You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry

Hell, I wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Which is fine since I rarely get all riled up. Once in a great while. Most people are surprised to hear I can emote anger as I am generally cool as a cucumber (a vegetable renown for its calm handling of tense situations). But this morning I nearly flipped out. That's actually exaggerating quite a bit, but my dander was certainly up. And all because of a stupid bagel.

I was running a bit late because I had elected to go to the gym this morning, and I still needed to stop and get something for breakfast. A bagel sounded perfect. Now I like my bagels (as I like my women?) lightly toasted with nothing on 'em (Zing!). Normally an easy thing to procure (again, we're talking about the bagels, not women). However at the Hyde Park Bagel Dispensatorium there was a dreaded new person working the line. If that wasn't enough, this coffee shop has the ridiculous practice of relaying what the customer orders at the register to someone else who actually fixes the sandwiches, etc. Ever play elementary school game 'Telephone" where one person whispers a phrase in their neighbor's ear and they pass it on and so forth? Yeah, that is slightly more effective way of accurately getting a message across. The following conversation took place immediately before I ordered:

Jill Q. Customer: "Yeah, I'd like a regular coffee and a plain bagel with everything."

Register Monkey: "That'll be $4.73. Hey New Employee, I needa plain bagel with everything."

(Fairly Incompetent) New Employee: "With Everything? Like everything?"

Above this riveting drama is a large menu with various suggested fixings. One of the options is, 'Everything.' Now 'Everything' does not actually mean everything. It is tricky like that. Because nbody actually wants a dab of each kind of cream cheese combined with several forms of breakfast meat and eggs and so forth. I could actually feel the stiff breeze from everyone in line behind me rolling their eyes.

Needless to say I had high hopes that (Fairly Incompetent) New Employee would be able to fulfill my much more simple request without any hang-ups. However as I waited for the bagel to go through the toasting shute, and the other folks behind me placed their orders it dawned on me that perhaps my order was too simple. Surely no one just orders a plain toasted bagel with nothing on it. Already exasperated by the comedy of 'Everything', I began to lose my patience as my bagel dropped down, and before I could say a word, it was generously schmeared with a healthy dollop of seemingly randomly selected peanut butter.

(Fairly Incompetent) New Employee: "Plainbagelpeanutbutter!" (she announces to the gathering crowd of customers waiting for their order) I purse my lips and look to the side, disevowing ownership all the while knowing that this reject construction is meant for me.

Bagel after bagel is made correctly (astonishing!) and I continue to stand, patience slowly simmering away like so much coffee left on the burner. Not gonna make it to work on time, but suddenly this doesn't matter. All that matters is my fascination with the fact that someone could be so bad at something relatively simple. With no system of checks and balances or failsafes there is no way my actual order will be completed unless I speak up. Thankfully the Register Monkey, a very nice person actually who knows my order by heart, sees me still standing there and sighs, apparently this sort of thing was happening with some frequency this morning,

"We got a plain bagel just toasted back there?"

No, no they did not.

But one was hastily made, and I walked away with what I wanted. And I assume they had what they wanted as well, you know, aside from efficiency, namely, my money and their limbless corpses not strewn about their establishment.

Because it's the Law (and sometimes even when it isn't)

On Sunday morning, freshly yoga'd and slept-in respectively, Croftie and I were making our way to the Jeepie Jeepie when we passed by one of our unsettlingly friendly neighbors who had some bad news.

"Looks like you got a ticket," he says, among many other things, he's unsettlingly friendly after all. The saving grace, he has a cute dog named Hemingway who is sort of in love with our cat Pickle. Their torrid 'through the window-pane' love affair should be categorized among the most passionate of all time. But I digress.

upon hearing those unfortunate words, I'm like 'No." Croftie gets quite rattled, but to her credit she does not let it show. We move along to the Jeep and sure enough, there's the ticket. Croftie inspects the note and finds that it is for an "Out of Date License Plate Registration Sticker." Sure enough, down below is a JUN 08 sticker on the plate.

But lo! a few months back Croftie got a letter in the mail with a new registration sticker. One designed for the front windshield instead of the plate because too many folks were going around stealing them. CT, it appears, is one of few states to do this, seeing as every other out of state plate in our neighborhood, and there are surprisingly a great many, had them. But Mr/Mrs. Chicago Beat Cop was not aware of this, and issued us a ticket, because our possible violation is something that really must be curbed and spent time on, not, you know, actual crimes or anything.

Does it make me sleep a little bit better at night knowing our neighborhood's parking transgressions are being vigilantly curbed? No, no it does not.

Cult of the Nerd

I used to think things that were unreasonably popular should be avoided at all costs. The list, when it was originally composed in my freshman year of college included:

dave matthew's band
robert de niro
star wars
chinese food
White Baseball Caps

To name just a few. All this misdirected loathing despite the fact that radiohead, which i deified at the time, were roughly just as popular as DMB; i hadn't yet seen any of Bobby's earlier films (taxi driver, raging bull, et al.); I'd already seen and liked Star Wars when I was very little; I'd never even actually tried Chinese food (even I don't really know how that was possible) and had a hair-cut that really in all honestly should have been kept hidden 'neath a cap.

Yet these things were popular for a reason. DMB is user/radio friendly (and totally crapped all over a bunch of Chicago River tourists); Bobby, despite his late career mistakes is unquestionably brilliant; Star Wars is like totally a parable of our times, man; Chinese food is delicious; and fashiony things, well i can't quite explain those.

Then there are things that people purposely like because nobody else likes them. I guy i work with told me recently who purposely reads obscure novels not because of their possible worth, but just because nobody is reading them. Being skeptical of the howling masses is one thing, being a contrarian ass is another.

And yet somewhere in the middle, are pop-culture pieces that always deserved more, but ended up getting relatively less attention than one might have guessed.

These things/phenomenas are sometimes classified under the 'cult' heading, and end up being all kinds of misunderstood. Mostly, because cult tv shows, movies, music, and art suffer from the downsides of both the tremendously popular and the universally despised. Fans of cult things make the products in question seem more ubiquitous than they really. Think of a politician with very loud and sometimes offensive proponents. The quality of person spoken for somehow gets muddled up behind a tidal wave of hot air.

As such cult phenomenas suffer from an odd form of over-under exposure. People who know nothing about the product are put off by the reverential behavior of the proponents, figuring that they would have gotten into it if it were really that good. And a particular breed of fan(atic) might feel like the show they love isn't loved enough and act even more rabidly devotional, feeding a uroboros-like cycle of cult supply and demand.

All this is on my mind because of the show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and one of my best friend's perfectly reasonable/unreasonable avoidance thereof.

"Buffy" is a good example of a cult hit, although it might even have transcended cult at this point as some of the show's key points have entered a more broad cultural lexicon. yet its fans are typical of other cult fans, "whedonites" may as well be a synonym for disturbingly reverential fan-children. Its one thing to admire and another to blindly worship. But i can attest to the show's quality, I've seen every episode and never really spoken about it in a public forum until now. So, like, my devotion is reasonable then? whatever.

The point is I have a somewhat unique perspective. I watched the show's first few seasons in high-school, then watched nothing for years--I watched virtually no tv shows in college. The show went on without me and quietly ended while i wasn't looking (the nerve I tell you). However, I recently found myself renting the entire series, disc for disc, from netflix. Along the way I got to both remember why I had liked it in the first place and then find new reasons and ways of appreciating it that i wasn't capable of before. And I'm not the only person who might not fit the bill of a Whedonite--I happen to know of a stodgy old professor here at the University who is a complete nut for Buffy, and you would never know it from the look of them (or the subject matter they teach or from they themselves, assuming they'd rather not want underclassmen to know a few things about themselves).

So what did we learn here today, class? Skepticism is good? maybe! You can't judge a tv show by the quality of fans it pulls in? Um, sure! Buffy totally roxxorz!!!!? Er, yeah, all of that too.

Gary Snyder, You Asshole.

I keep noticing this odd subliminal phenomena and wonder if I am the only one. I've tried this a couple of times with mixed results. The most recent time was unintentional and happened last night. I was sitting on the couch with a novel when I started into a conversation with the Croft. The book's back cover was facing up and the words of praise in bold ink were visible, but only if i looked down. I was looking at the Croft, but when i spoke to her I began to use words that aren't normally found in my vocabulary. Most notably, I said the word 'Marvelous.' 'What a strange thing to say,' a part of my mind pointed out, and then I looked down and not one but two bold Marvelouses revealed themselves.

My question is this, was my brain suggestible to the words I wasn't even looking at directly? Was the fact that these words were in my cone of vision, just not being actively read have something to do with the fact that i used marvelous in a sentence? Jus how impressionable is the mind? Because this definitely is not the first time this has happened to me. Its really best that I don't even have so much as a newspaper nearby when I talk.

All this started me on a paranoid line of thought that wondered just how much every little thing I see and hear effects me deep down. Are all those shitty pop songs I've heard over the years secretly informing the way i write? Do the thousands of advertisements I've seen in my life have a sinister influence on my sketches? And does the repetition of these cultural ephemera add to their suggestive power? Because I've read the line "Read the Poet Gary Snyder, a True Elder, A Modern Age Thoreau" on the wall of the men's restroom at work so many times it has become some sort of mantra. I have no desire to read Gary Snyder, am not even sure what a True Elder is and am pretty sure Thoreau is a modern age Thoreau.

But i can't get it out of my head, I'm stuck with it, seemingly forever. Deep inside, where the knowledge of how to start a fire in the wilderness or tie a sheepshank knot or something useful and potentially life-saving, or a romantic memory might lay to make me smile on a day where things are going fairly shitty there lay that stupid bathroom graffiti. Far from wanting to read Gary Snyder, suddenly I hate him. and Thoreau. And my True Elders. Whoever the hell they might be.

Countdown to Christmas #4 (December 7th)

Holy Fuck. Yes, that is their name. Oline and I first met their acquaintance via a large marquee. It is a terrible name for a band, as many have suggested, but it does catch your eye and stick in your craw like, er, spinach or something. And like Spinach, Holy Fuck is good for you.

I'll admit, when i first bought the dinged used album after seeing their incredible live performance, i was a bit underwhelmed. I even shelved it for several months before dabbling with it here and there. Now its crept back into my increasingly lyric-less rotation, helped no doubt by other current favorites like Battles, Pelican and !!!. (boy does that period look silly after that band name) Anyhow, I am now a Holy Fuck convert, having listened to their self-titled album many times, finding tracks that were 'boring' before interesting now. 'Cause there are a bunch of layers and a density that is quickly dismissed as an impenetrable wall of music at first listen. Granted, my co-workers don't always qualify this sort of thing as music, especially the 60+ year old Accounts payable Manager that sits immediately behind me. But fuck them! Gimme Noise rock!

This will be the first in a series of album articles as I countdown toward Christmas paying homage to the music that was important to me this year. Rather than do a year's end mega-list, I figure I will just do it this way. Of course it will likely spill over into the new year, but meh.