Thanksgiving - Oldie

I wrote this last November.  Not sure why I never got around to posting it.  I've definitely posted way worse.

I'm on a train headed west to Chicago to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with one of my very best friends. BLT says we're closer than brothers. While I didn't grow up with any 'actual' brothers, I'm inclined to agree. I'm really thankful to have him in my life.

So here I sit musing on the concept of Thanksgiving while I try to ignore the young couple in front of me making out like a couple of sailors on shore leave.

They remind me of the Vogelchecks from Saturday Night Live. It's quite the show if you're into sloppy saliva soaked kisses. Fred Armisen plays the patriarch of the family.  Check it out here.

I swear he just licked her face.

Back to being thankful. I'd really be thankful for a sleep mask and noise canceling headphones right now.

The Ex threw a graduation party for me when I finished graduate school back in 2004. The party was great fun and my family and friends took the opportunity to roast me. Since I had spent the better part of the previous 25 years being an asshole, I probably deserved it. Fun was had by most and after they finished putting me in my place I was allowed to speak. My ex didn't tell me that the party was a roast until about an hour before the start. Nor did she bother to warn me that I was required to speak and I'd best be witty and charming since everyone came here to see me.

I remember how grateful I was for all the wonderful people in my life and the fact that almost all of them took time from their busy schedules to come out and eat my food. I seem to remember Doli Madison coming all the way from Florida to get his shots in.

I had an hour to organize and draft a speech intended to entertain and enlighten a room full of people who had already heard everything I've ever had to say. What could I possibly add? I'm not an essayist, nor a gifted public speaker. But I am good at one thing, and that's spinning bullshit at the last minute. There's nothing like a deadline to focus the mind. I sat down in the hotel lounge and crafted my personal Sermon on the Mount. It was probably the best thing I've ever written. I'm pretty sure the Ex video taped the entire party. I sort of wish I still had those tapes.

Maybe it's better that the speech wasn't recorded. I'm sure it plays better in my memory than it ever did in real life. I spoke of friendship and love. About how no man is an island and we are all in this life together. I explained how every one of my accomplishments in life was directly related to the support and encouragement of my family and friends. I talked about my Dad and how much I missed him and how proud he would have been. In my mind it was (and is) beautiful.

Sunday was the ten year anniversary of my Dad's passing. This is the first year I missed it. One one hand I can't believe it's been that long. On the other I can barely remember the sound of his voice any more. Time flies and life is what happens to our best laid plans.

My advice is to take the time this Thanksgiving to be thankful for the people in your life that make life worth living.

Peace.

Notes on Writing

I was re-reading some of my blog posts last night (to get my page views up) when it became apparent that for a guy who's been seriously screwed over, there seems to be a lack of anger in my writing. Where is the righteous outrage that would be expected of a guy who was "done wrong"? Shouldn't I be tossing off caustic bon mots and casual insults left and right?

(This is where I had 5,000 boring, self involved words on why I am so angry.)

Well, no.

New Buddy John turned me on to the following quote from Carrie Fisher: "Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die."

And it makes for terrible writing.

Bob's keys to good writing:

1) Know your audience.  In my case this is easy since I have about five regular readers. Apparently one of whom is my ex-wife!

2) Have something interesting to write about. Up until three months ago I couldn't have filled a pamphlet with my musings on life. To be a good (or great) writer you need to experience pain. Much like the old Chinese curse, you need to "live in interesting times."

If you stop to consider, many (most?) great writers had their own demons. Hunter S. Thompson, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner. Great writing seems to come with great pain.

***

Ancient Greek drama consisted of three dramatic genres. Tragedy was developed around 550 BC, satyr plays were invented in 501 BC and comedy followed in 486 BC.  Apparently 'satyr plays' were "tragicomedies similar in spirit to modern burlesque that featured choruses of satyrs." No, I didn't know this either. They featured "drunkenness, brazen sexuality, pranks, sight gags and general merriment."

Kind of sounds like the ancient world's Harold and Kumar to me. In fact, it sounds pretty damn entertaining. Sign me up!

FYI - satyrs are the half man / half goat guys that run through the woods playing the pan flute like Zamfir.

And that was my clumsy transition to waste 2,000 words on "Zamfir". Was it obvious?

Am I the only one who remembers Gheorghe Zamfir? "He's sold over 20 million records worldwide." "The master of the pan flute, Gheorghe Zamfir." This commercial was on about every twenty minutes when I came home from school.


Click here to see the commercial!

When I was a kid we only had one channel that showed anything of interest to a nine year old. That was Channel 43. They'd show "The Little Rascals", "The Three Stooges" or Japanese imports about giant flying robots. Like "Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot."

Fine, I'll link that one too. How did we live before YouTube? And who the heck posts all this old nostalgic garbage anyway?

Click here to see Johnny Sokko in action!

Channel 43 had crappy ratings and the few people who were watching were either senior citizens on fixed incomes or kids like me who had no money and were too young to drive to Parmatown Mall to buy anything - hardly a marketer's wet dream.

"Relax as Zamfir sweeps you away to a world of haunting, tranquil beauty." I can still hear those damn words in my head today. How do you sell 20 million records without your damn record being available in stores? What's Zamfir got against stores? Did he have a bad experience? It's not like they had iTunes back then.

Add this to the growing list of things that piss me off.

Did you know that Zamfir's music was featured extensively in the "The Karate Kid"? The real one, not the one with Will Smith's kid. And Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill Vol. 1"? I didn't. I also found out that Zamfir is still alive. He'll be 70 in April. Doesn't the guy in the commercial look a lot older than 40? He would have been only a little over 30 when that thing was taped.

Thank you Wikipedia, or as I call it "Lazy People's Often Inaccurate Research".

Tragedy has fallen out of favor in modern society. Perhaps tragedy appealed to the Greeks due to the difficulty and harshness of life at the time. In our current pampered civilization audiences can't handle bad news. Nowadays if you don't have a happy ending you can pretty much forget about your movie making money. Oscars? Maybe. Money? No way.

Would "Slumdog Millionaire" have been better or worse if they had just given Jamal the beatdown after he answered the final question to win the million rupees? They could have dragged him behind the studio and tossed his ass in a ditch. I don't know if the story would have been better, but I know it would have grossed about $100 million less.

I mean, if your script features Iron Man becoming a drunk, killing his father, marrying his mother and then killing himself after discovering the truth you're going to have a hard time finding financing. Yes, even if Pepper Potts goes topless.

Gwyneth Paltrow is my kind of woman.  37 years old. Hot. Not anorexic. Yeah...


Oh yeah... Those are some great middle aged boobs. This whole diatribe on tragedy was purely to work in Gwyneth Paltrow's boobs. And I am not ashamed.

Great comedy and tragedy come from the same place - fear. We laugh at the things that make us uncomfortable. The best comedy at its root pokes fun at our fears. Why is America's Funniest Home Videos so popular? Because they show at least seven 'nut shots' an episode. Nothing is scarier than taking a shot to the junk, right gentlemen?

Racist jokes? Xenophobia.

AIDS jokes? Fear of death.

Political jokes? Fear of authority.

Gay jokes? Fear of our own homosexual urges. (Not me, of course. I'm talking about everyone else.)

Carrot top? He scares me.

Like it or not, we all fear the loss that comes with divorce. I think this is why my blog has been so effortless. I have a bottomless pit of pain and fear to draw from for both tragedy and comedy. It's my personal key to good writing.

So how much more material do I have? Well, based on recent events, I think I'll have enough pain (tragedy) and fear (comedy) to carry this blog for at least the next six months.

After that, well, I could get used to having nothing to say.