ancient, empty streets

obladi oblada

After my friend Shane died, I dreamt over and over that he walked into our university dinning hall alive and well.  I’d be confused, and then he’d say

“I’ll be fine.  Don’t worry.” 

I had this dream about a dozen times.  I found it hard to understand his death. 

I’m finding it hard to understand the war raging in Libya right now.  I don’t understand the Tsunami in Japan, either.  If there was ever a time, now feels like a good time to curl up into a ball and quit.  If life is capable of washing 13,000 innocent souls to sea any time it wants, what’s the point?

I’m sitting up alone in a hotel room right now.  Tomorrow, I’ll go into the office of the company I work for and we’ll have all sorts of meetings on how to better our company.  We’ll argue and laugh and struggle to find ways to bring our business to the next level.  We’ll do all of this tomorrow, and it will be the most important thing on our minds.  The war will still be raging in Libya.  Residents of Japan will still search through the rubble to find pieces of their lives.  Shane will still be dead.

Shane died eight years ago today.  He pops up into my head here and there and I almost always smile.  One of the saddest mornings of my life eventually gave way to acceptance, and now, just a smile.  Life went on after my friend left this world, and it will continue to go on through these injustices and tragedies before us.

I’ll never forget Shane.  Ever.  Families of the deceased in Japan will never forget those who fell less than two weeks ago.  Worn torn countries will always remember the way their towns and cities looked before they were cut down with missiles and bombs.  Life goes on.

 Mighty trees fall, decay and give birth to glorious colonies of mushrooms, havens for insects and nourishment for the earth.  People leave us for reasons that we cannot understand, and we still must go in to work the next day for silly meetings.  We can pause, breathe and think of these people - but then we have to get back to it.  We have work to do.  Miles to go before we sleep.  And when it gets difficult to shift the sight of my mind and soul to something that seems so tiny and trivial, I remember what my friend Shane told me in a dream.  He’ll be fine.  Don’t worry.

the best movies of 2010

I really liked movies this year.  If I was from Australia, I would say there were heaps of good movies in 2010.  This was one of my favorite years for movies since “There Will Be Blood” was good enough to be all 10 best movies on the top 10.  

1.    Lovely, Still

2.    The Fighter

3.    True Grit

4.    The Social Network

5.    Inception

6.    City Island

7.    Winnebago Man

8.    Nowhere Boy

9.    Cyrus

10.  The Runaways 

watch your step.

I sweat bullets today as I wrote an email, making sure I didn’t say anything that could be perceived the wrong way or taken out of context.  Then I checked it again, and then again, as if a SWAT team would come crashing through my office window and take me out at the drop of a misplaced comma.

Man, we’re hard on ourselves.  We’re even harder on each other.  Watch some of the campaign commercials as election day draws near.  It’s a siege against any and all character flaws.  

Out here in California, Barbara Boxer (Dem) and Carly Fiorina (Rep) are going after each other like mangy street cats.  In the race for Governor, Joe Brown (Dem) and Meg Whitman (Rep) have both proved to be pretty unbearable to watch through all the mud flying around.  They are little kindergartners taking turns tugging on the pant leg of the public as they tattle tale on each other.   

More than likely, all of these candidates have picked their nose and ate it at some point or another.  I’m not really concerned with the fine print of who did and said what.  I didn’t hate George Bush because his opponents told me to, I hated him because he started unjust wars that killed a lot of people.  

Most of the world’s best love songs were written by some of the most terribly unfaithful people.  Some of the best laws have been penned by dishonest, cheating politicians.  John Lennon stands as an international symbol for love and peace, yet he cheated on his wives and instigated fights in his personal life.  Nelson Mandela personifies honesty and dignity, and he admits to committing infidelities in his first marriage.  We choose to focus on the good that both these people accomplished at their jobs, because that’s what they are: people. 

Putting anything under the microscope can yield pretty different results depending on your outlook.  Some would look at a germ as a disgusting blob of disease, while others might see a beautiful structure woven together in minuscule detail.  It’s a glass half empty or half full kind of thing and the same outlook applies to people and their character.         

We wage war on each other’s character to expose things that we think will make ourselves look better in contrast, but I’m starting to think that  we all sit in the same pile of shit at the end of the day.  I suppose it’s up to that person if they want to look at their pile of shit as half full, or half empty.  

which witch is me?

Forget what side of the aisle you’re on, it would be so cool to finally have an actual witch in the US Senate.  To have a black president and a witch in Washington at the same time would be nothing short of historic.

Is America ready for a witch?  Sometimes it’s hard for us to see past the color of a person’s skin - even though many witches have taught us there’s more to being witch than being green.

I’d like to think we’ve had enough witch integration through the years.  “Bewitched” shattered the witch glass ceiling in 1964, becoming the first witch sitcom on primetime.  Thirty years later, “Sabrina The Teenage Witch” took us inside the world of a pubescent witch and gave us a gritty, candid look at the hardships of dealing with hormones and a wise ass talking cat.  

Since then we’ve taken tremendous strides.  Take a look at the example that Hermione Granger has set for young witches.  In addition to being uncomfortably sexually attractive, Miss Granger comes in at the top of her class every year and has a lower class, Irish boyfriend.  Love knows no boundaries, and neither should politics. 

Of course, the logical side of the brain raises some very practical questions:   How versed is Christine O’Donnell in defense against the dark arts?  Is she a true witch or does she have some mudblood?  Does she have an evil sister that lives out West?  I assume the Ministry of Magic will grant her a pardon to use her powers on this side.  These are all things I’m excited to find out (but if she releases any flying monkeys, I’m moving to Canada). JK!  I’d never move to Canada.

Yes, I admit there are a lot of things to be seen.  But isn’t that what America’s all about?  Learning as we go.  This country is a mere 234 years old.  234 is considered middle aged for most witches.  

I’m sure passing Snape’s potion class was hard enough, we don’t have to make life harder for Christine O’Donnell.  Let’s take our judgmental glasses off and know a Glinda when we see one.   After all, you would have to possess incredible magical powers to oppose masturbation with a straight face.  

get a grip.

I haven’t posted a blog since April.  I’ve tried, but attention deficit has gotten the best of me.  Sometimes I find it hard to commit to a mood - like when I’m walking to work and listening to my iPod.  We can go from Rage Against the Machine to John Denver in a matter of seconds.  By the time I figure out if I’d rather go hiking or burn LA to the ground, I’m already at work.

I’ve balked on at least seven blogs since April.  Hard to focus with all the Quran burning and Wall Street crimes driving me to distraction.  Yet with all the foolish things happening in the world, I can’t seem to shake this concern I have for the growing number of household items that contain excessive rubber gripping.

In the last few weeks, my hammer, toothbrush and ballpoint pen have all alarmed me with their exaggerated amount of rubber gripping.  If I’m ever brushing my teeth while in a hurricane, I can assure you that my Oral-B will stay put in my hands.  I don’t really need it.

The hammer in our house also has a very large rubber grip.  It molds to my hand for maximum hammering comfort.  I don’t hammer things often, but I think the men that do probably don’t need that grip.  Hammer-using men strike me as the kind of guys who will be alright with a standard wooden handle.

I opened a new set of gel pens last week and the packaging had a little hole built in it so that consumers can feel the rubber grip before the purchase.  Bic is looking to close the deal with the “improved rubber grip.” Though, they already sold me on their pens years ago when I used one that successfully wrote on paper.  My need was to write, and they filled need the perfectly.  The grip proves to be unnecessary. 

I imagine the excessive rubber grips aim to improve upon a product that simply can’t be improved on in many other ways.  It goes back to a blog I wrote last year about inventions.  Some of the best inventions still look and perform exactly the way they did on the day they were invented.  Great news for the consumer - bad news for the company trying to make money off it.  

With technology’s alarming rate of improvements, consumers will force extinction on the products that don’t evolve.  It’s a theory that I believe in, though I’m not sure I love the residue.  Still, I can’t argue with the age old conundrum of sink or swim.  What’s that great Bob Dylan lyric? Ah yes:  You better start swimming, or you’ll sink like a hammer with a huge fucking rubber grip. 

sometimes, it just ain’t pretty

Some writers love to tie everything up into a neat package. 

It’s an extension of the anal retentive, obsessive compulsive nature that I believe fuels most great writers.  I’m typically not satisfied until the last line is a bright bow pulled tightly across crisp wrapping paper like that gift on Christmas morning you’re so excited to give, that you forget about everything you’re going to receive. 

I’ve trashed great pieces after failing to connect the dots and ultimately wrap everything up neatly at the end.  I hate when it feels like a toddler has taken a spatula from the cupboard, assaulted it with scotch tape and wrapping paper, and tried to pass it off as a gift.  In writing, it’s not just the thought that counts. 

My blog has been quiet for the past few weeks because I’m stuck between that neurotic rock and that perfectionist hard place.  I know the topic I want to tackle, but I’ve struggled in ways to make it look pretty.  Jumpy, unfocussed blogs lose their umph.  It’s too bad because this seed of a blog entry has felt more like a kidney stone I can’t pass than an idea destined to bloom into a beautiful tree.  Perhaps this pain in my gut is trying to tell me to just write the fucking thing already.

There’s a professor from my journalism alma mater that I consider my own patron saint of writing.  He is responsible for making my finger paintings actually look like something.  Before his class my writing was a mess of poop brown and puke green.  Now, you can vaguely make out the figure of a horse standing in a field.  He urged me via email yesterday to get back in the blog game.  He’s the kind of professor that applauds the thought first, and the appearance second.  And while it guts me to actually tackle the real topic of this blog 317 words into the piece, I guess I’ll try to start wrapping.

I don’t like Wall Street and the people that work there.  A couple weeks ago the press let us know that even after causing financial Armageddon, these cowards are still taking absurd bonuses.  I’ve passed the point of disgust and now I’m just flat out embarrassed for them.  Several news stories indicated the main reason is simply that one trader gets jealous of another trader’s salary and ups his bonus to keep it level.  It’s a domino affect of small genitals.  The people responsible for our economic health couldn’t be more economically gluttonous.  It’s like having a personal trainer who weighs 500 pounds.  

Beyond equating them to pigs with small penises, I lump these people in with terrorists.  The same weak will that grinds belief into lunacy and ambition into mass murder, is what entitles one CEO to believe he deserves a bonus amounting to more than the average American family makes in a lifetime.  It’s groupthink at its worst – and historically speaking – groupthink usually results in a lot of deaths.

I don’t see any effort from Wall Street to change this terrible image, so I have no problem with having this terrible opinion.  They might always appear to be douchey, greedy gluttons in pressed suits, but refusing to continue with these silly bonuses would, at the very least, start improving the image.  It would show some thought towards fixing what’s broken.

If they could just try to be somewhat honest, perhaps we’ll dig out of this muck.  After all, if I’ve learned anything in the last 576 words, appearance isn’t everything. It’s the thought that counts.

survive.

Up to this point, I’ve defined my life by three different Torres.

1. Child Torre
2. College Torre
3. New York Torre

I have no idea which Torre is supposed to come next now that I’m leaving New York.  When I was a child, I assumed I’d eventually go to college.  When I was in college, I assumed I’d eventually move to New York.  The paths of achievement were marked clearly – and now – we’re about to go off-roading. 

As sure as any 10 year old can be sure of anything, I was sure I wanted to live in New York for the rest of my life.  After six years of living there I now know why I wanted it, and frankly, I’m impressed at Child Torre for making that call roughly two decades ago. 

Beyond the big ones (family, health, friends) nothing really mattered more to me than New York.  It wasn’t just the physical place – it was the things that New York represented to me:  A career, creative fulfillment and achievement.  I know it’s time to leave because I’ve got different definitions for those things now.  Or rather, I’m now trying to just slowly refocus those definitions.     

Believe it or not, New York Torre, there are other places in this world to have a career, be creative, and feel achieved.  I’ll give New York Torre a moment to absorb that.

And still, even after all this time, I can’t even get to the store on the corner before I’m swallowed in awe by New York’s filthy beauty.  I still walk with my head tilted up in amazement at the giant metal and wonder how the hell I ended up here. 

I slipped out of work early tonight to take a long walk.  I cut east on 18^th Street – the same route I take to and from work everyday – and carried out my nightly ritual of peering in the million dollar brownstones and visualizing the day when one of those doorsteps marked the end of my walk.

Those apartments have been the lighthouse on my journey these years – pretty much the only beacon of achievement my stern has been fixed on since I moved here.  Seems silly when I think about it now.  If a 7.0 quake hit tomorrow, I’d have to really adjust my navigation. 

I’m sad I’m leaving New York before I could achieve one of those Brownstones, but I’m thankful an earthquake didn’t smash everything I love to pieces.  Perspective.

Start peeling back the layers, and achievement just comes down to survival, anyways.  I want to achieve things so my wife, my kids and I can survive.  Throw a natural disaster in the mix, and everything on 18^th Street goes back down to zero in about 3 minutes. 

We create all sorts of blocks for ourselves, and then sometimes the tectonic plates shift and do it for us.  Whether you can touch it or not, there’s a shit load of rubble we’re responsible for clearing on a daily basis.   

Every day of my adult life I’ve tried to move mountains in my career, and I’m starting to think that achievement might not be defined by the fancy apartment, but by the feeling of lifting a giant block of concrete off someone I love.  Surviving. 

And though I may never fully kill off New York Torre, maybe we can just refocus him for a minute while we clear a little more rubble.

** artwork above by me. acrylic on canvas. 2007.

mote of dust.

a dear friend showed me this recently.  and as i sit at home watching the 11 o clock news and the devastation in haiti, i can’t help but read it over and over.

i drink your millennium

It’s been an eventful year.  I got engaged.  I got Swine Flu.  Michael Jackson majestically sailed over us in a silver hot air balloon released by Tiger Woods.

Despite all the action in 2009, this decade deserves a pat on the back.  Instead of my yearly top 10 lists of music and film, I thought I’d give my bests of the decade.  At a glance it doesn’t look like much, but there are some gems in there.

We didn’t move many mountains historically with the art of this decade, but I think our kids will look back and long for the music and film of the 2000’s like we look back and wish we had the excitement of the 1960’s.  I can hear my kids asking what Coldplay was like – or if I waited in line at midnight to see The Dark Knight.

Making these lists for me is usually a bait and switch – A backhanded attempt at ridiculing what didn’t make the list rather than praising what did.  In the shadow of losing MJ and all the other terrible things happening, I leave you with my positive retrospective of the 2000’s, and an optimistic outlook on 2010.  To reiterate the last line in my very first blog: Sometimes it’s necessary to look behind at the warmth that has come before us, to make us shine brightly for what’s to come ahead.

The 10 Best Movies of the Decade:

1.  There Will Be Blood

2.  The Royal Tenenbaums

3.  Gangs of New York

4.  The 25^th Hour

5.  Almost Famous

6.  Gladiator

7.  Kill Bill

8.  Road to Perdition

9.  Wonder Boys

10.  Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Randomly on the Bubble:

The Dark Knight

The Departed

The Squid and the Whale

Mystic River

House of Sand and Fog

The 10 Best Albums of the Decade:

1.  The Stokes – Is This It

2.  Coldplay – A Rush of Blood to the Head

3.  Radiohead – Kid A

4.  Kings of Leon – Aha Shake Heartbreak

5.  Aimee Mann – Lost in Space

6.  The White Stripes – White Blood Cells

7.  Arcade Fire – Funeral

8.  The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

9.  Jay-Z – The Blueprint

10.  Sigur Ros – ( )

Randomly on the Bubble:

Dave Matthews – Some Devil

Bob Dylan – Modern Times

Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Phish – Farmhouse

Will Stratton – What the Night Said

with great judgement comes a great foot in your mouth

I slipped on Martin Scorsese the other night. 

An unusual rainstorm hit Los Angeles for the second night in a row, making all the stars on the sidewalk along Hollywood Boulevard slick.  After that, I avoided Kelsey Grammer, Anne Bancroft and Sandra Bernhardrt so I didn’t fall and mess up my nice outfit.

It rains quite a bit in New York – one of the many differences between the Big Apple and the City of Angels.  I like the way the streets feel right after a rainstorm in New York.  It’s almost as if whoever’s watching turns on the giant cosmic faucet and gives the grimy town a good wash.  Los Angeles could use a couple more cosmic scrub-downs.  I love judging LA and pointing out how awful that place can be.

Eventually I reached my destination:  A theater along the strip where celebrities filed into an exclusive Hollywood event.  These types of things make me nervous.  I hid anxiously from the crowd while my fiancé got the tickets from will call.  We slipped in and I bought some popcorn. 

Every time someone walked into the lobby, the crowd swung their heads at the same time to the door as if they were watching a ping pong match, trying to see if anyone famous came in.  If it wasn’t someone famous enough, their heads swung back.  Stuff like that seems silly to me.  Who’s going to walk in?  Spiderman? 

There’s a lot less of this super human worship in New York. I put some butter on my popcorn and snickered at the typical LA crowd under my breath.  And then, Spiderman walked in.

There he was: Stan Lee.  The man responsible for literally defining the way children view their heroes – walking unnoticed into a room filled with children all grown up and waiting for their own re-definition of a hero to arrive.  The irony was crippling. 

To this particular crowd, Stan Lee wasn’t the hero everyone hoped would walk in.  In a stunning turn of events I was now the blushing, star struck Los Angelian among the clueless crowd.  I wanted to take a bath in bagels and Yankee Stadium hot dogs to wash the LA off of me.  And still, various different scenarios flooded my head as I tried to sculpt my perfect interaction like I was in line to meet Hannah Montana at a Grove mall signing. 

Eventually Stan and I came together with a simple and polite hello, followed by a handshake.  It was an interaction I’ll always remember – and if that’s what everyone swinging their heads in the lobby was waiting to experience with their own hero – then I stand corrected.  Sorry for judging you, LA.

Heroes come in a couple different varieties.  Mine happened to be the 88 year old version that night.  It’s the version that doesn’t so much blind you with star power, but the kind that makes you want to sit down and simply say to them: “Tell me everything.”  I wanted that handshake to somehow transfer 88 years worth of genius to me.

It was serendipitous that Martin Scorsese’s star nearly knocked me over earlier in the night.  It’s the type of foreshadowing that Marty himself, or Stan Lee would have written:

Our protagonist snickers at LA and its grimy idol worship one minute, reduced to a puddle of awe the next.  I guess this New Yorker has a bit more in common with the West Coast than he thought. 

Perhaps the scrub down that I’m waiting for isn’t going to come from some giant magical faucet, but from the willingness to realize that whether you’re from New York, LA or Chattanooga, we ain’t so different.