What are the homeless reading?

I grew up for the most part in Iowa City, IA. And there is a pervasive urban myth that there are people with post-graduate degrees living under one of the bridges that separates the University of Iowa campus from downtown. These over-educated people who vefallen on hard times collect cans and bottles for the 5 cents deposit and live communally discussing Proust and quoting Richard Feynman to each other. And if you bring them a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store or some canned goods they will help you write papers or study for exams.
I never went under the bridge, although I do know people who claimed they did and that their excellent grades bore the proof of the legend. Something about going under a bridge to find people driven insane at the prospect of finishing their dissertation, frightened me. The whole carrying a rotisserie chicken under a bridge had a very Grimm's fairytale vibe. In my opinion Little Red Riding Hood was asking for it. The people who walk by my apartment on their way home from the donut shop are risking their lives. They would be fools to actually enter my lair, and ask me my opinion on whether Hemingway should be completely tossed aside, or whether he should be considered in the context of the period. So I will never know for sure just how brilliant those bridge dwellers may be. But I've been wondering what the homeless read lately. Every time I go the library there are dozens of ragged people reading books and magazines. They aren't just trying to stay cool or warm. They are actually reading. And it made me wonder what would I read if I never had to impress another person with my intellect? What if my life had taken such a harsh turn that I no longer had to slide reading time into working or family obligations? What if I could spend 12 hours a day surrounded by the totality of human knowledge and experience committed to the page? What thoughts would I want to have when I wasn't consumed with the need to make money? Well after several weeks of asking them what they're reading and picking up the tomes they leave lying around,the answer is...Stephen King and the Economist magazine. Apparently homeless people are liberal and enjoy pop fiction. They also read a massive amount of philosophy and history. Nietzsche is really big with the homeless. Which confirms my suspicion that majoring in philosophy will lead one down the path to indigence. So tell your children to study engineering. And the next time you see a homeless person reading something tell me what it was.

Come Back Christian Slater. We're sorry...

Last night I watched Pump Up the Volume. And I learned a lot. (1) Seth Green was in it! WTF? He played the kid who pipes the guidance counselor's speech over the PA system. (2) I must have mostly watched it on USA or TNT when I was a teenager, because there is a shitload of f-bombs and Samantha Mathis showed her tits. In fact she did an entire scene topless. How could I have forgotten that? And(3) Christian Slater was great. He actually made quite a few good movies in the 90's. Gleaming the Cube, in which he solved his adopted brother's murder, and Heathers are two of my favorites. But arguably his best work was in Pump up the Volume. He creates two unique characters. Mark, the shy new kid with no friends who can't talk to girls. And Happy Harry Hard-on, a teen Lenny Bruce and reactionary channeling Eric Bogosian in Talk Radio. It was bloody brilliant. So why the FUCK did we throw him away? Keanu Reeves we kept. Johnny Depp we kept. For Godsakes, John Travolta has been turning up like a Canadian penny every two years since the 70's. But Christian Slater is stuck doing B-moves and crappy television shows that won't make it to November sweeps. So what? The guy did some drugs. So he bit some people. Okay. Maybe he was a self-aggrandizing wannabe James Dean. But he had the talent to back it up. If I was a screenwriter I would try to find a project for him. He's still good looking. He still owns the screen any time he is on it. The man is a moviestar. He just doesn't have a movie career to speak of.
While I'm complaining I should also ask the question of why the movie itself is so seldomly mentioned as a cultural touchstone. The music is a time capsule of the period. The clothes are a great deal more indicative of the time than in Heathers. And the monologues Hard Harry gives completely encapsulated how Generation-X became Generation "Why bother" until September 11 gave us a little persepctive. Harry gave voice to the confusion that resulted from being the children of Baby Boomers. I will not force you to endure another of my diatribes against Baby Boomers. But how were we supposed to be committed and engaged when we'd seen how easily sixties radicals who fought the establishment, became the establishment. And of course the film provides the requisite teen angst bullshit, this time with a very small body count (just the kid who killed himself). Rebellion used to be cool. Nowadays teenagers would suck Hitler's cock to fit in. No one rebels anymore. Every teenager I know is preoccupied with listening to the right music, having the right gadgets, and finding a way to get famous. In addition the film has one of the best villains of any teen movie, in the test score obsessed school principal Mrs. Crestwood. She kicks out all the kids who don't fit in and are unlikely to have high SAT scores. She considers some of the kids "losers" and ruins their lives. She gives a cold red bun wearing face to the bureaucracy that every teen is afraid of. She takes away the children's futures, just because she wants to. She has all the power and all they can do is take it. In comparison Darth Vadar was just a henchman for the Emperor.
If you haven't watched Pump Up the Volume in more than five years, I insist that you watch it right now. Otherwise you won't believe me just how awesome it was, and what it meant to you as a teen. And do what you can to give Christian Slater a career. Even if you have to watch the shit he does now.

I resent Carrie Bradshaw

I've been a fan of Sex and the City since the show debuted. I loved it. I even loved the movie although it was a bit depressing, and if I had been Carrie Bradshaw's gal pal, I never would have let her marry Mr. Big. It took him six years to commit to her fully and four more to propose. If it takes a man ten years to determine that you're the woman for him, you most likely aren't the woman for him. The average income for a professional writer i.e. someone who doesn't teach or have another job is $25,000-$60,000. So unless Ms.Bradshaw moonlights as J.K. Rowling or Stephen King she is conservatively about a half million dollars in credit card debt, and owns a million dollar apartment in Manhattan. She wrote three books, but they were breezy little dating memoirs that likely sold in the neighborhood of 20,000 copies. A writer makes a little less than a dollar per copy sold and 10%-15% goes to their agent. John Irving sold 3 times that number of books and didn't quit his job teaching out of fear that his children would starve. She also was a weekly columnist in a modest circulation newspaper. The real money in newspapers is in syndication. She wasn't syndicated. One paper carried her byline. I'm a columnist in a modest circulation newspaper. I'm considering taking a part-time job as a weed dealer. I'm not going to. But if I did, and i got caught, the judge would understand the financial need. Her last revenue stream is the occasional article in Vogue. Now don't get me wrong, Vogue is one sweet gig. It's a magazine that you can't even pitch articles to unless your agent is a rock star and you're a stud in your chosen area of expertise. But they only pay a freelancer $5000 an article. Carrie Bradshaw might be wearing those high heeled shoes because she's got a second career as a high priced call girl.
I understand that fantasy is fantasy. That a certain suspension of belief is necessary for entertainment purposes. But I resent the way she makes the life of a writer look easy and glamorous. I assure it's not. I'm a freelance writer. And I spend most of my day doing commercial writing to subsidize my dream of writing creatively. It's a minimum of 12 hours a day spent at my desk, and another 4 hours a day looking for more work. Novelists slave day and night for years to churn out books. Non-fiction writers barely break even on their books because of the research costs. The life of a writer is spent alone in a world that is largely self-contained and self-created. It's not ten minutes a week spent dashing off 500 words on the guy you're sleeping with. At least not unless you're looking to be one of those homeless people who insist on reciting you their poetry so they don't feel like its charity when you give them $5. The life of a professional writer is 360 days a year wearing sweatpants and 5 days year being wined and dined and congratulated on the brilliance of what you wrote. It's a fulfilling life full of intellectual challenge. It's great. But it isn't glamorous. Carrie Bradshaw is clearly dealing weed. That show is about a weed dealer.