Poverty (Blog Action Day 2008)

"Does man, that marvel of the universe, that glorious paradox who sent me to the stars, still make war against his brother? Keep his neighbor's children starving?" -Charlton Heston, "Planet of the Apes"

I'm a chubby American with plenty of clean water. I have a car, a television, a computer, and an internet connection. I have a guitar and thousands of books. I've acted in films, flown in planes, owned a suit, gone to concerts, and eaten in restaurants. All this is the lifestyle of someone who lives about $9,000 below my nation's poverty line.

I have never been to a place where only one vehicle is shared amongst local farmers. I've never been to a village with no doctors, no stores, no schools, and no promise of a prosperous future. My nation's definition of poverty sounds like a joke in poor taste compared to the rest of the world. The citizenry of my nation doesn't have to share, because Americans can afford just about one of everything for each person.

My mother lived on her family's farm, waking early every morning to milk cows, even on the morning she got married. My father grew up in a small house, keeping all his clothes hanging on a single nail. I never lived through the kind of poverty my parents grew up in.

Sometimes my friends give me a hard time because I don't have enough cash to go to a movie or buy comics. I don't go bowling or to spook trails. I like to bowl. I never show out for trips to the amusement park. Instead, I spend a lot of time reading used books and playing guitar. It's what I can afford, but I never feel poor. The privileges of my life are not entitlements. I'm lucky.

But I do feel disconnected.

I wonder how much perspective I've lost living in a nation four times as wealthy as any other country in the world. I want to understand the lives of people in far flung corners of the world. Nationalism and insulation from the rest of the world keeps Americans from empathizing with those we might recognize as part of a common human struggle. When we're able to stop looking at the world as divided plots bound by pride against one another, perhaps we'll realize the responsibility we all share for the quality of life on our planet. Perhaps we'll see beyond the political capital gained by philanthropy and recognize the necessity of humanitarianism for its own sake. I know hope and empathy are not pragmatic solutions, but maybe they are a place to begin.

For more information on Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty, visit:

http://site.blogactionday.org/resources/

Lies about the Japanese

I remember signing online with a free Juno dial up account as a kid. I remember when a friend gave me a link to his personal web site, not as a link pasted in a quick email, but on a scrap of paper--in the days when bookmarks were just lines you typed out in a text file. I remember when savvy users' personal websites consisted of little more than an animated .gif, Nintendo cheat codes, and their favorite jokes about Yoda's balls.

These (many) years later, the "web" has become a different place. Along came high speed connections, Web 2.0, and the glorious maturation of the internet as the new opiate of the masses. Now everyone fills hard drives with MP3's like hot cakes. Baby's are embedded with microchips giving them a social networking IDs before they can even crawl (okay, only in Tokyo).

A few hundred blogs and more than a couple lamentable picture uploads later, the search engines have my number--or at least my URL. Privacy settings are a nuisance to those who don't want to subscribe to your narcissistic drivel and more often than not, turn your page into a complete dead zone. It's tricky territory. I want to share, but not with all the ex-girlfriends, potential employers, and overly sensitive family members who have instant access to the things I'd hoped would just stay lost in the soup.

It makes me feel beat down and uncreative. I suppose these are the natural pitfalls of living in a well-connected global community. I have to get used to living in constant fear that everything I do will be documented on someone's cell phone video and uploaded somewhere.

I hope you guys like watching me pick my nose and will forgive me for my large ass.

Sometimes, I'm grateful for all this openness. I find myself reserving sailor talk for wooing. I don't think pictures of my ding-dong are quite as funny now that my nieces might decide to take the browser out for a spin. Even my friends have started to notice. I'm more careful...and more lame.

I'm jealous of kids who work at Taco Bell and can't type three words without using an expletive. I'm jealous of the people who post videos showing the world degrading videos of their girlfriends. (Not because they're using the internet for it's intended purpose, but for the fact that they have girlfriends). I'm jealous of those who stand tall and are free to be total a-holes without the worry of who might land on their little corner of the internet.

I find my careful habits bleeding over into my regular life. When someone feeds me a line, I no longer make the factual statement, "You're full of crap." I smile, nod, and try to construct a gently worded way to excuse myself from their shenanigans. I evade to not make waves. After all, it wouldn't do to have them stop leaving me glittery comments.

I know I don't need anyone's permission to be crass. I'm an American, imbued with all the sense of entitlement that implies. It just doesn't feel like I'm allowed my normal allotment of mistakes and jerky moments, anymore. There's a cloud of anxiety hanging over the world when you live in an era where everything is saved in someone's cache. Every day feels like a day that will live in infamy.

Maybe I'm just a worrier. I'll stop. Scout's honor.

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Okay. Good aimless post. High five. We'll do it again soon. Next time, I'll try to avoid "balls," "ass," "crap," and lies about the Japanese. They're good people who love babies. Who knows? They might even read my blogs.

If there's one thing I love, it's pandering...

A friend of mine recently complained that my blogs weren't interesting because I usually post short prose instead of personal essays celebrating myself. Sadly, my life is not the stuff of good blogs, but if there's one thing I love, it's pandering. So, I sat down to write one of these more "personal" blogs...

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Dear Blog,

Is it hot today, or what? I've been in the same clothes all week. I guess that makes me a conservationist. It's like I always say, "No point in wasting soap if ladies can't find where you live." Same goes for deodorant.

I wonder if anyone's twittered anything exciting. I'll just fire up the old dial up connection and find out. Hey, look! The Health twitter says research proves coffee is good for me. Last week they said it would stop my heart. Oh, sweet! The Orioles won last night. My friend Kris had a good time pushing people over at the skating rink. And woot! has a deal on bluetooth earmuffs. What a way to start the day! I love Twitter.

Better get some breakfast in me. I've got a lot of research, writing, and note taking to do. Let's see...I've got rice and mustard or rice and ketchup. Oooh! There are some jalapenos left. Good thing I bought 45 cans when they were 50 cents each. I'll eat some rice, mustard, and jalapenos. Now, that's what I call a breakfast!

Okay. Enough stuffing my face. Time to write. I'll add more to this later...

...Boy. I sure am terrible at taking little breaks. I get unproductive after a while because I keep doing the same thing over and over for hours. I mean, sometimes I play tunes in the background or check twitter, but I need "real" breaks. I should get away from the computer, or even away from the house. I've lost all imagination for that kind of thing. I used to be really good at finding cool things to do to repair my brain, but these days, I spend as much time as possible just being boring.

Maybe later, I'll write a blog about people smootching or someone making a terrible choice. It's fun to poke around in the lives of characters. I like the little things that make them who they are, even if who they are isn't someone nice. There's usually some small part of me in my stories. It's fun creating something personal, even if other people think it's not.

Wait. Was that passive aggressive?

Okay, back to writing about things for work...

...I'm out of tea. I should make more. Holy crap! It's already lunchtime. I'll put on a pot of rice and stir in some ketchup while the tea is cooling.

So yeah, blog. Now I'm stuffed and feeling a little sleepy. Allergies have bothered me all this week. I think it's going to be a slow, tedious afternoon. I'll check back in later...

...Wesley Crusher just tweeted about how awesome songs from the 80's are. He sure does love 80's music. Oh, and that comic book writer just tweeted something about eating a steak so rare its heart still spews fountains of blood. He's so zany and shocking. Yawn.

Oh well. Back to work.

Whoops. I ate rice with mustard AND ketchup without blogging about it. That was kind of slack. I'll try to do better. The sun's going down, but it's still hot. I've got a fan in the window, but so far, it's not doing much.

I think I should shave and crank some tunes. I've been on an Elvis/Roy Orbison kick lately, but I'm kind of tired of all that. Maybe I'll put on some Ice Cube and Clarence Carter. Why do I always shave so late in the day? It's weird. I need new razors. Mine are dull. Maybe I'll grow my beard out.

Wow. I'm out of tea again. I've gone through so much water and tea today. It's crazy!

I just tweeted about being out of tea because I thought it was too insignificant to send out a mass email about, but too important to keep to myself. I guess I'm blogging about it, too. That pretty much covers all the bases. Aren't you glad you came by my blog to get a glimpse into my life?

I should go to bed, but I have insomnia. My friends are all getting back from exciting evenings on the town. They're signing onto chat applications and ignoring me. Oh, wait! I've got a live one. I'm gonna go chat for a bit. I might post some clever tweets, too.

My friend went to bed after we chatted for an hour about whether it's okay to fart during sex. It's late and I'm beat. I would go to bed, but I still can't sleep. I think I'll look for deals on Macs, even though I can't afford a new computer. I'm too brain dead to do anything else.

Gee, this day has been WILD. I didn't get as much writing done as I would've liked, but I kind of dig this new blogging style. It's filled with so many possibilities. Maybe I'll write another one like this tomorrow. Or I could just copy and paste this one, since all my days are all pretty much like this.

Anywho. I'm going to try to sleep for a few hours.

Goodnight, Blog.

Love,

Douglas

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...And that, dear ones, is the reason I don't write those kinds of blogs. There are only so many fascinating insights I can pull from the gold mine that is my life. I sometimes post about dreams and personal reflections here, but it's far from the staple of my blogging life. If I knew how to weave the thread of my autobiography in a way that didn't make it a sleep aid, I'd pay tribute to myself a million times over, but alas, I'm not that guy.

I rarely do anything that would interest others and when I do, it's never interesting to me. I could write about film and video shoots, the wildlife I see, or trips to big cities, but those are exactly the things that exhaust me. It exhausts me just thinking about them. Fiction is more exciting for me. It's a mistake to dismiss fiction as detached and impersonal. Fiction requires the writer to make difficult choices and feel empathy for characters he'd be afraid to know. It forces the writer to face pain, joy, bittersweet remembrance, and hope.

Sometimes my life is like that, too, but on those occasions, it's something I want to keep for myself. Writing about it spoils the magic. You're better off imagining what's in my pants than having me provide the description. Trust me. Turning one's life into a literary topic erodes all the things that make it special. Real life is fun to live out, but it rarely has the makings of a good read. Those mundane moments are better left off the blogs.

Besides, that's what Twitter's for.

In Dreams

I had a dream last night that I was working on a farm for a guy who hired a hot girl to do basically nothing because he wanted to get in her pants. After sundown, he drove us out to where we were staying. I had a little house and she had a shack with no power. The boss lingered for a bit, hoping the girl would change her mind about staying out there, but finally headed back home to his wife.

I knew the girl didn't have a bed, so I told her she could crash at my place if she wanted. She didn't seem interested, but followed me across the field to my house anyway. I offered her the couch or the bed in the next room, but she didn't answer. Instead, she poured some coke out on my desk and did a few lines. After that, she went from despondent to bored. She had been high all day and I'd not noticed.

She sat beside me on the bed and told me I could sleep with her if I paid her. Then, she kind of gave up on the idea of doing it for money and started taking her clothes off. She was beautiful and sad. We made love in the dark and then fell asleep. I think she only did it because she wanted to sleep on the nicer bed.

The next morning, she stayed at the house while I went to work. Late in the morning, I called her. She told me she didn't want to use drugs anymore and was thinking about going home. I was worried she wouldn't be there when I got back, but didn't say anything to stop her. I went back to work with a sick feeling in my stomach.

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Dreams like this really bother me.

Shades on the Shopping List

I had this dream the other night where...

A cute girl named Krystal was signing me up for a cash prize drawing. One condition of the drawing was that you had to tell what the first thing you were going to buy with the prize money was before entering the drawing.

I had just flown into Los Angeles and forgotten my shades, so I told her the first thing I'd buy was a pair of sunglasses. She smiled at that and finished up the form, qualifying me for the drawing. I can't remember who asked who, but since it was my dream, I'm going to guess she was the one who asked if I'd like to go out later. I said "yeah," and was feeling pretty good about things from that point on.

Krystal walked with me into a meeting, already in progress, where two of my friends were asking a man and woman for lots of money to produce a movie. The potential financiers were both dressed in navy blue, the woman in her power suit and the man in a business suit, his chiseled face set with skepticism behind designer frames. I breezed into the room, leaning in to take something from the candy dish in the middle of the table. Then, I dropped into a chair at the far end of the table, listening to the meeting wrap up.

My friends talked about how much they believed in their project and how they would find a way to get the movie made no matter what. I stared at the ceiling, trying to think about something else while the woman assured my friends that theirs was a worthy project and the film's message was very moving and powerful. Then the guy in the suit shook his head, talking about logistics and movies being a high-risk investment. Then he made some comment, apparently including me and Krystal, something about how we didn't know enough people to get the film made properly. "There are only four of you."

I swiveled around in my chair and laughed in his face. He was so serious. "Buddy, if there are only four like us, then the world's in trouble." I stood up and nodded to the lady in the power suit. She was kind of pretty for a woman old enough to be my mother.

Me and my pals walked out of the meeting. Krystal gave me a big smile as our shoulders brushed against each other.

...and I'm still not entirely sure what the dream was about. I'm just glad I was cavalier, ate some candy, and got the girl.

FedEx, will you marry me?

So, I ordered this thing I need for work and was a little annoyed that the company I ordered from requires someone sign for delivery and they only offer cheap shipping through FedEx. But I figured I'd suck it up and try to be a good sport. So after processing my order and shipping it out, the company sent me an email with a tracking number.

I entered the information at FedEx's website and was surprised to see they expected the delivery date to be Friday. So on Friday, I stayed home so I could sign for the package. I checked the tracking info again that morning and it showed the package had gone on the delivery truck. I rubbed my hands with a creepy look in my eyes and said "goodie," or something like that.

Then, the trouble started.

I waited around all morning, catching up on email and downloading some Three-Six Mafia missing from my collection. Around lunch time, I went to the FedEx site to see that the tracking info had been updated again with the message: "can't locate recipient."

Considering this is a pretty key part of the service provided by FedEx, I decided to call them and investigate. I navigated the automated phone menus until I reached a robot whose voice was almost indistinguishable from a real human customer service rep. She confirmed that my address was correctly listed on the package, put me on hold, checked the delivery status, and returned to tell me the driver had never put the package on the truck because he didn't know how to find my address.

My eyes rolled over and over in the back of my head like the wheels of a slot machine. UPS, Mapquest, Google Maps, and "crazy stalker lady" are all able to find my house without any trouble. I have even heard rumors that since their merger with Kinkos, FedEx has access to computers...and yet...

Their drivers don't know how to use Google or can't be bothered with the trouble of consulting--oh, I don't know--a map of the area before heading out for a day of driving around on the company's dime listening to the classic rock station. Isn't finding places an important part of a delivery man's job? I'm perfectly willing to unload the stuff when it comes. He can stay in the truck, cranking the AC. I just want the items I ordered. Please, FedEx...can I have my stuff when you guys get done playing box hockey with it at the warehouse? I can link you to my address on Google Maps if it helps. Of course, that's assuming your drivers can read. I know it's asking a lot.

Sigh. I'll stop ranting now. I promise.

We'll see if the saga continues when I do this again on Monday.

For now, I'm off to try salvaging a half-day's work...

Complaining

I'm tired and can't see the eclipse for all the clouds rolling in. That would perhaps be an interesting metaphor if there wasn't an actual eclipse tonight.

My calcium is low and potassium high. I'd rather not know about my blood pressure. I'm crumbling under stress, broke, and out of good ideas. The skin on my fingers is peeling and they hurt too much to indulge in an hour of what I describe as guitar playing.

My eyes are exhausted from a strict diet of non-fiction. My head hurts for reasons I can't pin down. I haven't been getting enough sunlight.

I'm drinking a lot of water and it tastes boring.

Sadly, I'm not experiencing the usual joy I get from a bit of good-natured complaining. Maybe it hasn't been all that good-natured, lately. Consequently, that's another of my complaints.

My laundry is caught up. I only have a few dirty dishes. I got a pretty good haircut this week. There are plenty of groceries in my cupboard. I even smell good at this particular moment. I guess the word for it all is "w00t-w00t!"

But I don't feel "w00t-w00t," inside. I'm not sure I ever have. To be perfectly honest, I don't have any idea what "w00t-w00t" means.

I blog a lot when I'm in a complaining mood and post very little of it. The process is cathartic, but after rattling off a few pages, I feel more run down than when I started. Then it's time to get a few hours of worthless sleep. My flood of words--some of them quite buoyant and entertaining, mind you--never seem worth revisiting when I wake to the next day of complaints.

It could be depression, but I'm the last person who should be spouting off amateur medical diagnoses.

I used to post things pretty willy-nilly. If I wrote something particularly good, I'd tuck it away in a folder somewhere, as to not sully it by tossing it on the world wide waste heap. Everything else, I'd pin up for everyone to thumb their noses at. I figured, "What's the worst that could happen? People take a glance and correctly determine it isn't worth their time to read?"

Now, I don't feel like posting at all. I don't trash much of what I write, but I might as well for all the good it's doing. I'm so hard up for cash, I can't even afford to run it through the printer. I guess it truly is "only worth the paper it's printed on." I'm not so much embarrassed by these pointless diatribes. It's just that every word is a painful reminder of time I should've spent making something of myself.

You're right.

Now, I'm just being self-pitying.

No. Not really. Apathetic, maybe. I think "bitter" would be too strong a word.

But I'm not going to get into a semantic argument with myself. It's neither the time nor the place (though, in other post I've argued blogs are exactly the right place for such bullshit and defended the mantra that there is no time like the present...though I believe I was writing about the contributions I could make to humanity's gene pool). However, we don't need to revisit these platitudes at the present.

Complaints are usually not worth anyone's time--unless, of course, you have a professional obligation to give them a polite listen before dismissing them. But they are a symptom, inevitably leading to the question, "What's your deal, bro?"

I could offer my stock answer that I need a little cash and a bit of the jet setting lifestyle I could grow accustomed to, but those are just band-aids to cover up the real problems. Not that I'm ripping up checks or turning down invitations to Victoria Secret parties. No, the real problem lies somewhere in my general incompetence, social anxieties, and failure to effectively turn my hopes and dreams into concrete success.

The yes-men I surround myself with have complimented me for years on my considerable talents. Yet, as they can't offer a shred of proof to confirm my athleticism in the bedroom, I consider their glad-handing to be overzealous hyperbole. Love is truly blind, but it doesn't pay the bills.

But back to the eclipse, I was trying to glimpse tonight...

Maybe the point of observing a lunar eclipse is in not seeing the moon. I mean, you're not supposed to see the moon if the light of the sun is completely blotted out, right? Everything is supposed to be bleak and dark.

Yet, I just went outside and could see the shadow moving. A crescent of moonlight has started shining down through the clouds. Things are looking a little brighter. Maybe the real magic of an eclipse is discovered only when the light comes back.

Now, there's a metaphor.

The point is, simple things matter. Keeping yourself involved in the lives of the people you care about, having a little income, and taking care of basic needs are all important. If dreams are a distraction instead of a motivation to help you make your life complete, it's time to get new dreams.

So, yeah. That's the answer. I need some new dreams.

I think.

Sheesh. I feel more run down than when I started this thing.

But, hey. I'm not complaining.