lowstakes

[lowstakes]

september 10, 2018

ESCAPE PLANS a) everything works out as-is b) move to the country. not the country that’s still an hour train ride from new york, the REAL country. befriend a horse or bear. c) become one of those people who lives out of only a backpack, go see the enormous stone moai of easter island and ask them what to do d) like people and care about them, as if they were the only parts of life that mattered e) become a being of pure light f) try psychedelics or hard drugs g) write The Big Novel after so many years of telling yourself you will write this epic saga of American lives that will outsell the bible h) buy a house in a struggling former mill town, call it an “artists’ colony,” buy a case of Sam’s Club brand whiskey for yourself i) can you own a cave? own a cave, move in, grow accustomed to the silence and darkness and dampness of it, think “this is what a grave is like.” j) grad school or some other brand of suicide k) go to sleep. when you wake up, stay in bed and go to sleep again. repeat ad infinitum. l) convert to buddhism m) convert to catholicism n) convert to android phones o) start walking vaguely west. drop your bag. leave your job behind. stop when there’s too much water to keep going. p) throw a party so epic it makes the wall street journal q) are they still hiring in antarctica? if not, go there anyway and just stay. r) finally find the right pair of shoes s) abandon all morality, get a job on wall street t) get into rock climbing for three months. pay for a rock climbing gym membership for two years. u) build your own beach house. other people might call it a “shanty,” they might call you “that crazy hermit in the beach shanty” but you’re living in your own beach house, enjoy it v) move back in with your family, if only to reaffirm why you left in the first place w) start a food truck, tell people you’re here to “revolutionize the fast-casual quesadilla” x) yoga, ugh y) give up. fall to pieces. shatter. break. stop putting on the charade. let go of these cheap, earthly bonds. fight the power. rail against society. scream against the encroaching, all-consuming darkness. z) acceptance

[lowstakes]

september 7, 2018

The Pearly Gates creaked as they opened and slammed into my ass on my way inside. That was when I started suspecting this place was some sort of forgery. I tried to tell an angel about this, it only gazed past me as if I were a lump of dirt. The place is so gentle, like a Greek isle in spring. Everything runs full and plenty and wreathed in gold. But how can I be sure this is the place?  How? How?

[lowstakes]

september 3, 2018

This self-help book in it’s

charming and disarming way

told me to help myself

as if that were possible

[lowstakes]

august 27, 2018

Here is a tool for anxiety and worry. You will need an envelope or small box, and paper to write on. I used an envelope and note cards and a sharpie. On the front of the envelope, write “future problems” in big bold letters. Now, using the note cards, write down all your worries. Be specific and thorough. Try labeling one card with a heading like “work” and then naming all the specific worries you have about work. Fill the cards. Go overboard. Put them away in the envelope. Put the envelope away in a drawer. Close the drawer.

Anxiety can feel like you’ve been swallowed up by a wave of what-ifs and hypotheticals and worries and concerns and possibilities. This is not going to solve them. But it will take some of them and file them away where they need to go, which is out of your head.

Extra credit: write a different note card labeled “immediate problems.” The ones you have to deal with right now, immediately, today. Hopefully it is short or empty.

[lowstakes]

august 20, 2018

Oh, nothing much. I'm depressed and don’t like myself. Each day I can feel the darkness around me turning into stone walls. What’s up with you?

[lowstakes]

august 12, 2018

I'm not qualified to teach anyone anything (unless you want to learn a little about Adobe software and fonts?) but hahaha guess what I have a degree in filmmaking. If you wanted to learn visual storytelling, meaning shots and how they communicate to the audience, then this is the syllabus I'd put together with a heavy emphasis on my own random whims. This assumes two feature-length movies a week plus extra credit.

Week 1: Steven Spielberg. Jaws. Raiders of the Lost Ark. (extra credit: Schindler’s List)

Week 2: Stanley Kubrick. Dr Strangelove. The Shining. (extra credit: 2001)

Week 3:  Steven Soderbergh. Out of Sight. Ocean’s Eleven. (extra credit: Magic Mike and Sex, Lies and Videotape)

Week 4: Orson Welles. Citizen Kane. The Magnificent Ambersons. (extra credit: Touch of Evil)

Week 5: Classic Hollywood. Casablanca. The Apartment. (extra credit: Some Like It Hot and Singin in the Rain)

Week 6: European Classics. M. If…. (Extra credit: Wages of Fear and the 400 Blows)

Week 7: Japan. Ikiru. Akira. (extra credit: Seven Samurai and Battle Royale)

Week 8: Scorsese and Mann. Thief. Goodfellas. (extra credit: Gangs of New York, Collateral)

Week 9: American Modern Classics. Broadcast News. When Harry Met Sally. (extra credit: Lady Bird, Shawshank Redemption)

Week 10: Herzog. Fitzcarraldo. Encounters at the End of the World. (extra credit: Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans and Into the Inferno)

Week 11: Errol Morris. The Thin Blue Line. Vernon, Florida. (extra credit: Tabloid)

Week 12: Tarantino. Pulp Fiction. Kill Bill. (extra credit: Jackie Brown)

Week 13: Sam Raimi. Evil Dead 2. Spider-Man 2. (extra credit: Army of Darkness)

Week 14: Don Hertzfeldt. Rejected and World of Tomorrow. It’s Such a Beautiful Day.

Week 15: Vine and Funny or Die. Internet memes. Edgar Wright.

Standing orders to the class regarding TV: watch Bojack Horseman and Review. Watch the best of Key & Peele and Kids in the Hall.

[lowstakes]

august 10, 2018

on good days, i am the captain boldly sailing the seas in search of monsters to slay and gold coins i will happily toss to the villagers. on other days, i am alone and clinging to this little rowboat tossed from wave to wave capsized and crushed trying to ride out this storm, this tropical depression.

[lowstakes]

july 26, 2018

One thing I want for this world is this: every time a climate change skeptic speaks about how they don’t believe in climate change, they should be forced to describe in detail what will happen if they are wrong.

I’m not interested in hashing out the particulars of what the data says, or going back and forth on whether or not it’s the surest of sure things. I’m not interested in obfuscation, confusion, or hackneyed arguments about scientific evidence. No matter what side you are on, you have to at least give serious thought to what might happen, and how terrible it might be, if climate change is real.

Climate change skeptics want to be serious thinkers, right? Well serious thinkers give serious thought to what might happen if they are wrong. They have to.

Someone who denies climate science and climate change is making a bet. A serious bet. They are betting that sea levels won’t rise dangerously. They are betting that storms will not worsen. They are betting that droughts won’t get worse, that deserts won’t consume whole nations, that millions won’t be forced from their homes. They’re betting that we won’t lose New Orleans, most of Florida, much of California, and many other coastal cities, islands, and nations.

I’m not willing to make that bet. I’m not willing to bet the homes and livelihoods of millions, our cities and our coasts. Anyone speaking out to deny climate change has to announce that they, in fact, are willing to make that terrible wager. And for what? To burn more oil?

[lowstakes]

july 25, 2018

how many episodes have i watched? how long have I been here? the next one is starting, another murder, another exchange of too-witty banter. just one more and I’ll be done. I’ll be content then.

[lowstakes]

july 20, 2018

when did we all become our own public relations shills? anyway this is just to announce that i have opened another bottle of whiskey and we all look forward to enjoying it.

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july 19, 2018

Overwhelmed by her staggering beauty,

I could do little else but invent

A whole new language to describe her.

Too bad she didn’t speak it.

[lowstakes]

july 16, 2018

a joke: two trash bags sit next to each other on the curb in manhattan, torn open, spilling into the gutter, adding more summer rot to the perfume of the city. the one trash bag says: “I feel broken.” the second trash bag replies: “I’m not your therapist.”

[lowstakes]

july 11, 2018

Riding the elevator down to hell, you’ll hear smooth jazz covers of popular songs with new lyrics, each verse detailing one more way you disappointed your God.

[lowstakes]

july 9, 2018

My twin brother is a late-Roman vase in the collection at the Met. His gallery display is, I’m told, quite luxurious and comfortable. Fate did not grant me the same. Fate watched me shatter all those years ago and tossed me, irreparable, on the garbage pile. I was not meant for a gallery of kings, I was meant for the worms, the dirt, and other broken, forgotten things.

[lowstakes]

june 20, 2018

I don’t know how to convince you that other people are worthy of your love and your care and your attention, that families should not be torn apart, that children should not be shot by police, that the evil acts of men are preventable and we can prevent them together.

I don’t know how to turn a black rock back into a beating, loving heart.

[lowstakes]

june 14, 2018

We’re going off into the woods to make an early 1990s music video. I have a fisheye lens for the camcorder. I have sunglasses and prop guitars. I even have an actor signed on to wear wigs and play authority figures, to sneer and snarl and wag fingers at our hijinks and our pranks. So what if we don’t have a song or a band or a purpose? So what if no one can play the VHS tapes? I’m done trying to please and to sell, trying to puzzle out what the world wants. This is for us, only us, and we’re free to dance through the trees and caves and abandoned farmhouses until we’re too tired to do anything but pass the gin bottle and smoke cigarettes. If the world wants this too, they can listen for the music from your boombox, the Beat Happening cassettes on full volume, and pick their way through the dead trees.

[lowstakes]

june 7, 2018

Something I have thought about frequently suddenly crystalizes into: “My body is not a sculpture, it is a machine. It’s not here to look a certain way, it’s here to do work and accomplish tasks. As long as my body is doing work and accomplishing tasks, it is a successful body. How my body looks is secondary.”