(WARNING: The ideas in this post have only a tenuous, free-associational connection with one another. In at least one case, the connection is downright subliminal. Trust me when I say it all makes sense in my head.)
There are days when I have no clue what to put up here. A lot of potentially good post ideas die on the altars of hesitation and indecision. In many ways, I’m still fumbling.
But when a good idea hits, I know it. I can feel the fire flow through my fingertips and spill out over the keyboard. I don’t much care who’s reading right now. Not that I’m not thankful that you folks are; your positive comments are an author’s oxygen. And not that I won’t care about stats etc. again one day. For now, it’s more important to wait for those fire-finger moments of inspiration. That way, even if no one reads what I spew, I can re-read whatever I’ve posted, nod softly to myself, and think: “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”
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On Sunday, Kim, my ex-wife and the mother of four of my children, is screening her short film Bunker for cast, crew, and supporters. I’m awed and humbled by this. This woman has talked about making a film for years. Never mind that even a short film like Bunker can cost up to $10,000 or more to create. Never mind the logistical battles involved in earning a living, shooting a movie, and raising four wonderful children and two stepchildren. Never mind the naysayers and critics who told her it couldn’t or shouldn’t be done, or the people and (ahem) ex-spouses who encouraged her at times to pack away her dream and “get a real job”. (Yeah. Not my finest moment.)
She made a fucking film, and she made the fuck out of it.
Like I said. Humbling.
We are all connected now like no culture or civilization before us. We live in an unparalleled age of information, education, and creativity. We are swimming in a practically infinite ocean of knowledge. We can create our own meaning in innumerable ways.
What the fuck are we doing with this privilege?
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In a lovely dollop of synchronicity, I carved out time tonight to watch Kevin Smith: Burn in Hell, a recording of one of the director’s hilarious post-film Q&A sessions. It’s available on Netflix, so go forth and consume; trust me, it’s worth the 90 minutes of your life you’ll never get back.
Towards the end, Smith goes off on a beautiful rant inspired by the sudden death of his father. Smith’s dad, according to his brother, “died screaming”, causing Kevin to wonder: what kind of death awaits us if a gentle, beautiful man like my dad is taken out in a fit of agony?
Smith’s answer: Fuck it. Live hard, and live creatively, and don’t ask so many fucking questions:
The world is full of fucking ‘why’ people. You tell people something they’ll tell you ‘why’. You throw a rock you’ll hit somebody with ‘why’ like ‘Hey man I want to make a movie’ and they be like ‘Why? Why do you think you can do that, why? Nobody else is doing it, why are you doing it? There is so much fucking ‘why’.
You go out and you find ‘why not’. You surround yourself with ‘why not’. People are just like ‘why not’. Where you are like ‘Hey man I’m gonna try something’ their like ‘Yeah, why not, let’s give it a shot’. People will try to help you do your dreams, make your dreams come true and you do the same for them. We’re all in this together. And it cost nothing to encourage a fucking artist.
Smith went on to deflate the notion that any act of creativity might be small or a waste of time:
I’m talking about artsy shit – fucking writing a blog, making a movie, making a fucking cupcake store…putting together a fucking YouTube clip….Some shit you do just to see if it can be done. Live a “why not” life, man, because we’re all gonna die fucking screaming. So make sure, when you die screaming, you die totally fulfilled. You took all the shots….Take the shot. The shot is always worth taking.
(In other news, since seeing this film, I’ve ceased to worry about the number of times I write “fuck”. Smith is the Jedi master of “fuck”. I could be throwing out one every sentence and not topple Smith’s high score. So, fuck it.)
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I recently dove back into studying Japanese, a language I’ve been attempting to master since middle school, when I asked a kindly old WWII veteran to teach me the basics of grammar. I reached intermediate proficiency a few years back, and then gave up studying because…why? I forget the reasons. They’re irrelevant anyhow.
I resurrected my studies last week, and was shocked and amazed at how much support there is out there. Web sites full of language learning podcasts. Dictionaries. iPhone apps. Streaming feeds of Japanese television. It only took me an hour to figure out how to download Japanese music and podcasts from the iTunes Japan store. With just a little effort, I had access to terabytes of cultural data.
Like I said: practically infinite information. Contra Louis CK, everything’s amazing…and I’m pretty damn happy about that.
That’s one of the shots I’m taking. Don’t ask “why”. I can’t fully articulate why I enjoy it so much, or what it will get me. If anything. It’s a passion – one of several that occupy my scant free time. This blog is another. I have one or two others kicking around. Kevin and Kim have both helped me realize how much time I’ve spent “why”-ing myself to death. Why do I become so absorbed in these esoteric projects? Why can’t I focus on one thing at a time, and be happy with that? Why? Why? WHY?
I’m putting “why” aside for a while. I could use more “why not?” in my life about now.
Kevin Smith’s right. We’ll all die screaming. Life is suffering. And when the moment comes, it doesn’t really matter what we did, or why. We’ll only care about those dark alleys we worked so hard to avoid. Who knows what will happen, or where we’ll end up, if we follow our passions? Do we need a bullshit five-year plan? Or will we have more fun rushing blindly into the dark mystery of the unknowable?
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Which shots are you taking?

As a kid, I spent a lot of time and disposable income at the local pizza parlor, which had a room filled with quarter-play video games. I have cultivated years worth of self esteem out of the fact that, for a few days in the summer of 1988, I was the undisputed champion of Commando.

You know, some people always need to up the ante. Go vegetarian, and the asshole next to you (hi) will proclaim he’s a vegan. Go vegan, and your hippier-than-thou neighbor will go raw, and guilt you out for cooking your kale. You can’t win.
Last month, Dan Savage found himself in the middle of a media shitstorm (what else is new?) when he referred to parts of the Bible as “bullshit”, and referred to the students who walked out of his talk over this “insult” as “pansies”.
I’m an attachment parenting dad. I carried all of my kids around in baby slings. My kids’ mom breastfed late. All of them spent nights in our beds until the ages of three or even four. And you know what? I’m glad we did it. To this day, my kids and I are extremely close, and I give attachment parenting at least partial credit.




I’m a vegan. I’m also a dad. My kids aren’t vegan, and it’s something I haven’t foisted upon them. There are a couple reasons for that. One is that their mom isn’t vegan (though she is increasingly vegetarian), and we try and keep our parenting consistent across households. Another is that I’ve come to veganism fairly late in life, and think it’d be a dick move to switch the rules on my kids in the middle of the game.

