Futures, pt. 2.

It's happened. The neue blog is, appropriately enough, found here: Writer of Fictions. I'm going from a free site to a pay site; I think you'll find that one does indeed get the quality they pay for. I'll upkeep this though; I do not want to lose this volume of work that I've spent the past sixteen months composing. I just wish I could import it into the new site. Anyway, come on over, kick the tires, and introduce yourself on the discussion board 'Nostalgia' or ask me any question you want. Except "What are you going to do with your life?" I might ban you for that.

Trifecta, pt. 2.

More from last night:

Ryan: I walked home from the grocery store the other night in the pouring down rain, and my landlord knocks on the door so I answer it and while still dripping wet, he says to me "Dude, you should go downtown and check out this bar. I want you to have fun here!" And I'm like "Dude, I'm more concerned about doing my laundry this weekend."
Lee: "I'm more concerned about survival, so traversing this town to go to a bar is right on my list."
Ryan: At this point I'm like 'Alright, when do I have to start hunting for sustinance?' Start crafting my bow and arrows and go track a bison.
Lee: Hey, that'd be a great story.
Ryan: Oh I'd photoblog that hell out of that. 'Here's Ryan examining elk dung. Here's Ryan suffering hypothermia.'
Lee: Speaking of photoblog, I need to get my digital camera and go down to the local McDonalds this week.
Ryan: Speaking of words that have never before been put together. What the hell?
Lee: Hahah, yeah, that's a sentence that has just been uttered for the first time in history. But no, I need to go take a photo of the sign, because this photo would need no title, no caption, nothing else. Right under the 'Billions and billions served' sign, on the sign with the interchangable letters, is a message reading 'Poetry event. 7-9pm.'
Ryan: That's incredible.
Lee: I know man. It's like 'When did this happen?'
Ryan: Well Starbucks has started opening this Salon type places with poetry and stuff.
Lee: Yeah, but I don't under my trans-fatty substances at Starbucks. Well, frappucinos.
Ryan: One of the greatest regrets in my life, and I can say this with all honesty and reflection. Where were we? Was it Utah? No, it must have been Arizona. Anyway, we were there one summer and we drove past some local restaurant that had a sign reading 'Rain dance Friday night. Weather permitting.'
Lee: *laughing for about 15sec.* See, if the weather cancels the rain dance, then obviously it worked! That's great!
Ryan: And I just wish I had gotten a picture of that sign. It was so perfect.

Gymnastics come in male?

Tonight, on the phone:

Mischa: If I get on 45th St., is that the right highway into Lawrence?
Ryan: I've never even heard of 45th St.
Mischa: I have so much trouble with my cardinal directions.
Ryan: Well, if you find out you're going west, don't stop until you hit Santa Fe.

Mischa: Yay! I know what road I'm on now! I'm not lost!
Ryan: You're in Manhattan right now. Admit it.
Mischa: Thanks Ryan!

Mischa: I was on a date last night.
Ryan: When I called you?
Mischa: Yeah.
Ryan: Why didn't you tell me!?
Mischa: Yeah, right. Anyway, he's back from mission because he tore his ACL while doing a backflip–
Ryan: That's a hell of a mission trip.
Mischa: Ha! Well the kids kept asking him to do a backflip because he's a gymnast.
Ryan: Michelle, stay away from the male gymnasts. Seriously.
Mischa: Is there a good reason for this?
Ryan: Well yeah. I just can't pull one out of my ass right now.
Mischa: Anyway, he's leaving once his ACL is healed, so I don't have to worry about marriage talk or anything.
Ryan: You're just a love 'em and leave 'em kind of woman, aren't you?
Mischa: That's not true!!!
Ryan: It's alright. I'm a love 'em and leave 'em kind of guy, except they always leave before I can love 'em.

Mischa: So I'm doing a paper, but it's already been written on this study from the 70s.
Ryan: That's my kind of paper, the kind that's already done.
Mischa: No, the study was done in a time of sexual conservatism, so now I'll be studying the locus of control among brothers and sisters depending on how old they are in relation to each other–
Ryan: You know, I saw an episode of Law & Order: SVU on this the other day.
Mischa: Yeah?
Ryan: Or it was probably just straight up incest. One can never tell anymore.
Mischa: So back to my scholarly work...

Trifecta.

Tonight, on the phone:

Ryan: The guy said it was going to be $2200 to fix my car and I'm like "You're wrong. I have no mechanical training whatsoever and I can tell you you're wrong." And he says "No we have to make these repairs." "Okay, assuming for a second that you're right, which, of course, you aren't, but say you are, how long would it take to get it done?" He says "Five days, after I get the parts in. I'd have the parts for sure in a day. Two days tops." And I said "Okay stop."
Lee: Wow.
Ryan: So I called my parents and my dad called him back, and the guy kept going on and on about what he wanted do with the car and my dad literally laughed at him. The guy said he had to drill a hole in the bumper to examine the extent of the body damage, and he wanted to replace it. And my dad said to him "Buddy, I don't even care of it has a bumper. I just want my son to be able to drive it for the next two months."
Lee: Ryan, as far as I remember, you don't have boobs or long hair. This usually only happens to females who try to get their car fixed.
Ryan: I'm thinking they saw the Kansas license plates and thought "Oh, well they have to get back to Kansas, so we'll just charge fuck all."
Lee: As if anybody wants to go back to Kansas.

Lee: So really, in hours, what's the ratio of time you spend on the internet compared to actual work?
Ryan: How about in minutes? In minutes, I'd have to say 500 to 1. This past week, it was easily 500 to 1.
Lee: That's stunning.
Ryan: You want a little story? Yesterday the designer in the office was wondering if Mos Def had come out with a new album, and looking at the Borders across the parking lot through the window, I got up and said "I'll go check!" And went over there.
Lee: That story says that you have enough time that rather than do a two-minute Google search, you could go over to Borders and examine Mos Def's entire catalogue of work.
Ryan: And memorize every coffee drink on the menu at the café.

Ryan: So I was at work this–
Lee: Ryan, I'm sorry, but I have a problem with you saying "at work." You can say "at the office" or "at Borders", but I don't think you can utter the words "I was at work."
Ryan: Damn you that's going on the blog!

Ryan: The show is like Lost, only instead of being on an island, they're in the middle of a nuclear holocaust.
Lee: I read that book. It's called On the Beach.
Ryan: I saw that movie. It's called Red Dawn.
Lee: Hey, nice Swayze reference.
Ryan: *pauses pulling his clothes out of the laundromat dryer* You know he's got a new movie out?
Lee: Dear god. You know, I was at Blockbuster Video before I went to Massachusetts, and I saw a video there titled Roadhouse 2.
Ryan: Wait a minute, let me guess. Straight to video?
Lee: It has to be. We're talking Herbie: Fully Loaded quality of production here.
Ryan: But Lindsay Lohan has big boobs.
Lee: The verdict is still out on whether they're real. Did you see that Onion story this summer, of Jessica Simpson saying that her boobs need more attention, that they're in danger of going the way of Jessica Love Hewitt?
Ryan: But Jessica Simpson simply isn't at that level. She's not up there with them.
Lee: That's definitely true.
Ryan: See, this is why the podcast is going to succeed, because I don't even remember what we were talking about, but we've ended up–
Lee: We started with nuclear holocaust, then Patrick Swayze, then Roadhouse 2, then Lindsay Lohan, and then boobs. I have to believe that people are going to listen to the podcast.

Ryan: I'm so lost right now.
Lee: Oh, you're driving? Well doesn't every street just go in a circle anyway?
Ryan: Yeah, they go in semi-circles and diagonals, because somebody thought that was funny.
Lee: I just remember calling you back the other night and the first thing you said was "I hate this place."

Ryan: I got a pretty bitchin' car though from the rental place, a Dodge Charger, so instead of just errands this weekend, I might just go driving around for the hell of it.
Lee: You should drive to New York to interview for those jobs.
Ryan: Well the first 150mi. after I leave New Mexico *are* free.
Lee: How would they even know if you left the state? The streets go in circles so you could drive all weekend and get nowhere.

Rip off.

This season premiere of Grey's would be wonderful were it not a total rip-off of 'In the Shadow of Two Gunmen', the two-part season two premiere of The West Wing, which also used flashbacks in the exact same manner to introduce not just the characters but how they met each other. Nonetheless, I don't care. With this and Aaron Sorkin's return, my nights are pretty full this season.

ETA: Six Degrees sucks. Just in case you were curious.

And Arnold's Drive-In Was Pleased.

Missed the whole hub-bub with the Pope and his offensive remarks about Islam? Your six-minutes to understanding.

Jericho.

Obviously the people who filmed the scene where the young boy looks at the nuclear mushroom cloud beyond the mountain range have never been to western fucking Kansas. I'm just saying.

Gotta save up for the podcast.

Tonight, on the phone:

Lee: I had this baseball game last night, and the home team was down 12-5 in the last inning and I was thinking 'Okay, I'll make it home soon.' Damn team scores eight runs in the bottom of the inning to come back and win. It took thirty minutes!
Ryan: I understand that it is baseball, but it's one of things where you're like 'Now, softball has some rules on this. I'm just spitballing here, but maybe time limits and run rules aren't a bad thing.'
Lee: Hey, I'm the umpire, I'll do whatever I want!
Ryan: You can if you're in the Pac-10.

Lee: The one Teach for America story I have is the only one that matters. I understand that's a big statement but this is incredible. I worked with this girl a couple years ago in TIP who was going on to get her Masters at the Yale School of Forestry – by the way, spend a moment thinking about that one – but she did Teach for America in rural New York. She was homeless. She spent two months living in her car because they didn't pay her enough to both eat and have housing. She ended up having to live on a commune with hippies for the last few months.
Ryan: I've got to share that story. Because I'm a journalist, and I'm all about giving my friends all sides to the story. It has nothing to do with bias about said friends possibly choosing a shitty career. A commune is not a step up from homelessness.
Lee: When you live on a commune, you lose. Period.

Fix.

So it happens that the multicolored screen of death is a fixable thing, which I found out soon afterwards last night when I got on my other computer and searched for it. I got my laptop up and running again, and this morning I did a startup test before Apple called me back, and it's working fine. Which is good, because as much as I'd like a new one, that'd just mean more of a delay. And if this podcast gets postponed any longer, I'll go mad. Mad I tell you.

Studio 60.

It's been waaaay too long since we've seen a black endtitle card with the names Thomas Schlamme and Aaron Sorkin. I would say it's enough to make you feel good about television again, but then I remember that American Idol is coming back for another season.

What the hell else bad can happen?

So this morning my car got towed away to the radiator shop with no problems. And I rode my bike to work with no problems. When I got there, my laptop was waiting for me, thanks to an early visit by FedEx. Excited about this, I got a call from the shop saying that there was significant damage that had been done to the radiator supports when I was in a little fender bender of this past May, so much so that they were able to take the radiator out, but couldn't put one back in. This would require body work in addition to fixing the actual coolant system itself, but they would need another body shop to come in and make an estimate. Resigned at this, I went on to my laptop. I started it up and it worked fine. I charged the battery to full strength while working on updating my resumé so I can start applying for jobs. Then I shut it off at lunch after figuring out how to make a podcast.

At the end of the work day, or 40 min. ago, I called the radiator shop to see what they found out about the estimate. It turns out nobody ever came by today, but they hope to make progress tomorrow. I rode home, laptop in its place of honor in my new Nike messenger bag, and after giving my parents an update on the car, proceeded to start the MacBook up again.

But now instead of a monochrome screen of death when I try to start it, I get a multicolored screen of death. It's doing the exact same problem as it was nearly three weeks ago when I took it in the Apple Store for a second time, and after getting the exact same part replaced again. So I called the Apple Store to explain the situation, and they're going to call me back in the morning to discuss the 'fastest way to resolve the issue.' I got an idea: send me a new fucking laptop and pay for my hard drive to be recovered and transfered to the new one. The guy told me "We can't do anything until morning, so don't worry about it tonight, sir." I wanted to say "Listen, asshole, my mom is the only one who can tell me not to worry about anything. How about you worry about the fact that you're all idiots.' I would drop Apple like a bad habit, but to paraphrase Churchill, Apple is the worst computer manufacturer out there, except for all the others.

Eight hours later, and I'm still no closer to a working car or laptop.

Ticket.

Hey Lee, Tiffany just told me that she still expects us to run for office in the future. I suggested as "President and VP on the 'I Don't Give a Shit, Why Do You?' ticket." Her idea for campaign buttons is Do Know, Don't Care, Moving On.

Just to clarify, you'd be teh prez. I'm all about shadow governments.

Football Night in America.

NBC's Sunday Night Fooball has a John Williams composition for their theme song, which sounds roughly in the same vein as Vader's 'Imperial March.' Somebody needs to tell them that John Madden, while he may have the same size, shape and density, is not the Death Star.

On being stranded in Santa Fe.

I wanted to give this place a chance. Really I did. And in the mornings as I drove to the gym or to work, I'd look up at the mountains and think 'Ah, it's not so bad.' But first instincts are powerful creatures, and are often more correct than we might think. And in the end, the mountains aren't enough. This is a society town, there's too much sprawl, and I just don't like the vibe at all. While it is a good place to visit for a vacation, I've already started counting down the days until I leave.

Granted, it is possible that I'm being a bit hyperbolic due to the fact that my car is broken down, but I doubt it. I left work early yesterday and went to go get groceries and a new tube for my front bike tire, on the other side of town. While idling in traffic, I notice smoke coming from under the hood of my car. Pulling over and calling my dad to describe the situation, I figure out that it's a radiator problem. Hoping to make it the two miles in heavy traffic back home, I pull out and carefully drive while hoping to hit every green light possible.

This doesn't happen. And a half-mile from home, the smoke starts again. So I pull over, and here's where my inexperience in mechanical matters kicks in, as I proceed to pull the radiator cap off while it's still hot. In my defence, I thought that I had to reduce any pressure inside, and would probably have to fill it with water again. It turns out, though, that the radiator was not missing any fluid. I know this because I very narrowly missed getting blasted with ALL of the fluid that was contained in the radiator as it shot out when I took the cap off. So that sucked. I stood in the parking lot on the side of the main highway, four blocks from home, waiting for the radiator to cool enough to pour the rest of my jug of water in it and hopefully get it home. Immediately upon starting it it was making noises I have never heard before, and would do so the entire way home through back streets. But I made it, and immediately called what seems to be the only radiator shop in town that still has a working phone line; they'll (hopefully) come get it Monday morning.

Until then, I'm stranded in my casita. Thankfully I picked a rather central location to live, so it's only 20min. walk (remember, I never got the tire tube to fix my bike) to the gym and to the store if I should run out of food before Monday. That, however, is the only point of optimism on my horizon. Santa Fe, I would say you're breaking my heart. But really, I don't recall giving it to you in the first place.

Milk bottle.

Just now, on the phone:

Mischa: They threw pee down the stairwell.
Ryan: That's a combination of words you don't hear everyday.
Mischa: Yeah, freshmen. *to her deskie* What, in a milk bottle?
Ryan: Threw pee down a stairwell in a milk bottle. Wow, I soo don't miss college.

Rob!

And so I don't totally bum you tonight, a good chuckle from–where else?–a Yankees game.

They won't tear us apart, pt. 3.

I rarely do pt. 3s, but Mr. Olbermann is certainly deserving tonight.

Recollections.

What I remember most about that day was rage. Not just that it was happening, but that it was happening while I was stuck in southeast Kansas. The biggest news event of my lifetime, the JFK assassination of my generation, was occuring in real time and I was half a continent away, driving to a community college to lay out the first issue of a student newspaper.

We always use the words 'innocent morning' to describe 11 Sept. 2001. So it was when I woke up early before leaving for Ft. Scott. I checked the New York Times website first thing and saw a News Alert at the top about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. I immediately thought 'Hm, must be bad weather, like when that bomber crashed into the Empire State Building in 1943.' I then turned on Sportscenter and went about my morning routine. For some reason ESPN had yet to cut in to the ABC newscast, and I didn't realize what was happening until I switched channels. Flipping down through the news stations, I came to Fox News first and saw both towers on fire. I didn't understand it then, but when they split the screen, and showed smoke rising above the Pentagon, I knew it for sure. Right at that moment the first tower collapsed on screen, but the reporter kept describing something else, and I stood in the middle of the living room screaming 'You fucking idiot! It's fucking collapsing my God!'

Not knowing what might happen, I waited until the last possible moment before leaving for school. The radio stations were broadcasting the main TV anchors, who were now ensconced in their roles, so I listened to Dan Rather for the next hour. Fires at the Pentagon. Evacuations at the Capitol. A dozen planes hijacked. Car bomb at the State Department. When the second tower came down, and he said that the Twin Towers were no more, I nearly ripped my steering wheel off, and considered stopping at the next farm house to watch their television.

I kept trying to call my mom, who was in Georgia at the time, but I was in and out of the cellular network until I got to school. Walking across the parking lot, I finally reached her.
"Have you seen what's happened??"
"What are you talking about?"
"The World Trade Center is gone! Two planes crashed into it! A plane crashed into the Pentagon! A car bomb took out the State Department!"
"Oh my God! I'm at Wal-Mart, I haven't seen a TV all morning."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
She would tell me later that when we hung up, she would look around at the other shoppers, still blissfully unaware, and think 'What is the matter with you people? How can you be so calm?' Such was the immensity of that morning, that once you knew, you couldn't imagine anybody else not knowing.

That little moment I saw at home before leaving was the only TV I would watch that day. When I wasn't in class I was in our converted newsroom, trying to make a newspaper appear out of thin air. In the previous week I had been so consumed, and defeated, by the prospect of having little content for my first issue. In some respects, that day saved us by supplying plenty of news for our pages. If that sounds callous, I apologize, for I know it too. We didn't talk about it much in class that day; nobody knew what to say aside from the latest words from Tom Brokaw or Aaron Brown, so it didn't matter all that much. I kept checking the New York Times website, and was puzzled when I saw that all of the secondary graphics were stripped away, including even the vaunted blackletter logo of the name, replaced only by the standard text of a web page. It would be some time until I realized that their servers were being so slammed by web traffic that they had to save bandwidth, or risk crashing. The next day they would commit the entire 'A' section to the event, the first and only time since the moon landing. That they used the same block-style headline was a given.

I finished the layout that night, and went to a friend's house to spend the night. When I walked in, she had on some stupid sitcom; she was tired of watching the news. I seethed, but realized that it was useless. The next morning the first words out of our English teacher was "Did you notice anything this morning?" When we looked at her dumbfounded, she said "You didn't notice the silence outside?" That's right, I thought; the grounddown was still in place. No planes would fly until noon.

I wouldn't get home until that afternoon, some 36 hours after the fact, and though I wished desperately to watch the multiple angles of the planes crashing in and towers collapsing, by that time the news producers decided that they had shown it enough, and that people should be spared more repeated viewings of the disaster. Peter Jennings looked like hell, but I trusted him more than anybody else on the planet that day. My desire to be in New York City covering the event switched to a desire to just be there with a bucket and a pair of work gloves. Hell, even the gloves were optional; I would've cleared away debris at Ground Zero until the skin stripped off my hands, and even that couldn't have stopped me.

I spent only one semester at Ft. Scott, and edited seven issues of the Greyhound Express. In addition to layout and design, I also wrote all of the editorials. I wrote up a quick editorial in the first issue asking for prayers and thoughts to go to the victims of that day, but in the issues that followed, I took a stance in the war that I knew would happen, and I didn't give a damn what the rest of the staff thought. Mine was a liberal, thoughtful stand in defiance of terrorism, yet doubtful of our leaders. I knew I didn't stand a chance, but I had to keep my sanity somehow.

A lot of crap was churned out in the media in response to 11 Sept., but one issue of Rolling Stone will forever forgive all of the covers they devoted to Britney Spears or Nick Lachey. Their tribute issue was a singular achievement; never again will I see such an amazing collection of stories, photos and design. From Jann Wenner's editorial (which I will always keep in either paper or electronic form) on the new global war to the endpaper photograph of a firefighter's burned helmet, I was enthralled at the magnificience of journalism when it chooses to humbly, yet forcefully, reflect our better angels.

I never cried on 11 Sept. I never cried the day after, or the week after, or three weeks after. But a month after the fact, when I was reading that issue, I finally broke down. I was reading an article called 'The Ironworkers', and it remains the only piece I ever saw devoted to those men called in to clear debris in the search for survivors. You see, my father is an ironworker, and though I always knew I couldn't follow in that line of work, I respected the hell out of it. I was calmly reading the article until I reached a passage which forced me to put down the magazine and cry for quite some time. Even when I was done I couldn't read it again for another few days. I may not remember the passage exactly, but at this point, as with many things, the words are truly secondary.

For these men, the feelings they had about what they were witnessing at Ground Zero had another component. These men were members of the same union their relatives had been in for decades, the same union that was involved in construction projects in Manhattan during the early 1970s. For these men, it wasn't just that these attacks happened. The buildings their fathers had built, had just fallen down.

They won't tear us apart, pt. 2.

Remember.