A while back, I wrote a story that was based around wearing sunglasses in reaction to, among other things, the passing of a loved one.

It seems that New York has taken its first official physical toll on me. The city has stripped my ability to masquerade as a flâneur.  The constant smog and debilitating thickness of the air here has brought my eyes a variety of sicknesses in the past few weeks, causing multiple sets of contacts to be disposed of.  This has resulted in my move from contacts back to my traditional glasses.  I feel as Clark Kent did when he lost his powers in Superman II, relinquishing my facial expressions to the open interpretation of the masses.

In my now permanently bespectacled state, I must allow the public to watch my green-thinking eyes cringe as cigarette butts are tossed to the ground.  Must allow them to make eye contact while I ignore their begging men.  Let them notice me staring wide-eyed as I gawk and think, “How long will that bit of drool hang from his mouth?  Until the next subway stop?  Let’s hope so…”

And let them see my eyes drop at the corners, a flush fit with my frowning mouth, the face of outright regret.  No more complacent scowls and walking away.  No more observing and moving on.  I’ll be looking this town right in the face now.  I have to.  There are no more shades to hide behind.

Much more color to come in this blog.

A long time ago, Ms. 12×2 asked me to try writing a story. She outlined that I should not think of the story ahead of time, the story should all be written at once, and I can only begin writing when a song (of my choosing) begins and I must stop when the song ends. I finally did it. You can find the story below, along with a link to download the song (right-click/Ctrl+click, then Save As).

Sunset Rubdown, Us Ones In Between, 4 minutes, 26 seconds

He doesn’t look anywhere but directly in front of him. Wind whips past, over his sunglasses, as he pushes harder down on the pedals and a skyline rises from the clouds ahead. He is surrounded on all sides by a red cage, barring him from drifting into traffic, shoving him into the paths of the slower-moving overweight women with their children.

He can still taste it in his mouth, the two-day-old coffee he reheated. He’d sipped the last three mouthfuls all at once while looking in the mirror and thought to himself, “god, this feels like myself.”

He can’t understand the buildings that he’s descending into. It’s okay. The people next to him don’t understand it either. Their eyes connect, but it is only to avoid slamming into each other at high velocities, only to avoid broken bones and headaches. He passes on the inside lanes and the outsides, shoving his knuckles into the walls of taxi cab windows. He feels no pain against his fingers, the combination of anger and pain creates a warm pool of water that his hand dips within. Inside of the cabs, he pats the riders on the back, telling them it’s not their fault. Caressing their jaws. Telling them that no one here knows anyone. That that’s okay. That if they all fall down today, at least they’ll be laying on top of each other, hair intertwined, coffee-drenched breaths pungent, understanding of, if nothing else, each other’s yearning for somewhere else.

For HeaveMedia.com, I recently had to answer the question: What is your favorite use of a song in a film?

My answer:

No one can forget the good times that were 1985.  Reagan reigned with a Hollywood-fist, we still believed those guys in Depeche Mode were straight, and Michael J. Fox not only taught us how to make-out with your mom, but he also tore a hole in the space-time continuum to make his own family more affluent while single-handedly stealing the rights to “rock-n-roll” from Chuck Berry and insulting African Americans everywhere.

That’s why “Johnny B. Goode” is my favorite use of a pop song in a movie.  First off, no one can deny the absolute hilarity of Fox’s absurdly terrible lip syncing to Mark Campbell’s vocals.  McFly is rocking what can only amount to the prime-time hipster attire, except he does it well (take note all you booty-shaking house-partiers and American Apparel addicts).  The icing on the cake, however, is not the way in which Marty McFly has set into motion his own good fortune, effectively going against the single rule for traveling in the past (“don’t interfere”) and it’s not when he goes into a convulsion and rips apart a solo that Slayer would be proud of.  No, it’s the brilliance of writer/director Robert Zemeckis and his idea to take “Marvin Berry” of the original band at the dance and have him call his cousin, “Chuck (Berry),” to exclaim, “You know that sound you’ve been looking for?  Well, listen to this!”  Nevermind the decades of rock and roll roots that African Americans had laid down.  Never mind Chuck Berry’s status as a legend.  Mr. Zemeckis, you and your Hollywood blockbuster can throw all that to the wind.  Indeed, it SHOULD be an affluent white teen from Southern California who invents one of the greatest cultural movements in history: Rock And Roll.

All sarcasm aside, it’s a great scene, one of the best pop songs of all time, and an amazingly fun and clever movie all-around.

http://www.heavemedia.com

BAD:

School started again.

I work full time in a cubicle.

GOOD:

I ran a 38 minute, 21 second, 10k race. 6.2 miles. Came in 33rd out of over 10,000 in New York City (if you know me, click that, click “see your run,” type in my name, specify New York City).

We’ve not been sucked into nothingness by the Hadron Collider.

The score: 2 to 2. A 50/50 season so far. Better than the Cubs.
Interference will be disrupted until a few “issues” get hammered out.

Listening to my iPod at work. I left it on Shuffle. Here is what played in a row just now:

Elliott Smith – Happiness/The Gondola Man

The Handsome Furs – Us Ones In Between

The Velvet Underground – Heroin

Bob Dylan – Workingman’s Blues #2

Thank you, Apple, for creating a device that somehow reads my brainwaves and instinctively makes playlists for me.

Over the years, I’ve grown accustomed to the painful idiocy that permeates this country (and, to be fair, the world). I won’t say I’ve become complacent, but I have learned to not get quite so angry at every little thing I don’t agree with.

This story, however, has managed to break my no-freak-out streak. Like any of the times Hank Aaron struck out during his record breaking season, this story left me with that gasp of disappointment that can only come from thousands of peoples’ hopes being shattered at the same time.

This is the scene in Richland County, South Carolina. The sheriff’s department has decided that this piece of machinery is an acceptable form of domestic protection weaponry. Surely, when busting up 18-year olds drinking in the fields of rural South Carolina or pulling over commuters on local interstates doing 10 mph over the limit, a FULLY FUNCTIONING TANK WITH ARTILLERY THE GOVERNMENT REFUSES TO USE ON HUMANS is necessary.

Full story here.