sweet tooth

previously published by me elsewhere:

We just got back from our friend's house, who had invited us over to give out candy to the neighborhood kids as a low key Halloween celebration. Little did I realize that her neighborhood is amazingly popular with local families from elsewhere.

This became quite apparent as we pulled onto the first of a couple roads that lead to her house, and encountered lines and lines of parked cars on either side of the roadway as if every house on the block were hosting a party. We coasted through the neighborhood as the trick-or-treaters were in full swing.

There were so many little kids and their adult companions strolling the sidewalks and crisscrossing the street that it demanded almost constant pressure on the clutch to keep from stalling out. Either that or I could have run over some kid with an ugly costume, but that just wouldn't have been kosher.

The whole process of giving out candy was quite an interesting one this time around, given our friend prefers to forego the trick or treat method for her own trick for treat method. As a trade for the candy, depending on the general age of the kid it involves any number of things such as singing songs, delivering tongue twisters, or doing dances, etc.

When she first mentioned this bartering mode she uses, I kept my displeasure to myself. It just brought back a lot of the negative things about childhood, and how much of it had to do with adults wanting kids to do things, be they chores or homework or Sunday school or what else.

What really got me was how much most of the kids, of which there were a whole freakin' lot of 'em, really got into this exercise of tit for tat. There were a lot of untapped creative personalities in several of them, and some genuinely discouraging blank stares on a great many others.

Many of the kids whose parents didn't wait at the sidewalk would get impatient while waiting for other people's kids who were in the midst of "performing", and lead their kid on to an easier to exploit house. That's the thing I recall most about giving out candy. Quickly open the door, give the beggars some stash, shut the door, and go back to whatever you were doing. As a kid, there was always this assumption that you say those three words, and suddenly the elderly grandmother on the other side of the screen door would just OOH and AHH and that was that.

My friend seems to get this thrill from energizing the kids to think on their feet, and to think with new parts of their brains, and that sort of thing. Strange it may be that giving them all of that candy is just gonna fuck it all up. That's what I was busy doing most of the time myself.

I sat back a couple feet from the wide open door, watching the goings-on, knocking back that smack for kids: smarties. I remember spending a lot of time, as a kid, very meticulously shuffling through the 7-11 buying loads of candy with my lunch money. I guess you know you've gotten old when that sort of thing is just a passing fancy, or a faded memory.

Although I'm still not set on this method of making kids into child stars, it was nice to see the array of them on a more personal level. The brief interactions made many of them a bit more memorable. The old standbys of princesses and witches are still in heavy rotation for girls, as are pirates and ninjas for boys.

I stopped trick or treating in elementary school, but I know a lot of people who continued on through high school. Most of the oldest kids that passed through were in middle school, though. That's the age of the kid with my favorite costume, and the one that really caught me off-guard: Frank, the bunny, from "Donnie Darko"! There was also a Corpse Bride, a couple Darth Vaders, a lot of demons, and a couple of self-proclaimed whores.

Yes, whores (ranging in age from 10 to 14). I guess one could say that this all speaks loudly about our culture, but I resist putting some umbrella statement across these isolated incidents. It's intriguing nonetheless.

three words

previously published by me elsewhere:

"Love is too weak a word for what I feel - I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you, two F's, yes I have to invent, of course I - I do, don't you think I do?" ("Annie Hall", Woody Allen & Marshall Brickman - screenwriters)

Our seventh anniversary just passed, and against the magazine rack judgment of how my brain should be programmed, I know the exact date of it every day of the year. I never comprehend the flakiness of people when it comes to these things, especially when they're the ones who got hitched in the first place.

Then again I am one of those frustrating people who keep up very well with such bits of info. Most people who know me realize if I forget something important like that I never knew it in the first place, or the inoperable tumor announcement is around the corner. Or maybe the Seven Year Itch will be rearing its ugly head any day now.

Of course I refer to the 1957 Billy Wilder film starring Marilyn Monroe, in one of her trademark roles. Truthfully something like that has less to do with the main character's period of marital dissatisfaction and is more or less unpreventable when Marilyn Monroe is your next door neighbor. I think a lot of modern couples have these types of unlikely special circumstances written into clauses in their private vows, but I think far fewer will share that information.

Long term relationships take a shit load out of you. You have to be invested in it one hundred percent of the time, and not lose sight of your commitment to it. Once you recognize that it's a condition and that you need to be constantly on guard for anything, you'll start to here the jingle-jangling of the ball and the chain, and you'll be well on your way through the twelve-step program. There's a long and involved de-tox process during which all memory prior to the relationship is erased, and on the other end you're very likely to no longer relate to single people.

They will all become a blur of creatively conceived dating shows starring people who aren't as humorous as those who write the running pop-up commentary or are merely spies traipsing through someone's dirty bedroom in the hopes to bond in some random way.

In this game there's a lot to be cynical about, and unfortunately I know far too many unhappily single people, ungratefully connected people, and lazily married people to not just assume I was one in whatever billion to be struck by lightning and lived to tell about it.

dream abacus

previously published by me elsewhere:

"I just want to wake up!"

It was the sentiment that ended that great surreal Spanish film "Open Your Eyes" as well as the local horror flick I was working on this past summer.

Sometimes the difference between the two states is so confused that questions arise which is more real. With my unpredictable sleeping patterns I sometimes wonder where all of the dreams go when you don't recall them? Or don't have them?

There was a certain period in my life I would have an amazing retention for them. I'd recall so many in such vivid detail that I started to write them all down until the process got tiresome, and when I got to the point of skipping the more bland among them as a form of self-censorship.

That feels like such a long time ago, though. Now I feel like I have such silent periods. Sometimes I wonder if it's completely dark up there most of the time. Maybe the divide between the two realities is just too stark.

I know someone who is so in touch with their non-waking state that they have a predilection for things in the realm of astral projection and the like. It's fascinating science fiction for those without it, and hyper-reality for those that know it.

People all share a certain amount of common life experience whether it's one of the major passages like adolescence or the conventional fear of death, or some ironic combination of the two. Is there common experience inside the head, or is the internal wallpaper merely another example of zebra stripes in nature? Can someone share the same dream?

There's always such a distance between what goes on in the head to the expression of it. Sometimes it's satisfying enough to consider that's why we have art.

Everyone has their means of dealing with their problems, flaws, hang-ups, and indiscretions whether it's in lucid dreaming, shock therapy, alcohol intake, or by ignoring it altogether. Sometimes I start to wonder if my dream world has started to feel so under populated because I've gotten deeper and deeper into combating my demons, re-imaging my regrets, and working on my soul through all of the writing I do in the waking state.

I know someone who doesn't even believe the "real" world is much more than another aspect of the astral plane. Whatever we concoct in our heads is truth for us, and sometimes attempting communication with other figments of our imagination just fucks things up.

Then again, maybe I'm just not sleeping enough.

dog grooming

previously published by me elsewhere:

I spent another evening at our local black box theater's performance of "Dog Sees God", as it shuffled into its last three shows. I was there to film for a second time, having spent the last filming occasion merely capturing some wide shots, which were an obvious replication of the stage experience. Tonight it got fun!

I've worked for the assistant director/co-producer of the show on previous film shoots. She strives for perfection from herself and demands nothing less of those around her. She comes bearing a lot of enthusiasm and passion, but sometimes fails to clearly communicate her goals with those who can help her fulfill them.

Fortunately, for my part, tonight she was able to communicate in clear terms what she wanted. I was merely the technical entity that would bring her grocery list of shots that filled 75% of a Mead memo pad to fruition.

I've never been particularly technically savvy. This is due not to a lack of interest, but to a larger leaning toward expressing my visual sense of composition and framing to others who are more technical. I'm just not usually the person to move it from that point to a finished project, unless you qualify all of my years behind a still camera.

Still photography has always been a passion of mine, to the point that there was a long mourning period between the loss of my cherished 35mm camera and this great digital camera I've now had for nine months. I know it's cheesy, but it was like a companion who saw things how I did. Using a different camera felt like cheating.

So, tonight I was the proverbial furniture mover putting the couch wherever the nagging housewife desired. It was a very specific paint-by-numbers type gig, but there's a lot of great energy to doing this during a live event. You have to remain loose, open, and ready to change it up.

That's precisely what I did, as moments came along. I'm not sure how "I had to improvise every now and then" was interpreted by her, when I made mention after the show. Oh, well. When you see a better shot, you've got to be spontaneous and not lose it, right?

The audience was far quieter than the last outing, but they still laughed and cried appropriately. I did hear this lovely monologue during intermission from a man sitting nearby to where I was noticeably planted with the camera.

He looked like the average person who would be quite unlikely to make an appearance at our local art house cinema, much less the theater, so I guess it shouldn't have surprised me when he said to his date:

"These things are okay, but they're boring. I'm sure this is the end of my theater experiences for the decade. The only thing that keeps me awake is that they keep turning on the lights."

It's fascinating to be able to be six or eight feet from someone, looking in the same general direction, and see a completely different thing.

Such is art, I suppose.

worlds apart

previously published by me elsewhere:

The annual update for our South American sponsor child arrived in the mail yesterday. It comes every year around this time and reads at four or five pages of frustrating broken English, as it defines in the most basic terms what's been going on in the village and how she's been doing health wise.

Every year the update arrives, as does a new set of pictures. It's always the same general couple of pictures, one or two of on-going productivity in the village, and then two pictures of her looking one year older. They are always very much like the mug shots taken for film continuity: the subject stands there devoid of feeling in a wide shot and then in a medium or close-up. It always looks like such an inconvenience to her. And I wonder what her thoughts are on the whole matter.

I've been sponsoring her since she was six. Back when I was studying Education in college I decided to answer one of those mailings that seem to randomly flow through households. Not surprisingly Katharine Hepburn was on the inside of the envelope giving her urging to help a child in need. Having always been an admirer of Kate and her film choices, I decided to accept her judgment of a legitimate organization and sent the spare change they spoke of right away.

Since then there have been sporadic letters from both ends, but it's never been much of pen pal sort of thing, like Jack Nicholson had with his child in "About Schmidt" (we use the same organization, though!). The most consistent communication would have to be what I call the inventory letters.

Every birthday and every Christmas we send a variety of gifts, which promptly get listed one by one in the form of a letter. It's a strange thing, and an understandable step for the organization to take to ensure nothing was lost in the mail, or stolen on-site. You know, to put those whiny Americans at ease that the Tickle-Me-Elmo they fought to the death over arrived without a scratch.

Surprisingly, a very random gift choice several years back of a Spanish version of the first novel in the Harry Potter series turned her into a fan. She's all caught up now. According to a letter from last year, what she'd really like is a computer. The entire phrase caught me off-guard.

There's this certain series of questions that have always existed about what things are really like down there beyond what I always interpret to be a sanitized version of the truth that comes in the letters and pictures. I tend to think she also has a certain amount of expectations what things are like here.

She's seventeen now, and this will be the last year we are supposed to be sponsoring her. I know I've been humbled by the situation, even though I still don't speak her language. I wonder what sort of effects this whole arrangement has had on her. Who would she be without this small additional involvement in her life?