID have a problem with… were his younger brothers. They were truly little assholes. I’m fully confident, to this day, that the reason I didn’t like them had nothing to do with skin color… they themselves were 100% dicks. Yeah, punks… that’s what you get for calling me “Fat” on the school bus… you get “served” on my blog!

Okay, that didn’t sound as impressive as when I first thought of it…

My undergrad college was a slight step up from high school… in terms of multiformity. There were a few various ethnicities on campus, but again… central New Hampshire… take what you get. Race-wise, the strangest comment I ever heard came from a white girl. She was a DJ at the college radio station, and a small group of us were talking about being “open-minded”… the exact reason for the conversation escapes me… and I actually heard this girl say, “I’m very open-minded. In fact, I’m so open-minded, that I only date black men.”

Something… odd… about that statement, don’t you think? She wasn’t being sarcastic, or ironic… she was being 100% serious. Sometimes, I’m still trying to figure that one out.

But when I moved to Northern California for Graduate School… Oochie mama! So many different types of people… and so many of each kind! That was the first time I truly felt like I was in a “diverse environment”. I never felt uncomfortable, or out of place… in fact, I liked the variety. It was interesting, it was beautiful, it was so very different than what I grew up with. It was there that I had my first opportunity to even fall for someone of a different ethnicity than myself.

Now, it wasn’t because of that ethnicity that I fell for her. Though, for a while, I did wonder if I in fact “had a thing for Asians”… of which she is. Ultimately, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have a thing for “certain” Asians. Just like I have a thing for “certain white women”, “certain black women”, etc. Nothing about the DNA… she was just a quality individual.

Smart, funny, driven, responsible, beautiful… the kind of beautiful that’s worth taking a chance getting rejected. Ultimately, I was. Probably chalk it up to a case of “bad luck in the timing”… this was about the time my family was meeting “The Damn Cambodian”, so guess what I was going through?

But… and I’m very thankful for this… we’re still friends. She’s one of the few people I stay in fairly regular contact with from Grad School… and I always smile when I hear from her. While we’re now thousands of miles apart, geographically… sometimes I still wonder if things had gone a little different for us at the time… or even if I got another chance, what would I do?

But I digress…

When I got down to Los Angeles… this diversity thing was old hat. I pretty much started taking it for granted… because when I came back East… Holy Reverse Culture Shock, Batman! Why is everyone white? Not even a *little* variety, no? Oh wait… that’s right… this is New Hampshire.

I got spoiled. From college on up… not just diversity in race and color… but in attitudes and choices. Tattoos, piercings, gays, bisexuals, transvestites, transsexuals, bikers, actors; you name the subculture, I’ve probably got a friend in there… and all are people I would take bullets for.

That’s diversity to me. A bunch of people I love.

Variety *is* the spice of life.