A Cautionary Tale

Let me tell you a story about a guy who led children away from their homes. He created an elaborate wonderland for them to escape to, in part in their minds and in part in reality. He took them away from their families and then slowly started to warp their fragile young minds. He did all this without a lot of media attention at first, but then the public started to catch on. Not long after the public caught on he did something major to disfigure his face and most people who saw it found it very disturbing, indeed. To this day he denies that he has done anything wrong, although it is well documented that he slept with at least some of them.

Michael Jackson? No. Charles Manson. Do you care if HE wrote a couple hit records before he did any of those things? I sure don't.

Before you get all heated about comparing the two, consider this: at least Manson's victims were mostly old enough to make their own decisions! Other than that, the similarities are quite striking other than the record contract.

So why does the public care so much about the death of Michael Jackson? We haven't lost the music, only the horrible pedophile that created it.

Worse yet people are going to start labeling him "mentally ill." Well, yes, probably, but so what? You could likely call 90% of criminals "mentally ill" if your definition is simply that their brains do not function in a manner that allows them to fit comfortably within the confines of our society. Does that mean they have any less control over their actions than someone not "mentally ill"? Absolutely not. So they are equally liable for their actions. And just in case you want to argue the converse - that they have less control over their actions - consider this: doesn't that make them more important to remove for society? After all, if they have less control, they are less able to be rehabilitated. And, finally, to quiet the drug dealers: in giving them back lost control aren't you giving them just enough control to go off drugs and lose it again?

Seriously, America, get your damn priorities straight. Years ago we were given great music and we still have that music. Yesterday a harmful pedophile died. Play his records if you want but stop mourning his death. His victims aren't (unless they have Stockholm Syndrome. I'm looking at you, Macaualy Culkin).

One more for the road...

Observe, to my left, 1970's singer-songwriter Boz Scaggs. What does ol' Boz here have in common with left socks and car keys? Scroll down to the bottom of this post to find out.

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When people ask me where I'm from, I have difficulty answering. I was born in Jacksonville, Florida, but grew up at the Jersey Shore. Since the beginning of college, I've lived in a half-dozen other places in New Jersey and I also lived in Massachusetts for two years.

So is where I'm from where I'm "from" (like the "Born:" line on a baseball card)? Or is it "home" (like the place I have listed on my driver's license)? As a result of this strange, almost-paradoxical problem I have, people will ask me perhaps one of the simplest questions in the world to answer ... and I will exhibit the kind of difficulty in answering it one might expect from a developmentally-challenged first grader.

The things I am good at do not make me smart - they make me barely function at adult life. I'd be better off having talent at knitting.

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Without sounding too romantic (which I know isn't manly, and I have to be manly in the OTHER parts of a blog post where I'm executing a Boz Scaggs running gag) - I love the Jersey Shore, and I've completely forgotten what it's like spending the summer within spitting distance of it.

Wait, you may argue, have you been to the Jersey Shore at all yet this summer? (Yes, I would reply, two times.) But hasn't the weather sucked all year? (Yes, except for three days since the end of the month of April. I spent both of these days at the Jersey Shore. So there!)

Even though the government is using its Evil Weather Machine to control our emotions and keep us in line, when the weather gets nicer - and it will - I plan on spending lots of time down the Shore this summer. People give the Jersey Shore a bad rap, and I suppose it makes sense. There are a lot of douchebags down there, but if you pick your spots correctly you can avoid most of them.

For instance, Long Beach Island is way tamer than Belmar. I'm 25 and now a little old and a little lame, so I definitely prefer bars/clubs on LBI to other places at the Jersey Shore. In addition to there being less douchebags (the higher cover charge and the fact that it's LBI deters them), LBI beach bars are legitimately on the beach and often have looser restrictions about what can be done on said beach. All in all, these are very good things.

(*ASIDE: It's a running theme between some of us on the Damaged, Inc. team that we're going to focus our resources and write a book about a summer at the Jersey Shore where we would presumably spend a lot of money in order to get drunk at a lot of different places. This book would basically consist of a lot of jotting down strange things that happened on a notepad, interviewing popped-collar douchebags and douche-baggy cover bands, and drinking all of the ingredients for vomit. Because this book may never happen, I'm making the concept public and if anyone wants to run with it, you just need to thank me in the acknowledgements.)

(*ASIDE: There was an article in the New York Times today about how Jersey Shore bars were starting to become classy. Fuck you, New York Times, and your faux-journalistic pretention! For instance, check out this quote:

“A lot of people don’t realize there’s Jersey after Atlantic City,” said [name redacted, for reasons to be made clear shortly], 32, of Manalapan Township, N.J., as she sipped a martini at Elements in Sea Bright, a restaurant with a lounge (including D.J.’s and bottle service) that opened in 2003.

[redacted], who goes to Elements three or four times a month, is a sales representative for a liquor distributor, and works with bars all over the state. “I wanted that Manhattan atmosphere at the Jersey Shore, to get dressed up and get a $10 or $12 martini,” she said.

Yeah, I want you to contract AIDS and die in a fire, lady. Take your $12 martini and shove it up your ass lengthwise. If I'm paying more than half that for a drink - any drink - I'm going to be super pissed. People who want to spend recklessly in order to pretend to be cool have a place to live, and that place is Brooklyn. I suggest you move there.

And what's with that Atlantic City quote? Surely you doth not speak geographically? Because Atlantic City is not the first thing anyone (except for maybe 15,000 degenerate gamblers living in Chinatown) thinks of when they think of New Jersey. Fuck the heck are you talking about? /Rant.)

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To answer the Boz Scaggs randomness from earlier in this post: like left socks and car keys, people often completely forget Boz Scaggs' music.

There is a deja vu-type feeling that happens a lot to me and the rest of the Damaged, Inc. crew. We'll be at some bar somewhere, and we'll hear a random better-than-average song from the 1970's (e.g., America's "Sister Golden Hair"). Someone will immediately recognize that it's a good song and that its etymology should be recognized. Of course, we'll have no idea who performed the song.

Because we're precocious by nature, we ask someone (usually Brainpan, who has firsthand experience with the decade). At this point, we will be informed that the song is, in fact, "Sister Golden Hair" by America. We will then return to our cold beverages and all will be well.

(*ASIDE: In my opinion, this situation occurs way more frequently than it should. I think this is made worse because the New York City metropolitan area does not possess an unironic classic rock FM radio station. There is Q104.3, of course, but they care so much about trying to be hip that they only play the top 500 classic rock songs of all time. They're practically Z100 for old people, and there are already 4 Z100's in NYC, and that's enough. To be frank - and yes, I know I'm Fred - if it weren't for the part of my daily commute where I get to listen to Philadelphia rock radio, I would switch to satellite in a heartbeat.)

Anyway... getting back to Boz Scaggs. Boz had a couple of hits in 1976, one of which was a song called "Lido Shuffle". (Go ahead, click on the link. Put the song on and come right back here. It's a good song, right?) "Lido Shuffle" was my aural nemesis for the better part of a year. It was the Vader to my Skywalker. The Rommel to my Patton, if you will.

Over the past year, I heard this song in a number of different contexts - in a Wegman's grocery store in New Jersey; at Roggie's Bar and Grill in Brighton, Mass.; at a bar in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Every place I went, "Lido Shuffle" followed me. The only problem was, I had no idea what "Lido Shuffle" was called.

Lots of different people had guesses. Most often, people guessed Chicago or Van Morrison (Van the Man was an especially good guess; if you listen carefully to the song, it's difficult to tell the voices apart). Unfortunately, all these guesses were wrong, and I remained flummoxed until May 14, 2009 (my last night in Boston).

Boston (like Sheboygan, Wisconsin, one would assume) has a better FM radio repertory than New York City. As an example, Boston has a radio station called Mike-FM (if you're from the NYC area and you remember Jack-FM, it's the same concept). Mike-FM is designed to be a mostly random, iTunes playlist of music. That last night in Boston, I heard "Lido Shuffle" on Mike-FM driving back to my apartment and was FINALLY able to online-search my way to the answer. I immediately downloaded the song on my iTunes and haven't gotten enough of it for the past month.

So, Boz Scaggs, you magnificent bastard, I've defeated you. Enjoy your royalties.

Stay classy.

On Fresh Starts, Growing Up, and Changing Expectations

1999's "Office Space" is either my favorite movie to loathe or my least favorite movie to love. It is maybe one of the five funniest movies I have ever watched (along with "Supertroopers," "Caddyshack," "Animal House," and "Amistad") and is painstakingly accurate in how it depicts the very worst aspect of very many of our lives -- that is, work.

(*ASIDE: 1999 was, by any set of standards, a fantastic year for cinema. Using Wikipedia as a guide, below is a partial and alphabetical list of good-to-great movies that debuted in 1999: "American Beauty," "Being John Malkovich," "The Boondock Saints," "The Cider House Rules," "Dogma," "Girl, Interrupted," "Liberty Heights," which is the most underrated movie on the list and perhaps the second-best piece of drama ever set in Baltimore, "Man on the Moon," "The Matrix," the aforementioned "Office Space," "The Sixth Sense," "South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut," and "The Virgin Suicides". You may not agree that every movie on this list qualifies as good-to-great, but I've just listed 13 movies and if we can even agree on ten of them, that's fucking amazing. I can't think of ten movies I've seen over the past three years that I've liked as much as I enjoyed the above 13. That's how amazing of a year 1999 was for cinema.)

Anyway, getting back to "Office Space." I can only watch this movie during times of my life when I am not actively a member of the American workforce. Why, you ask? Because it's just too damned accurate, I respond. Between the literal references to things that suck in the workplace (e.g., printers that don't work, commutes that don't work) and the more metaphysical references to things that suck in the workplace (e.g., that vague feeling that time is just slipping by and we're just getting older and there's not much that can be changed about the situation), "Office Space" just plain gets it right.

Here's the kicker, though. I think I really, really like my new job. I have an office the size of which I realistically shouldn't deserve for another 10-15 years. I have real responsibility and occasionally assist on "client calls," where I'm expected to exert actual expertise and answer statistical queries with precision and aplomb. Even my commute is not that bad. But I guarantee you that if "Office Space" showed up on the TV (or if my girlfriend, with whom I now officially reside, were to pop her copy into the DVD player), I would have to turn away.

Because "Office Space" is too real, and reality is something that we all have to turn away from on occasion.

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(*ASIDE: For the first time in the history of this blog, I was just disrupted by my live-in girlfriend; she walked into the spare bedroom, where the Internet is presently stored until we obtain a router, to pick out some clothes. Having to roll my chair out of the way, I did my best Jack Nicholson impression and faux-screamed 'I'm writing!'. She immediately knew what I was talking about ("The Shining," of course). I heart my girlfriend.)

Getting back to this whole reality thing, however. I am a pretty firm believer that reality is something that we actively construct. Our opinions about things, our attitudes, our feelings; all of these things are interactions between our brains and the immediate environment. The reality of my present moment is that one month ago, I was a graduate student of Psychology, living in Massachusetts. Right now, I am a Project Director for a marketing research firm, living in New Jersey and learning how to act like an adult, essentially from the ground-up.

For instance, I didn't know that I still had to cuddle. It's not that I don't like cuddling, as it were. It's just that, for the most part in my life, laying in bed and cuddling was something that I did because there was no space to stretch out and watch the NBA Finals on ABC. But no, my girlfriend still expects me to cuddle, pretty much all the time.

Also, living with your girlfriend is more or less like having a roommate (except much better, for obvious reasons). There will still be dishes in the sink and garbage to be taken out. I've learned that I can be the garbage taker-outer, and my girlfriend can take care of different, other chores! Isn't this lovely!

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My point is this: Because we construct our own respective realities, we have enormous power over deciding what we love and what we don't love. Some things are stable; for instance, I've loved my girlfriend for a number of years and I don't think this will change any time soon. Other things aren't; in five weeks, I may strongly loathe my job, for instance.

Since January, when I decided to leave graduate school, I started to love the *idea* of my life as it's presently constituted. As an immediate consequence, I began to dislike the life I was living at the time. Looking back, I have no clue how I made it through two years of graduate school, removed for the most part from the people in New Jersey I care for so much. (*NOTE: I think a big thing that helped was knowing people in Massachusetts who cared for me a great deal.)

But ideas are not the same as reality. Ideas are projections, and they are prone to being inaccurate. I consciously understood that my *ideas* were attached to long commutes, printers that don't work, and bosses like Lumbergh who may want me to come in on Saturdays. But life is good at the moment, reality is what I make of it, and right now I am completely digging reality.

Stay classy out there.