Old Man, Take a Look at My Life

And here we are. One week down in New York City. The last week has been a complete whirlwind, and I feel like I’m coming up for a breath, now, for the first time. It’s all very overwhelming, as I expected, as I’ve been told five hundred million times by everyone else who has been in my position, but there have been lots of good things I can hold onto as well. Trying to do any kind of summation of the last week chronologically would be exhausting, stupid, and almost as boring for me as for you, so I’ll just pick things up with this morning, leaving the near-endless amounts of lifting and rushing and building and drinking and worrying and dreaming and laughing and walking and taking deep, deep breathes that have made up my first week in New York to your (surely sufficient) imaginations.

I had a job interview this morning, my first one in the city. It was to be a shopper for a theatrical costume shop, basically running around the city all day buying fabrics and shit for them. It seems like it would be a good day job for a few reasons- it’s normal hours, Monday-Friday from 9 to 5, which is ideal for me as anything I want to do (stand up comedy, improv, perhaps some regular ol' acting) happens at night, and I also generally do my best writing in the evenings. It also would involve a fair amount of freedom, I wouldn’t be stuck behind a desk all day, and even if I’m working in costumes (a field I have no talent or interest in), I would still be meeting lots of people involved in theatre. I say all this now, when I don’t have the job and desperately want it, but it could also very well be a monster pain in the ass. More on that later.

In any case, it was one of the strangest job interviews I’ve ever had. Perhaps the strangest, and that’s saying a lot, considering I was once interviewed to be a delivery boy for Dominos Pizza by a man who, I found out later, spent the majority of his shifts hopped up on cocaine. The entire thing lasted approximately five minutes, and the woman asked me no questions. Okay, that’s a lie, she asked one: what are my long-term career goals. I could have lied through my teeth and said that I’d love to be a Broadway costume designer, but against my better judgement I told her the truth. She didn’t seem that thrown, and said that a former shopper now works for a Broadway producer, and that the job is a great way to meet people and make connections, no matter your specific interest. So far, so good. But then, she just described the job for a couple of minutes, asked me if I had any questions, and that was it. Nothing else! The interview was set for 10:30, I showed up at 10:20, and I was out the door before my scheduled time. I was all set to talk to her about all of my production experience, and student theater, and about ten other things that I had run through in my mind, and I didn’t get to say a goddamn word of it. What's worse, without giving any chance to talk I never got to really unwind, so I spent the entirety of the interview in the initial, nervous, tightly-wound stage. I can't figure it out. Who would call someone in for a job interview, and then ask them zero questions about the actual job?? Maybe the work is so easy she just figures anyone can do it and only wanted to make sure that I wasn’t a nutcase. Still, I can’t help but think that this all doesn’t bode well, and that there’s bound to be at least one applicant with a genuine interest in theatrical costume design who, rightfully, will get the job over me.

EXCEPT, at the end of the “interview”, when she told me I’d hear back tonight or tomorrow morning, she glanced at my resume again, smiled, and said “but it looks good.” Now, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Is she just being a tease? Why would she say that if she wasn’t interested? But how on earth could she be interested when I said a total of seven words during the entire interview? Maybe she just likes the shy, silent, submissive type. In case it isn’t already obvious, searching for a job is already striking me as a whole lot like dating.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be satisfied. And I don’t mean satisfied after you’ve eaten a big baked potato and unfastened your belt buckle. I mean the other kind, that near-mythic, deep-seeded, soulful satisfaction with your life that seems to exist for nobody in the real world except Zen Buddhists and Jay-Z. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always lived my life wanting something I don’t have, and I’ve always had a belief that if I could get that thing, that one thing, then suddenly the heavenly floodgates would open and everything would be wonderful. If I only got a lead part in the play, if I only got more friends, if I only survived Euro AP, if I only convinced a girl to kiss me, if I only got into a good college, if I only had sex, then, THEN the puzzle of my life would be solved, all the jagged, disparate pieces of my psyche would magically congeal into a perfect, smooth, healthy orb. Of course, all of those things happened, and each time I woke up one morning, took a breath and thought, well, this doesn't feel all that different now, does it?

Now, in this new stage of my life, there is a sharp influx of new worries, of new things that I want (a job, financial security, some sort of concrete plan for my future), but I know now more than ever that none of these things will change me. I want to say that it only matters what’s inside, but that sounds so idiotic and clichéd. But you know what, it’s true. It’s easy to see that some of these things would never be a miracle fix (when I get the hypothetical job that I so desperately want, I’m sure that it will be awful and I’ll start complaining about it right away, unleashing a brand new avalanche of unfulfillment and desires). In any case, I feel like I’m living my life with a slightly different perspective these days. It’s a personal philosophy that basically goes, well, there will always be things that suck. Nothing to do about it. It might sound a bit nihilistic, but it’s actually a huge relief.

I’ve also been thinking about college a lot lately, remembering lots of small moments: a funny line at a rehearsal, hands touching under a table, tiny winks and grins and revelations that seemed insignificant at the time but now hold an enormous symbolic weight for me, the entirety of my last four years condensed within their thin parameters. I wonder if I appreciated it all enough while I was there. Probably not. But then, I can sit back here, look around my remarkably comfortable new apartment, and feel pretty damn content. At least for right now. See, when you know that your worries are never, ever going to go away, it makes it a whole lot easier to temporarily ignore them.

Came From the Bottom of the Block, I

Yesterday on the old gchat I was talking with Mia, my playwriting teacher from college, and she noticed that my status was a link to this very blog. Mia has always been horribly, wonderfully blunt with me, and she immediately told me her two big fears about my starting an online blog: that it will drain my creative energy into an empty source, and that it will turn me into a narcissist. As she was certainly one of my most important and influential teachers in college, I’ll listen to anything Mia has to say, so I’ve taken both of these concerns to heart. The first one I don’t think will be a problem, as over the past two weeks that I’ve started this blog, I have also been doing an absolutely ungodly amount of legitimate, “creative” writing, more pages under tighter deadlines than just about anytime in school. I think the simple fact is, I get into rhythms where I am either writing a lot or not writing much at all, and any kind of self-created deadline (be it the staged reading this Friday, a weekly writing workshop, or the desire to put up a new post so my really lame, needlessly racist play-by-play of a golf tournament isn’t the first thing that a potential reader will see) will only help me stay in the “writing-heavy” mode. Plus, I just don’t think there’s a point in trying to distinguish between one type of writing as legitimate and another as “just for fun.” At this time in my life, I just want to have as much creative output as I can, by any means necessary.

But now we arrive at her other concern, that this unassuming little website will transform me into a self-promoting monomaniac who stares at himself in the mirror and says shit like “your loss” when a girl refuses to sleep with him. One thing you have to know about me is that I detest narcissism. It is a toxic, unholy thing, the reason there is so much hatred in the world and the reason that the last six Al Pacino movies have featured him wearing a pointy goatee and having a twentysomething love interest. Back when I was dealing with a rather sizeable amount of self-loathing (throughout Middle School and a good deal of High School) I could always reassure myself that, hey, things might be bad, but at least I’m not one of those lousy narcissists.

So, yes, the idea that keeping a blog will turn me into a narcissist is something that has crossed my mind a few times. Or rather, is the mere fact that I’ve decided to start one mean that I’m already an egotist? Am I trying to fight a battle that I’ve already lost? I mean, if we're just extrapolating here, the entire act of wanting to be a professional writer absolutely reeks of narcissism- sure, other people can learn practical skills and trades and help keep the world running properly, but I think that my calling in life is to write down the random shit that runs through my head and then try and force other people to understand it. This has been on my mind a bit lately already, as I’ve been reading a book called Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer where he openly and unapologetically acknowledges how egomaniacal his vocation is. On the other hand, wanting to be a writer (or an actor or a comedian or an artist of any sort, really) is just a severe case of arrested development; it’s an opportunity to continue to live in a fantasy world while other people put on ties and jackets and head off into the office to discuss finance reports and technological synergy and whatever it is that real people learned about in real classes and now are going to be doing at their real jobs.

In any case, here's the point: I want to keep up this blog because, as I said, I feel like it’s just another good reason to write. But I do not want it to ever become anything that resembles electronic self-pleasuring. With that in mind, I’d like to present to you a very special entry:

Several Things That I Do Not Like About Myself.

1. How I Eat Peanuts. I eat shelled peanuts whole, shell and all. I am ashamed to say that, for a time, I thought this was something to be proud of. I couldn’t understand why people would ever de-shell peanuts, when the shell is perfectly delicious to eat as well. It’s frugal (twice as much raw matter entering my body for the price) and, more importantly, it’s unique. However, in the last two weeks, as peanuts have become my go-to writing snack (I bought a huge bag of them on my first day here and it remains perpetually half-full, no matter how many I eat), I have realized that this is a truly disgusting habit. Not only that, but I’ve also realized that I have no control over it. I want to go back to just eating the peanuts themselves, back to behaving like a normal, civilized person, but I can’t do it. When eaten in large quantities, peanut shells get stuck in my teeth, and I mean really stuck; these salty, scratchy little remnants stick around for days, crammed into all the deepest corners and recesses of my mouth. They practically build a house and a raise a family. Not only that, but when you actually think about it, these shells must be absolutely filthy. I can’t imagine the myriad of contraptions that peanuts go through before they land in their packages, but we’re dealing with a protective shell here that it is assumed nobody will eat, so anything goes. Plus, the entire reason I like the shells is because they are salty. And I don’t mean they have a light, pleasant salty aftertaste. I mean they are extremely, grotesquely salty, horse-lick salty, and chomping them is the easiest way for me to indulge in my greatest eating vice. I still think of that delicious seasoning as “salt” and not as the more formal, unhealthy “sodium”, but I know at some point in my life the change will be made, and I’m only helping it along by eating peanuts like some kind of wild, un-caged animal.

2. My Feet are Ugly. This one is pretty self-explanatory. I have a difficult time objectively judging my own attractiveness in most respects, but if there is one thing that I know for sure, it is that I have one jacked-up pair of feet. My big toe’s are huge and oblong, my middle toes curve in at a near-ninety degree angle, I have extra joints in half my toes that can make me do things with them that inspire gasps (occasionally in amazement, usually in shock/disgust/horror). The list goes on and on. I maintain an ongoing mental list of jobs I will never, ever have (accountant, UFC fighter, Klansmen, etc), and I’m sad to say that the position of a “Foot Model” has a very permanent spot.

3. My Relationship with Drug Dealers. Now this shit is getting real. Yesterday Jen was having some difficulty getting ahold Nate (aka Nasty Nate, aka the Ridge and Davis friendly neighborhood weed dealer), and I was brainstorming with her the best way to go about it (call him again, text him, etc). It was during this exchange that I realized just how unhealthy my relationship with drug dealers is. And I don’t mean unhealthy in the obvious way, in that these people sell me drugs that are dangerous and bad for me, and I spend money that I don’t have in order to procur these drugs. I mean unhealthy in just how desperately I want them to like me. Nate is the best example (in case you’re wondering what his last name is, so am I), as he was a very integral part of my life (and the lives of many of my close friends) for so much of college. Yet, until the very end, every time I was about to meet with Nate I would feel like I do before a date; I would sweat and pace around my room and my heart would be beating all aflutter. The few scant words we would say to each other in his car would then run through my mind the rest of the day- did he really call me man? What does that mean? Is he this brief with everyone, or does he chat a bit more with the clients that he sort of also considers friends? I could never tell you why I cared so much, but it’s a condition that I don’t see changing in my immediate future. There’s just something about the criminal life that I find so unbelievably appealing. My obsession with The Wire didn’t exactly help this, either. And let’s just make it clear that we're talking about a guy who deals cheap, crumbly weed out of the trunk of his car. His business model is undeniably strong, but we are nevertheless dealing with a guy who is very, very small time. All I can say is, it’s a damn good thing that I only smoke pot. If I was into heavier drugs it would be very bad. Both for the more obvious reasons, and because I can’t even imagine how I would act around more serious drug dealers. I’d probably show up at their door drenched in cologne and dressed in a tuxedo, and would be shot to death on the spot. In any case, at the end of my talk with Jen (who, as far as I know, never did get in touch with Nate, elusive heartbreaker that he is) I realized that a huge amount of my time in college was spent worrying about what various girls and my drug dealer thought of me. Which brings us to number four…

4. I Don’t Understand Women. This has been a powerful, defining aspect of my personality since my very first erection. In fact, I’d venture to say that it has defined me more than any other “lack of” something has. For the most part, things I don’t understand (like, say, electrical engineering) have not made a huge impact on my life. The fact that I don’t understand girls (or are they women now? One more thing I don’t know) has, in contrast, been hugely influential in my development as a young man. I will say that in college I was fortunate enough to gain a decent amount of experience with the fairer sex, and I know more now than I did (comparing myself now to when I first entered Northwestern, and the difference is extreme; back then, I literally knew nothing about girls, nothing whatsoever, and I frequently felt the sensation of drowning underwater when I was forced to talk to them for an extended period of time). That being said, anytime that I start to think I’ve figured things out, I am invariably confronted with a situation that proves, beyond a question of a doubt, just how ignorant I still am. Just to actively prove this, I’m going to try and answer the self-imposed question (“what do they want?”) and will, inevitably, write myself into a circle: Okay, so girls like it when it seems like you don’t need them. That bit is clear enough. However, they also definitely want to be pursued, right? So you have to strike a balance there. Most of my success (really, almost all of it) has come with girls that I was friends with first, and I am completely and utterly hopeless when it comes to the meeting strangers in places (bars, parties, etc) where a romantic/sexual interest is already implicit. I’ve also been told/seen that it’s good to be very social and outgoing, but at the same time that can make it seem like I’m trying too hard, which can’t be attractive. Now we’re getting away from just male-female relationships and into the general area of social interaction, which also perplexes me a fair amount. If I’m really gregarious and social then I inevitably start placing too much importance in how many laughs I can get from people, and I feel like I’m performing, rather than meeting people on equal ground. However, if I go for the whole quiet/mysterious thing then I’m always afraid that I come off as boring or, even worse, as some kind of weirdo. The simple fact is this: whenever I have any degree of success with a girl, I am still surprised. This all traces back to my old self, and all the self esteem problems I used to have. That could be a blog entry in and of itself, but I don’t think I’m ready to get that personal quite yet. Of course, this brings us around the bend and to number five:

5. I Think Too Much. If I made a list of things that I like about myself, this would also be on it. But I can’t deny that my habit of overthinking and overanalyzing every hour of my life has cost me an innumerable number of things (girls, my peace of mind, hours upon hours of my life). Let me be clear: I don’t think that I’m smarter than most people. I don’t think my brain works at a higher level than most people. I just think it works harder than most people. While other brains move at a casual stroll, mine is in a constant, exhausting sprint. I actually do often think about the way in which I interact with and perceive the world, and how it must be different than most people. If everyone overthought things as much as I did, then nothing would get done, people would be too paralyzed with neurosis. Case in point: I am still wondering if this entry has proved that I am not a narcissist, or if it, in actuality, is the most self-absorbed thing I've ever written. I feel like it could go either way. What do you think?

Well, that was fruitful. Maybe another time I’ll make a list of things that I do like about myself (which, as I said, would also include number 5, along with my sense of humor and my ability to go to a movie theater by myself and not feel the least bit self-conscious). Or I could make a list of things that I dislike about other people (though that was rather magically summarized in my cutting profile of Rachel Ray). Or, here's a thought, I could try and write about things that have nothing to do with me. But who wants to read that shit anyway?

Follow Through

Walking through Andersonville on a Sunday morning, I saw something you really don’t see every day: the outdoor goodbyes from a gay threesome. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. I definitely saw three guys standing in a small circle in a courtyard, and they were each hugging and kissing one another, and then two of them walked off and the third went back into his apartment building. It was a very strange sight. Less strange in Andersonville than in most other places in the country, but strange nonetheless.

I was walking back to the Jackorczak Estate (a name I’ve come up for the apartment, that is in no way approved or endorsed by the actual owners) from Aaron’s place, where he very generously let me stay last night while he was at his girlfriend’s. It’s amazing how much you appreciate sleeping in a bed after being away from one for so long. I figure basically everything in life is like that.

Meanwhile, I just tuned into the PGA Championship (one of the four biggest golf tournaments of the year) and holy shit! There are five holds left and Tiger Woods, the number one player in the world, is completely tied with Y.E. Yang, a guy who, as far as I can tell, just wandered onto the course from out of the crowd. Seriously, who the hell is this guy?! He’s acting kind of like an anime character, too. And I don’t mean that to be racist, even though it is. He just has a big smile and a spring in his step, which seems a little bizarre to me for someone who is in by far the most high-pressure situation of his career, probably his whole life. But hey, this state of mind is what’s keeping him in the tournament.

This is also especially interesting because Tiger, after having a rather subpar year so far (at least by his standards), has played two tournaments in a row the past two weekends and won both of them. He’s trying to announce that he’s still the man, in other words, and the way to do that decisively would be to take the PGA Championship as well. Too bad this sprightly little Asian man is standing in his way. My Dad is obsessed with golf and watches it constantly, and I’ll admit that most of the time it’s pretty boring, but this is the ideal situation to watch: all tied up, with about an hour to go. Even the dry British announcers seem excited, like they slammed a Red Bull with their morning tea.

OH SHIT Yang just sunk his chip shot for an eagle!! This little guy isn’t giving up. And he seems so goddamn calm, I can’t believe it. Also, his caddy looks strangely similar to Buster from Arrested Development. The whole thing is so surreal, like Tiger is having a really bizarre nightmare and we’re getting the chance to watch.

Meanwhile, I played golf myself three times when I was home in California, each of them a story in itself. To give a little background on my personal history, back when my family lived in Ohio we were members of a very posh country club and I took golf lessons and played all the time. Since we moved from there, I’ve played on average of once or twice a year. In other words, I’m terrible. But at the same time I learned the fundamentals awhile ago, so I’m not completely hopeless. The first round I played at home was with the incomparable Jim Rodman. In this situation I had a lot of factors stacked against me: I was a) hungover, b) stoned, and, worst of all, c) wearing flip flops. Yet, somehow, I triumphed over adversity and actually played pretty well, wiping the floor with Jim (we’ve agreed that we’re fairly evenly matched, even though every other time I’ve played with Jim he’s won). Then I played with my Dad and some of his work friends a few days later, sober, well rested, dressed properly, and absolutely stunk up the place. It was a sorry site, and I’m pretty sure my Dad’s friends thought I had some sort of physical or mental disability. Then, to finish things off, I played one round with just my Dad. I set a goal right before we started (to break 100) and played pretty well throughout but ended up with an absolutely devastating final score of, yes a 100.

In other words, I choked. Those dreaded words in golf, and it looks like today they might apply to Tiger Woods. Everyone has their demons, sure, but who knew that the one for perhaps the world’s most famous athlete would arrive in such an unassuming package?

Meditations in an Emergency

Jesus fucking Christ my neck is killing me. Anyone who has ever romanticized the wandering life has clearly never actually slept on a couch for an extended period of time. Maybe it’s this particular couch, which grows harder and crueler with each night, and which I’ve grown to disdain more than just about any other anonymous object. Sure, me and this couch have had some good times, most of them involving a huge flatscreen HDTV and season 2 of Mad Men On Demand, but every time I start to come around, start to see her in a sweeter light, the old bitch gives me another night of uncompromisingly restless sleep, and I wake up with a splitting headache.

Thus far, my brief soujourn to Chicago has been one of peaks and troughs. The show I’m here to work on is very exciting, and we’re making lots of progress (I think), but it’s also mind-bendingly difficult, a musical adaptation of a short story that deals with consciousness and the nature of reality and lots of other things that are particularly suited to fiction and very difficult to adapt into a dramatic frame. The thing is, when I first started working on this, I thought it would be one of the most style-driven things I’ve ever done; in it’s most basic form, it’s just a simple horror story: a man can’t sleep at night because he’s still haunted by a childhood fable, a monster that will come into his room and rip out of his eyes. That, compounded with the fact that I’m writing the book for a musical that already has lots of gorgeous music written, made this whole thing seem like a slam-dunk on a children’s size basketball hoop. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that it’s become so much more complex and multifaceted than I originally expected, but it’s also, you know, really hard. My entire trip to Chicago is actually a pretty close parallel to this; I figured it would be a fun, creatively rejuvenating coupla weeks, one last hurrah of summertime before my big move and my big hunkering-down into real life. Instead, I find myself in a twisting, wildly fluctuating emotional state; over the course of nearly every day I’ve felt completely hopeless and miserable one minute, then completely inspired and fulfilled the next. I dunno. The one thing that’s abundantly clear is that I could use a good night’s sleep.

Also, my friend Matt gave my new blog a shout-out in his, so I figured I would return the favor. Especially since he was the one who convinced me to give this thing a go in the first place. Matt, a buddy from High School who’s currently living in LA, keeps one of the most detailed, consistent blogs I’ve ever seen, updating several times a week and more or less chronicling his entire life. It can be both very funny and very sad (sometimes in the same entry), and he has maintained a degree of raw emotional honesty that I still find shocking in such a public forum. It’s at http://simpsnsfan.livejournal.com/ (and you get extra points if you can figure out what the hell the name “Electric Five-Star” means without him having to explain it to you)

Meanwhile, I want to get more people to read this, but I don’t know how. I guess I’ll advertise it on the ol’ facebook, even though I’ve been making a concerted effort to phase that ugly, ugly website out of my life. Problem is, I don’t want to be one of those people who updates their facebook status constantly with the same goddamn links. I want to just pick the time of the day that has the most facebook traffic. When would that be? I can’t decide. I feel like it might be late at night on the weekend, or mid-afternoon on the weekday. Any thoughts, four or five readers I currently have?

Yum-Oh

With my imminent move to NYC fast approaching, I’ve begun daily perusals of that twisted funhouse called Craigslist, trying to figure out what it is an aspiring writer/comedian/artiste does to make money while waiting around for that first invitation to be on Jimmy Kimmel Live and win the hearts and minds of America. It depresses me that I’m entering the world with a degree from an inarguably prestigious university and I feel just about as hopeless finding a job as I did the summer when I first turned 16, but hey, that’s what happens when you decide that expressing the random shit that runs through your head is more worthwhile than learning any kind of real, marketable skills. I will say, it disappointed me all year that nearly all of my professors seem to concur with this hopeless view on my future. I can’t even count the number of times during this last year that I, either in a class or during a one-on-one beat down, was told that I am entering a field with a near-impossible rate of success and that I should be prepared for lots and lots of hardships. This is what my teachers are telling me, the people that my parents are paying thousands and thousands of dollars to prepare me for the real world (sidenote: it’s funny that only now, out of college, have I come to the stunning realization that every teacher I’ve ever had since preschool was, technically speaking, working for me. Talk about a skewed employee-client relationship!).

In any case, I know they’re all just trying to be honest, and I know I chose this for myself, but for Christ’s sake, couldn’t we get a smidgen of inspiration along with all the cold, hard facts? I also heard, on multiple occasions, professors saying that they wish someone had told them how hard life would be straight out of school (the implication being, of course, that we should be grateful that we are being told this now, that we aren’t being spoon-fed the same bullshit as them). At this point, I never want to hear it again. Let me discover the struggles on my own! Let me be hopeful for just a little bit before the vicious backhand of reality slaps me across the face!

There is, however, one job I am planning to apply for that makes me very excited, and that is to be the Next Food Network Star. The reality show is now taking video submissions for it’s sixth season, and after mulling it over for the past few submission rounds, I am now one hundred percent going to get my shit together, film a 3-minute application tape, and set myself on the fast track to stardom. Trying to think of what my own cooking show would be like has, sadly, forced me think critically about my least favorite television personality of all time, and that is the incomparably awful Rachel Ray.

Note: If by some chance I actually advance to any kind of semi-finalist round in this Food Network thing, this entry will be immediately deleted, so enjoy while you can.

I hate Rachel Ray. I hate her more than anyone else on the planet that I’ve never met. I hate everything she represents, I hate her voice, I hate her face, I hate what she’s done to my beloved Food Network. Rachel Ray is a prostitute in every sense of the word (except, perhaps, the most literal). But you know what? I respect any street walking lady of the night a hundred times more than I respect Rachel Ray, with her waxed face and plastic smile and those empty, soulless eyes.

I hate her for what she has done to the Food Network. I have some authority to talk about this, as I used to be a moderate addict. My family moved across the country in middle school, the worst conceivable time for a big move, me being at my paunchiest and most awkward, my self-loathing at a fever pitch. I would frequently come home from my new school choking back tears, plop in front of the TV, turn on the Food Network and drift away for hours. I give this time in my life full credit for teaching me how to cook, and also for providing hours of escapist entertainment. The Food Network, you see, used to be for people who loved and were fascinated with food. It used to have lots of shows that dealt with foods from all over the globe, and lots of strange, interesting personalities. It had Mario Batali cooking veal livers and Alton Brown discussing the chemistry behind Eggplant Parmesean. It had, most of all, the original Japanese Iron Chef, still one of the funniest, most culturally fascinating shows in TV history.

Now, to put it plainly, the Food Network sucks a fat dick. Because of Rachel Ray, every single show is the same: plain, simple, cheap food that housewives can make at home, the recipes delivered by blandly attractive Ray spin-offs. This is all, I’m convinced, because of Rachel Ray and her freakish popularity. Nowadays I will never, ever catch myself watching a Rachel Ray program, but for a time my hatred of her manifested itself in a perverse, sadomasochistic fascination. So yes, I’ve seen her shows. In addition to the hideous 30 Minute Meals, rife with her bizarre abbreviations and forced perkiness, there are approximately seven different shows that feature her going to different restaurants around the country, taking a bite of food, and then exclaiming that it’s good. Her ability to describe food is abysmal. Her favorite descriptor is something along the lines of “whoa, lots of flavor there!”, which is what you might hear a preschooler say when you ask her if she’s enjoying her juice box.

And don’t even get me started on the Rachel Ray talk show, which I tuned into once and watched for about five minutes, mouth ajar, just as one watches a horrible, blood-soaked train wreck; watching her talk to a celebrity is like watching the most grating, obnoxious person you’ve ever known forcing herself on someone at a party. She is, in many ways, the entertainment industry equivalent to the Bush Presidency. Just as G.W. Bush managed to get himself elected twice because he just seemed like a regular guy, because he didn't seem any smarter than the average American Joe, Rachel Ray has somehow built an entertainment empire because she is in no way cleverer, smarter, funnier, or more interesting than the average American woman. In fact, she's much worse. The worst part of Rachel Ray may well be her voice, that crackling, scratchy voice, soaked with whiskey and smoke, sounding like a cartoon mouse in the worst Disney spin-off you’ve ever seen.

Wow. The only other person I've never met that provokes this much toxic disgust in me is Carson Daly, but at least it seems like he knows he’s a no-talent hack. Rachel Ray, meanwhile, has revolutionized (read: ruined) an entire network, built a multi-million dollar empire in the process, and I will never, ever forgive her. That being said, I can’t wait ‘til I get on The Next Food Network Star and have the chance to smile and kiss her ass. Maybe this whole theater training is applicable in the real world after all!

Back on the Horse

There are few things stranger than walking around your college town after graduating. And I don’t mean right after graduation. Back then there were still lots of familiar faces lurking, waiting out their apartment leases, tying up loose ends, hugging tearfully on the street every few days for fear that this time is actually, definitely the last time they will ever see each other. I mean several months later, which is precisely what I’ve been doing. Evanston, IL. This place that over the last four years I’ve grown more familiar with than any other place on Earth (far more than my real hometown, which grows stranger and more distant with every visit) is suddenly so bizarre. I still feel comfortable here, I still know these streets like the back of my hand, but at the same time I feel a little sticky about the whole situation. It’s almost like Evanston is an ex-girlfriend who I left on fairly good terms and now, as a result, is letting me crash on her couch for a limited amount of time. Everything’s the same, but I just don’t quite belong anymore, and I get the feeling she'll be relieved when I move on for good.

This odd, displaced feeling isn’t helped by my living conditions right now, which consist of a couch, a disorganized suitcase (bound and gagged with duct tape because the zipper broke), and my perpetual headaches and neck pains as a result. The whole experience of leaving home and going to college is one of displacement, but I truly have never felt as close to homeless as I do right now. My home in California is now, beyond a question of a doubt, my “parent’s house.” My future home in Manhattan is a mystical place that I’ve never actually seen, one that holds my future roommates, several boxes of the shit I’ve deemed worthy of taking with me across the country, and possibly a mattress. And right now, this instant, I’m sitting in a storied Panera Bread, the exact same spot where I wrote many an essay in college overanalyzing many a piece of literature, with generally no idea about anything that is happening in my life beyond the next few hours. Sure, there are a few things I know (in an hour I will be in an apartment I’ve visited a few times before listening to people read through a play I wrote, in another week and a half those same people will be reading this play in front of some sort of an audience, a few days after that I will be on a plane, probably reading a book or some sort, etc), but I have never, ever had my life defined by so much that isn’t known, by such a severe amount of mystery. Mystery seemed like a good word there. You could just as easily sub in “freedom” or “terror”, but that really depends on the day.

This whole summer has been like this, characterized by a loose, wandering, who-knows-what’s-next mentality. Appropriately, I read Into the Wild at the beginning of the summer, a book that deals with a young man who attempts to live his entire life by these principles; it proved rather inspiring to me, bizarrely so since in that instance the young man ended up dying an agonizing death alone in the Alaskan wilderness. Still, this stage of my life (or maybe it’s a sub-stage) has led to a newfound immediacy in my day-to-day life. I'm living moment-by-moment because, well, that’s really the only option I have. If I try and think too strenuously about the future (about jobs and rent and food and being a grown up and living in a giant city and having no educational structure for the first time since I was, what, five years old?) then I will inevitably freak out. So now, with my future so wide open in front of me, with no knowledge of what I’ll be doing in two months, let alone two years, I feel like I’ve learned to appreciate the smaller things in life. When I walk out the door in the morning, anything can happen. Any pretty girl I see on the street seems much more realistically like she could be the love of my life. I still don’t walk up and introduce myself to these girls, am far more likely to strategically position myself behind them and enjoy the view while I stroll for about ten seconds before I start to feel like a pervert and let her disappear into the crowd, but still. It’s just a different way of thinking about the world. Now that I’ve removed myself from that whole educational infastructure that has governed me for so long, life seems so much bigger and scarier and more exciting and more open and, just, gah. I don’t know. Writing this is the closest I’ve come to actually pin-pointing the feeling I’ve had all summer, and it’s still a garbled mess, each modifier contradicting the one before so I don’t feel like I have to commit to anything.

Of course, now that I’ve graduated, every older post-grad I’ve seen all summer has invariably felt inclined to tell me what the first year out is like. Most of it has been very negative. My friend Dan called it the worst time of his life, and stated unequivocally that I will feel the same way. Very nice. Last night my friend Carly said it’s been “the hardest time” of her life, also honest, but at least there was a little hope and determination behind those words.

Being back in this ol' town has also made me reminisce a bit about Senior Year of college, most probably the best, happiest year of my life (and just saying that had made me realize that I will no longer define years as autumn through spring now, but rather with that classic old Gregorian calendar). Even if that's the case, I'm hopeful: 2009 is definitely off to a good start. In fact, winter and spring of Senior Year were far superior to Fall, which was among the most emotionally draining periods of my life. But before I pass judgement on '09 I have a lot left to go, including those first few real months post-graduation, not this summer vacation/purgatory that I’m in right now. These upcoming months, September and beyond, are the ones that I have been told are incredibly difficult, painful, lonely, lost, miserable, etc. So who knows where 2009 will end up in the final rankings. I’m going to go ahead and say that this is going to be the most meaningful year of my life; already it’s very competitively jostling for that position, and I still have five whole months to go, four of them living on my own in New York City.

You know, I've tried this whole "blog" thing before, giving it a go for awhile in High School, and I could never keep it up. I just never enjoyed writing about myself. But I've rather liked this. Maybe I've matured, maybe I'm finally comfortable enough with myself that I can get introspective and not scream in horror at what I see. Or maybe I've just become more self involved. Whatever the case, I have a feeling I might keep it up this time. And by saying that, I've probably doomed myself to failure. Oh well. Tune in next time to find out!