tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26010646532929613122024-03-13T09:59:22.232-07:00I Will Be Famous SoonOn my 31st and a half birthday, it occurred to me:
"I will be famous soon. I better write down what it's like to be regular . . . before I forget."JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.comBlogger197125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-38968878944501155012020-04-10T12:31:00.002-07:002020-04-10T12:31:34.712-07:00Joe Biden is an Impossible Burger<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">An Argument for the Practical Application of Moral Certainty in the 2020 Election</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">OR</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Why Joe Biden is an Impossible Burger</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I want to make a suggestion to you. I want to make it in the form of a reasonable, well-thought-out, experienced argument that isn't based on loyalties or tribalism, but on evidence, strategy, and – dare I say – morality. I hesitate to use that word. I don't know your specific moral code, and you don't know mine. But, I'm going to postulate that if you're reading this – whether Athiest, Evangelical, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, or anywhere on the religious and spiritual spectrum – you have a similar </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">enough </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">moral code to fall within the audience of this essay. If you want to see the world burn, you might want to step outside. Everyone else, please hang around.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The suggestion concerns a McDonalds that I'm hypothetically standing near right now. Imagine it, the McDonalds and me. (The McDonalds looks like a McDonalds. You can imagine me how you like, including choosing my outfit.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I am near this</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">McDonalds in a blue leotard and wool socks. (I assume that’s how you’ve chosen to dress me.) I'm a conscientious person who wants to do good in the world, and McDonald’s is McDonald’s, complete with its current corporate behaviors, sourcing chains, and treatment of its workers. Should I eat at McDonalds? The answer is obviously no, no matter how hungry I am or how you've dressed me. I'd be supporting a mountain of morally unctious Mordor. Except.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Let’s tweak McDonald’s. It is now paying people $17 an hour and offering vegan food. Do I eat there? Is that enough to win my support? The vegan food is served wrapped in plastic and cooked alongside tiger meat. Do I eat there? The workers are children saved from poverty and given a fair shot in life, including free health care. Do I eat there? The french fries are made from Monsanto-fed potatoes that are flown in individually at an absurd cost to the environment. The building is sustainable and actively cleans the air and water that pass through it. Do I eat there? The seats are uncomfortable. Now what?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Clearly, this essay and its McDonalds comprise an argument about compromise, about moral complexity, about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. It's an advocacy piece that says you should hold your nose and vote for Joe Biden no matter who you support, because -- though he is clearly problematic and almost no one under fifty's first choice -- he would be better than the alternative. In a complex moral universe, he would do more good than harm. You should compromise your values. You should accept the reality that we face. Except.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">This is not that piece. I would argue that, as a Bernie supporter especially, you can’t just vote for Joe Biden. You have to do two things instead. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Before I tell you those two things, you need to know where I’m coming from. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I'm a Bernie supporter, and a serious one. I've followed Sanders since I lived in New England, before he ever ran for president. I followed his 2010 filibuster with enthusiasm. I devoured the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Rolling Stone </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">article, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Inside the Horror Show That Is Congress </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">in which Bernie took the magazine through the process of trying to get a bill passed in a deeply partisan era; it was, indeed, a horror show, and Bernie stood out as a rational, ethical outlier. In the early 2000's, when Massachusetts adopted the model that would inspire Obamacare, I was so profoundly disappointed that I wrote a letter to all of my local representatives and changed my voting habits. I didn't vote for Obama in his second term because I felt he compromised too much on the issues I valued.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">In short, I'm far from a mainstream Democrat, and when Bernie announced his candidacy for president in 2015, I followed him there, too, and how. I volunteered in text and phone banks and distributed</span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">campaign literature in Chicago. I shared my health care horror stories and fought with friends and partners over minimum wage, Wall Street regulation, free public universities, the electoral college, and, of course, what Hillary Clinton was all about. Bernie winning Michigan is up there with Barack Obama's “Yes We Can” speech in the ranks of the most inspiring political moments of my lifetime.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I love Bernie Sanders. I love what he fights for. I love how he fights for it. I love his dignity and integrity. I love that he yells. I love that he laughs. I love how he plays with his grandkids. I think his policies are essential and ahead of their time here. So.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Fellow Bernie supporters, what are we to do? Are you going to #DemExit and #NeverBiden? If so, let me ask you another question first. Just one question before you go.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">What is wrong with you?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> And another.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">What the hell do you think you're doing?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> And another.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Are you out of your mind?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I'm sorry if that got a little antagonistic. You can put me back in the wooly socks and leotard if it makes you feel better. But please, spend some time with the rational, moral, Bernie Sanders-esque argument I'm now ready to make. (Yes. That's right. This is an argument that I believe Bernie Sanders himself has made and would make again.) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Part One. Compromise. Voting for Joe Biden is something you should and, in fact, must do. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Part One’s argument isn't the most original, but it needs to be made again, and maybe in a slightly different way, because too many people are insulting us by trying to sell Joe Biden as a feasible alternative to Sanders. Biden is not an alternative to Sanders. When I suggest that you vote for him, I don't mean that you accept Joe Biden as a “close enough” Plan B. I don’t mean that you should settle for who he is and what he stands for. Even if the best stories about him are true and the worst false, he doesn't live up to the standards of integrity that Sanders set for his campaign, much less what we want in a president. He has caused harm, more than he needed to. I won't advocate that he’s not as bad as we think or should be a suitable alternative. But.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I will argue that we must elect him if we want progress, because we must. Electing Joe Biden is progress.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Disagreeing with that assertion is your right, but the definition of progress is rooted in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">from where we are progressing</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. We are in trouble. Serious trouble. We are in a dire, ugly, inhuman, perilous, near-apocalyptic DEFCON-5 fire swamp of trouble. The Trump administration’s current practices must not be allowed to continue, much less to be extended and emboldened by a second term. This is an administration that draws straight from the fascist playbook, belittling all critical press while praising outlets that spread its conspiracy theories and biased, self-serving misinformation. It is an administration that has challenged your fundamental rights in courts. Where those courts have ruled in your favor, they’re being dismantled and discredited; the administration is appointing more and more judges to them who are </span><a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/trump-picks-more-not-qualified-judges-1" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">ruled unqualified by their peers</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> but are ideologically in line with your president. And this administration has undermined the processes and precedents that protect not only </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">you</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, but </span><a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/18/us-trumps-first-year-sets-back-rights#" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">people far more vulnerable than you</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">This is an administration that, within hours of Trump's inauguration, erased all mention of climate change from the EPA web site, the same EPA that</span><a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/489753-epa-suspends-enforcement-of-environmental-laws-amid-coronavirus" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> will no longer be enforcing any environmental law</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. It is an administration that has mismanaged, equivocated on, and worsened the greatest health crisis of our time, so much so that it is being investigated by Congress . . . again. It is an administration that, during this health crisis, has continued to</span><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/05/atkinson-trump-fired-whistleblower-complaint-167371" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> purge opposition</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> and oversight within its ranks, including that of the </span><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-abruptly-removes-inspector-general-named-oversee-2t/story?id=70024680" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">biggest stimulus package in history</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. It is an administration propped up by a tacit and obstinate elephant party with members who still think women often lie about their rapes, that doctors should be killed for performing abortions, and that trans people are the equivalent of sexual predators. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Do I sound like an alarmist? If so, reread those two paragraphs and chew on the facts. They are not hyperbolic or hypothetical. In fact, they are only a meager sampling of what’s been happening the last four years, and despite the administration’s ongoing efforts to eliminate objective truth itself, they are real. You are in a McDonalds where you eat the meat whether you like it or not, where there's no food safety or inspection standards, where you can be killed for being brown without consequence, and where the seats are especially uncomfortable for anyone who isn’t a white male with money. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Remember all the people who warned you that Trump could win in 2016. Talk to those people now. They will warn you again of what's next. Fascism and white supremacy are happening here, and denying it is enabling it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">People are not safe. You are not safe. And you don’t have the luxury of four more years to make your point. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Joe Biden is progress. He will be more progress if he chooses</span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/09/progressives-to-biden-keep-wall-street-out-of-the-white-house.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> a progressive running mate</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> and is serious about </span><a href="https://qqueenofhades.tumblr.com/post/612330340123541504/okay-ive-read-joe-bidens-plans" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">his platform</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. Time will tell. Regardless, the moral equivalency argument between Trump and Biden is absurd. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I can hear people shutting the door. This essay is what I told you it isn’t. It’s just another one of those bullshit arguments that says that since Trump is so bad, we should take what we can get, swallow our pride and our values, and support things we don't truly believe in while the powers-that-be continue to ignore us. That is, in fact, my biggest fear in publishing this work: that I will sound like an advocate for moral compromise and watery moderation. That is not my stance, nor is it the stance of this essay. I recognize that the engines of progress are the John Adams, the Harriet Tubmans, the Mahatma Gandhis, the Martin Luther Kings, the people who fought as radicals and were silenced, mocked, and murdered. We should all aspire to their level of commitment to justice, and to their philosophies. If you haven't read the</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> Letter From Birmingham Jail</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">, do it today. Reaffirm the dangers “compromise” poses in the face of moral certainty, the molecular anti-progress of the white play-it-safer, the sneaky racism that poses as practicality in laws and ordinances. But.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Don't delude yourself that by </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">voting for Joe Biden, you are somehow taking a moral stand against the ethical queasiness of the wait-and-see moderate. You don't get a progressive trophy tied with an integrity ribbon for withholding your vote from him. Ignoring the fact that your protest vote will actively cause pain – by working to extend Trump's morally </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">worse </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">presidency and endanger all of us – it’s also a miserable and largely ineffective form of advocacy. You see injustice in the world, and your way of standing up to it is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">voting, or voting for a third party candidate you know can't win? (An aside here: I'm a huge third party advocate, but do you honestly think you're furthering their agenda by voting for them in a national election and doing nothing on the ground to help them in places they can actually succeed?)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Voting matters, yes. Getting people elected matters. Protest voting in a presidential election is wildly ineffective as a form of social change. (Ask Bill Clinton how much he felt the national Democratic Party needed to move on its platform after voters sent him a “clear message” in the form of Ross Perot. None at all? Weird. Donkeys can be as stubborn as elephants.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Do Part One. Vote Biden. But you must –you simply must – you can not proceed without Part Two. It would be immoral and impractical to vote for Joe Biden without Part Two.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Part Two. Don’t compromise. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">You must do more than vote for Joe Biden. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">You must.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Your eventual vote for Joe Biden, in fact, would be a mere bumper sticker on the vehicle of progress. If all you did was vote for Joe Biden as a Bernie supporter, you would be a sell-out. You would be doing all the things you're afraid of: emboldening the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, compromising your values, undermining the #metoo movement. Your vote for Joe Biden with no other action attached would be a subscription to one of the most harmful misunderstandings in American politics: the belief that your civic duty begins and ends on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November every four years.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Which is to say that you can't wrap all of your civic obligations up into a candidate, put him in the White House, and expect it to drive the country in a radically different direction. Take the counterexample: our Vermontian socialist cult leader.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">I understand – because I am of the cult, too – the appeal of Bernie Sanders as president, and he would probably have been more than a bumper sticker toward progress – a steering wheel and a windshield, perhaps. But.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">He wouldn't have fixed the country. For example.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Do you think that the same Democratic Party mechanisms that actively opposed Sanders' campaigns (twice) wouldn't have ground against his presidency? Would Democrats in Congress have had a come-to-Jesus moment and begun to pass his policies through? They've been uncompromisingly clear on the fact that they would not. Look at the impact a handful of “centrist” Democratic senators had on the Affordable Care Act. There was a public option in the initial text of that bill. A few senators – centrist Democrats – killed it. The danger of the white moderate. They did that to Obama. Imagine what they'd do to socialist Sanders. If you picture a Sanders presidency bringing dramatic and immediate progress to the United States, you're being naive. It was never about that. Says who? Our messy-haired Larry David impersonator himself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">What Uncle Socialist gets, and we should, too, is that on November 3, the world will need powerful moral advocates to move it forward, not only as voters, but as volunteers at polls, as truth tellers, as compassionate helpers, as shoppers making buying decisions that support their values. He gets that it will need the same kinds of advocates on November 2; and November 4; and on January 20, 2021; and throughout the entire year of 2023. It will need people to call for that investigation into Tara Reade's accusations against Joe Biden, and Christine Blasey Ford's against Brett Kavanaugh, and Kristin Anderson's against Donald Trump, and Karen Johnson's against Donald Trump, and Jill Harth's against Donald Trump (etc etc), and every woman's at every college campus, high school, and workplace in America. It will need advocates to stand in front of tractors to protect the rainforests, to reduce their own global emissions through their purchasing decisions, to march on Washington for racial equality, to demand a carbon tax and student loan forgiveness and free higher education policies from their senators and representatives, both national and local. It will need people who sit in and stand up for universal health care and continue to trumpet its value forward. It will need boots on the ground. It will need you, it needs you now, and it needs you loud. It will need you long after Bernie is gone.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">For now, do everything you can to put the candidate who will less stand in your way in power, then fight like hell using every tool you have to make sure that candidate listens. Make sure he is held accountable for whatever harm he causes. Make sure he knows you are still here. Fight for progressive legislators to do the same on the state and local level. Keep people like Bernie in the House and Senate. You have powerful social tools to take the fights you care about to power. If you don't use them because you only see one way forward (i.e., electing Bernie), you're not being morally certain; you're being unwise and short-sighted. Your vote is a weapon; it is not your armada. November 3 is an opportunity; it is not an end point for your action. Also.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Change doesn't happen from the top down. It happens from the bottom up, so start there, stay there, and finish there. You know who would say the same?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Our Jewish war god.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">You are at McDonalds in a booty-shorts-onesie. Joe Biden is an overprocessed, still-bad-for-you Impossible Burger cooked on the same grill where they cook the meat; Donald Trump is ebola. Pick your meal as you like, but those are your options, and why in the hell would you pick ebola? #EbolaExit. Seriously. What good do you think that is doing anyone?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Speaking of which, this McDonalds could really use some changes, and like it or not, we’re going to be here forever. Let's start with these uncomfortable seats. </span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-4d08ff4f-7fff-c4bb-c2b2-430c1e108d8b"><br /></span>JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-4317434771273856422016-08-09T20:25:00.005-07:002016-08-09T20:29:56.979-07:00#famousInstead of "writing," from now on, I'm going to dedicate my creative energy to social media. I have a lot to say on facebook.com. I'm not sure why people call it "facebook" and leave out the "dot com" part. The "dot com" part seems pretty essential to finding it on the world wide web.<br />
<br />
You may not be familiar with facebook DOT COM. It is a web page where someone can create a page all about himself. Or herself. You can actually make a bunch of pages about yourself or someone else or whoever (or an event or something you like, you really should check it out). Then, once you have a page about yourself, you can do useful things like post pictures and stuff, or you can just write something you want everyone who is your friend (on facebook DOT COM, not in real life) to read. For example, you could write, "I am going to vote for Hillary Clinton." And people can write comments on what you wrote. Like someone might say, "I'm not." See?<br />
<br />
Also, you can share links. So, after I write this post, I'm going to share a link to it on facebook DOT COM.<br />
<br />
What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. I have way too much writing talent to be wasting it on books and plays and failed screenplays about black people. I would rather spend my time using my words to write messages to people, preferably a lot of people at the same time. Like this:<br />
<br />
HI EVERYONE<br />
<br />
Anyone who comes to this website can read that.<br />
<br />
I'm also going to create the most interesting texts. Those are messages, but for just one person at a time. (usually, if you send it to more than one person at a time people get mad at you). I am going to text things like "How are things" and "I have my hand on your butt." (as you can see, sometimes I will sext. That means to text but about sex. Usually it means to text about sex with someone you are or want to have sex with.)<br />
<br />
Who would like to be the recipient of my first text? Or my facebook DOT COM friend? Follow me! Follow me! I have so much to show you. Ready to text here! Ready to fire away! Just let me know you want one, and I'll send it right out to space so it can rocket back down to your smartphone.<br />
<br />
Let the writing career begin. Ready when you are!<br />
<br />
PS I am also very good at filling in timesheets and writing my name and information on legal documents. If you or someone you know would like to pay me to do those things, I will accept no less that $15 an hour. #Awriterhastomakealiving.JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-85573357064884577162016-02-06T13:45:00.001-08:002016-02-08T10:35:38.514-08:00Men Only<div class="MsoNormal">
When you’re eleven and want to disappear in a puff of smoke,
the best thing to do is ask around school. You’ll find that only one kid in
your fifth grade class knows how to do it. It’s Max. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You’ll have an initial conversation with Max about smoke,
smoking, and smoke bombs. You’ll realize in that microchat that Max has something
you don’t. It’s not knowledge, although Max definitely knows where to buy
things you haven’t even heard of. It’s not strength, although Max takes Tae Kwon
Do and has the jumpkick to prove it. And it’s not anything ethical or
spiritual; neither you nor Max have given much thought or development to your reverent
side at this point in your life. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whatever Max has—and there’s no fifth grade word for it—it
rubs off on you. Soon, he becomes your mentor. He shares with you his physical
strength; you do push-ups and sit-ups together. He teaches you courage; you
jump off of rooves together. He teaches you to smoke, and how to play King of
the Hill, and that fighting trick where you put your leg behind the other guy’s
leg and then awkwa-grapple him into tripping backwards. Max turns you into the
fifth grade equivalent of a badass. Max turns you into a man.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You and Max scope out turf. You choose a part of the playground
to be yours. It’s literally a pile of dirt over by the swings or whatever. A
pile of dirt. But it’s yours. One day, you see another young man playing there.
You don’t know him. He doesn’t know you. But you know that’s your pile of dirt.
You do the awkwa-grapple thing. The kid skins not only his knee but his face.
The kid starts to cry. You win. Pile of dirt defended. Manhood defended. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Your punishment is severe. In addition to having your
parents called, your job is to go up to the nurse’s office, look that young man
in the eye, and apologize to him. Gross. Apologies. Crying. Weakness. Gross.
You feel absolutely terrible. It occurs to you then that the you who threw this
young man to the ground was never you. You realize that you don’t know you.
Then you start to realize some other things, too.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First, you realize that Max’s smoke bombs come mail-order
from the back of Boys’ Life magazine. Then, it occurs to you that when you’re
“hiding in plain sight,” everyone can see you; they just don’t care that you’re
there. And those cigarettes you’re smoking? With open eyes, you see that they’re
napkins rolled up and taped into nerd-cylinders. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Your insights fundamentally alter your relationship with
your sensei. Suddenly, his way of teaching you to always be on guard by hitting
you when you aren’t paying attention—it feels more like bullying. His way of getting
you to jump off a roof by calling you a pussy if you don’t—feels like false
bravado. And his Tae Kwon Do training that never taught him the best form of
self-defense—not to get in a fight in the first place—well, it doesn’t seem
like your sensei was there that day. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Middle School, Max no longer part of your life, you’ll
reflect on your training: how did the dude seem so big so long? How did he
remain your Rufio, an artificial man in a world of authentic boys? How is it he
got to call the shots for the better part of a school year when you had a
perfectly good mind and heart of your own?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The top of your spine spoonfeeds you the answer. You recall.
Ah! Yes! There was the <i>thing</i>—the
thing Max had that fifth graders (and adults) don’t have a word for. Today, you’ll
find it hiding in plain sight in the thesaurus, chilling invisibly near words
like “confidence” and “assertiveness.” It’s buried in power philosophies and
innocent clichés that talk about “being present” and “showing up.” What Max had
was . . . wait for it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He was <i>there</i>. It’s
that simple. Max took up the space everyone else was willing to relinquish.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He’s still doing it today. Max is staking out turf, calling
meetings at flagpoles in Rogers Park complete with secret passwords and
intimidation tactics. He’s standing on stage at iO turning some female scene
partner into a housewife or a whore. He’s designing public bulletins and health
care policy, making sure we <i>all </i>know
that we <i>all </i>don’t need to worry about
the Zika virus. Max is on the rampage, y’all. We just may not notice it,
because we probably don’t take him too seriously. Wait. Some of us notice it
and take it seriously—those of us who are women. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Okay, gentlemen. Bring it in. (Ladies, please kindly allow
us some space. We have to huddle. It’s what men <i>do</i>.) Everyone here? Good. Listen. Here’s the gameplan. Look out
across the field. See the other team? Max’s. Millions of them. The game? Manhood.
Manliness. Masculinity. The rules? That’s what we have to decide. That’s why
we’re here. Who here has an opinion on what it means to be a <i>man</i>?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nobody? Anybody? Listen, fellahs. Someone’s going to take up
space out here, and if it’s not us, it’s going to be them. What’s that, Number
14? You think the women of the world need our support? That we should be including
them in this conversation? Get out of my face. That’s ridiculous. Women are
fine. They’ve heard enough from us. They’ve been putting up with our shit for
centuries. Right now, we’re talking about us. Who are we? Anybody?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s start simple. Are we the kind of men who will allow
masculinity to be defined by misogynists? No? Are we the kind of men who will allow
the role models our fathers and grandfathers created for us—you know, the men
who fought in just wars and provided for entire families—to be openly mocked,
shamed, and trivialized? No! Are we the kind of men who will be awkwa-grappled
into surrendering our turf to people who are morally inferior to us? NO!? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, game on, then. Women, you can come back now. I have good news for you:<br />
<br />
We men, the real ones, decided long ago that we aren't interested in being idiots or assholes. We don't want to own your bodies. We don't want to harm your bodies. We don't want to oppress your minds. We don't support an uneven playing field when it comes to health, sex, work, respect, or any of the other areas in which you are commonly oppressed and belittled. That's not the good news.<br />
<br />
The good news is that we decided--just now in our huddle--not to be quiet about it anymore. (Right, gentlemen?) See, most of us are taught to just abide by the fuckfarts of the world, to bite our tongues and spend time
around people we like and respect, to live our own lives and go about our own
business. ‘Just don’t <i>be </i>that way,’
we’re told. Well, we in our huddle just called bullshit. We in our huddle just decided that being a good person is not enough, that passive support is not enough, that not being Max is not enough. Furthermore, we in our huddle just decided that we don't want to be reactive anymore. This is our gender, too, and our timidity has been the strength of Max's everywhere.<br />
<br />
Instead,we're going to be men of action. We're going to go out and be policy-makers. Educators. Writers. Funny comedians and talented improvisers. We're going to be bosses and office managers and flight attendants and sports stars and fathers and partners and friends. And when we see some phony who doesn't get what it is to be a man, we're going to stand up, not one at a time, but in droves, and teach him. In doing all of this, we're going to create an entire culture based on what it is to be a real man, and we're going to let the fake men try to live in it.<br />
<br />
Gents, I'll repeat: reacting is not enough. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Yes. The Kings of Cock cancelled their
meeting when everyone threw a fit. They retreated back into the internet. We won; they lost. But these boys were just a distraction. Look at all the facets of misogyny that haven't retreated, haven't even been asked to. (Do I need to name them? If you're not familiar, ask any female friend what one day in her life is like. She'll tell you that Return of Kings is the least of her worries, and she'll be happy to provide you specific reasons why.) Regardless of whether any particular group will be meeting in our streets and near our homes on
Saturday night, please don’t forget that what they represent remains “out there” in ways we all see every day, and wherever the Max's are allowed to take action, they are also allowed to shape
the definition of our gender and our world. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So bid them farewell and laugh at them if you want, and
flick them off as they go. Good riddance, Max. Good riddance, Return of Kings.
While we’re at it, good riddance to rapists, misogynists, egoists, narcissists,
abusers, haters, terrorists, Rush Limbaughs; to the Señor Ceréns of El Salvador
and the John Belushis of SNL. Thank you all for yielding, ultimately, to the
glacial wall of progress. We love it when you lose. We love to celebrate your
disappearance. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Puff. </i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But men: here’s the real question we better be asking ourselves.
What do we do with the space<i> </i>left
behind when these assholes finally shut up? Now that the flagpole stands
unguarded, will we quietly allow a deluded silence to still the public domain?
Or will we charge in, voices strong, and loudly claim our turf?<o:p></o:p></div>
JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-21062401540134764192015-03-16T20:52:00.002-07:002015-03-16T20:52:43.454-07:00Picture the Clarion Inn in Ronkonkoma, Long Island, New York . . . Now Picture Yourself Leaving<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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1. There are no refrigerators in the room. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAFpGhtd94oGwgotXpVhoNtvnqUOk8sV-janyyX-L-0BuxKm_AE9MeWNuAvWQBBOkJw1p3HwnFriEXj_ImbSVdDSUKAN73seK5qk-xOa82x6UIPD4LOms699Y6Ap9VKE5_d8eTTaseixs/s1600/IMAG0018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAFpGhtd94oGwgotXpVhoNtvnqUOk8sV-janyyX-L-0BuxKm_AE9MeWNuAvWQBBOkJw1p3HwnFriEXj_ImbSVdDSUKAN73seK5qk-xOa82x6UIPD4LOms699Y6Ap9VKE5_d8eTTaseixs/s1600/IMAG0018.jpg" height="361" width="640" /></a></div>
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2. The microwave at the communal Microwave Station is an odd, Frankenstein's monster of a machine. The glass turntable was clearly pilfered from a different, larger microwave.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW210VoRd11b4jEuToyIphRvOraYIwSrr81K7Qj5bOSpLOPf1DA4ZyUGdms_BYa9iSM_4Ml4qqlnewDAoqt1aBEJkgnFB_c8Ep3c5GyDDn0uTj4Sdf2haoQ56ZWAxIvc64nWHYdJJe1vQ/s1600/IMAG0028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW210VoRd11b4jEuToyIphRvOraYIwSrr81K7Qj5bOSpLOPf1DA4ZyUGdms_BYa9iSM_4Ml4qqlnewDAoqt1aBEJkgnFB_c8Ep3c5GyDDn0uTj4Sdf2haoQ56ZWAxIvc64nWHYdJJe1vQ/s1600/IMAG0028.jpg" height="361" width="640" /></a></div>
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3. Rooms 141 - 168 are in the same direction as Rooms 143-175.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO1jZaFJm-SCRVfnyVUWhqVl4c1BNKBMm5wI31ohWvV2gLDqxwhrFstBPNXTMBs0g6pEQ6ITFZUcNzjDbMsh4JBsrUgAGiOhvGAd383q02W75ZCFWg-S4v0qKTIjGTDShwnWFV07ShcJA/s1600/IMAG0019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO1jZaFJm-SCRVfnyVUWhqVl4c1BNKBMm5wI31ohWvV2gLDqxwhrFstBPNXTMBs0g6pEQ6ITFZUcNzjDbMsh4JBsrUgAGiOhvGAd383q02W75ZCFWg-S4v0qKTIjGTDShwnWFV07ShcJA/s1600/IMAG0019.jpg" height="362" width="640" /></a></div>
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4. The pool is cool.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb67U9ZDAvXOcz7tBrk8RtC8ZzlW6kMnAuWV54FhVUlgudxONcEgAiXvA_FCQr63TXfIOGTg9RbYb-82vh9bfoYYHuwUNmgNJSNsoRY0yGkcjgB7dlQqulo283zrDfVKWA5lr30c7c-eM/s1600/IMAG0026.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb67U9ZDAvXOcz7tBrk8RtC8ZzlW6kMnAuWV54FhVUlgudxONcEgAiXvA_FCQr63TXfIOGTg9RbYb-82vh9bfoYYHuwUNmgNJSNsoRY0yGkcjgB7dlQqulo283zrDfVKWA5lr30c7c-eM/s1600/IMAG0026.jpg" height="362" width="640" /></a></div>
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5. They take all comers.</div>
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6. The complimentary laundry service is not complimentary.</div>
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7. The breakfast buffet offers near-limitless combinations of brown and yellow.</div>
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<br />JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-3949642370702727932015-02-05T21:37:00.001-08:002015-02-05T21:37:07.384-08:00White Heat<i>Write what you know.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Write about what makes you angry. </i><br />
<br />
Well, okay. Here goes.<br />
<br />
<b>1) Doors that are heavy and close on their own. </b><br />
<br />
I am an adult. I am capable of closing a door behind me. I don't need you, oh apartment building administrators (et al), to rig it so that as soon as I stop pushing on the thing with all my might, it snapdragons back at me like a venus fly trap, closing with a "thud" or a "bang" or a "slam," usually on my rear bike derailer*. I understand security, but I'd also like to be able to buy groceries and move things in and out of my home. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, every door should be open-able with one hand. If I put the proper key into a door lock and turn it, I should gain access through that door. Anything that requires me to use two hands - whether it be to push or, worse, to manipulate two handles at once - should be illegal. <br />
<br />
It's kind of like that part in The Last Crusade, where the penitent man shall pass? The penitent man kneels before God - sure. But did you notice the vertical blade that followed right on the heels of the two horizontal ones that are avoided through "penitence?" Penitence is only the first step. Then, you have to roll, jump, and whip just so to stop the gears before you're decapitated, regardless of your knowledge of the Old Testament. <br />
<br />
Kneeling should be enough. Stop making doors that resist their primary purpose - to open. <br />
<br />
This makes me so angry. <br />
<br />
<b>2) Standing in front of empty seats on public transit.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
So you don't want to sit next to a stranger. Fine. Totally up to you. But don't turn your back (figuratively) on an empty seat just so you can <i>stand right in front of the damn thing, </i>facing (literally) the abandoned possibility of sitting<i>.</i> If you're afraid of other people, that's your business, but unless you're playing in the NBA, nobody benefits from you using your entitled ass to prevent people from getting where they want to go (in this case, sitting). <br />
<br />
Move. <br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>3) Poor snow etiquette. </b><br />
<br />
Today, I could have legally inherited three dozen milk crates, four dozen buckets, some basic patio furniture, and a trash can or two. Nothing unusual there. But apparently I am unaware of the true value of a parking spot, because I could also have inherited a nice wooden barstool, a baby pool, some shelving, and a stroller. A stroller. Doesn't your child need that? If not, doesn't somebody's child need that? Also, didn't that cost you over $100? <br />
<br />
Also, chairs, buckets, milk crates etc are for the purpose of marking a spot that you personally dug out for a short duration of time while the streets and sidewalks remain unshoveled. A week after the blizzard, you might be getting just a little possessive of that particular piece of pavement.<br />
<br />
Also, who are the dicks going around claiming spots they didn't dig out as their own? Let me give those dicks some advice. Hey dicks: Moses didn't dig out that parking spot. Someone else did. And they didn't piss in it when they left because they are part of a community, and they're trusting that other people are too, and that we're all working together to get through adverse conditions. By claiming that spot as your own when you leave it, you are pushing us closer to a society ruled by Jeb Bush and measles. <br />
<br />
It's not yours. Don't pretend it is. <br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>5) Who's proofreading this shit?.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Look - nobody's perfect. We all make mistakes. And nobody needs to be perfect, especially when it comes to language, grammar, and punctuation. We'll probably figure out what you mean. But there's a huge gap between not being perfect and completely not giving a shit.<br />
<br />
For example, here's a sign from the House on the Rock in Wisconsin:<br />
<br />
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<br />
I get what you mean, but I'm gonna take as much care not to climb on those rocks as you did in spraying punctuation all over that wooden post. <br />
<br />
Also, if you're in the business of something intellectual -- like for example, you want me to use your lawyering service -- maybe spell words correctly and avoid comma splices, apostrophe s's to pluralize, and confusing sentences like this one.<br />
<br />
How did I do?<br />
<br />
--------<br />
<br />
* Expensive!JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-52260173519472460692014-12-15T14:44:00.001-08:002014-12-16T10:29:24.779-08:00My Friend Who Is a DogI hesitate to endorse other bloggers, lest it redirect traffic* from my blog to other, less valuable parts of the internet. However, given the near limitless number of views this blog now gets from "like"-rs and the fact that, as we say down home, "they ain't goin' nowhere," I've decided that it's time for me to share the wealth and give my very first shout out to another internet Dickens.<br />
<br />
Y'all, check out <a href="http://tenthousandpuppies.blogspot.com/2014/09/3.html" target="_blank">10,000 Puppies</a>. It's written by my friend who is a dog.<br />
<br />
Here is a quick sample from his blog to whet your appetite:<br />
<br />
[/<br />
<br />
I don't know what he's trying to say exactly, except maybe "Let me go and throw me my ball. I don't want to put my paws on your keyboard."<br />
<br />
Genius.<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
* I think Kubrick would have put Soderburgh to shame. JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-63629377582040542832014-11-12T19:21:00.000-08:002014-11-12T19:21:16.428-08:00I Guess That's Why They Call Back the Blues<div>
The blues sneak up on you. They're subtle. They catch you by surprise. One day you're happy, the next day you're blue - or being considered for it, anyway.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Yesterday, I auditioned for a show I never intended to be part of. <a href="http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/27363374/blue-man-group-looking-to-add-fresh-faces-to-troupe" target="_blank">See me</a>? I'm the one slightly off camera, near the feet of the guy in the Pink Floyd shirt. Yep! That's me. See* what I'm doing? I'm masking myself. That's what blue men <i>do</i>. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
See, I know a little about it. After that video was taken, around 1:30 pm, I was taken into the back room and given an interview in which I learned a little bit^ about what it is to be a blue man. Then, I was put on hold for another hour. Then, I was taken out of the theater and over to a church a few blocks away, where I was seen by four men. They asked me to look at them. They made me walk and imagine. They made me drum. Then, they made me go home.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Then they made me come back.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Isn't this a thrilling narrative?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Today, I saw those men again. Again they made me walk. They made me look. They made me imagine. Then, they made me go home. Again.** This time, I stayed home. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
All of this is to say that I got past the first two cuts on the way to being a blue man. That's not really very far, but it's far enough to get someone's hopes up, and to (ready for it?) <i>cut </i>when things don't work out. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So now I am indeed a blue man, because I didn't get something I never wanted. See what I mean about the blues? Sneaky. Subtle. Surprising. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If you don't know what I mean, look in my eyes. See it? No? Well, look in some other guy's eyes who got further in the process. You'll probably see it there. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
-----</div>
* No. Clearly, you don't.<div>
^ By "little bit" I mean "nothing."</div>
<div>
** You can never go home again.</div>
JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-45023073472404760602014-10-23T21:13:00.000-07:002014-10-23T21:13:20.017-07:00There's a Monster in the Middle of My BookWHAT DID THAT SAY? In the blog title, what did it say? Did that say there is a monster in the middle of a book?<br />
<br />
What book is this?<br />
<br />
<i><a href="http://www.jmmanship.com/off-track.html" target="_blank">Off Track</a></i> you say? (Boy, I am tired of hearing about that book!)<br />
<br />
Shhhh. Listen, I have an idea. If you do not turn any pages, we will never get to the end of <i><a href="http://www.jmmanship.com/off-track.html" target="_blank">Off Track</a>. </i>So maybe it is best that you do not even start to read it. If you start to read it, you may start to enjoy it, and if you start to enjoy it, you may want to keep reading it, and if you keep reading it, you may get to the middle. And if you get to the middle . . .<br />
<br />
WHAT ARE YOU DOING? You just downloaded a copy of <i><a href="http://www.jmmanship.com/off-track.html" target="_blank">Off Track</a>! </i>DON'T YOU KNOW THERE IS A MONSTER IN THE MIDDLE OF THAT BOOK?<br />
<i><br /></i>
I am going to make this hard for you. I am going to charge you zero dollars. That way, you are guaranteed to think the book is cheap and uninteresting, and you will never actually start to read it. <br />
<br />
NOW WHAT ARE YOU DOING? You just started reading a copy of <i><a href="http://www.jmmanship.com/off-track.html" target="_blank">Off Track</a>! </i>Don't you know that it is like a pamphlet or an advertisement or a tract that a religious person might leave on your car? It is worthless! WORTHLESS! <br />
<i><br /></i>
Maybe you do not understand. You see, turning pages will bring you closer to the end of <i><a href="http://www.jmmanship.com/off-track.html" target="_blank">Off Track</a></i>, and you do not want to go there, because somewhere around the middle, you will find a monster! Have I not made that clear? <br />
<br />
Okay, how can I stop you from doing this page turning thing? You have made it through the first four chapters of <i><a href="http://www.jmmanship.com/off-track.html" target="_blank">Off Track</a>. </i>That is moving you closer to the middle, which is where the MONSTER is. You had better stop enjoying yourself soon, or find some other reason to put the book down. Because you are getting WAY TOO CLOSE to the monster for my liking. <br />
<i><br /></i>
WILL YOU PLEASE STOP TURNING PAGES? If you keep turning pages, I will be forced to make a chapter near the middle VERY, VERY BORING. And then you will HAVE to stop reading.<br />
<i><br /></i>
The next chapter is going to be very, very boring. I'm warning you. <br />
<br />
Okay, now you have really gone off into cuckoo land. You are writing me to tell me how much you are enjoying the book, which I repeat has a MONSTER inside AND which I made VERY VERY BORING in one place to slow you down. <br />
<br />
Did you know that you are very determined? <i> </i><br />
<br />
Oh no. Please stop now. You are getting frighteningly close to the monster in the middle of the book. You are even <a href="http://www.jmmanship.com/uploads/1/4/8/2/14821916/preprelogue_read_me_first.pdf" target="_blank">donating a small sum of dollars to help make the book a fancy ebook, and also to benefit local community organizations</a>, which means even more people might read this book and be subjected to the MONSTER.<br />
<br />
Oh, please, please, please STOP.<br />
<br />
. . .<br />
<br />
Hello?<br />
<br />
Oh no. Oh no, oh no! <br />
<br />
. . .<br />
<br />
Oh no. <br />
<br />
<br />JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-71484367218072099822014-10-20T16:28:00.000-07:002014-10-20T16:28:14.588-07:00Damned If You DoWeather's turnin' cold in Chicago. Yes, sir, it is. Makes some men want to drop out, disappear, curl up with a good book and sink away into Blankettown. <br />
<br />
Not this man, though. This man's got a bone to pick. A score to settle. This man was born more fighter than coward, more devil than angel, more lounge singer than elementary school librarian. <br />
<br />
This man went for a walk.<br />
<br />
Wound up in a place called "Satan's Cackle Shack." Don't know what the hell that's all about. But it was hot. Hot as Hades. Empty, too, 'cept for a cacklin' skeleton. So I wandered in. Took the mic. Started tellin' jokes. Soon, a few other lost souls found their way through the half-door. Lent me their ears. Skeleton kept right on cacklin'. Soon enough, people did, too. Lifted my spirits, I'll tell you that much. <br />
<br />
Think I'll stay a while. A man could get used to a place like this. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.redmoon.org/events/category/currentupcoming-events/skelebration--2" target="_blank">You stop in, too, all right</a>? JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-82600530509679128502014-10-06T11:56:00.002-07:002014-10-06T11:56:59.437-07:00Re-Reader and Re-WritingA year ago, I both wrote and received (by proxy) <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2013/11/reader-and-writing.html" target="_blank">a lengthy criticism</a> related to the Chicago Reader. Amidst a flurry of positive press for <i>The Sovereign Statement</i>, Tony Adler ran contrarian and poo-poo-ed** our Andersonville secession effort. I was a bit caddy in my response. <br />
<br />
Those days are behind me. Really, they are. I barely think about how much it hurt* to read that misinformed, poorly constructed evaluation of a show that was so close to me that it <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2014/04/per-procurationem.html" target="_blank">even bore my name in the script</a>. No, really. I don't care. I <i>don't. </i><br />
<br />
So, of course I care even less that now, the past forgotten, the Reader has rewarded my writing where it could not reward my dancing, singing, and secret-agenting. The rag has <a href="http://www.theatreinchicago.com/resurrected/reviews/7280/" target="_blank"> highly recommended</a> <i>Resurrected</i>, which is currently running at Morton Arboretum via Theatre-Hikes. <br />
<br />
Know this, Suzanne Scanlon (you glorious goddess of critical aptitude):<br />
<br />
You will never win me back^. Even if you write hundreds of articles about <i>Resurrected. </i>Even if you convince your colleagues at the Tribune, the Sun-Times, and Hoy (!) to review the show as well. Even if you put a lot of Ex-Lax in Tony Adler's coffee tomorrow (and every day after). <br />
<br />
Okay, actually, maybe if you did all of that, you <i>might </i>win me back. Maybe. I'm sorry. Am I being caddy?<br />
<br />
I guess some things never change. <br />
<br />
------<br />
<br />
* It didn't really hurt at all. I'm not <i>that </i>actor. <br />
^ I am, however, <i>that </i>writer. <br />
** By poo-poo-ed, I mean that he wrote something out of his ass. JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-88221871380911698582014-09-10T21:47:00.001-07:002014-09-10T21:47:14.679-07:00Not ItIn the coming weeks, a 30-second fast food commercial will air. It will feature two men and a celebrity. The men will compete in a battle of wits, and at the end of the commercial, there will be a status shift involving the celebrity. There may be some improv involved.<br />
<br />
If you see the commercial in question, know this:<br />
<br />
- I auditioned for it via <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2014/06/represent.html" target="_blank">my agent.</a> <br />
<br />
- I was among the last ten candidates being considered for the roles of the two men.^<br />
<br />
- If I'd gotten cast in it, the buyout would have covered my rent for 6 months.<br />
<br />
- I didn't get cast in it.<br />
<br />
What would the entertainment world be like if Christopher Walken had played Han Solo? If Danny DeVito had taken on Vizzini? If Jack Nicholson had played Michael in The Godfather? What about Matthew Broderick or John Cusack as Walter White?<br />
<br />
What if I had been in that commercial? <br />
<br />
You may argue that a regional commercial is not nearly as significant as an iconic movie. You may also argue that while all of these actors turned down those respective roles, I was turned down for the commercial. You may argue that in each case listed above, the correct casting choice was made. All of these arguments are valid, but they ignore one important element of this blog:<br />
<br />
It's about me. And I wanted to be in that commercial.<br />
<br />
So when you see that commercial, and you think "Boy, those guys are really funny," or "Boy, those guys really aren't funny," remember me. And tell all your friends how it could have been. Please?<br />
<br />
---------<br />
^ That's a 20% chance of me playing one of those two men!JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-24074572239304801102014-08-14T16:28:00.000-07:002014-08-14T16:28:23.333-07:00Not-For-ProfitWord of my impending book release is spreading. Ever since <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2014/07/this-is-going-to-be-ugly.html" target="_blank">I declared on this blog that I will be publishing OFF TRACK as a pay-what-you-want pdf</a>, people have been talking.* Word has reached well past Chicago and all the way out into Naperville. Why else would SPOTLIGHT ON NAPERVILLE, which highlights six local not-for-profits every month, <a href="http://vimeo.com/103457281" target="_blank">have me on almost immediately following the announcement?</a><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Sure, they introduced me as a "playwright." Sure, they didn't ask me a single question about the book. Sure, they instead asked me questions about Theatre-Hikes.^ Sure, I was there to represent Theatre-Hikes. Sure, as hard as I try, I am not legally a "not-for-profit." Sure, the opportunity had nothing to do with my impending book release. Sure, the word "sure" should have an "h" in it. Sure it should.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
All of that is beside the point. In two weeks, my reputation as a writer has reached beyond Chicago--two hours beyond Chicago in rush hour traffic. In two more weeks, I'll be to Aurora. By the time the book comes out, I'll be on Spotlight on Springfield. By 2015, Spotlight on Sacramento.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Imagine it. Spotlight on Sacramento. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
My reputation is traveling west across the country like some kind of . . . vegetable-powered 1984 Jetta.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
---</div>
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
* Not necessarily about my book, my blog, or my career. But they've been uttering phonemes, all right! </div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
^ One of which had to do with <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2014/07/one-foot-in-grave.html" target="_blank">my role as the playwright for their next show</a>. One of which was about <i>Peanuts</i>. </div>
JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-30296431272270159732014-07-27T20:59:00.000-07:002014-09-01T12:18:57.601-07:00This Is Going To Be UglyI've spent some time and oxygen recently publicly reflecting on <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2014/01/its-2014-give-up-on-your-career.html" target="_blank">success</a>, <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2014/05/dear-graduates.html" target="_blank">exploitation</a>, <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2014/06/represent.html" target="_blank">business</a>, <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2014/06/remy-bump-who.html" target="_blank">community</a>, and <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2014/05/happy-1000.html" target="_blank">chocolate</a>. I've spent an equal amount of time emailing, snail mailing, and psychically exploiting publishers who would put my second book, <i>Off Track</i>, into a glossy binding and (in theory) distribute it to big warehouses and former warehouses (now chain stores) who would in turn put it on display somewhere in the public eye so that passerbys could pick it up, flip through a few pages, and then go not buy it on Amazon. The crosscurrents of these two ventures--figuring out my own philosophy and wooing publishers--are stirring up some mighty tides in my literary half. A tidal wave is impending. <br />
<br />
The philosophy:<br />
<br />
As writers, our chosen tool is by definition words. We somehow share uncomfortable cubicles with them. We hate them; we embrace them; we wish we had a better hammer; we find them joyous and alluring. Our unlikely hope is to choose some of them from a pre-prescribed lexicon invented collectively by billions of people who didn't know each other, to twist them and align them in our unique way, then to offer them back to our culture as something completely novel, something worth reading and even paying for, something that holds the potential to drive the species forward or at least change an individual life.<br />
<br />
It is a dubious medium in which to work, because all we can ever develop is the skeleton of something. We create recipes, chemical formulas that only exist on paper. They are suggestions that require a catalyst--the imagination of the reader. In the arms of an active caretaker, our words inhale and walk; in more common circumstances, they sleep alone in an empty, dusty, unreasonably sized trophy case called expectation.<br />
<br />
It is perhaps for this reason that our words are always on a first date. We're driven to dress them up for suitors and to tell them to be their best selves and to hope that someone else will teach them to dance. We perceive ourselves as really excellent mothers. Unfortunately, we are more likely pimps, because in order to gain the attention of an audience, we are willing to do shameful, hurtful things to our words. And where there is a promise of money, the ultimate social affirmation of the value of our art, we will be tempted always to prostitute and diminish our craft in deference to a persistent ego. We will do so in ways so subtle that even we do not notice. <br />
<br />
The business:<br />
<br />
Business is a strange form of war. And war is an ugly thing.<br />
<br />
I want to see my books lined up like soldiers on the bookshelves of popular bookstores. I want them to have intricate cover designs and well-formatted pages. I want them to be flawless, best-selling, and raved about in the newspapers. I want advances from powerful publishers with requests for more books. I want financial rewards for the effort I've put into the diction and syntax and for the risk I've taken in developing an unconventional career path. I want to be acclaimed just for being me and having the ideas that I have. I want everyone to think I'm great. <br />
<br />
You want to buy books that are pretty and popular. You want them to look good in your home, office, or apartment. You want them to serve as a testament to the ideas you have and the person you are becoming. You want them pre-pre-previewed and vouched for by your peers. Just as with television, movies, and gossip, you are part of an enormous cultural book club that orients itself around image; there is no question of <i>whether</i>, only of <i>degree</i>. <br />
<br />
War. Business. Ugly.<br />
<br />
What is a reader to do? <br />
<br />
After three years of trying to traditionally publish my second book, I've opted for philosophy over business. That's how I'm thinking of it, anyway. It feels more like surrender. It's possible that it's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sAm5UCJ9vA&feature=kp" target="_blank">surrender</a>.<br />
<br />
No matter what, OFF TRACK will be available for download as a pdf on <b>September 26 of this year</b>, pay-what-you-want <a href="http://www.jmmanship.com/" target="_blank">on my website</a>. It has been professionally edited and sculpted for three years. It has been formatted so as to be easily legible. It has not been dressed up. It is not ready for dinner at El Bulli. More likely, it will be compatible with someone interested in sweatpants, peanut butter and jelly, and two dollar draughts.*<br />
<br />
No, it is not an impressive-looking creature. But it is there, and it isn't coy or evasive. Its words--its true self, if you will--lie open to you. Bring them to life in your imagination. I think you'll enjoy the experience. Then again, that's just my opinion; those are just my words. Take them for what they are, nothing more, nothing less. <br />
<br />
Or don't. It's up to you and no one else. And that feels nice. <br />
<br />
---<br />
* Also liberalism, environmentalism, humor, and vegetable-oil-powered carsJMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-43634741274340329512014-07-06T08:31:00.002-07:002014-07-27T20:47:36.246-07:00One Foot in the GraveDeath follows me wherever I go. You might say I've made <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2010/11/second-omen-i-burned-my-face.html" target="_blank">a career out of it</a>. So, when <a href="http://theatre-hikes.org/" target="_blank">Theatre-Hikes</a> needed someone to write their October show, I quickly applied. <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2013/05/character-work-royalty.html" target="_blank">I'd worked with Theatre-Hikes before</a>, and I had a sense of how their shows worked.<br />
<br />
The task: adapt five local macabre tales for the "stage."* <br />
<br />
The task, part one: choose those five macabre tales. <br />
<br />
Here is some local lore I considered adapting but decided against:<br />
<br />
<b>Bachelor's Grove Cemetery</b><br />
<br />
<i>Why? </i><br />
<br />
Probably the most haunted place in the Chicago area, this place has dozens of little stories of hauntings and mysterious phenomena. One of those stories is about a disappearing house, and one is about a horse that jumps out of a lake. Perfect!<br />
<br />
<i>Why not?</i><br />
<br />
Special FX budget limited. Too many little stories; no big throughline to hold onto.<br />
<br />
<b>US Airways Flight 191</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<i>Why?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
In 1979, there was a plane crash just outside of O'Hare followed by mysterious phenomena in the local area, like knocks on doors.<br />
<br />
<i>Why not?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Are you scared of knocks on doors? Also, plane crash.<br />
<br />
<b>The Fort Dearborn Massacre</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<i>Why?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Important historically. Gruesome.<br />
<br />
<i>Why not?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Important historically. Gruesome.<br />
<br />
<b>The Eastland Disaster</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<i>Why?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
What a crazy story--a ship capsizing before it even set sail, right here in the Chicago river. One of the biggest ship disasters in history.<br />
<br />
<i>Why not?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I could even add music!<br />
<br />
<b>Devil in the White City</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<i>Why?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
The best-selling book, <i>Devil in the White City</i>, covers the history of Mr HH Holmes, in whose death castle dozens of people were allegedly murdered and disposed of. There's even a curse following his death, and the "castle" burned down under mysterious circumstances.<br />
<br />
<i>Why not?</i><br />
<br />
Oh, Pooh Bear. Maybe if I add some honey to your tea, you'll be able to sleep tonight.<br />
<br />
<b>John Wayne Gacy</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I work with kids, damn it.<br />
<br />
<b>The Trolley of Death</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<i>Why?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Trolley. Death.<br />
<br />
<i>Why not?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I have no idea what happens in this story. I just like the title.<br />
<br />
<b>The Red Lion Pub</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<i>Why?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Chicago's most haunted pub.<br />
<br />
<i>Why not?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
The most famous tale has to do with people fainting in front of a stained glass window. <br />
<br />
<b>Inez Clarke</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<i>Why?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
This story is famous.<br />
<br />
<i>Why not?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
This story is made up.<br />
<br />
<b>Hamlet</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<i>Why?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
No royalties.<br />
<br />
<i>Why not?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
No royalties. <br />
<br />
<b>Superman</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<i>Why?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Flying. Superpowers. Romance. It's got everything. <br />
<br />
<i>Why not?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Do we really need another Superman movie?<br />
<br />
<b>Nightmare on Elm Street</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<i>Why?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
It's infamous and was shot locally. Also, we can probably find a cool Freddy Krueger mask and glove. I loved those things as a kid.<br />
<br />
<i>Why not?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
The original was shot in California. Only the remake was shot around here. <br />
<br />
<b>Poltergeist 3</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<i>Why?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Poltergeist!<br />
<br />
<i>Why not?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
3<br />
<br />
<b>Home Alone</b><br />
<br />
<i>Why?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
This Christmas classic brings everyone . . . Christmas classic . . . Christmas . . .<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Why not?</i><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUXGQdVGkjE" target="_blank">Ahh!</a><br />
<br />
So what local stories did I pick to adapt?<br />
<br />
Resurrected will have its first reading this Monday, July 7 at 6 pm in the Theatre-Hikes rehearsal space. If you've read this far, consider yourself invited. <br />
<br />
Come . . . if you dare.<br />
<br />
-----<br />
* By "stage," I mean "forest."JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-34215876392626347082014-06-13T15:40:00.000-07:002014-06-13T15:41:35.460-07:00Represent!Acting is a lonely profession. <br />
<br />
Wait a minute. No, it's not. Acting is one of the most social enterprises a person can undertake. Your job is basically to talk to people.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, by "talk to people" I mean "ask people to help / support / believe / house / feed / represent / tolerate you," and a lot of those people say "no." Auditions are an obvious example. Actors, if they're worth their salt, spend a great deal of time standing in front of people they may not even respect, having the way they play pretend^ judged^^ and knowing that after they do so, they will probably be told "no." <br />
<br />
Sometimes they don't even get that far. Sometimes as an actor, people say "no" to even considering you as someone they might say "no" to. Sometimes <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2014/06/remy-bump-who.html" target="_blank">people won't even talk to you</a>. When it's really going badly, <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2013/12/holiday-train.html" target="_blank">even Santa's elves tell you to shove off</a>.*<br />
<br />
So when you get a "yes," it's truly a splendid turn of events. Yesterday, I got a "yes" from Ambassador Talent--which means I now have someone who will connect me with hundreds of new people who will mainly say "no" to me.** I love this job. <br />
<br />
Susan and Ed, let's make history together. Or at least some Empire Carpet commercials.<br />
<br />
--------<br />
* Or literally shove you off.<br />
^ Fun!<br />
^^ Not fun!<br />
** Literally, it means that I've signed with a commercial <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2013/08/for-your-eyes-only.html" target="_blank">agent</a><u>.</u> Two of them, actually.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-91807494095612459272014-06-11T17:24:00.000-07:002014-06-11T17:27:37.320-07:00Remy Bump-who?Remy Bumppo:*<br />
<br />
The theatre community is interested in having a conversation with you.<br />
<br />
Wait.<br />
<br />
The Chicago theatre community is interested in having an in-depth conversation with you.<br />
<br />
Wait.<br />
<br />
Oh, bother. Sorry for all the false starts. It's just . . . this is my performer half trying to write^, and he's more given to talking than writing.<br />
<br />
The truth is, <i>I'd </i>like to talk to you, but I can't. All you've given me is a mysterious phone number with instructions <i>never to call it </i>except for two hours out of the year (specifically, from 3 to 5 pm last Saturday). This, as far as I understand, is the only way to reach you other than showing up at your doorstep.^^<br />
<br />
The imagination runs wild. Does the telephone number in your audition notices ring up a disposable cell phone? Is somebody in a trench coat--a <i>really</i> temporary worker--standing by a pay phone for .02% of the year, filling audition slots with his back turned to the ignorant masses? Or is it something even bigger and more magical? Are you the very pinnacle of an itinerant theatre company, disappearing and reappearing at your fickle will like the <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-price-of-admittance.html" target="_blank">FOR MADMEN ONLY</a> space in <i>Steppenwolf?** </i>(If that's the case, can I <i>please </i>sit in on one of your rehearsals?)<br />
<br />
The madmen theory makes the most sense. What is the defining characteristic of madness if not the inability to functionally adapt to the world at large? People prone to anxiety, for example, devise irrationally specific rules for the way they'll allow others to interact with them. Isn't this diagnosis accurate in regard to your audition policy, one which expects any interested party to make not you but the <i>possibility of you </i>the #1<i> </i>priority for two hours of their weekend (or until they get an answer at your tardis)? One which asks the actors of Chicago to subjugate our rationally-designed, well-balanced schedules to your narcissistic demands? One which eliminates any working actors who have Saturday afternoon rehearsals from your audition pool? (I can see why you'd want to exclude actors talented enough to be in shows currently.)<br />
<br />
Maybe I sound a little dramatic. (This <i>is </i>my actor half writing, after all.) Let's be simpler about the issue:<br />
<br />
Your policy, whether intended as such or not, qualifies as a power play. It saves you the trouble of sorting through headshots and resumes, of replying to emails and mailings, of doing much other than sitting by the phone and waiting for us to genuflect before you. In short, it makes an already difficult process harder, but not for you--for us. Life as an actor (here comes the drama again) is hard enough with the adversity we face outside our industry. So please drop the golden palace act. You need the groundlings more than they need you. <br />
<br />
I've heard nothing but nice things about you from the people who work with you. But why is it so hard to work with you? <br />
<br />
I'd love an answer to that question between 1 and 3 pm tomorrow. <br />
<br />
Oh. You'll be in the middle of auditions at that time? <br />
<br />
Damn. I guess we just missed each other.<br />
<br />
------<br />
* (if that is your real name)<br />
^ You should see my writer half try to perform!<br />
**Hey! That would be a cool name for a theatre company.<br />
^^ Also strictly forbidden.JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-41163491062743710642014-05-10T18:07:00.001-07:002014-05-10T18:57:17.168-07:00My Most Famous WorkLook at this!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZDfVoWwAPrYoZzBxljtQXRKMq5sTFeqc0Zwdi4etKBMAY9JCYR0F799G_QQOsNj7hOWAYOiC1aKZPFftMpf31nC9Fl-qX5DfOt1A9jSgYD81mI7LjfbfvJhqMBwYCBNz0pWe2cPwQ8sU/s1600/stats.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZDfVoWwAPrYoZzBxljtQXRKMq5sTFeqc0Zwdi4etKBMAY9JCYR0F799G_QQOsNj7hOWAYOiC1aKZPFftMpf31nC9Fl-qX5DfOt1A9jSgYD81mI7LjfbfvJhqMBwYCBNz0pWe2cPwQ8sU/s1600/stats.jpg" height="418" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Those are the top ten posts, by readership, from this very blog. As you can see, 1,024 people have viewed #1.* That's more than three times the number that have viewed #2 and fifteen times #10. And it's not slowing down. Post #1 is outperforming its colleagues not only overall, but monthly, weekly, and daily. It gets about 2 hits <i>every day</i>. It has at least ten times more readers than <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Street-John-Michael-Manship/dp/1466464070" target="_blank">my first novel</a> and a hundred times more than <a href="https://www.facebook.com/offtrackbook" target="_blank">my next book</a>. More people have read that blog entry than have seen any of my plays. That's one winning post. <br />
<br />
Now, look at <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2011/08/fifteen-reasons-i-hate-chocolate.html" target="_blank">this</a>!<br />
<br />
That's the post in question. Which leads me to ask:<br />
<br />
WHO'S READING THIS SHIT?<br />
<br />
Excuse me. What I mean to shout is: <br />
<br />
WHO'S READING THIS SHIT OVER AND OVER?!^<br />
<br />
I'm up nights over it. I mean, I've written from time to time a worthwhile post on this blog. <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2014/01/its-2014-give-up-on-your-career.html" target="_blank">One was recently reposted to several facebook walls</a>. <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2013/11/reader-and-writing.html" target="_blank">Another was shared in the comments section of a review</a> in the Chicago Tribune. If those posts had gotten over a thousand hits, I'd be delighted. But this shit about chocolate? What the fuck is going on? Is someone fucking with me? Did someone accidentally set that post as their homepage? <br />
<br />
It occurs to me that maybe internet users are googling something that brings up my post among the top search results. To experiment, I googled the following:<br />
<br />
"John Michael Manship"<br />
"John Michael Manship blog"<br />
"John Michael Manship naked"<br />
"I will be famous soon"<br />
"Cambridge Street"<br />
"Second City Conservatory"<br />
"Second City Conservatory Manship"<br />
"chocolate"<br />
"Chicago chocolate"<br />
"Chicago chocolate tours"<br />
"porn"<br />
"tits"<br />
"sex and prozac"<br />
"Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"<br />
"reasons I hate chocolate"<br />
<br />
The only search term that discovered my stupid blog entry anywhere was the last one. So I have to ask:<br />
<br />
Is someone out there googling "reasons I hate chocolate" and then reading my blog? If that's the case, then know that my next three blog entries will be called "Peanut Butter Coupons," "Parenting Tips, Pre-Schoolers," and "Two Women Having Loud Crazy Sex."<br />
<br />
Don't worry, though. The content of those blog posts will remain impeccably high quality. <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2013/01/blemish.html" target="_blank">As always.</a><br />
<br />
-----<br />
* 924 of them might have been me. I'm not sure if I turned that kind of thing off, and sometimes I sleep-surf.<br />
^ Still might be me.JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-43483364862583922582014-05-05T17:11:00.000-07:002014-05-05T17:11:09.786-07:00Dear Graduates<div class="MsoNormal">
Dear Graduates,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I haven’t been asked to give you a speech today, because frankly,
who am I? I’m thirteen years out of a
prestigious private university, and everything I have done in my life is in the
broadest view completely unimportant. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
My BS in psychology is lost. I literally don’t know where the diploma
ended up, nor have I used most of the rote knowledge I gained from earning
it. If you gave me the tests I passed 13
years ago, I would fail them, I think.
If you asked me to write the essays or do the research and projects again,
I’d balk at the idea. If you showed my
psychology career on paper to my professors from thirteen years ago, they’d
probably balk, too. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
This is not to imply that I’ve done other things with my
life. I haven’t, in fact, done too much
in other career fields, either. Most of
my time I’ve spent teaching children, performing, or writing. I haven’t in this process earned a teaching
degree, nor have I ever taught full-time.
I haven’t performed anywhere that more than a half a percent of the
population has heard of, and fewer than 200 people have read my writing.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I have backed out of, messed up, and failed at
things. The aforementioned diploma was
probably left with my ex-fiancee when I moved out. I’ve moved five times since then and kissed
no fewer than a dozen women, most of whom I hoped would like me. Like, really like me. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Professionally, I’ve dropped out of the Second City
Conservatory. I’ve been rejected by
theatre companies too small to even register on the Boston scene and not landed
roles in student films clearly desperate for actors. My first and only sketch comedy group stayed
together for two years. That’s more
years than we got laughs from an audience.
I have a collection of rejection letters from agents, publishers, and
play festivals. One told me my book was
exactly what they were looking for—then they read it. I have also almost daily chickened out of
stand-up comedy. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So, no one has invited me to speak to you at this
important time in your life. Instead,
they’ve probably invited someone wealthy and reputable who may have also attended
your university, someone who wants to give back or serve as an example of all
that your hard work has set you up to deserve.
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Which of us are you going to trust to advise you on your
way forward?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
If you’re smart, you’ll choose neither, because neither
of us can say with any true certainty what happens for you from this day on. Neither of us know what your life will be
like. In fact, nobody knows what your
life will be like. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Nobody, for example can predict with any certainty that
if you are smart and persistent, you will generally get what you want. Nobody can promise you that if you get what
you want, you will be happier. It may be
the opposite. Nobody can safely advise
you to behave if you want to stay out of trouble. Good behavior is sometimes rewarded with
cruelty if not mild disrespect, and bad behavior may well go unpunished or even
rewarded. People who tell you to be
patient are lying to you and maybe to themselves. There may be absolutely nothing ahead of you,
nothing worth waiting for, no light at the end of your tunnel. You may never see the end of the tunnel. After all, strictly speaking, nobody can
guarantee you that the sun will rise tomorrow.
One day, it won’t. You may or may
not be around for that day. Nobody knows. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Probably you will need or want to get a job. If that’s the case, you will probably have to
choose between your financial standing and your personhood. Most jobs that promise monetary success come
from social factions that are in some way exploitative. Of their employees. Of their customer or fan base. Of the poor.
Of the weak. Of the
innocent. Of the environment. Of me.
Of you. I can say with some
certainty that you already have and will continue to be asked to support
exploitation in your career path.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
If you choose instead to go out on your own, to reject
the support of any exploitative elements of human culture, then I imagine that
most of your projects will fail. This
may not be true. You may make major
financial gains for yourself. You may achieve recognition, respect, and honor. These
things may bring you great happiness, and swiftly. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Probably not.
Probably, your ego will be beaten to death by an ever-growing population
that doesn’t find you nearly as special as you have been brought up to believe
you are. Consequently, I hope you don’t
believe that dreams come true. Sometimes
they do. Sometimes they don’t. Often they kind of come true. Usually they change. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
None of what I just wrote--depressing, uplifting, or otherwise--is
certain or reliable. If there is a logic
to the fate of individual humans, it has proven itself for centuries to be well
beyond our collective comprehension. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
What, then, can I (the man who has not been invited to
speak to you) guarantee you? If there is
no promised connection between your choices and how much freedom, pleasure, and
privilege you receive in return, then what is the purpose of making choices at
all? </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Hermann Hesse wrote a possible answer into the pages of
the iconic novel, <i>Steppenwolf</i>: </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
“You have a picture of life within you, a faith, a
challenge, and you were ready for deeds and sufferings and sacrifices, and then
you became aware by degrees that the world asked no deeds and no sacrifices of
you whatever, and that life is no poem of heroism with heroic parts to play and
so on, but a comfortable room where people are quite content with eating and
drinking, coffee and knitting, cards and wireless.” </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In this passage lies a priceless and timeless truth: that the world needs heroes, and that you, so
long as you are in charge of your mental capacities, will have the opportunity
to be one. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It doesn't take much.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
You can be heroic in looking at human need when others
are looking at their bank accounts. By
responding with patience when met with angst.
By guiding intolerance with the eye of acceptance. By meeting adversity, whatever form you
face, instead of sidestepping it for the sake of convenience. In the personal truth with which you live
your life. In the forgiveness of self
and others. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Heroism happens in the gaps between moments and is rarely
noticed on a wide scale. But it happens.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
There are many people, most of whom will appear or claim
to be socially superior to you, who will encourage you to aim your heroic impulses
at the immediate and the simple, to build ant hills instead of empires, to
undersell yourself because, really, what is heroism going to get you? You,
dear graduates, do not have to listen to those people. You can throw that idea right back in their
face and go on and be heroic anyway. As
a reminder, probably no one will notice your choice or congratulate you. Your life might suck from a material stand
point because you didn’t put yourself on the auction block. Your ego might ache. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Sound fun? There’s
a reason people try to turn away from heroism.
And yet, there is also a reason it follows them: because it is one of the only reliably true
things this world has to offer any of us.
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
This graduation speech may seem like a pathetic and depressing one. If it strikes you as such,
consider two things. One, no one asked
me to give a graduation speech. Two,
consider a second passage from the same book by the same well-commended author:</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
“The image of every true act, the strength of every true
feeling, belongs to eternity . . . even though no one knows of it or sees it or
records it or hands it down to posterity.
In eternity, there is no posterity. . . It is there that we belong.
There is our home. [And] our only guide
is our homesickness."</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I hope that you, now that you are no longer away at college, will always feel a little homesick. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-89978479313837404642014-04-29T17:22:00.000-07:002014-04-29T17:22:05.124-07:00Luke Father, Luke Son<br />
*heavy breathing through mask*<br />
<br />
*copyrighted laser sword swing from the darkness*<br />
<br />
*parry*<br />
<br />
*fight leads onto a barely-explicable bridge*<br />
<br />
FATHER: Tell them. Tell them the truth that you know. Tell them publicly. <br />
<br />
*parry*<br />
<br />
*fight resumes*<br />
<br />
*SON hits FATHER on shoulder with copyrighted laser sword*<br />
<br />
FATHER: Ahh!<br />
<br />
*FATHER cuts off SON's hand*<br />
<br />
SON: Ahhhh!<br />
<br />
FATHER: There is no avoiding it. The truth must be made known. <br />
<br />
*Son begins to back away down metal beam*<br />
<br />
FATHER: Why are you fighting with me? <br />
<br />
SON: I'm not. Not in real life.<br />
<br />
FATHER: Then why here?<br />
<br />
SON: Because it's a device. <br />
<br />
*FATHER swings copyrighted laser sword*<br />
<br />
FATHER: Like this device?<br />
<br />
SON: No. A literary device. To engage a reader's attention and present information in an interesting way. <br />
<br />
FATHER: Well, stop it! Stop fighting me! Join me. Together, we can own amazon.com. <br />
<br />
SON: I'll never join you. But I'm only saying that for dramatic effect!<br />
<br />
FATHER: If you'd only publicly announce what you know about me. If you'd only search your brain and share what you find there with the world!<br />
<br />
SON: I've shared enough. I've shared that you've read some novels. <br />
<br />
FATHER: NO. I <i>wrote </i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Journey-To-Reality-Calvin-Manship-ebook/dp/B00J2HZUV6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398815323&sr=8-1&keywords=calvin+manship" target="_blank">a novel.</a><br />
<br />
*SON's face gets all scrunchy and weird.*<br />
<br />
SON: NO! That's so unlikely! It's as unlikely as almost the entire cast of the original Star Wars coming back to do a seventh movie!<br />
<br />
FATHER: That is also going to happen. It's coming out around Christmas of next year!<br />
<br />
SON: That's not news! Everyone already knows that! <br />
<br />
FATHER: Then get back to talking about my novel.<br />
<br />
SON: I can't. I can't utter anything intelligible. I'm shocked and missing a hand. <br />
<br />
FATHER: Then I will talk. The ebook of A Journey to Reality is available for only $5<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Journey-To-Reality-Calvin-Manship-ebook/dp/B00J2HZUV6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398815323&sr=8-1&keywords=calvin+manship" target="_blank"> here</a> on amazon.com.<br />
<br />
SON: Amazon? That's where I bought my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Worm-Factory-WF360B-Composter-Black/dp/B002LH47PY" target="_blank">worm factory</a>!<br />
<br />
FATHER: Yes. Yes!<br />
<br />
SON: You can buy a worm factory and an ebook on the same website? My mind is blown!<br />
<br />
FATHER: And you can also get both <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Journey-To-Reality-Calvin-Manship-ebook/dp/B00J2HZUV6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1398817233&sr=8-2&keywords=a+journey+to+reality" target="_blank">my book</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Street-John-Michael-Manship/dp/1466464070/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1398817207&sr=8-2&keywords=cambridge+street" target="_blank">your book</a> for about 1/10 of the price of a worm factory!<br />
<br />
SON:<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw2sex1mJNI" target="_blank"> THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!</a><br />
<br />
FATHER: You know it to be true.<br />
<br />JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-37765551871334008412014-04-24T22:03:00.001-07:002014-04-24T22:09:13.397-07:00Per ProcurationemYou've certainly heard the news by now. <i>The Sovereign Statement</i>, by Bilal Dardai, has been nominated for a <a href="http://www.jeffawards.org/nominees/nominees.cfm?div=2" target="_blank">2014 Jeff Award honoring New Work</a>. In other words, some people* on a committee believe that Bilal's work was one of the five best new plays in Chicago between April 2013 and April 2014. Those people are correct.<br />
<br />
But this blog is not entitled "Bilal Will Be Famous Soon." Bilal is already kind of famous. He has 1,218 friends on facebook.^ This blog is about me. Me me me me me.<br />
<br />
Me.<br />
<br />
So let's talk about what exactly Bilal did to get nominated for this award.**<br />
<br />
First of all, he chose to become a writer, or at least answered his calling. Then, he wrote a bunch of scripts. A bunch of scripts. Then he re-wrote a bunch of scripts. A bunch of scripts. Then, he wrote this script, <i>The Sovereign Statement. </i>Then, he re-wrote this script. Then, he re-wrote this script. He re-wrote this script until he felt he had the right English words in the right English order as to convey the images, thoughts, and questions he wanted his audience to consider.<br />
<br />
In the end, the play we performed had 24,894 meticulously-chosen words. And guess what? 341 are <i>my name</i>. And no. My name is not "is" or "the." I'm talking about my last name--Manship--which appears 332 times in the soon-to-be-famous script, alongside 1 use of my first name and 8 uses of a nickname that I'm not at liberty to share on this blog. <br />
<br />
That means that my name alone is 1.36% of <i>The Sovereign Statement. </i>Which means that I am 1.36% of a Jeff-nominated script. Which means that I am 1.36% Jeff-nominated. <br />
<br />
In case anyone's counting.<br />
<br />
Now, am I enough of a pompous asshole to presume that my name's presence had anything to do with the impending continued wild success of Bilal's script? Of course not.^^ I'm just mightily thankful that as Bilal was adding and subtracting words from this little beauty, he never*** edited me out of the thing.<br />
<br />
Accordingly, I'd like to give a brief 1.36% nomination-acceptance speech. It goes like this:<br />
<br />
"I'd l . .. "<br />
<br />
Music already? <br />
<br />
Well, shit. <br />
-----<br />
<br />
* Mainly in their 70's from what I can tell<br />
^ He does not, however, have any "like"-rs. <br />
** Hint: It has to do with me.<br />
^^ In the first draft I received, with which Bilal was presumably less satisfied than later drafts, my name appeared only 311 times. <br />
*** Never say never. JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-13519955617425989742014-03-30T12:25:00.000-07:002014-03-30T12:25:04.591-07:00Someone Else Wrote This<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">In a bus from
Liberia to Playa Flamingo<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">west costa of
Costa Rica<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">six rows back<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">not including the
side seats<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">there are no side
seats<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">unsure of route,
stop, or destination<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Window a free-per-view
screen of stars<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The heavens
pulled back<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">A pantalla
abierta <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Cortina quitada<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">None of these
expressions sum it up<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">It was as if in
this privileged place a miracle occurred <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">And the
privileged few in a place without privilege were privileged to witness the
entirety of heaven<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The entirety of
truth<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Seven veils shed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Eternity revealed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">There are two
basic viewpoints of eternity<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">From the left,
you die and forget<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">From the right, eternal
knowledge<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Horror stories,
both<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">And every tale a
variation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The same, and don’t
let anyone tell you differently<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Tonight there was
no tale<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">No narration<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Because a tale is
a cola is a camino<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">From ignorance at
the start<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">To wisdom at the
mecca<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Tonight a
wormhole<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">A bending of time
and space<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">No need to devise
or narrate<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The tv is tuned
to channel 3<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">And there on the
pantalla<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">A free broadcast<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Without deception
or ego<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The perilous
emptiness that is<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">That undeniably
is<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">And like skin in
the unprotected sun<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">It went right
through me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Unprepared<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">A sudden bout of
eternity<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">One with the
stars because we are one with the stars<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">When I was young
I saw a piece of wood and felt the world from the tree’s perspective<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">I was in gym
class<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">I am still young,
and I felt the world from eternity’s perspective<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">From a star’s
view<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Through the eye
of chaos which is the order which governs our chaos<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">I thought, “One
day I will forget you. One day you will
forget me. It will be as if we never
were. Our memories will die with us.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Only time stands
between us and the stars<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">And time is a
spongey and unreliable buffer<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">I grew sad<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">I wanted to fight
but there was in all apparentness no fighting to be done<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">There is a
balance beam we walk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">A piece of wood<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Everything
forever on the right<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Nothing forever
on the left <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">And we wobble<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Time<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Tonight I fell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">But clung<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Crawled back up<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The bus driver
taking turns like he was racing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Time had
commissioned him not to be late<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">A 10-minute
program, this<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Sneak preview<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Don’t show your
hand<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The couple in
front of me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Younger than me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">More time<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The man two seats
in front to the left<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Less time<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">An aging specimen
of health<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The two of them
maybe sixteen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Looking at each
other, not the stars<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The bus empties<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">With time<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The couple gets
off before the viejo<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The anciano<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">I was distressed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">How could I
forget you?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">How could this
not be part of eternity?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Every human
action fell off the beam in the face of channel 3<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Pure and simple<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Idiomatic<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Cliché perhaps<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The sponge of
time<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The sponge of time<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Fickle<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Fragile<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The beam no
longer would<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">How could I not
be me anymore<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">How can my
memories die with me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Taking you too in
the great flush<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">You’re stored in
blood<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Which flows with
the heart’s rhythm<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">You will run out<br />
All of this<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Gone<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">I panicked<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">I’m building my
house on a bed of clay<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">On an earthquake’s
fault line<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">On a volcano<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">This is the
wisdom I hoped to obtain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">A parting gift<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Turn in your
memories at the door<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Here is a sponge<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Channel 3
announcement<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Attention all
viewers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">You are eternal<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">You are nothing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Put your
investment in everything<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Put your
investment in nothing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Time is a sock
market<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Woolen waste<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">I changed the
channel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Unable to
aguantar <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Which is used for
respiration<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">And turned my
attention quite by accident to the two<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The jovenes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">She too turned
her head to him<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Pressed her
forehead against his nose<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Showed him her
teeth<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">An exuberant
maladapted animal<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Kissed him <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Every true action
is a part of eternity, I reminded myself<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">But I didn’t<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Not in that
moment<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Earlier<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">In the flow of
time<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">A few steps back
on the sponge<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Kissed him<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">My thoughts bled
out of me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">My memories<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">My concerns<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Kissed him<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">And here too was
truth<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Kissed him<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">And I won’t
forget<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Kissed him<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">And I didn’t
worry about eternity for one more second.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-52072334295567974832014-03-04T18:03:00.000-08:002014-03-04T19:41:37.022-08:00So I Ate A Crocodile<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
For the second time in the last six months, the press has
written unfairly about me. This time it’s
more than just the <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2013/11/reader-and-writing.html" target="_blank">Chicago Reader</a>. It’s
USA Today, the BBC, the Huffington Post, the Brisbane Times*. None of them asked me for my side of the
story, or an interview, nor did they request permission to use my image. I’m striking back. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
For those of you wondering what I’ve been up to since
early January, there is a lot to sum up.
First, I left Chicago for Boston, where I substitute taught-acted for
three weeks for the organization Urban Improv.
That was back when I was a working artist. Boston was fulfilling, but I knew I needed
more. I needed to grow and change. I needed to dig in to my true self. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So, in early February, I went to Costa Rica. That was more enriching.^ Casting myself out into Nature was good for
me, and I began to build basic survival skills.
I began to get back in touch with my true self, the part so often buried
under elaborate socialization. I shook
hands with my heart of darkness in the shadow mirror of jungle life.^^</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It still wasn’t enough.
So, yesterday, I turned myself into a python. Then, I flew to Australia via Chicago.** Then, I ate a crocodile. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
What’s the big deal?
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
This is exactly what it’s like to be an almost-famous artist. Everyone has an opinion on everything you
do. Even when I sit down to have a meal,
someone wants to tell me how long I had to fight for it, how easy it was to
sneak up on, even how long I’m likely to be full. Can’t I have a meal without somebody turning
it into an article, a youtube video, a media frenzy? Can’t I have a few hours to eat a
crocodile? </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Frankly, I’m done with this thing people call “civilization.” Tomorrow, I’m going to fly somewhere else and
turn into some other species. Right
after I digest this thing. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
USA Today, BBC, Huffington Post, Brisbane Times,
etc: You’ll be hearing from my
agent. He’s an armadillo in Panama. And before you ask: Yes, he’s nocturnal.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
--- </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
* media behemoth</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
^ Who needs an <a href="http://iwillbefamoussoon.blogspot.com/2014/01/its-2014-give-up-on-your-career.html" target="_blank">artistic career</a> when you can have a
kitchen full of roaches, a backyard full of poisonous snakes, and the chance to
clear out spiderwebs with your face? </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
^^ Still got it!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
** Sorry I didn’t call while I was in town. I’m a python. </div>
JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-59248712589618394312014-01-04T10:00:00.000-08:002014-01-07T13:48:46.984-08:00Emergency Weather AdvisoryIssued 12:00 pm<br />
Sunday, January 5, 2014<br />
<br />
PLEASE BE ADVISED<br />
<br />
The National Weblog Service has issued a conversation warning for Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and this blog. At this time, any online conversation not hinged in some way to how incredibly fucking cold it is will be outright ignored by the mass of the population. Facebook residents are encouraged during the advisory to take the following banter precautions:<br />
<br />
- Limit all online dialogue to the topic of outside temperature<br />
<br />
- Repeatedly reference the following statistics: -15 degrees, -55 degree windchills, coldest temperatures in 30 years<br />
<br />
- Use the term "polar vortex"<br />
<br />
- Assume that the population does not understand the term "polar vortex"<br />
<br />
- Become fascinated with the term "polar vortex"<br />
<br />
- Link only to stories about how frozen everything is, how polar bears are going inside, and how people are pissing steam<br />
<br />
- All pictures posted of the Midwest must include a reference to the planet Hoth<br />
<br />
- In addition, non-weather-related emails should include at least one inquiry into the well-being of the recipient in "this weather."<br />
<br />
This warning is in effect until 8 pm CST on Tuesday, January 7, 2014.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
###</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-36678910433311060932014-01-03T23:39:00.000-08:002014-01-04T08:58:13.326-08:00It's 2014. Give Up on Your Career.It's just into the new year, and people are posting things on facebook like <a href="http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person_p2/">this</a>. Clearly, the season of reflection has arrived, the time of year in which everyone looks at where their life has gone, where it's going, and where it hasn't gotten to yet. And everyone feels disappointed--or elated. <br />
<br />
If you're an artist, you're feeling especially sentimental. You're looking back on a year of earning $1,000, one in which you barely worked As an actor, you didn't get cast in anything except those two shitty projects, one of which cost you more money than you made, the other of which never left the ground. As a musician, you broke your hand, putting you two thousand in the hole and two months out of practice. As a dancer, you worked a lot, but nothing was really your own, and you're keenly aware of another precious year gone by. As you look back at 2013, you realize with trepidation that your artistic career really went nowhere in the last 365. <br />
<br />
Or, you're looking back at a year in which your artistic career took major steps forward. You made a whopping $30,000. You performed in five plays and booked a commercial. Your band went on a two month tour. You sold three photos in the same day for $100 each. (Two of the purchasers were people you didn't even know.) You ended the year on a definite upswing, and you can't wait to see what 2014 will bring. <br />
<br />
Yes, you are elated / disappointed at the state of your career. Whichever you are feeling, one thing is certain: whether this year was trying or triumphant, you put in the work for a reason. You spent another year dedicated to your art, and that is going to pay dividends. One day, the glass will break. Onward. Upward. Forward.<br />
<br />
Bullshit.<br />
<br />
Whatever time you spend reflecting on the state of your artistic career, you may as well spend reflecting on how Santa Claus gets all those presents out in 24 little hours. You may as well be reflecting on the Tooth Fairy's tricks of the trade or on what you're going to do when you win that $700 million in Powerball. Because here is the unadulterated reality:<br />
<br />
There is no such thing as an artist's "career path." <br />
<br />
Perhaps this assertion rings hopeless or unambitious. In that case, let's assume the opposite. If an artist does in fact have a career path, what is it? Does it move from poverty to wealth? From complete obscurity to universal recognition? Or is it a question of quality of work? Does an artist's career path begin with ineptitude and end with complete proficiency? All of these paradigms can be quantified, measured, and mapped, and in their own way, each may vaguely trace an artist's growth. But a career?<br />
<br />
I needn't address the first paradigm, that an artist's career is measured in financial success. Even the most entrepreneurial-driven artists will admit that the arts are an exceptionally poor choice for someone who's after the big bucks. There are exceptions in the Keith Lockharts and Quentin Tarantinos of the world, but . . . well, but writing the rest of this paragraph would be a waste of time and web space. Nobody goes into art for the money. <br />
<br />
What about recognition, then? Shouldn't artists dream of careers that carry them from bullied elementary school nobody to beloved quirky-brilliant celebrity? As with earning great amounts of money, the odds are against us. Yet surprisingly, many grounded artists who hold no real hope of financial success still squeeze the expectation of one day being recognized, if not universally, then at least on a street corner somewhere.<br />
<br />
This expectation is destructive, discouraging, and unfair, because in the 2010's, an everyone-deserves-to-live-their-dreams mindset has collided with an incredible ease of self-promotion and self-production. The result is a wildly saturated artistic landscape in which the traditional publishing, marketing, and producing powers are overwhelmed with attention-seekers, and the public eye is equally overwhelmed with an internet swampland of self-produced work. An artist can create high quality work in his chosen medium for decades, market the hell out of it, yet never have a single attentive eye turn toward it. <br />
<br />
More insidious than the futility of this "recognition" career paradigm is its underlying assumption, namely that good work will get attention while bad work will disappear. The trend, unfortunately, leans the other way. Speaking in broad strokes, artists that are widely liked and produced are more properly referred to as entertainers. In earning this title, their work will almost certainly have achieved a certain innocuous quality, stripped largely of its sharpest (and most valuable) ideas, dulled on its edge in order to spoonfeed a common appetite. Again, there are exceptions, celebrities who have become well-recognized and well-compensated by sharing work that is inventive, uncooperative, potentially divisive. Can you name them? Probably on one hand. <br />
<br />
Quality of work, then. Can't we measure our careers by our level of skill, by amplified ability? Unfortunately, this paradigm is also false, because true artistic growth moves non-linearly on a scale that is constantly changing. It embraces failure alongside success. It is evasive and amorphous, and when we try to cage it, we may find ourselves looking a different beast in the eye. How do we distinguish quality of work? By how widely well-received a work is? By how financially successful our work is becoming? Suddenly, we may find ourselves regressing and calling it "growth." <br />
<br />
So where are we going as artists in 2014? In this humble blogger's opinion, the only true measure of an artist is how well his work expresses truth as he sees it. Everything else is a distraction. <br />
<br />
So, yes. The glass will break. But only when you smash your career against it. Then, among the shards of the illusion of ambition, you may find something worth reflecting. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2601064653292961312.post-50110830377501660422013-12-25T22:08:00.000-08:002013-12-29T22:14:30.128-08:00Holiday Train<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Here comes Santa Claus</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Here comes Santa Claus</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
On the holiday train!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
We’re going to have the chance to ride the holiday train
again!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
See inside the people singing singing</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
All is merry and bright!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Everyone’s waited almost a year for the holiday train
tonight!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
You better not board!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
You better not try!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
You better not advance!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I’m telling you why:</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Santa’s elves are blocking the doors!</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
O Holiday Train, O Holiday Train</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
You left us on the platform</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
You teased us with your Christmas lights</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
You led us on with pretty sights</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
How sad you scorned us and took flight</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
We would have liked to board you.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
O Holy Shit</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The children are all cryyying</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
And the parents, they are all pisssed off</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Long did they wait</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Their smartphones the train scryyyying</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
They let three trains go by there at the stop</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
These three days that I have let pass</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Thinking of the blog post I’d craft</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Merry Christmas, Chicago Transit!</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Youuuu can kiss my asssss!</div>
JMMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06552983751633461155noreply@blogger.com0