May 31st, 2009 by Hoopleton

After the forty-something-year-old yoga mom cut in front of me at the hot dog vendor she turned toward me with some unease as though to verify that I was in fact of absolutely no importance and that she was perfectly justified in her pronounced sense of privilege just as she had suspected. She examined me, blue eyes darting over my body as though I were a department store mannequin, myself mesmerized by her spray-on tan, a near perfect match to the color of her brown designer tracksuit, and then after what seemed an eternity and with a slight self-satisfied smirk she concluded that all was right with the world before proceeding to order a hot dog for herself and her sickly looking spawn.

As I stood there, sweating, swatting mosquitoes and watching in dismay as mom decided it be fun to make a counting game out of paying for every purchase in change, I began to wonder momentarily why I’d decided to quit smoking in the first place. Beyond the ubiquitous health concerns the list of reasons for kicking the habit was pretty thin, I thought to myself. The cost was manageable. I enjoyed it. Also I had no immediate incentives to stop smoking. No girlfriend who’d like to have me around into old age. No real desire to drastically alter my lifestyle.

As the mosquitoes intensified their attack, yoga mom continued to count and a group of teenage thugs shuffled in line behind me I could only find one real reason for wanting to be smoke-free that was at all meaningful. It was a desire to rejoin the greater part of American society. Tobacco use had made me a pariah of sorts and the hope was that as a recovering drug addict I could fall into the embracing light of acceptance once again. For an introvert it was a noble goal. I would be, the idea was, a fully functioning member of the human race.

As yoga mom and her pale soccer kid finally shimmied away, the little bastard stepping on my toes for good measure, I moved up to the front just as I heard one of the thugs behind me say, “Hey, check this guy out. What a fucking stupid hat.” Of course I was the only one wearing a hat. So I turned around asking as politely as possible as to what his fucking problem was to which he replied, “Jesus, not everything’s about you, man.”

Five minutes later as I was sitting on a bench eating my hot dog, again considering my reasons for no longer smoking and while watching a morbidly obese man trying to wedge himself into a horrified lawn chair, I realized all at once how much I didn’t want to be part of the human race and American society in particular. I wasn’t just an introvert, I was a misanthrope. Perhaps, I thought, being a pariah was exactly what I wanted to be.

“Hey, there’s the guy with that stupid fucking hat again!” I heard someone yell.

May 31st, 2009 by Hoopleton

For today, a 2008 Academy Award nominated short, “I Met the Walrus.” Interview originally recorded by Jerry Levitan.

May 29th, 2009 by Hoopleton

Photo courtesy LIFE magazine, by Margaret Bourke-White.

In no uncertain terms every generation is convinced that the next generation is the end of it all. They look forward with dismay, noting a general lack of moral fiber, a seeming overabundance of cynicism, and a decadence which threatens the mighty retribution of a vengeful God. Looking back, they remember a time when politicians were noble, when the young respected their elders, when wars were righteous and justice blind. Of course there were problems then. Of course things weren’t perfect. But life was simpler, better, full of an innocence and meaning gravely lacking today.

The world is in decline and the only way to defend against the inevitable collapse of the American way of life, if not Western civilization, is to reassert the old ways wherever possible. Enforce ideas of modesty and restraint where hedonism runs amuck. Reinvent common decency where there is too much freedom and transparency. Assert orthodox traditionalism even if it collides violently against the rise of social progress.

So it is that issues of vital importance such as environmental collapse, economic injustice, war and peace, take a back seat to cultural struggles of mutual assured destruction. Rational discourse gets wrapped in the fog of false nostalgia. Instead of taking a real survey of the past, there is only the shining city on the hill, full of Norman Rockwell gooeyness and the false illusion that America had always been a champion of good.

This is not to say the Left does not possess its own skewed version of the past. Whereas the Right clings to an idealized dreamscape of national pride and honor, the opposition tends to see history as an endless series of crimes and violations against basic humanity, which although is often a much more accurate view of the past, fails to offer anything even resembling a sense of historical relativism.

The problem is compounded by an ever widening ideological rift within the country as a whole. As the economics of the United States changed in the 1950s and 1960s, and as more families became reliant on two incomes, isolation increased and political discourse (or “bowling politics”) faded from sight. Moderates are fairly extinct as a result. Extremists on either side of the spectrum seem to dominate the debate while the mass media stokes the fire. The result is an increasingly polarized citizenry and politicians who then cater to and lead on the principals of institutionalized radicalism.

The irrational, based in a utopian view of the past thus becomes the basis for political leadership. Plans and strategies that might have otherwise seemed too dangerous or even criminal not that long ago, become viable, even necessary as to restore what never was. Extreme action calls for opposite reaction thus stifling discussion, halting all forward momentum and fulfilling the dire prophecies that began the whole damn thing in the first place.

So we come full circle. Ignorant of where we’ve been. Ignorant of where we are. Determined, it would seem, to never reach wherever it is we’re going. The irony is that every generation is convinced that the next generation is the end of it all right up till the moment that it comes true.

May 29th, 2009 by Hoopleton

The weekend’s here again and in celebration here are the Yeah Yeah Yeahs with their new music video “Heads Will Roll.”

May 28th, 2009 by Hoopleton

The day that Vernon reenters my life is the same day that I meet the old professor.

It’s the late afternoon and I’m sitting in the public library staring at the help wanted section of the newspaper. The little cash we came with has run out and a job seems to be the only alternative to starving. Before I leave the hotel that day, Vernon tells me that there’s no need to worry about money. That he can slide through walls, deflect the path of atoms and unhinge the axis of the planet with just a thought. I tell him that there’s no use in being God if he’s homeless, to which he laughs and says that that’s exactly how it ought to be.

As I sit in the library under a heavy cloak of silence, I glance around to the three or four hobos who loiter at the tables around me, each with a newspaper in hand, and momentarily I wonder if any of them are God.

“Who would know?” says the old professor as he takes the seat next to mine. “If God were sitting in the library today would he know he were God, or would he struggle with his own existence, maybe even doubting there was a God at all?”

The old professor wears a beard, his hair is grey, and he has some wrinkles about his face. But his eyes are young. His skin is tanned. He’s more seasoned than ancient. He’s quicker than anyone would guess.

I try to introduce myself but he stops me at my name and tells me that the rest he’ll learn as we go along. He spreads a newspaper of his own out on the table, puts on a pair of small reading glasses and points to an item three quarters down the page. It’s a story about a German scientist who claims that it is now possible to harness the power of the stars. That by smashing atoms together man is on the brink of creating unyielding sources of energy. That this energy may even be used to create before unimagined weapons of war.

I think about Vernon.

The old professor reads slow, but when he finishes he sits up straight and says, “Maybe the secret isn’t to find God. He doesn’t seem to want to be found anyway. Maybe the secret is replacing him in the eyes of nature. Become that which you seek. Has a nice symmetry to it don’t you think?”

We speak for a few minutes more before the old professor notices the classifieds I have laid out and tells me he knows a man who may be hiring. The job isn’t exactly the kind of think I’d want to write home about, but, he adds, “It’ll certainly pay the bills.” To which I reply that I’d be grateful for anything he could do to help and with that he tells me to meet him for dinner that evening.

“I should know more about the position then,” he assures me, “and if not then at least you’ll eat for free.”

With that he rises to his feet and offers me his hand. After the exchange of his address and a couple of farewells I watch the old professor depart.

For just a split-second my mind flashes back to Vernon and then to the item in the paper. Then my eyes trail back onto the faces of the hobos gathered at the tables around me. Most are engaged in deep solitary thought, save for one who glares at me.

May 28th, 2009 by Hoopleton

Continuing with our theme for another day, here’s another scene from the 2003 film, Coffee and Cigarettes.

May 27th, 2009 by Hoopleton

Having not smoked any tobacco in the last couple of days I find myself definitely going through both chemical and psychological withdrawal. My sleep patterns are completely off, my perception of time is altered, my eating habits change by the hour, I’m going though bags of sunflower seeds like a fish would water. There’s a detachment of mood. I feel out of body, sometimes out of mind.

What’s hardest about giving up cigarettes is that smoking isn’t just a habit but an entire lifestyle, a lifestyle that I’ve known my entire adult life. It’s a rhythm. A way of socializing. A way of ordering my days and evenings. There’s a nostalgia to it, a romance to it.

I’ve tried to quit before for various reasons, though never health related. Usually it was the cost. Sometimes hygiene. Most often the hypocrisy of a government and a population that makes smokers out to be both villains and victims.

For a thousand different cancers there are a thousand different organizations and ribbon colors enough to span the rainbow. Yet there is no lung cancer ribbon, as the general attitude is that smokers deserve their fate. Despite cigarettes being among the most dangerous and highly addictive substances in the world they are still perfectly legal. And to add insult to injury, local governments across this great land have decided to tax tobacco products (and the addicts that can’t live without them) as to fund bloated state and city budgets (most of the money, ironically, going to pay for public health initiatives for the poor, who are among the most likely people in the nation to smoke). All of this happens, of course, while the federal government continues to sue the tobacco industry with one hand, while subsidizing the planting and growing of tobacco with the other.

And what of that nostalgia associated with smoking? The lifestyle? Well, sadly most of that is the product of Madison Avenue executives, the happy middle men between a greedy, corrupt government and an industry of poison.

I should have quit long ago. At times, the danger of relapse is so strong I wish I never started to begin with, but nonetheless I have to admit that the experience is fascinating. It’s one thing to smoke and quit. It’s entirely different to be a smoker and realize you’ve set out to never have a cigarette again.

As a programming note, hoopleton might be a little quiet for a day or two. I’m going to try and force myself into a twenty-four hour vacation from the site. We’ll see what happens, after all, I do have an addictive streak.

May 27th, 2009 by Hoopleton

Tom Waits and Iggy Pop exchange awkwardness in this scene from Jim Jarmusch’s 2003 indy, Coffee and Cigarettes.

May 26th, 2009 by Hoopleton

One day, after  virtual  worlds replace movie screens as the primary medium of entertainment, but just before the computer generated occupants of those virtual worlds become sentient beings and slaughter us all in a bid for real world domination, people will look back on this quaint period of celluloid and declare with confidence and solidarity that Lorenzo Lamas was indeed the greatest actor of the time. As proof the masses will undoubtedly cite Lamas’ hit mid-90s television series, Renegade. Reenactors will bring the show back to life, college students will analyze each episode for complex moral and ethical lessons, and on January 20th, Lamas’ birthday, scores of devoted followers will march through the streets, holding candles and chanting the sacred words that every school child by then will know by heart: “Framed for murder, now he prowls the badlands. An outlaw hunting outlaws, a bounty hunter, a Renegade.”

In this sadly still distant future historians will debate as to why the great Lorenzo was so unappreciated in his time. Vast intellectual schisms will develop as to the impact of the 1984, Body Rock on Feminist political discourse. There will be frenzied academic discussion on the categorical imperative’s use in the 1995, Gladiator Cop. But despite all the fragmentation there will exist absolutely no doubt as to Lamas’ greatest artistic achievement, namely, the 2009, Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus.

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Few will be able to avoid stunned wonderment at the Fellini-esque brilliance of director Jack Perez (who totally deserved the Oscar for Wild Things 2) or the near Shakespearean prose of the screenwriter, yes, that’s right, Jack Perez (truly a renaissance man), as they are riveted by the age old struggle of man versus really, really, really, really big fish versus really, really, really, really big cephalopod (how big, you ask? Swallow a 747 in one bite big). But more importantly future epochs will never forget the acting of an unjustly uncelebrated cast, nor the tour de force performance of Lorenzo Lamas playing hardened commando Allan Baxter, who is given the impossible task of somehow driving a giant squid and a giant shark to kill off one another in a bout of Biblical proportions dubbed the “Thrilla in Manila” (especially clever reference, no?). Yes, this great, no, greatest film, will forever enshrine our Renegade, the great Lorenzo, as the most talented thespian in the history of recorded time.

Sadly we do not live in that future yet. I truly wish we did. I wish we lived in an era when true artistic merit was recognized and the corporate media didn’t simply hand over a check to every talentless hack who just happened to have a bit of name recognition. I know. I know. It’s all right. At the very least we can find some small solace in that Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus was indeed made within our lifetimes, and that if prerelease DVD sales hold we may one day see a Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus 2: Revenge of the Gargantuan Sea Horse. I think if Lorenzo wishes it, it may come true.

May 26th, 2009 by Hoopleton

For today, Gotan Project with “Santa Maria.”