I just got an invitation to the 25th Anniversary of the Purple Crayon, an improv group I was a founding member of back at Yale (I also came up with the name...more on that in some other blog). The Purple Crayon is the source of some of my happiest memories and strongest relationships so I'm really looking forward to the event. There's something about instantaneous co-creation in front of a crowd that brings people together. Like being in a battle but much more fun.
That brings up this theory I came up with back at Yale to explain what humor really was. I came up with it because my fellow Crayon Ian Jacobs was trying to figure out a theory of humor. I don't remember what he came up with but I thought my idea was pretty good.
Here it is.
Humor is a breakdown of the rules of language.
In this context I mean language in the semiotic or anthropological sense as the system of rules and conventions which is independent of, and pre-exists, individual users. English is a language, cinema is a language, walking down the street has a language to it. A system of rules and conventions that we're expected to follow.
Humor always involves a breakdown of a language where the rules and conventions are broken or subverted or called into question. A pun is a breakdown involving the sounds of a particular language (or several languages). A pratfall calls attention to the way we expect people to move through space by thwarting those expectations. Social comedy points out the rules and conventions of race, religion or class that we live with by breaking those rules.
We start laughing at the world when we're figuring out the rules, around six months old. Three year olds can find the weirdest things funny because they don't understand language very well. The fact that they don't understand jokes but get them anyway is, ironically, hilarious.
This is a pretty good theory, I think. I haven't found any exceptions. The problem is that while I haven't disproved it, it's not particularly useful. While all humor is a breakdown of language, not all breakdowns of language are humor. In fact most are not.
Having said that I have to say this:
Farting is hilarious. The sound is funny. The smell is funny. The social context is always funny even if you're alone. Farts breakdown a whole host of rules and conventions all at once.
Finally I have to say that while I came up with this idea on my own, I'm sure I'm not the first to suggest it and certainly not the best. There's a bunch of stuff on the web about it and several books.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Memory
I want to ask you all a favor. I want you to remember this. Pay careful attention and remember this experience. I mean the one you are having right now.
I have these very specific memories that are scattered through my life. I have this one memory that has stuck in my mind for years. When I was about 4 or 5, I asked my mother why the gas gauge in the car went up when the car started. Since it was using gas it should go down right? So my mother explained something to me but I know that I misunderstood her because she is not insane and this is what I remember her saying:
"Gasoline is like orange juice. The more you use the more you have."
Now don't get me wrong. This makes absolutely no sense in any way shape or form. But it is one of those experiences I vividly remember.
It took me ten years trying to make sense of this answer before I finally figured that I just heard it or remembered it wrong.
Gasoline is not like orange juice at all. But ever since then orange juice and gasoline have been connected in my mind. And neither Gasoline nor orange juice increases in quantity as you use it.
But what does? The more you use it the more you have.
Love.
Creativity.
Credit card debt.
Memory?
Now it seems to me that these slivers or crystals of memory are hugely important just because they are what I remember.
I mean if something happens to you and you don't remember it and it leaves no physical evidence it is exactly as if it didn't happen at all. There is no difference for you. From your frame of reference the things you do not remember did not happen.
For example, people ask me how did you sleep and I always say I have no idea. I was asleep.
And on the other hand those things you remember for a long time are almost more real. And I'm thinking they have more of an impact.
Lately I have been wondering how I became me and you became you. Like what things happened to you that made you the person that you are and made the person next to you the person that they are.
And it makes intellectual sense that as we grow up the totality of our experience shapes our personality but from the inside, thinking back, it really doesn't feel like that. It feels like these random moments of my life that I remember very vividly have created me. The funny thing is there is no reason why these moments should be preserved in amber while everything else is lost. And this is especially important to me now because I have a baby who is 4 months old. I'd like to help him be happy and confident and loving and all that good stuff but I know that it's those random moments that he remembers that will have the big impact.
It's kind of like John Lennon's saying "Life is what happens while you're making other plans." Like it's that one moment when you don't pick up your child rather than the countless times you do that leaves them with a slight inferiority complex for the rest of their life. Or it's the one night you come home early from work and go star gazing that leads to a lifelong love of astronomy. Meanwhile the hundreds of nights of reading him or her to sleep has no impact. It's the offhand garbled comment about gasoline and orange juice that is repeated 30 years later.
It's what you remember that makes a difference.
Now of course there are dreams and sub-consciousness and yadda yadda yadda but where the heck does that stuff live. How can you measure the impact of stuff that is only in your mind that your mind is not aware of? I mean who's gonna keep track of that if you don't? If you have a dream and you don't remember it what is that? Did it happen? Did it ever exist? Yes? No?
I mean what does it mean to have something happen?
How the heck did I get here? What the heck am I saying? Who wrote this? Who are you people?
These questions are not important.
The important question is am I going to remember this in a week or a year? Are you? If none of us remember this moment in a year did it really happen?
Let's all promise to remember this. Please everyone stand up and raise your right hand and repeat after me. "I promise to remember this moment for as long as I live."
Think it'll work?
Aw forget it.
January 21th, 2002
I have these very specific memories that are scattered through my life. I have this one memory that has stuck in my mind for years. When I was about 4 or 5, I asked my mother why the gas gauge in the car went up when the car started. Since it was using gas it should go down right? So my mother explained something to me but I know that I misunderstood her because she is not insane and this is what I remember her saying:
"Gasoline is like orange juice. The more you use the more you have."
Now don't get me wrong. This makes absolutely no sense in any way shape or form. But it is one of those experiences I vividly remember.
It took me ten years trying to make sense of this answer before I finally figured that I just heard it or remembered it wrong.
Gasoline is not like orange juice at all. But ever since then orange juice and gasoline have been connected in my mind. And neither Gasoline nor orange juice increases in quantity as you use it.
But what does? The more you use it the more you have.
Love.
Creativity.
Credit card debt.
Memory?
Now it seems to me that these slivers or crystals of memory are hugely important just because they are what I remember.
I mean if something happens to you and you don't remember it and it leaves no physical evidence it is exactly as if it didn't happen at all. There is no difference for you. From your frame of reference the things you do not remember did not happen.
For example, people ask me how did you sleep and I always say I have no idea. I was asleep.
And on the other hand those things you remember for a long time are almost more real. And I'm thinking they have more of an impact.
Lately I have been wondering how I became me and you became you. Like what things happened to you that made you the person that you are and made the person next to you the person that they are.
And it makes intellectual sense that as we grow up the totality of our experience shapes our personality but from the inside, thinking back, it really doesn't feel like that. It feels like these random moments of my life that I remember very vividly have created me. The funny thing is there is no reason why these moments should be preserved in amber while everything else is lost. And this is especially important to me now because I have a baby who is 4 months old. I'd like to help him be happy and confident and loving and all that good stuff but I know that it's those random moments that he remembers that will have the big impact.
It's kind of like John Lennon's saying "Life is what happens while you're making other plans." Like it's that one moment when you don't pick up your child rather than the countless times you do that leaves them with a slight inferiority complex for the rest of their life. Or it's the one night you come home early from work and go star gazing that leads to a lifelong love of astronomy. Meanwhile the hundreds of nights of reading him or her to sleep has no impact. It's the offhand garbled comment about gasoline and orange juice that is repeated 30 years later.
It's what you remember that makes a difference.
Now of course there are dreams and sub-consciousness and yadda yadda yadda but where the heck does that stuff live. How can you measure the impact of stuff that is only in your mind that your mind is not aware of? I mean who's gonna keep track of that if you don't? If you have a dream and you don't remember it what is that? Did it happen? Did it ever exist? Yes? No?
I mean what does it mean to have something happen?
How the heck did I get here? What the heck am I saying? Who wrote this? Who are you people?
These questions are not important.
The important question is am I going to remember this in a week or a year? Are you? If none of us remember this moment in a year did it really happen?
Let's all promise to remember this. Please everyone stand up and raise your right hand and repeat after me. "I promise to remember this moment for as long as I live."
Think it'll work?
Aw forget it.
January 21th, 2002
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Good News, Bad News
I've got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that 9 miners got trapped in a flooded mine for 3 days. The good news is that they all got rescued! The good news is that the Stock market was up over 400 points today! The bad news is that it's down over 2000 points from a year ago. The good news is that the U.S.A won the cold war and we are effectively the world's only superpower. The bad news is that the U.S.A won the cold war and we are now the world's biggest target.
The bad news is that we are all going to die someday.
The good news is that we're alive today.
I love saying I have some good news and some bad news because it's like a mini story. It has pathos and conflict and tension with the promise of a big payoff at the end. A lot of time I say "I've got some good news and some bad news" even when I only have one or the other. Makes it more exciting.
But there is always good news and bad news no matter what. If life is especially sweet at some point in time, say like right now while you are all listening to me. I know you are sitting there in rapt bliss thinking that this is the best essay you have ever heard in your life. But there's always a flipside, there's always a shadow, there's always another shoe. In this case the bad news is that sometime about 5 minutes in the future this time of milk and honey will end and I will stop talking.
I know it's rough but that's the way life is.
On the other hand there is always a silver lining. If you can't stand a performance here at ten tops you can take solace in the fact that it will end. If you're whole life is a horrifying blur of emotional and physical pain at least you can look forward to the sweet release of death someday.
Perhaps I'm overstating my case. Or maybe understating it. Or maybe I don't have a case.
Here's the thing. When you become a parent, which I recently did, you live in a new world of extremes that, from what I understand, you never ever get out of. Being a father is really really great. My little boy brings me a huge boatload of joy every single day. I am sure that I am not unique in this. Parents always say this kind of sappy stuff and until you actually become one you don't know (or care really) what the heck they are talking about. But trust me okay. Kids are little happiness factories.
The bad news is…if you have any imagination at all you spend most of it thinking up various catastrophes that could, at any time, snatch every shred of joy from your life. I don't dwell on these things but they just naturally pop into my mind. For superstitious reasons I don't want to mention any of the dozens of horrifying scenarios that leap to mind at anyone time but if we all just take a moment and think I'm sure we can all get on the same page pretty quickly.
Ready, close your eyes. Got it? Okay lets move on.
So add to these admittedly unlikely nightmarish occurrences the nasty things that are almost certain to happen like ear infections, overpriced sneakers, terrorist nuclear attacks and puberty and you can see why parents live in a world of fear.
But see in that world of fear is an island of joy. And a big part of the reason that the joy is so sweet is that you can imagine the worst and you notice that it's not happening….at the moment.
And of course it's not just parents that feel this way. It's everyone. When you know how bad things can be you appreciate the good all the more. That's why immigrants often appreciate this country more than native born folk. They know what freedom actually is because they know what it isn't. For those of us who have been here all along liberty is like water to fishes. We don't notice. Nor do we notice plenty or justice or peace unless we suddenly don't have it.
And it's like that with everything. The really, really rich people that I've known, and I've know a few, are bored and unhappy because they don't have to do anything. Those of us who have had to work to make rent money or food money or sneaker money would be SO HAPPY if we didn't have to do anything. I recently had a really bad cold and when I got well it felt SO GOOD to feel normal again I almost was happy that I was sick.
Almost.
But it's really true, I think. We notice the good in relation to the bad and if there is no bad then we don't notice the good.
I don't wanna get all polyannish on you now. We don't notice the good because good is relatively normal and the good won't sneak into our cave and eat us like a bad bad sabertoothed tiger will. There's no evolutionary reward for noticing the good and besides it's kind of boring. I find bitching and moaning much more entertaining than looking on the bright side. Have you ever met anyone who just remarked on all the good stuff that was going on all the time.
Wow. Look. A roof over our heads. And electric lights. And a nicely painted stage. And soft seats. And I have five fingers on each hand. Including an opposable thumb. Look at that! Whodathunkit!
That kind of pap doesn't make you feel good. What makes you feel good is to think about all the terrible things that aren't happening. What makes you feel really good is not to think "Hey I'm alive!" but to think "Hey! I'm not dead!" Light without darkness is boring. Light without darkness is just noon. Light peeking through the darkness is beautiful. Light and darkness is sunset, and sunrise.
So the good news is that there is bad news or there will be or there has been. The bad news is that if there was no bad news we wouldn't appreciate the good news.
So go out there and look at the sky and breath the air and thank your lucky stars that you aren't in Afganistan or Bakersfield or floating in the liquid atmosphere of Jupiter. Just be happy you weren't born with a third eye or if you were be happy you weren't born with a fourth.
Just be happy because it could be worse. And if it couldn't be worse it has to get better.
Good News, Bad News
July 29th, 2002
The bad news is that we are all going to die someday.
The good news is that we're alive today.
I love saying I have some good news and some bad news because it's like a mini story. It has pathos and conflict and tension with the promise of a big payoff at the end. A lot of time I say "I've got some good news and some bad news" even when I only have one or the other. Makes it more exciting.
But there is always good news and bad news no matter what. If life is especially sweet at some point in time, say like right now while you are all listening to me. I know you are sitting there in rapt bliss thinking that this is the best essay you have ever heard in your life. But there's always a flipside, there's always a shadow, there's always another shoe. In this case the bad news is that sometime about 5 minutes in the future this time of milk and honey will end and I will stop talking.
I know it's rough but that's the way life is.
On the other hand there is always a silver lining. If you can't stand a performance here at ten tops you can take solace in the fact that it will end. If you're whole life is a horrifying blur of emotional and physical pain at least you can look forward to the sweet release of death someday.
Perhaps I'm overstating my case. Or maybe understating it. Or maybe I don't have a case.
Here's the thing. When you become a parent, which I recently did, you live in a new world of extremes that, from what I understand, you never ever get out of. Being a father is really really great. My little boy brings me a huge boatload of joy every single day. I am sure that I am not unique in this. Parents always say this kind of sappy stuff and until you actually become one you don't know (or care really) what the heck they are talking about. But trust me okay. Kids are little happiness factories.
The bad news is…if you have any imagination at all you spend most of it thinking up various catastrophes that could, at any time, snatch every shred of joy from your life. I don't dwell on these things but they just naturally pop into my mind. For superstitious reasons I don't want to mention any of the dozens of horrifying scenarios that leap to mind at anyone time but if we all just take a moment and think I'm sure we can all get on the same page pretty quickly.
Ready, close your eyes. Got it? Okay lets move on.
So add to these admittedly unlikely nightmarish occurrences the nasty things that are almost certain to happen like ear infections, overpriced sneakers, terrorist nuclear attacks and puberty and you can see why parents live in a world of fear.
But see in that world of fear is an island of joy. And a big part of the reason that the joy is so sweet is that you can imagine the worst and you notice that it's not happening….at the moment.
And of course it's not just parents that feel this way. It's everyone. When you know how bad things can be you appreciate the good all the more. That's why immigrants often appreciate this country more than native born folk. They know what freedom actually is because they know what it isn't. For those of us who have been here all along liberty is like water to fishes. We don't notice. Nor do we notice plenty or justice or peace unless we suddenly don't have it.
And it's like that with everything. The really, really rich people that I've known, and I've know a few, are bored and unhappy because they don't have to do anything. Those of us who have had to work to make rent money or food money or sneaker money would be SO HAPPY if we didn't have to do anything. I recently had a really bad cold and when I got well it felt SO GOOD to feel normal again I almost was happy that I was sick.
Almost.
But it's really true, I think. We notice the good in relation to the bad and if there is no bad then we don't notice the good.
I don't wanna get all polyannish on you now. We don't notice the good because good is relatively normal and the good won't sneak into our cave and eat us like a bad bad sabertoothed tiger will. There's no evolutionary reward for noticing the good and besides it's kind of boring. I find bitching and moaning much more entertaining than looking on the bright side. Have you ever met anyone who just remarked on all the good stuff that was going on all the time.
Wow. Look. A roof over our heads. And electric lights. And a nicely painted stage. And soft seats. And I have five fingers on each hand. Including an opposable thumb. Look at that! Whodathunkit!
That kind of pap doesn't make you feel good. What makes you feel good is to think about all the terrible things that aren't happening. What makes you feel really good is not to think "Hey I'm alive!" but to think "Hey! I'm not dead!" Light without darkness is boring. Light without darkness is just noon. Light peeking through the darkness is beautiful. Light and darkness is sunset, and sunrise.
So the good news is that there is bad news or there will be or there has been. The bad news is that if there was no bad news we wouldn't appreciate the good news.
So go out there and look at the sky and breath the air and thank your lucky stars that you aren't in Afganistan or Bakersfield or floating in the liquid atmosphere of Jupiter. Just be happy you weren't born with a third eye or if you were be happy you weren't born with a fourth.
Just be happy because it could be worse. And if it couldn't be worse it has to get better.
Good News, Bad News
July 29th, 2002
Monday, June 14, 2010
Scary
Scary
October 29th, 2001
I don't like Halloween.
I don't like it for a couple reasons. One I had this awesome Great Pumpkin costume in 1st Grade and I followed that up with a fantastic Headless Horseman costume in 2nd grade and everything since has been a let down. The second reason I don't like Halloween is that I am an actor. I take dressing up like a fool very seriously. I do it professionally…or at least I have on occasion. And it kind of bothers me to see every tom dick and harry doing it. Halloween is amateur night.
But honestly the real reason I don't like Halloween is that I don't like being scared. There are basically three kinds of costumes you see around Halloween. 1 is lame. Basically what I've been doing since 2nd grade. If I make any effort at all I pin a sign on my back that sez "Regular Guy" or something like that.
The second kind of costume is cute and funny which is fine until you're at a party and you have to talk to someone dressed as a bunny or a box of cookies or whatever and you just feel embarrassed. For them, for yourself, for the person walking by dressed as bug. It's degrading.
The third kind of costume is the scary kind. And in Los Angeles that can be seriously scary. You know how you're walking along and suddenly this guy with an Oscar winning head wound shambles in with a photo realistic pole stuck through his chest. Or somebody goes to town on their demon costume and they've got blood red cat's eye contacts and latex skin and fangs and they get all into the role so you're not real sure if maybe Satan has crashed the party for real and we're all going to hell tonight. It seems awfully unlikely but a lot of unlikely, awful things have been really happening so it kind of gives you pause.
But since it is nearly Halloween I wanted to share with you something really scary. The scariest thing I have ever seen. Something that gives me night sweats and goosebumps and whole nine yards.
About a month ago I was walking along near the Fox Plaza building in Century City. You know the Die Hard building? Its got this wall and then about 50 feet down from this wall is Olympic. Now this wall is about 4 feet wide and it almost goes up to Avenue of the Stars, which I was walking on, but there is this gap about 6 feet wide between the end of this wall and the Avenue of the Stars railing.
So I'm walking along Avenue of the stars and I see these 2 fourteen year olds on skateboards get up on this wall and then skate up to this gap and jump the gap, over the railing and onto oncoming traffic on Avenue of the Stars.
Now why did they do this? Because they are 14 year old male humans and that what teenage boys do. They risk their lives.
Now they made the jump and when they landed on Avenue of the Stars and fell on their asses in traffic. Cars slowed down and stopped for them so they didn't get killed. These kids high-fived each other and went on their way.
Why is that so scary? You have to know that I am a new father of a baby boy. My son Yogi is 2 months old now and healthy and happy…well healthy and hungry would be more accurate. But someday he's gonna be 14 and he's going to think he's invulnerable just like those kids and he's gonna do questionable things like jump 6 feet over certain death into oncoming traffic. I was that age once. That's what young men do. They put it all on the line and they live like there is no tomorrow with passion and arrogance and madness and joy. And that's why we worship them and write poems about them and invent BMX and skateboards and wish we could be like them and send them to war. It's a beautiful and terrible time.
But it still doesn't sound scary does it.
So here's the scary part. When my son Yogi was born I was there in the hospital room. It was a cesarean birth and it was five weeks early and Shelley and I were completely shocked that this was happening so I didn't know what to expect.
So the doctors dug around inside and pulled out our new baby and handed him to this guy named Brad who was manning the warming station. I gave Shelley a kiss and then I realized I could/slash/should go look at my new son over on the other side of the room.
When I got there Yogi wasn't breathing and he wasn't moving and he was skinny and wrinkled and blue. Brad was sucking mucous out of his mouth and nose and kind of nudging Yogi on the shoulder. But there was no response.
There was no response. No movement no nothing. This went on for what seemed like an unreasonably long time. Like 25 minutes. Long enough for me to start to hop back and forth on my feet and moan a little under my breath. Long enough for me to grab my head and look around the room in a wild eyed panic. Long enough for my heart to stop and my throat to close up. Long enough for me to start wondering if this was about to become the very, very worst day of my entire life. Long enough for me to wonder how I was going to get through this. Long enough to wonder how I was going to get Shelley through this….Long enough.
See that's what is scary. Death. Death is scary Death is SCARY DEATH is Scary Death….is….Fucking….Scary.
Teenage old boys are maybe the only people in the world who are not afraid of death. And THAT is scary.
But then Yogi started breathing and crying and he has been ever since. See all newborn babies are blue and it wasn't 25 minutes it was more like 15 seconds. And being a new father is wonderful and fantastic. And I love everything about him and I love him more and more each and every day.
But the thing is. The scary thing is. The stronger he gets and the bigger he gets and the more of a person he becomes, the longer that time in the hospital gets in my mind. When I think of what I almost lost and what I could lose I could really start screaming. And then I think of those 14 year old boys jumping off that wall….
BOOO!
October 29th, 2001
I don't like Halloween.
I don't like it for a couple reasons. One I had this awesome Great Pumpkin costume in 1st Grade and I followed that up with a fantastic Headless Horseman costume in 2nd grade and everything since has been a let down. The second reason I don't like Halloween is that I am an actor. I take dressing up like a fool very seriously. I do it professionally…or at least I have on occasion. And it kind of bothers me to see every tom dick and harry doing it. Halloween is amateur night.
But honestly the real reason I don't like Halloween is that I don't like being scared. There are basically three kinds of costumes you see around Halloween. 1 is lame. Basically what I've been doing since 2nd grade. If I make any effort at all I pin a sign on my back that sez "Regular Guy" or something like that.
The second kind of costume is cute and funny which is fine until you're at a party and you have to talk to someone dressed as a bunny or a box of cookies or whatever and you just feel embarrassed. For them, for yourself, for the person walking by dressed as bug. It's degrading.
The third kind of costume is the scary kind. And in Los Angeles that can be seriously scary. You know how you're walking along and suddenly this guy with an Oscar winning head wound shambles in with a photo realistic pole stuck through his chest. Or somebody goes to town on their demon costume and they've got blood red cat's eye contacts and latex skin and fangs and they get all into the role so you're not real sure if maybe Satan has crashed the party for real and we're all going to hell tonight. It seems awfully unlikely but a lot of unlikely, awful things have been really happening so it kind of gives you pause.
But since it is nearly Halloween I wanted to share with you something really scary. The scariest thing I have ever seen. Something that gives me night sweats and goosebumps and whole nine yards.
About a month ago I was walking along near the Fox Plaza building in Century City. You know the Die Hard building? Its got this wall and then about 50 feet down from this wall is Olympic. Now this wall is about 4 feet wide and it almost goes up to Avenue of the Stars, which I was walking on, but there is this gap about 6 feet wide between the end of this wall and the Avenue of the Stars railing.
So I'm walking along Avenue of the stars and I see these 2 fourteen year olds on skateboards get up on this wall and then skate up to this gap and jump the gap, over the railing and onto oncoming traffic on Avenue of the Stars.
Now why did they do this? Because they are 14 year old male humans and that what teenage boys do. They risk their lives.
Now they made the jump and when they landed on Avenue of the Stars and fell on their asses in traffic. Cars slowed down and stopped for them so they didn't get killed. These kids high-fived each other and went on their way.
Why is that so scary? You have to know that I am a new father of a baby boy. My son Yogi is 2 months old now and healthy and happy…well healthy and hungry would be more accurate. But someday he's gonna be 14 and he's going to think he's invulnerable just like those kids and he's gonna do questionable things like jump 6 feet over certain death into oncoming traffic. I was that age once. That's what young men do. They put it all on the line and they live like there is no tomorrow with passion and arrogance and madness and joy. And that's why we worship them and write poems about them and invent BMX and skateboards and wish we could be like them and send them to war. It's a beautiful and terrible time.
But it still doesn't sound scary does it.
So here's the scary part. When my son Yogi was born I was there in the hospital room. It was a cesarean birth and it was five weeks early and Shelley and I were completely shocked that this was happening so I didn't know what to expect.
So the doctors dug around inside and pulled out our new baby and handed him to this guy named Brad who was manning the warming station. I gave Shelley a kiss and then I realized I could/slash/should go look at my new son over on the other side of the room.
When I got there Yogi wasn't breathing and he wasn't moving and he was skinny and wrinkled and blue. Brad was sucking mucous out of his mouth and nose and kind of nudging Yogi on the shoulder. But there was no response.
There was no response. No movement no nothing. This went on for what seemed like an unreasonably long time. Like 25 minutes. Long enough for me to start to hop back and forth on my feet and moan a little under my breath. Long enough for me to grab my head and look around the room in a wild eyed panic. Long enough for my heart to stop and my throat to close up. Long enough for me to start wondering if this was about to become the very, very worst day of my entire life. Long enough for me to wonder how I was going to get through this. Long enough to wonder how I was going to get Shelley through this….Long enough.
See that's what is scary. Death. Death is scary Death is SCARY DEATH is Scary Death….is….Fucking….Scary.
Teenage old boys are maybe the only people in the world who are not afraid of death. And THAT is scary.
But then Yogi started breathing and crying and he has been ever since. See all newborn babies are blue and it wasn't 25 minutes it was more like 15 seconds. And being a new father is wonderful and fantastic. And I love everything about him and I love him more and more each and every day.
But the thing is. The scary thing is. The stronger he gets and the bigger he gets and the more of a person he becomes, the longer that time in the hospital gets in my mind. When I think of what I almost lost and what I could lose I could really start screaming. And then I think of those 14 year old boys jumping off that wall….
BOOO!
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Time
Time
August 27th, 2001
It is said that if you want something done ask a busy person to do it. The reason this works is that people who are busy know how to get things done. They can fit things in. Anybody who has been unemployed and tried to write something knows that the contra-positive is also true.
See the contra-positive to "If A then B" is "If not B then not A."
This statement is true if the original position "If A then B" is true.
As opposed to "If not A then not B" (which doesn't necessarily follow) and "If B then A," which everyone can see is often not the case -- I mean how many times has B been TOTALLY true and A is just pure bullshit?
You know what I mean?
Neither do I. But I did get an A in Geometry in 10th grade.
The point is that if it is true that if you are busy you can get things done it must be therefore true that if you cannot get things done you are not busy.
That doesn't really apply to my point which is that its been my experience and the experience of certain friends that if you have PLENTY of free time you can't get JACK SHIT done but as soon as you get a job you start churning out stuff.
It has something to do with the Bernoulli effect I'm sure. See the Bernoulli effect is basically what makes planes fly. Yes that's right it's magic.
See Bernoulli was this brilliant Italian guy back in the Renaissance when everyone in Italy was brilliant. It must have been something in the water. Probably something nasty. But Bernoulli was trying to figure out how to get water from one place to another in Venice or Rome or Naples or something and he discovered that water moves more quickly around corners. So if you have some water in a pipe and it turns a corner the water will move more quickly.
This is why you can shoot people with a garden hose if you hold your thumb over the stream. Its also what makes planes fly because air is a fluid and as it goes over the curved top part of the wing it moves more quickly than the air going over the flat bottom part so that creates less pressure on the top of the wing and that creates lift. That's how a 747 can get off the ground.
Well that and the magic, invisible helper birds.
Fluids move more quickly around corners. And since thought is fluid it works more quickly if there are lots of curves and pressure. See it's easier to be creative if you have constraints -- if there are lots of curves.
I, for instance, wrote this that I am holding in my hand because I said I was going to. I put pressure on myself. I said I would stand and deliver at 10 tops every month. If I didn't have that pressure point, that corner, that curvy wing if you will allow me to painfully extend an ill used metaphor long past it's breaking point…..if I didn't have that push I would not be here today talking all this nonsense.
You know what I mean. If you are faced with deadlines and pressures and rocks and canyon walls you explode like the white water rapids with wave of energy and invention.
If life is tranquil and still you can be tranquil and still but there isn't much action happening and if your not careful you can get a layer of algae growing on you.
This is all coming because as of tomorrow Shelley's due date is 6 weeks away. There is so much I have to do in six weeks I can't believe it. But there is so much I have done in the past 7 months that I never thought I would get done it's just hard to fathom. It's like this Gigantic Deadline is heading my way and it makes everything else seem like falling down a mountain ravine, bouncing off rocks and leaping into the clear bright air, falling and misting and spraying and finally finally landing with a crashing splash into a cool placid lake.
And there I'll sit for a week or two…contemplating… breathing…feeling the pull of the next stream or river or waterfall but enjoying for a moment the fruits of my labor. Not doing anything because I am not a busy man.
And then the baby will cry and the ripples will start and the river will continue on its way. Altered in course. Branching and joining other streams. But always moving.
August 27th, 2001
It is said that if you want something done ask a busy person to do it. The reason this works is that people who are busy know how to get things done. They can fit things in. Anybody who has been unemployed and tried to write something knows that the contra-positive is also true.
See the contra-positive to "If A then B" is "If not B then not A."
This statement is true if the original position "If A then B" is true.
As opposed to "If not A then not B" (which doesn't necessarily follow) and "If B then A," which everyone can see is often not the case -- I mean how many times has B been TOTALLY true and A is just pure bullshit?
You know what I mean?
Neither do I. But I did get an A in Geometry in 10th grade.
The point is that if it is true that if you are busy you can get things done it must be therefore true that if you cannot get things done you are not busy.
That doesn't really apply to my point which is that its been my experience and the experience of certain friends that if you have PLENTY of free time you can't get JACK SHIT done but as soon as you get a job you start churning out stuff.
It has something to do with the Bernoulli effect I'm sure. See the Bernoulli effect is basically what makes planes fly. Yes that's right it's magic.
See Bernoulli was this brilliant Italian guy back in the Renaissance when everyone in Italy was brilliant. It must have been something in the water. Probably something nasty. But Bernoulli was trying to figure out how to get water from one place to another in Venice or Rome or Naples or something and he discovered that water moves more quickly around corners. So if you have some water in a pipe and it turns a corner the water will move more quickly.
This is why you can shoot people with a garden hose if you hold your thumb over the stream. Its also what makes planes fly because air is a fluid and as it goes over the curved top part of the wing it moves more quickly than the air going over the flat bottom part so that creates less pressure on the top of the wing and that creates lift. That's how a 747 can get off the ground.
Well that and the magic, invisible helper birds.
Fluids move more quickly around corners. And since thought is fluid it works more quickly if there are lots of curves and pressure. See it's easier to be creative if you have constraints -- if there are lots of curves.
I, for instance, wrote this that I am holding in my hand because I said I was going to. I put pressure on myself. I said I would stand and deliver at 10 tops every month. If I didn't have that pressure point, that corner, that curvy wing if you will allow me to painfully extend an ill used metaphor long past it's breaking point…..if I didn't have that push I would not be here today talking all this nonsense.
You know what I mean. If you are faced with deadlines and pressures and rocks and canyon walls you explode like the white water rapids with wave of energy and invention.
If life is tranquil and still you can be tranquil and still but there isn't much action happening and if your not careful you can get a layer of algae growing on you.
This is all coming because as of tomorrow Shelley's due date is 6 weeks away. There is so much I have to do in six weeks I can't believe it. But there is so much I have done in the past 7 months that I never thought I would get done it's just hard to fathom. It's like this Gigantic Deadline is heading my way and it makes everything else seem like falling down a mountain ravine, bouncing off rocks and leaping into the clear bright air, falling and misting and spraying and finally finally landing with a crashing splash into a cool placid lake.
And there I'll sit for a week or two…contemplating… breathing…feeling the pull of the next stream or river or waterfall but enjoying for a moment the fruits of my labor. Not doing anything because I am not a busy man.
And then the baby will cry and the ripples will start and the river will continue on its way. Altered in course. Branching and joining other streams. But always moving.
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