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.

I don't usually like commercials but this one is awesome

LL Sexy Darcy

Yes. You heard me right. Ladies Love Sexy Darcy. Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books in part because of Fitzwilliam Darcy. He is surely a bit of a snob at the beginning of the book. But as anyone who has read the books or seen the movies knows he's not proud, he's discerning. He's a man of principal. He isn't simply a handsome rich dilettante like Binghley. He's not a playboy and a bounder like Wickham. He's an adult male. And adult males are often in short supply. My best friend Tim thinks Elizabeth Bennett was a bit of a gold digger because she didn't really like him until she saw his gorgeous estate Pemberley. Pure coincidence. She fell for him when he showed her his vulnerability at Lady Catherine's home when he admitted that he is not in the habit of conversing easily with people he doesn't already know. And then she liked him a bit more when she saw him with his beloved kid sister Georgianna. But sadly I think one of the reasons Elizabeth liked him is that he fulfills the female fantasy that inside that rude, insufferable, jackass that treats you like dirt beats the heart of a lovestruck young man who doesn't know how to show you how much he likes you. This is a dangerous thought. It's insanity like that, that convinces women to date men who never call and don't pay attention when we talk. For me it's more about the way that he loves her in spite of his own common sense. That he loves Elizabeth despite the impending embarrassment of being connected to her humiliating family. That he spent thousands of pounds and untold hours helping her family out of a jam. He made sure Lydia was married because her disgrace would distress his beloved. Darcy is a man. Darcy takes care of people. As a modern independent woman I don't need a man to pay my rent, or buy my food, but I do from time to time need someone to take on a task so big and overwhelming that it makes me want to take to my bed. Darcy would carry a sick dog a mile to the vet. Darcy would change all my light bulbs to energy efficient ones. Darcy could mop up 10 gallons of water and get a plumber to fix my toilet. Darcy is sexy because he is trapped in amber. He has been traditionally masculine for 200 years. For him the definition of manhood never changes. That's what we like about Darcy. Society changes but he stays the same.

Nothing Gold can stay

Like Most people I was sad to hear about the passing of Michael Jackson. No matter what we all think of his personal peccadilloes he was a father, a son, a brother, and a friend. He died quite young and the people who loved him will miss him. Long after the public memorials are over people will mourn him privately for the rest of their lives. The Onion made a funny yet incredibly tasteless joke about the fact that he "died at age 12." And that got me thinking. As tributes and memorials fill my television I can't help but note that that all the praise is tempered by a focus on his personal shortcomings. The plastic surgery, the child molestation accusations, and the increasingly odd behavior. His legacy may never be what it should have been because he has spent the better part of 20 years taking a sledgehammer to it. Legends die young. That's just how it is. Marlon Brando was arguably as brilliant an actor as James Dean. But Dean died at the height of his fame and at the pinnacle of his talent. Marlon Brando had an additional 40 years in which he became obese and made films like Don Juan Demarco. Mr. Jackson’s father-in-law Elvis Presley died just as his legacy was beginning to take a hit. He had gone from a bluesy rock sex-symbol, possibly the first one, to a bloated spectacle on the Vegas stage. Can you imagine if he'd lived another 20 years? Michael Jackson made some pretty catchy music in the 90's but the third millennium was not kind to the King of Pop, just as he was not kind to the people who loved him and wanted to believe in him. I was in elementary school when he released Thriller. And my brother and I zombie danced in our living rooms as I'm sure you did too. But in high school I learned about the molestation accusations. I believed them wholeheartedly. I still do. And it was a disappointment on par with the day I realized that my seemingly indomitable parents sometimes got scared and often cried. It felt like the moment when I realized that few of us grow up to be the person we thought we'd be. A comedian once remarked that if it was true that we can all grow up to be whatever we want, its curious that he's never been in a room full of ballerinas and space cowboys. Michael Jackson's childlike refusal to admit that we all grow up and go to work, and adulthood is scary and fraught with responsibilities we find overwhelming, felt like a betrayal. Real art comes from the truth and Michael Jackson refused to live with the truth. Thriller is brilliant because it was not only a pop record but one that moved our bodies and excited us. Even Bad and Dangerous had songs about the way he saw the world and what it was at the time. Black or White? Man in the Mirror? Those are songs that are honest. But when Jackson's appearance became a lie and his behavior became like a endless performance art piece, he managed to make his brilliant past less relevant and venerable. We like our legends captured in amber or sealed in a Time Capsule.

Men on their periods...

The first lines of Bonnie Tyler’s 80’s classic tune Holding out for a Hero asks the question best, “Where have all the good men gone?/And where are all the Gods?”
I'm going to take a potentially controversial stance and declare the sensitive male a failed experiment. I have been told by women twenty to sixty years older than me that once upon a time men were encouraged to be emotionally closed off and distant. That if you saw one cry you were somehow injuring his testicles, and if one hugged you, you were either a small child or on fire and they were patting out the flames on your back. I have no doubt that must have been terrible. To spend all your time ball and chained to someone with marginal interest in talking to you, who couldn't empathize. But in the 90's as if to prove there is a downside to everything, there began a movement in reaction to second and third wave feminism to make men more sensitive. We told them that it was okay to cry when they were sad and scared, and to not be afraid to show vulnerability. On the surface it seemed like a good idea. Once men could admit they were weak too, they wouldn't need to prevent women from feeling strong. But it's gone too far.
I don't want to hold a grown man while he cries. I don't want Emo music to exist. I refer to it as the music of the whiny middle-class white boy who's Daddy didn't hug him enough. I want to return to an age when men like George Clooney roamed the earth freely just like the noble buffalo. Men who admit they aren't the marriage and kids type and don't feel compelled to change it so they don't look self-involved and infantile. And should a man breed I don't want to hear him say, "We're having a baby". No you're not. Your wife/girlfriend/surrogate mother/teen babysitter is having a baby. You're going to a "father." Unless you are at all physically involved beyond crawling on top of her to deposit your DNA of dubious merit, you're not doing anything until the baby arrives. No uterus, no cheesy discussions of the miracle of life. That is my rule, break it at your own peril. I forgive the mother-to-be her flowery meanderings because she's hormonal,large, and vulnerable to predators. But dudes, Man up! If she wanted to have a baby with another chick, all it takes is $400 in sperm. Earn the right to hitch yourself to her woman wagon. Do something she can't or doesn't particularly want to do. But I'm sure she has the emotional sentimentality thing locked down.
Although I loved the Notebook it shouldn't have been as successful as it was. Men told other men to go see it. The first time I saw it in the theater there were as many men crying as women. I’m not talking a manly sniffle like at the end of Brian’s Song when it becomes obvious that Brian Piccolo isn’t going to make it, or the misting of the eyes when Captain Kirk eulogizes Spock at the end of Wrath of Khan. I’m talking full on dabbing the eyes with a napkin crying. The only way I could accept it was to assume that the audience was full of guys that really love their grandparents and the Alzheimer storyline was the culprit.
A few weeks ago I needed some hand lotion. And every guy in my department at work had some on his desk. I can't live in a world were the men have softer hands than I do. If men are going to be soft to the touch what will we as women have to bargain with. Study after study comes out saying we're smarter and more of us are college educated so they don't get to have pretty pets on their arms. We make our own money so they can't take care of us like houseplants. And many a bisexual man has said the best naughty spank-spank time he ever had was with other dudes. Heck a few straight men will say that the one time they tippy-toed over the fence to try a Mojito and an episode of Grey's Anatomy that it was pretty great, so we can't even represent ourselves as wanton sex toys. If it continues like this the world is going to start to resemble a seventh grade dance. Boys on one side and girls on the other, except when it’s time to make babies.
My concern was only deepened by a talk with one of my two unattached female friends. We both just ended relationships that we were actually still enjoying, because the guys became clingy. In my case it started out pretty good. We were mutually physically attracted, had an amazing time talking to each other, and liked to do the same things. And right up front we were clear no one was falling in love. That we were missing that special something that makes the difference between love and being in love. So we weren't going to try to make it something it wasn't. Flash forward six months and he feels used. And he cried. And he doesn't understand why I don't love him. A generation ago he may have felt that way but he would have kept it to himself. And that's all I'm asking. I'm not asking for some kind of uber-butch Marlboro man. I think we can for the most part agree that Brokeback Mountain blew that iconography out of the water. I'm just looking for a little yin and yang. Contrasting but complimentary perspectives. And I know this is a tough line to walk. Because we could end up back in the days of Gender Jim Crow. Separate but equal. He gets to go out and cure cancer, you get to wipe baby butt and make the perfect mac and cheese. That's no good either. I guess all I'm saying is that the next time I'm crying at the movies I want to look over at my date with tears in my eyes and have him put his arm around me. I don't want him to collapse in sobs and put his head in my lap.
In the interest of clarifying my point allow me to offer a quiz that should clear up what I think is too sensitive. If you answer yes to two or more of these questions you're too sensitive to exist in my world.
1. Have you ever said to another person, "I feel like you're emotionally absent. Why are you withholding?"
2. Have you ever cried after sex because you were "so happy?"
3. Can you say, "Here comes the hug doctor to give you you're daily dose" and not feel like kicking your own ass?
4. Have you ever asked a naked woman, "Can we just cuddle?"
5. Do you think your wife or girlfriend would love you more if you had a better body and have made her reassure you that she finds you attractive?
6. Do you listen to Emo music?
7. Do you only play acoustic guitar?
8. Do you have a problem that you've traced back to it's childhood roots and feel comfortable talking about it while getting a blow job?
9. Are you currently stroking a cat or holding a baby that doesn't belong to you?
10. Do women who you are sleeping with think you're gay?