Ninety Days 01 (Intro)

This video is horrible. Horrible quality, horrible pacing, horrible plot, and just bad direction overall. I'm so sorry. I will try to do better (I promise). Transcript at the end of this post.

Schedule of Video/Blog Posts:

• Monday: Thoughts & Things / My Guitar Can't Weep
• Tuesday: eDave (internet commerce)
• Wednesday: Mittwoch (meine deutsche Sprache Fortschritt)
• Thursday: New Art Thursday / How to get a job in comics.
• Friday: Free Fiction Friday / Novel Writing for Lazy Bums
• Saturday: X Paper Cranes / Motorcycle Madness!
• Sunday: Movie Updates

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Video Transcript:

Hi everybody. Dave [here].
As I get closer and closer to 40 - I'm not there yet, but I'm getting there - I'm realizing that I'm on the wrong path.
Everything in my life points to a total disatisfaction with where I am, and for the last ten years or so, all I've done is whine about it, and wallow in it.
Yesterday, I was cleaning my bathroom, and it was overdue. I mean, it was disgusting, and something in me broke, and I went to clean the bathroom.
I-I was in there for awhile, scrubbing away. All of the sudden, I wasn't thinking about what I was scrubbing, I wasn't thinking about what I had to do next, I wasn't thinking about my life, I wasn't thinking about the girl, I wasn't thinking about anything. I wasn't thinking about the quivering mess. I just was. Am.
I came out of it with this... I don't know what the word is (epiphany?). I came out of it with this certainty that I'm not doing right by myself. I'm wasting my life. So I decided that in the course of the next 90 days, I'm going to take a handful of goals, and I'm going to accomplish them.
And I'm going to videotape that, because, 1) I need to be accountable to somebody, and I have friends (and I trust them), but having the screen and the camera there, in between us, makes it easier for me to step up to this. 2) I'm going to do a lot - a lot - in three months, and maybe when I'm done, someone will want to know how I did it. This is a record.
So, so what I'm going to do.
In the ten years or more that I've been goalsetting, I've been sitting on my ass, in my filth, pretending that I was going to do something more - and not doing it. I made elaborate plans, and I never did - I didn't follow through with hardly anything.
So I took all took all of those goals, all of these plans, all of these pages and pages and pages of notes and I condensed it down to just 10 things.
Ten things that I'm going to accomplish in the next 90 days.

1. The first is, I'm going to lose 30 pounds.
2. I'm going to learn to play the guitar... better (I'm not that good).
3. I'm going to start a web business.
4. Ich werde deutscher Spreche lernen.
5. I'm going to build a portfolio, and I'm going to get a job penciling comics.
6. And I'm going to write a novel.
7. I'm going to fold 1,000 paper cranes. Because.
8. I'm going to buy a motorcycle.
9. I'm going to create a good movie with my friends.
10. And I'm going to go raw vegan. I was much healthier, and I felt better when I was raw, when I was vegan.

I'm going to post again tomorrow, and the day after that and the day after that - for 90 days. And after that, I don't know what I'm going to do.
There's a link to my blog, below. And on that blog, you'll find a transcript of this video, and a schedule of when I'm going to post about which of these goals.
That way, if you're interested at all, you can follow me.
I think that's it.
Thanks for watching.
Music: Julandrew "Crazy As" via Jamendo.com (viva Creative Commons)
the Game.

Man-Up

I've been remiss in my manly duties of late.

I often carry cash in my pocket, but it is seldom that I can afford to spend it. I've usually looked out for myself, rather than those around me, be they women, friends or strangers. I can cook eggs, which is something; but I don't eat them, so there's that. I have all but given up on the television, but I don't really make things any more.

I want to make a bookshelf (and I want to put a secret door in it), but I've never made a rock wall or a table or tuition money. I've never rebuilt an engine or a watch. I've never had a fortune that needed rebuilding either.

There's no one looking for my kind of expertise. I've squandered my know-how, and so it will not survive my passing. So I am no longer immortal.

But I can speak to dogs, and there is kung-fu living deep inside me somewhere. I know how to sneak a look at cleavage, and I don't really care if I get busted every once in awhile. I can be good at my job - though I often am not. I go to work but have no avocation, I rarely pay more than lip service to my hobby, and I have no real career. I'm very good getting a new job if I don't like this one. Too good, I think.

I have learned to look you up and down and figure some things out. Before you say a word, I made you. Suitcase, watch, posture. I infer.

A man owns up. This is why Mark McGwire is not a man. And neither am I. I hate this. I often fail to grasp my mistakes and I seldom lay claim to who I am and what I was when I do not like them. Too often I assume no one has noticed my mistakes and I let them pass.

I love the human body. The revelation of nakedness. The sight of the pale breast, the physics of the human skeleton, the alternating current of flesh. I am thrilled by the snatch, the wrist, the sight of a bare shoulder. I like the crease of a bent knee. I often feel that thrum that only a man can feel - but I seldom act on it.

I seldom do the dishes, though I look out for children. They stand behind me. And I do know how to bust balls.

I have had liquor enough in my life that I no longer need sound breathless, clueless, or obtuse when I order a drink. I don't need to think. I order Scotch or something on tap.

Never the Sauvignon Blanc.

I shy from the coming of age, though it should free me. I shied away from the upper hand and I fear now I won't know when to step aside.

Maybe I never will, but I figure I could knock someone, somehwere on their ass if I had to.

I often rely on rationalizations or explanations, winnowing winnowing winnowing until the truth is humbly categorized, intellectualized, written off with an explanation. I am lost in the great sweeping maw of humanity. It's what makes me a liberal - but not a very good one.

I do get the door without thinking. And I have stopped traffic when I needed to.

I question belief and while I don't embrace ambiguity, I accept it. I revisit my beliefs frequently. This is why I am a conservative - though not a very good one.

I don't know much about tools, though I know all too well how to lose an afternoon drinking, playing Grand Theft Auto, driving around aimlessly or shooting pool. God I miss pool.

I could lose a month too.

I don't listen very well, which means I don't argue very well. I spit opinion, and I hate that.

I love being alone, actually. I sleep.

I no longer stand watch though. I have not interrupted trouble in some time. I am no longer a state policeman or a poet, when I should be both of them.

I do loving driving alone, however.

I had style a decade ago. Now I feel contrived, with no set rules.

I understand the basic mechanics of the planet, but I cannot look up at the sun with squinted eye and tell you the time of day. I can no longer readily discern north, where to find food or where fish run. I understand electricity better than most, but the internal combustion engine is a mystery to me. The mechanics of flight make sense, but a pitcher's ERA is like Greek to me.

I don't know everything, but I too often try. I feel threatened by what other men know.

I can tell you I was wrong. I did wrong, and that I planned to. But I avoid the conversation at all cost. I apologize too readily, just to put an end to bickering.

I do not wither at the thought of dancing, but I avoid it.

I watch. Standing on a street corner watching stuff. Considering. But someone had to teach me this - to be quiet, to cipher, to watch. To be like a zoo animal, captive and free. But too often, I think you know what I'm thinking, or who you think I am, or what I may do next.

This is personalized, but nonetheless plagiarized blatantly from Esquire Magazine's "What is a Man."

Where are my Building Blocks?

I want to change the world.

I want to change the world because I don't like the world I live in. I think the world can be changed; it should be changed. And I've read a lot about changing yourself first, doing little things to do great things, and all of that - but I've never done it. I live in a small (for the U.S.) 12' x 24' space and I watch Lost and play video games and write role-playing game scenarios that I may never run (I'm a pen-and-paper gamer).

So I'm looking at this list of 33 innovation tips / rules for design / hints for making the world better. And I'm trying to pick one to start with. One to focus on.

It is very difficult for me to choose one of these Secrets of Social Innovation as my favorite. Coming at the list "cold," it isn't a very easy group of concepts to get my head around. My brain wants them all to line up in a nice row and look pretty; but they don't. Coming from different authors, from different notions of what has to be done, from different perspectives - at least they're grouped nicely.

But I'm over analyzing this thing; I'll take each one at face value.

The most obvious choices, based on my background and experience, would be Think Creatively, Think and Act Like a Child, Think and Act BIG, and Make it Inexpensive.

Think Creatively is the one that draws the most on my soul. As an artist, I feel like it's my lot in life to stand here on this blank canvas and use whatever I can find lying around to create some new thing. I've never applied that to anything other than comic book art and role-playing games before. It feels like a challenge.

The Agent of Change standing behind me, goading me to prove myself. Do something, anything, other than drawing pictures no one will see and writing games no one will play. Get up go out and create something. And I hit my first roadblock.

What can I create? What can I do? How the hell am I going to change anything?

I have an idea forming in my rotten little mind. I know it's brilliant. I know it has the potential to be amazing. I know I can reach a million people who might otherwise never give this a second glance. I think I can do it fairly cheap, I think I can do it right, I even think it's something I can follow through on and maintain well into my golden years if necessary. I just don't know the details of what it is. I don't even know if I'm even the guy who should be doing it. Screw it. Think and Act BIG, right?

It's my ball, I'll run with it. I might be over-stepping the original scope of this post; but eff that. It's time to let the Glorious Monster off his chain. Time to do some damage!

You want me to think creatively? Think and Act Big, unfettered and unhindered like the mind of a Child? You got it.

What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today.

Like most people, I usually watch movies and television shows I've already seen because I want to recapture some of what I felt the first (or 42nd) time I watched them; and I'm sure there was some of that when I decided to sit down to Groundhog Day last night for the god-knows-how-many'th time. But I read somewhere that - and I didn't bother to check on the veracity of this - the French view this film as a cinematic masterpiece of deep psychological meaning.

I always just thought it was funny.

Bill Murray was in great form, and everyone else in the cast (mostly delivering the same scene over and over again) did a wonderful job. Even Andie MacDowell.

I have friends who can't stand the movie because of the repetition; but I just think they're focusing on the wrong part of the film. It got 96% at Rotten Tomatoes. The movies I enjoy hardly ever get over 40% (and before you ask, no - it's not my intention to compare Pandorum or Blankman or even Lebowski to Groundhog Day - I know they're apples and coconuts). Pandorum got 32%, I enjoyed the hell out of that one. Inglorious Basterds only got 88% and that was a hell of a fun flick (did you know there was an Inglorious BastArds made in 1977? Me either). The Big Lebowski only got 78%? And Blankman with a paltry 13% (okay, yeah - I can see that).

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An amazing delivery.

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So I decided to try to watch the movie again with my brain switched on for a change. It makes me apprehensive to admit that I had to make the distinction; but there you go.

Okay. Spoilers Ahead!

The biggest thing I got out of it had more to do with the sameness of our (and by our I mean you and me and people in the western world in general) day-to-day grind. Phil Connor (Murray) doesn't have to be experiencing some magical time-loop - or, at least we don't. He could just be waking up to the banality of the daily grind. It's funnier in the movie - and easier to explain, strangely enough - to throw in the magic; but we all go through what Phil had to go through (to some degree) every day. Our minds are just really good at deleting the repetitive crap so we don't steal the groundhog and try to drive a truck into the ravine.

That deletion-machine aspect of our brains keeps us sane; but it's one of the reasons time seems to "speed up" the older we get. When time feels like it's getting away from us, when the month's already almost over (never mind the month, where's the Year gone?), no matter the lies we tell ourselves, we just aren't doing enough that's new and different every day. There's not enough going on for our minds to hold onto, so it all gets deleted and the spaces in between the good stuff seem shorter and shorter.

I used to think this was because of the relative comparison to the lengths of our lives (a year to a four year old is one quarter of his whole life; but to a 24 year old, considerably less so). I just don' t think that any longer.

When I was a kid, everything was "the first," or near enough to it that I was still working out what it was, what it meant, how it worked. It was all new and exciting and beautiful and wonderful and awesome. But as I get older, I find myself doing the same things every day.

Wake up later than I meant to, splash some water on my face, brush my teeth, go for a walk, exercise, clean-up, eat something, write (or come up with some excuse not to write), eat something else, get dressed, bike to work, change into work clothes, work, eat again, bike home, look at the internet, read a book, watch something on tv, go to bed later than I meant to. Wake up later than I meant to, splash some water on my face, brush my teeth, go for a walk, exercise, clean-up, eat... ad nauseum

Even when you throw in days off and trips out of town, they're either the same days off I had last week or the same trips I took last year, or - on those rare occasions - they're something different. Something to anchor to. Something memorable. Something that won't get deleted, maybe.

I imagine I'm not alone in this. Maybe my friends dislike the film because it feels truer than any of us would like to think?

So Phil Connors, in the movie, is given this gift, really. He gets the chance to see the rut for what it is. At first he runs wild with it (my first inclination when it occurs to me how dull and repetitive I've allowed my life to get), then he slowly succumbs to depression when he realizes he can't escape his fate, and finally stops trying to get out of the cycle and just starts living - taking an interest in the lives of the people around him, doing what he can to help those he can help (including himself) and (I imagine) comforting those he cannot.

So I feel a little bit weird right now. "You might be a redneck if an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger ever changed your life." What about Groundhog Day?

I think all these changes I've been making (and most of them for the better) have all been about getting out of this boring fucking repetitive bullshit "comfort zone" of a holding pattern my life has been in for the last decade or longer. I don't know if I have the courage to do more, though. The life I want to live is not a reasonable life. Deep inside this socially retarded cubicle monkey lurks the heart of a very unreasonable man.

Some part of me always wanted so desperately to take it to heart when my teachers told me to "seize the day," when my Lit teacher read Leaves of Grass, when "Gather ye rosebuds" or "Collige, virgo, rosas" (Gather, girl, the roses) were explained. I wanted to scream my name from the rooftop, or over the P.A. even. I wanted to tell every beautiful girl how amazing they were, every hero how they touched me, tell my parents thanks. I wanted to live a life of meaning and culture and joy and passion. But in the end, I was afraid.

I locked that glorious monster away deep inside me. He got out every once in a while. But as time goes on, as my days begin to melt into one another he grows smaller, weaker. The bars of his cage are almost too strong for him now.

I don't have the luxury of knowing that no one will remember what an ass I make of myself today if I try something new and fall on my face. But I do know that tomorrow is just going to be another today. Same shit on the radio, same people speaking the same meaningless garbage day-in-day-out.

Fuck it. I'm tired of screwing around here - killing myself every day with this trivial horse shit. I'm not ready, yet to just quite my job and blindly chase my passions without a plan; but the only way I'm going to get anything out of this same stupid day that keeps repeating itself over and over and over again is to do something with it.

I'm tired of being afraid all the time. I'm tired of wishing I'd said or done or even tried something. I'm tired of getting by; and I'm fucking tired of keeping this beautiful bastard locked up inside me.

Also,

I think I'm going to get into a lot of trouble.