In addition to being a terrible cartoonist, I am also an extremely bad writer. Luckily, I'm apparently not as bad a writer as I am a cartoonist, since I was hired to write for my current job and not to cartoon. I like to think that one of the things that got me this job was my humor/typical college ranting column at the Wesleyan Argus, "Fun With Staples" (a dual reference to my love of comics and my strong masochistic tendencies). So much for my art degree. Just goes to show that your major in college can have no bearing on the rest of your life, except in terms of how large a loan you have to repay.
Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I was born and raised in Connecticut. I also spent a few years in Rhode Island, but that isn't important right now. Actually, it wasn't important then, either. The whole state hasn't really done much since the war. (The Revolutionary War. They landed a massive force on Nantucket, I think.) The point is that Connecticut weather is nothing new to me. A period of snow followed by a period of hail followed by a period of rain followed by a high in the sixties has been going on since I was a kid. Probably even earlier than that, unless my birth coincided with a massive ecological disaster.
(May 16, 1977, 2:22 pm: A croquet court in Danbury.
"Excellent shot, old bean!"
"Thank you, old chap."
"I say - it's rather hot out again today! Would you like a lemonade?"
"Yes, thank you, I'd OH MY GOD! RUN! RUUUUNNNNN!"
At this point a hurricane materializes above them, sweeps them up, and deposits them in the air over a soft, fetid marsh. On their way down, however, the marsh becomes firm, arable farmland and they are killed on impact.)
Connecticut winters can be mellow some years, but for the most part they are cruel, unforgiving masters. My childhood memories are full of stories of terrible snowstorms. Unfortunately, my adult memories are full of more adult things, like credit card debts and what happened in the last issue of Captain America, so these childhood memories are either lost or have been removed by shadowy government agencies.
I do know that during the blizzard of 1977 my mom had to actually park on another street and walk to my house, primarily because no one has dared to plow my street since those two climbers were killed on its south face. ("It's not a driveway, it's a scream of stone," said my uncle, who lost both thumbs to "Ol' Fingersnatcher.") My mother had to trudge through a foot of snow carrying me in one arm, a bag of groceries in another arm, and my two-year old sister in the third arm, which she had grafted on after I was born for just such an occasion.
As much fun as the winters are in Connecticut, my family reluctantly bid a fond adieu in the summer of 1993 and moved to the Caribbean, where the beginning of winter is marked by an intense heat wave that generally leaves 15% of the population dead or extremely uncomfortable. We spent that Christmas on St. John, watching the egg nog evaporate, but the next year we did exactly what everyone else didn't and flew to Connecticut for the holidays. The minute I stepped off the plane, I felt the bone-chilling embrace of the land that I loved, and I knew then that I wouldn't be happy unless I spent the next four years in constant fear of losing a toe to frostbite.
Why Wesleyan, you might ask? Why not Brown, or Harvard, or another one of those big, interdependent ivy league schools? To tell you the truth, I wanted a bitter, frigid winter that only an urban environment like Middletown could offer me. Small towns like Boston and Providence - sure, they may have more TV shows filmed there, but they certainly don't offer the dangerous driving conditions that a city like Middletown can provide. The state of Alaska (State slogan: "Help us... please!") used to offer both dangerous driving conditions and the filming of TV shows, but "Northern Exposure" was canceled a few years ago and the use of sled dogs in the place of cars has led to fewer traffic accidents, if more maulings.
Earlier this winter, a friend of mine from Alaska restated his annual claim that winters in Connecticut were "wimpy" or "gutless" or something equally negative. He felt that Alaskan winters were superior in length, intensity and overall toll on human life. This morning he was found frozen in his bed, curled in the fetal position with his stiff sheets stuck to his skin, which was a bright shade of cerulean blue. (His death is attributed to the fact that heat rises, and that his window was missing.) His pre-mortem opinions were not unshared; in fact, one out of every two Alaskans harbors a deep resentment towards Connecticut, primarily because Connecticut beats Alaska at everything except killing Alaskans. (Recent Alaskan deaths may affect these figures.)
Basically, Connecticut is incredible. I can't remember what state has the saying "If you don't like the weather ... wait five minutes," but it should be Connecticut. Connecticut needs more sayings. Like:
"If you don't like the weather ... go to Alaska."
Or: "If you don't like the weather ... wait until winter gets here, then you'll be sorry, fool!"
Alaska has some good sayings, too. Their big one is:
"If you don't like getting mauled by a sled dog, well, that's just too bad, isn't it? You shouldn't have moved to Alaska."
I love you.
A simple phrase. Comprised of three words, none more than one syllable, that together make a powerful emotional statement, one that conveys the deepest level of trust and understanding. It could be argued that the phrase symbolizes the pinnacle of the human relationship. In fact, when Princess Leia says it to Han Solo in Empire, all argument is moot. There can be nothing beyond what she feels for that lovable old space pirate.
Unfortunately, being able to express the pinnacle of the human relationship in three little words is a great temptation, and as a result, the phrase has become a cliché through overuse. Those three words fit so nicely onto one of those little candy hearts – buy a bag and distribute them to your friends! And what better gift for the holidays than a doll that expresses the pinnacle of the human relationship when you pull its string? I’ve even seen it on T-shirts. It has become so common that it’s not even a puzzle on "Wheel of Fortune." Well, not anymore.
I don’t even think it’s been used as a song lyric in the past five years. It hit a peak in the 1960’s and steadily declined. The Beatles alone said it approximately 512 times, in such hits as "P.S. (I Love You)," "I Will (Love You)," and "Michelle (Can’t You See That I Love You?)." Davey Jones of the Monkees once told two different girls he loved them in the same song ("Mary... I love you... Sandra ... I love you... Mary... Stop hitting me..."). The last time I heard it was back in the early ‘90’s, when Extreme said that they didn’t even want to hear it anymore. "Sayin’ ‘I love you’," they sang, "is not the words I want to hear from you." They then go on to extoll the virtues of what I can only assume is oral sex, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is that, at least in the eyes of Nuno Bettencourt, "I love you" has lost its power as an expression of human passion.
Nowadays it means "I miss you" and "I hope you’re eating right" and "Call me if you need any money." When you’re talking to someone who isn’t family, then the old meaning can still be buried in there, but it can’t be assumed, because there have been too many other lesser levels of "I love you" built up over the years. It’s like remembering the vowels: "I love you" means A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes "I trust you more than anyone else on Earth." Sometimes, but not always. You want always? Then you’ve gotta say this:
I’m in love with you.
This, of course, is not something you usually say to your mother or brother. There are no two meanings about this. Despite sounding kind of silly when you break it down (Where is "love?" How do I get in there, anyway?) it has actually come to more or less replace "I love you" as truly symbolizing that ultimate of feelings. Unfortunately, it lacks that punch that "I love you" has. "I love you" is short and to the point and it has half the words so you can get in two of ‘em for each "I’m in love with you." The latter phrase is good for establishing the fact, but it’s so much easier to use the simpler "I love you" as a reassuring reminder. As a result, "I love you" is still a commonly accepted variation on "I’m in love with you," but only when the "I’m in love with you" is firmly established.
However, the ambiguity of "I love you" can be beneficial sometimes. During my freshman year, Mathilda, a thirteen-year old girl said "I’m in love with you" to Leo, a 35-year-old French hit man in "The Professional," and my Resident Advisor went nuts. "That’s SICK!" she said. (I’m paraphrasing.) This is supposedly because to be "in love" with someone is a strong, unconditional feeling that movie producers are not allowed, according to my R.A., to throw around between a minor and a hit man. But if she had just said "I love you," then the movie would have been treading safer ground – after all, maybe she sees Leo more as a father figure than a knight in dark glasses.
On the other hand, with the leeway "I love you" allows, it would still be open to interpretation by sick freaks such as myself that maybe – just maybe – Leo could still have a chance at achieving the pinnacle of the human relationship with the young, beautiful Mathilda. To squash the pathetic imaginings of these reprobates once and for all, the script would have had to read:
I love you, but I’m not in love with you.
This would have covered all the bases. Even if Leo were to interpret "I love you" as more than innocent, the subsequent clarification would probably have removed any question from his mind. (Leo is, after all, new to this country, as well as this feeling called "love," and does not speak very good English.) At this point, Leo would have had to resign himself to the fact that although Mathilda thought he was a great guy, what with saving her from those drug dealers and all, he could never be more than her friend, even if he had been in love with her.
Or maybe they could have cut out the scene entirely, and just had more killing.
This is the first in a series of columns on the films of Luc Besson. In two weeks, I’ll talk about how La Femme Nikita created a moral precedent for stabbing authority figures in the hand with a pencil, and after that we’ll discuss The Fifth Element’s use of band aids as a fashion statement. For now, I’m off to join my good friend – whom I love – and get drunk. Or maybe I’ll just have a glass of milk.
Yesterday, I thought about my career more than I have in a long while. Basically, I thought about it, and that put me ahead by exactly one thought. So now I’m at a record one thought, surpassing my old record of zero thoughts, which I set in the winter of 1983 when I realized that I couldn’t be a cowboy all my life and thereby moved up from negative five thoughts.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, my career. The Career Resource Center held this fantastic meeting today. Seniors who had no idea what they were going to do after graduation filed into a room where they were served soup and a sandwich (a grim foreshadowing of us living homeless on the streets, which was not helped by the de-licing procedure).
The first speaker was from the financial aid department, and she opened up by making a joke about how she wasn’t going to threaten us about our loan repayment. She then told us a joke about how we should avoid running up charges on our credit cards. As I thought about my immense debt, I wondered why she hadn’t told me this earlier, like in 1996, or at least before they started making money harder to counterfeit. Then she told a joke about how we should get insurance or we’d pay for it in the long run, and she finished up by threatening us about our loan repayment.
Then we got to the career guy, who was a little shaky, since he had just found out a few minutes earlier that he had been fired and had no prospects. I think he held back on a lot of suggestions for his own use. True to his name, he talked about careers, and gave an example of an ideal job:
CAREER GUY: "What would you say to a job that pays six figures?"
ALL: "YEAH!"
CG: "Takes you to exotic locales?"
ALL: "YEAH!"
CG: "Lets you meet interesting people?"
ALL: ‘YEAH!"
CG: "And requires a uniform?"
ALL: "NO!"
CG: "You spoiled hippie freaks! It pays SIX FIGURES! And you won’t wear a UNIFORM? What’s the MATTER with you?"
ALL: "LISTEN, JACK! ANY JOB THAT REQUIRES A UNIFORM IS PROBABLY SOME SELL-OUT CORPORATE OR MILITARY THING, AND WE DON’T WANT TO WORK FOR THE STINKIN’ MAN! SO BACK OFF! AND PASS AROUND THOSE BROWNIES YOU’VE BEEN HIDING! WE’VE SEEN ‘EM!"
The brownies made their way around the room, and each table brainstormed about what kind of attributes their ideal job would have. I told the career guy, who was at my table, that I wanted to utilize my creative skills, but not by myself, rather as part of a team, and I wanted to make a good salary and be appreciated for my talents. I had to wait a while for an answer, as he tried to catch his breath from laughing so hard, but he accidentally sucked his napkin into his windpipe and had to be removed to the health center by the busboys, where he was given an aspirin.
So we brainstormed amongst ourselves and resolved that "Death on a Tire Swing" is not a good name for a movie. Then we resolved that we needed more Coke, but when we resolved that they didn’t have any more Coke we had to resolve that we wanted Sprite. At this point, the meeting started to break up, and I realized that I wanted to go into advertising, if only to say that the meeting had helped me.
But really, advertising seems like my kind of thing. I like watching advertisements. Most people like at least one or two specific advertisements at any given time, and some people watch the Superbowl merely for the incredibly expensive ads, but I think all advertisements contain at least one interesting element, even those Bob’s Furniture ones (The dead guy on the mattress? Classic!).
Unfortunately, unless you’re working for a grass-roots organization like Bob’s Furniture, you’ll usually be working for a big company which is under contract with an even bigger company which is attempting to push its product on the unsuspecting citizenry, who little suspect that they are not citizenry at all but consumers with cash in their pockets.
Luckily, before he choked, the career guy told us that our first job probably wouldn’t be the one we retired from, since we’d probably get fired shortly before retirement and be unable to get rehired at such an advanced age. But at least I don’t have to worry about being stuck in a soulless corporate medium for the rest of my life.
I guess it’s not all soulless - I really like those new Volkswagen commercials. Those Old Navy ads give me the creeps, though. Who is that woman?
No, not Morgan Fairchild, the other one.
No, not Joyce Brothers, the other one.
No, not Eartha Kitt, the other one.
You know who I mean.
Never mind.
She’s scary, anyway.
As I was trying to decide what to write about this week, thoughts of the impending holiday came to mind. I eventually decided that the whole idea of writing solely about a holiday merely because it is close at hand is a bit of a cop-out, especially when there are so many more interesting subjects to discuss. For instance, Aramark is in the middle of signing a big... con... tract... Valen... tine...
No... Must... not... discuss... Valentine’s Day... Must... find... alternate topic... Transformers... Trans... formers... good...
Okay... I’m all right. I actually don’t know what I’d say about Valentine’s Day, except to thank my mother for the nice card. Today, I’m going to try something different for a change, hopefully a pleasant one. I will discuss something I have given a lot of thought to (as opposed to everything else I’ve written), something that worries and bothers me as an artist and writer.
Has everything has been done?
I don’t mean technologically, or even physically. People are always inventing some new thing that makes my music collection obsolete or jumping farther than some guy did yesterday. I mean creatively. It seems like there’s no new ground artistically anymore.
As I sit and listen to Wyclef Jean’s intensive sampling of "Stayin’ Alive," I think about the number of remakes and song samplings that are crowding the radio airwaves. "Faith," originally by George Michael, has become something completely different, with sloppy verses that contrast Michael’s earnest moanings, and the chorus, "I gotta have faith," is screamed at the top of the lungs, for what I can only assume is comedic effect. The Eurythmics’ "Sweet Dreams," as it was remade by Marilyn Manson, actually was a close fit to the lyrics. This is merely ridiculous. I think it’s funny. The scary thing is, the original is such a good song that I listen to the remake anyway.
I know Puff Daddy gets a bad rap (no pun intended), but as far as I can tell Sting was equally responsible for the "I’ll Be Missing You" fiasco, as was Jimmy Page for that thing Puffy did with "Kashmir." Puffy at least had his own lyrics. It’s when straight covers of yesterday’s hit singles become today’s hit singles, and therefore "Modern Rock," that I wonder if we’re treading water. I mean, Vanilla Ice covered his OWN SONG, for God’s sake.
I’ve brought up "Psycho" before, but it’s a good example of an industry not feeling that it needs to create something new. Remaking the exact same movie and calling it an homage, rather than writing an entirely new one with more indirect tributes, seems to be respected nowadays. If you change it sufficiently, until all that’s left is the premise, you get to rename it: "The Shop Around the Corner" becomes "You’ve Got Mail." Gus Van Sant defended his "Psycho" remake by saying that if someone remade "Titanic," everyone who liked the original would go to see it, and they’d still like the first one better. Needless to say, I didn’t see his point. Why make the second? In the case of "Titanic," why make the first? These things confuse me.
Television is one of the most cannibalistic media I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen one show advertised as the next "Seinfeld," in terms of its snappy, idle banter. The success of "Friends" has created all of these shows centered around a group of twentysomethings who hang out. And, since "The Simpsons" is still the best show on television, we see that "Family Man" thing and "King of the Hill" have their foot firmly wedged in the "animated middle-America family" door. And I thought that the film world had realized that there were no more good, old TV shows to make into bad movies. "My Favorite Martian?" Put that one on the shelf with "The Flintstones, " Lost in Space" and "The Avengers." I’ll bet you anything that if Bobcat Goldthwait hadn’t done a certain talking-horse movie by the name of "Hot to Trot," "Mr. Ed: The Movie" would be due for the summer.
Are we running in place, or is this normal? I don’t know if they did this in the fifties, or the seventies - all I know is that in the sixties there were certain songs that got recorded several times by several different groups, one of whom was usually the Beatles, and that doesn’t really happen today. Is it merely a standard appreciation for old ideas that are still good, or is this some kind of new, greater awareness of and access to modern mass media that is coming to a head now, and at no other time?
I dunno, I’m asking you.
If you know, please tell me. I’d feel a lot better if I knew we were approaching another Renaissance.
Sometimes, late at night, I regret never having gone abroad. Usually, it's because I've just realized that the girl I was interested in the previous semester is in Rejkyavik, but very often I just think about the fact that I've been in Middletown on and off (usually on) since 1995. As a wise friend once pointed out to me, that's almost half a decade. I told him that it was actually closer to five years, and he told me to get out of his room, for good this time. I told him that then I wouldn't be able to return his stapler, but he just glared at me.
Often, when these regrets surface, I try to remember the reasons I chose to remain on campus for four years. For one thing, the film series has been way too good. I mean, how could I go away for a semester and miss all those great movies?
I actually made plans to go to Italy one year, but I heard a rumor that "Joe Versus the Volcano" was going to be showing during the semester I would be gone. I canceled those plans right quick, let me tell you. Ironically, they went on to replace it with "Zombie," a pretentious Italian film with the tagline: "We are going to eat you." (It is left to the reader to determine where the emphasis lies.) This is the film that I would have been travelling to Napoli to study in its native habitat. (A few copies are kept alive in American video rental preserves, but these have generally lost the will to live and refuse to mate, not even with "Never too Young to Die," starring John Stamos and Gene Simmons.)
The second reason is that the food here is too good. The year I considered going to France, I took one look at the new Mocon menu and it blew my mind. In France, I would have been downing tripe like duck à l'orange, crèpes, soufflés, escargots, et mousse au chocolàt. Here, I can get shepherd's pie twice a day and once on Sunday and teriyaki beef every other Tuesday, not to mention all of the whipped cocoa the li'l Whipper'll give me. All this and Rochester wings to boot. France actually does have Rochester wings, but they don't have a town called Rochester, so they call them les Wings de la Belle Paysage, or the wings of the beautiful countryside. If I had gone to France, I would have learned the art of preparing these border-defying delicacies and more at the world-famous Grande École pour les Expatriate Chicken Chefs in Grenoble. (France Fact: Shepherd's pie is revered as a god in many quaint French villages.)
The third reason is that Americans are much more polite than anyone else in the world. We always say "please" and "thank you," as in "Please step out of the car," and "Thank you for giving me an excuse to beat the living tar out of you, because I'm going to enjoy this." In Switzerland, they get all surly at you over little things, like teasing them about their neutrality or defacing their fleet of sport utility Saabs with which they patrol their alpine borders, and they say stuff like "Please leave my country," and "Please leave my country now, you American pig." Tampering with the national knives is also frowned upon, and often leads to indian burns, which are considered capital punishment in Switzerland, along with fäafren ("noogies").
The fourth, or "primary," reason is that Connecticut is just too exciting. It is truly "The State of the Arts," as well as possibly "The State of the World Today." Everything you could desire to fulfill your entertainment needs is within easy reach. Where else can you be twenty minutes from a perfectly decent movie theater, a good hour from one that shows "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," and at least seven exits from the nearest comic store, which is probably already well on its way to financial collapse? Speaking of which, have you ever read Spider-Man in Spanish? I have. El Arachno-Hombre just doesn't cut the mustard with me, pal. And God forbid I go somewhere I can't find out what's happening in Danger Girl.
Given the state of the world today (Connecticut), I am quite content to be in the United States. Recent developments may eventually ensure that I can never leave, but in that case I might as well get used to it. And there's still plenty of states I haven't been in — I feel like I have no business going abroad until I've seen what's in my own backyard, if you can call California my backyard. (If you can't, just call Montana my backyard or something. Or Arizona. I don't care, they're all the same damn state.)
And there's still that big country to the north I haven't been to yet.
Whaddaya call it.
Alaska.
Ain't been there.
On Wednesday night, I made a terrible mistake. No, I didn’t see Gus Van Sant’s "Psycho." No, I didn’t buy the new Beetle. No, I didn’t get the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Frozen Yogurt by accident.
I... I didn’t check my messages.
I didn’t check them until Thursday afternoon, and what I found chilled my soul.
I’ve probably got you all thinking that I missed a really important message, like someone I know having died in a terrible blintz-making accident or Janeane Garofalo asking me out to trawl for scrod in the wee hours of the morning. Actually, I didn’t get any messages, but that’s a story - or, rather, a lack of one - for another time.
What chilled my soul were the twenty-seven bulletin broadcasts. In the immortal words of Doc Emmet Brown: "It’s your [Bulletin Broadcast Review], Marty! Something’s got to be done about your [Bulletin Broadcast Review]!"
For those of you who do not know what bulletin broadcasts are, having been trained as freshmen by your sophomor(ic) neighbors to skip them, they are the announcements sent to our voicemail boxes to tell us what is going on on campus. As far as I can tell, most people skip them like a good jump rope. I am almost ashamed to say that I still listen to the introductions for each and every bulletin broadcast. I say I’m ashamed because more and more I find that listening to them actually detracts from my enjoyment of campus events - by the time I’m done, the events are over, usually by a few weeks. Essentially, there are too many bulletins, and they are presented like... like... a bulletin broadcast review. There, you see? They’ve already entered the lexicon. It may be too late.
There was once talk of an overhaul of the system, making it a service you could access to look up various types of events, with the occasional non-optional campus-wide notification. That will probably happen when they give badgers the vote in Parliament. So until then, the following are merely suggestions to improve the current system. Actually, no. They’re rules, goldarnit. Follow ‘em or taste my wrath-and-boysenberry pie.
1. Be specific with the introductions. The current system wouldn’t even be that bad if I knew in the first two seconds what the message was about. Introductions that do not help me include: "a meeting," "a reminder," and "a canned meat product." Say the name of the organization, the subject of the reminder, or the specific brand of meat product so I know if they apply to me. This rule is probably more for WesTel, but you all have the power to request your own introduction. When you send a broadcast about your band playing, don’t let them say: "A band." Tell them to say: "Pete Pain and the Briny Deep." Nobody will skip that bulletin.
2. No lost-and-found messages. If you have lost something, ask Public Safety or the library desks. Do not tell the entire campus. As a great man once said, "I don’t have your damn glove!" Even more important: if you have found something, take it to Public Safety. Do not keep it, waiting for a bulletin broadcast. And do not, I repeat, DO NOT send a bulletin telling the campus you found something. We don’t care. Well, one of us does.
3. For each event you promote, send ONE bulletin broadcast. One only. If anyone is listening to the bulletins at all (which no one is), and they want to see your show (which no one does), then they will hear the first bulletin and write the information down, making the second bulletin unnecessary. It would be nice if WesTel didn’t have to police this, but they probably do. So WesTel - don’t send out more than one message for an event. Especially not in the same day. See the next rule.
4. Find out who in your group is sending out a bulletin for your event and do not send another one. This relates to the previous rule, but focuses primarily on stupid people.
5. Get all the information right the first time. Too many messages nowadays start with the words: "A correction..."
6. If you are an organization any smaller than "all Wesleyan women," get a mailing list. A message that affects half the campus is one thing. Five percent of campus or less is another story. "For brown-eyed, leprous yachters...," is not something I should ever hear in a bulletin. Or anywhere, for that matter.
There, now that didn’t hurt a bit.
I hope these rules all made sense to you. I think they’re built out of good, old-fashioned common sense and held together with baling wire, straightforwardness and spit. Mostly spit. But they could bring back the Bulletin Broadcast Review as a tool of communication on campus. I, for one, think we should just make up T-shirts for every event we want to advertise. Winter events would be poorly attended, unfortunately.
For now, broadcast safely, and I hope that someone got ahold of those Billy Joel tickets that girl was getting rid of. Because boy, oh boy, if you got ‘em, then you were probably closer to the stage than I was.
I still cried when he played "My Life," though.
