The Cost of Friendship

Alex is my #1 friend.

I say this because Alex is listed first in my Blackberry address book. I do not know any Aarons or Abbeys, so Alex appears first in the list.

This is important to know because my Blackberry accidentally calls Alex all the time.

Here is how it happens - I wear my Blackberry on my belt thanks to this handy dandy belt clip. And every once in awhile, my belly decides to seep over my belt and rest oh so gently on some of the Blackberry buttons, which in turn tell the Blackberry to start calling people.

I do not know when this happens, but I do know that Alex gets called more than anyone else because he is the first person in my address book. If a certain button is pressed three times in a row, the Blackberry goes "{click} Open Address Book. {click} Make Call. {click} Call this person."

And since my belly does not often scroll down the list in the address book... BOOM! Alex gets a call.

Today I had the distinct pleasure of eating a very large Tex-Mex meal and then shortly afterwords calling Alex and apologizing for my phone repeatedly calling him and sharing with him the joy of the gurgling sound my stomach makes when it meets up with combo fajitas.

"I am sorry my phone does this, Alex," I said. "And I don't want to make you feel bad because I only call you when I am gaining weight. Try to think of this in a positive way. You are my belly buddy. And to celebrate our chubby-wubby friendship, I am going home and doing some sit ups for a few hours."

So this whole post is a long way of letting the world know what kind of torture I put my friends, especially long-suffering ones like Alex, through.

That and the fact that during our conversation today, Alex said, "You should blog about this."

Being a Member Has Its Rewards

I am about to leave for a trip to Atlanta and may not be near the internet for awhile.

But before I leave, I am happy to share some webisodes written and directed by my fellow Dallas Screenwriters Association Board member, Michael Shriro.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

How Can It Get Closer When It Doesn't Move?

Reason #426,223,789 why Tina Fey is awesome!

My Cultural Heritage

Not a day goes by when someone doesn't stop me and ask, "Excuse me, sir, but how did you get so funky?" And then I am asked to demonstrate how to bust a move.

This usually ends with a round of applause, some gratuitous "whoop whoop"ing and maybe a few choice words that end in -izzle. Fo' reals, ya'all.

The sad truth of the matter is this - I did not do anything to learn how to be funky, how to perfect the flow of my verse, or how to drop a beat. All of these are just a product of my rich cultural heritage.

Check it out, ya'alls:



It cannot get better than that. I am weeping from the pure funkatude and funkadelic funkyness of it. THIS is my cultural heritage. In fact, I am pretty sure I am related to all of these people. We get together, all of us homies in our hood, and we immediately fall into a nice little groove.

And this is a beautiful thing. Fo' reals, ya'all.

Shout out to my home slice Alex for sending me this video.

David Foster Wallace 1962 - 2008

Reading, and by this I mean serious reading, has become a luxury. If the book is really entertaining, you know there will be a movie or television show made out of it, so, seriously, why bother? Books take time to read and very often the time spent reading can be used entertaining yourself in some other way¹. With the emails and the text messages and the (dare I say it) blog entries², it has become increasingly difficult for someone who considers him or herself a reader³ to sit down with a nice fat juicy book with wild digressions and insightful rambles and thoroughly entertaining prose.

There is a strange connection between writers and readers, because you cannot lie on the page. Words leak out of writers in a way that they cannot fully control and the words are absorbed by the readers in a way that can be described as deeply intimate. This is why people obsess over books in a way they rarely do over other things. ⁴

I really love David Foster Wallace's books. He had something to say about who we are and where we are going as a culture. His books are fun and entertaining and baffling and frustrating and wonderful. He adamantly refused to ever produce anything at an eighth grade reading level.⁵

And reading his work helped you feel smarter. Whether it is the detailed analysis of brain chemistry in a footnote of "Infinite Jest," or his brilliant deconstruction of David Letterman's entire shtick in the short story "My Appearance,"⁶ his work inspired me to not only be a better writer, but to be a better reader.

And that is something I have to thank Mr. Wallace for. His work made me want to be better. In his short time in this world, he created works of art above and beyond anything I am sure I could create my entire life. I wanted to be a better reader for him and a better writer in the vain hopes that I could cobble together some words that might someday, maybe, make an impression on him.

Thoughts of loss inevitably become selfish, and my selfish thought is this - I am not going to get more books with the name David Foster Wallace printed on the covers anymore. I won't be able to read what he thinks of the 2024 election. And I will never get to meet him to tell him to his face how much I appreciate what he has done.

I appreciate you and your work, David Foster Wallace.⁷ May you find the peace that eluded you.


Footnotes

¹There is another blog entry idea for the world. "Why do you read?" I tend to read for two main reasons - entertainment and information. Sadly, the whole idea of being entertained is more or less monopolized (in my life at least) by film and television. There are strengths and limitations in each medium, of course. For example, you never have will the distinct pleasure of complaining about Kevin Costner's horrible accent when you merely read "The Adventures of Robin Hood." And why would anyone want to experience the "Adventures of Robin Hood" without complaining about the accents is quite beyond me.

²Yeah, I said it.

³Which I do.

⁴That is another blog entry idea. How people who are obsessive over novels are different from people obsessive over actors, comic books, or movies? Because it is a different kind of obsession - an obsession that quite literally gets under your skin. Words can affect the mind in a way few things can outside of recreational drugs and possibly sharp rocks. I endlessly quote books. A sizable portion of my conversation comes from other people's words.

⁵As someone who writes technical manuals for a living, this whole "eighth grade reading level" is a big bugaboo for me. The original idea came from newspaper marketing departments - newspapers should be readable by the general population and the general population reads at an eighth grade level. I had an editor who lived by this and scratched out every one of my words that broke the three-syllable barrier with the note "eighth grade" next to it. I kept responding with the phrase, "isn't this document supposed to help the person get smarter?" but to no avail. There is nothing quite like being continually asked to dumb it down for this mythical person who just won't get it unless it is dumbed-down.

⁶This is one of my favorite pieces of fiction from David Foster Wallace, and the short story I use to try to get people to read him. It is one thing to hand them a book over a thousand pages written in an eight-point font⁸, but it is something else to hand them a short story about an pill-popping, aging actress going on the Letterman show. When I try to get people to read any of his non-fiction⁹, I show them the book "A Supposedly Fun Thing That I Will Never Do Again" which is a real showcase of his essays.

⁷The whole footnote thing is my way of crudely imitating his writing style. A lot of David Foster Wallace's work is comprised of footnotes. I even want to say in some of his books, there are one or two footnotes that are longer than the chapters they footnote.

⁸This infamously-dense book would be "Infinite Jest."

⁹Which is just as good or better than his fiction.

Love Languages

There is this book out there that is about love languages. It is like those ubiquitous Mars Venus books. It is a book purchased primarily by newlywed wives who give it to newlywed husbands for the purpose of using the book to talk about the relationship.

Of course, what newlywed wives don't realize that their husbands got married so that they would never have to talk about the relationship ever again.

I say this because early in our marriage, I was presented with such a book. With a typical "I-do-not-realize-the-powers-I'm-tampering-with" attitude, I ignored it entirely, explaining that I had a stack of other books that really needed my attention first, especially considering the fact I had no idea if Spider-Man would win or not. I mean, the Green Goblin has a flying glider. How can Spider-Man possibly compete with that?

A few months after being presented with and subsequently ignoring the love languages book, an attractive single lady friend of ours told us how the love languages book totally changed her life. Because this woman was pretty, I feigned interest in the book. Which led to a "why-don't-you-ever-feign-interest-for-me-anymore" discussion with the Mrs.

Which eventually led to us discussing the relationship for a looooooooong time. Which is what the Mrs. wanted in the first place. I could have avoided this situation entirely by just reading the book and discussing it with her waaaay back when she wanted me to.

This, of course, reminds me of the Republican Vice Presidential candidate.

When I read about her, it is like there are two voices in my head and they are speaking two completely different love languages. And because there is not any common ground between these love languages, I cannot make up my mind what I think about her.

Here's an example:

One part of the brain goes, "I am very concerned about her lack of foreign policy experience."

The other part of the brain goes, "Dude. Vikings!"


One part of the brain goes, "In the brief time she has been in the national limelight, there seems to be a lot of inconsistencies between what she says she stands for and how she actually behaves in office."

To which the other part of the brain retorts, "Duuuuuude. Vikings!"


And finally the first part of the brain goes, "Neither political party truly represents your views on the issues, why even consider breaking with your tradition of voting for third party wackos in presidential elections? Especially when your reasons for subverting your principles are trivial bordering on nonsensical?"

The response?

"Duuuuuude. Vikings!"

Coming Fall 2008

Ok, everyone. I've been working on a book entitled 26 Short Screenplays for Independent Filmmakers.

Here is what the cover looks like:



The purpose of the book is to provide a set of tools for independent filmmakers to use to stretch their abilities. Each screenplay focuses on a different area of production, whether it be a car chase scene, a meet cute scene, or even a simple conversation over breakfast.

Each of the short film screenplays is designed to be filmed quickly and on a budget. If you have the cast, and you have the crew, all you need is a script to produce. That is what the book 26 Short Screenplays for Independent Filmmakers provides. And with the screenplays available under the Creative Commons license, any profits you make off of the screenplays in the book are yours to keep.

There is a web site, a blog, and a T-Shirt shop right now (the T-shirts all read, "Of course I'm wearing black. I'm an independent filmmaker.").

The actual book will be available sometime fall 2008 (I'm hoping late September/early October).

Um... Ta-Daaaaaaa!

Because I haven't posted in awhile

Here are some videos.





Big announcement coming soon.

Hey Look! It is me as an Anime character

Thank you Abi Station!

And it looks like Face Your Manga has an avatar creator, too.

And your next vacation will be a guilt trip...

Q: How many Southern Mothers does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Oh, don't mind me, I'm fine here in the dark...

Once the Mrs. was starring in a play cursed with a talentless director. He cast her as a Jewish mother and kept giving her direction like, "Nononono! Be more JEWISH. You know... JEWISH!" And then he would do a move I called "aggressive jazz hands" for emphasis. My wife, being a good actress, imitated this aggressive jazz hands gesture back to the man and asked, "I don't understand. You mean like this?" He responded by mumbling something about compromised artistic vision.

The Mrs. asked me later to help articulate the director's vision. "What does he mean by a Jewish mother?"

To which I responded, "He means a Brooklyn accent accompanied by a manner that makes everyone feel guilty. Because if you say Jewish mother or Chinese mother or Minnesotan mother or Southern mother, it all basically boils down to the same stereotype with a different accent."

I share these stories because of a phone call I received from American Airlines the other day. As I mentioned in this entry, I am a Platinum Club Dadoodie Dude on American Airlines. I am pretty proud of this fact, and I get emails from American Airlines all the time saying, "You know all those national news stories about how we charge passengers extra $25 for checking in luggage? Because you are so important to us, you will be blessed with the privilege of maintaining the status quo. That's right! We won't charge you our extra made up because-we-said-so luggage fee because we are that nice and you are that cool."


Anyway, they called because I am a Platinum Guy, and I used to fly with them all the time, and I haven't flown with them in awhile. They ignored the fact that I flew with them last month to New Mexico, I am flying with them to Chicago this month, and I'm flying with them to Atlanta next month, they just said that I used to fly with them all the time and they wanted to know what they could do to get me to fly with them all the time once again.

I don't like calls like this. And, even though I am fairly loyal to American Airlines, I also have my share of complaints.

But here is the kicker - the telemarketing group that American Airlines uses to call its Platinum Members who don't fly as much as they used to is staffed almost exclusively with older Southern Ladies. So the conversation was like talking with my grandmother about how I haven't come by and visited. Or why haven't I called. Or why there aren't any great-grandchildren.


So instead of getting angry at American Airlines and telling them that, even though I am Platinum and all, I am not the happiest of customers and if a company like Jet Blue flew where I needed to go, I would go there in a heartbeat, I started apologizing for hurting their feelings and telling them that I would do better next time and how can they possibly forgive me for being such a bad person?

Almost as soon as I hung up, I realized what happened and how American Airlines is a genius, yet diabolical, company.

I'm Just Saying the Best People are Libertarian and Like Ron Paul (even though he is not the Libertarian Candidate - Bob Barr is)

I love it when incredibly attractive people share their opinions

Holy Middle Management, Batman!

So I watched The Dark Knight and loved it, for many reasons but primarily because it successfully survived the poor business management style of the parent company.

Like most aspiring screenwriters, I psychoanalyze movie companies the same way I would psychoanalyze a future client. The whole idea is to build a product (i.e. screenplay) that this particular client would want to buy (i.e. give me a truck full of money).

This is one reason why screenwriters often get sidelined into conversation topics like, "What kind of films does Paramount make?" "Where is Universal investing their money this year?" and "How can I get Mark Cuban to give me some of his millions?" They are trying to put the different studios on the proverbial psychiatrists comfy couch and then bilk them for tons of money.

To add to my personal hubris, I have taken some Business Management 101 classes and do some consulting work. So I can pretend I know everything there is to know about large corporations as opposed to BSing like some other screenwriters do.

One of the basic management theories proposed by Hersey and Blanchard is called situational leadership. There are four styles of leadership and you are supposed to use the appropriate style in a given situation. And every time I've heard about this theory in class, I am told, "A common management mistake is to go straight from level 1 - Directing (i.e. micromanagement), to level 4 - Delegating (i.e. complete hands-off)."

Which makes me think of the Batman movies.

See, when I see Warner Brother movies in general and the Batman movies in particular, they seem waver between very this-is-so-corporate to who-the-heck-greenlit this? Allow me to provide some examples.

Tim Burton's Batman - No Tim, you can't cram in a hundred villains who look like characters from old German silent films. Just have Jack Nicholson do everything.

Tim Burton's Batman Returns - What the heck, Tim. You made us money once. Go ahead and have the penguin bite someone's nose and then drive a stupid-looking little Batman toy car. And Batman gets out of the situation by kicking the bottom out of the Batmobile? Sure. Sounds kooky.

Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever - No no no, Joel. You cannot make this into a musical. You can have your flashy costumes and muscled men and choreographed fight sequences and long discussions about, and I air quote, "partners," but pushing it into the arena of camp is strictly off limits.


Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin - What the heck, Joel. You made us money once. Do whatever you want.

Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins - As much as I appreciate your vision, Chris, it sounds very dark. Maybe if you gave Batman a love interest... that might lighten some things up a little, right?

Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight - What the heck, Chris. You made us money once. We trust your judgment and your pitch-black vision of what this film should be. Kill them all.

The way information is organized betrays the bureaucracy behind the information and this is no exception. And to prove that it isn't Batman-centric, look at the Matrix movies also from Warner Brothers. Despite what your local philosophy student might tell you, the first Matrix is a straightforward sci-fi/kung fu/action film that follows a very established formula. It is only after the studio stands back and lets the "director's creative vision" flow forth that things go completely off the rails.

So it says something about Christopher Nolan as a director to have a competent and entertaining product once the training wheels come off and he's given carte blanche to do anything he wants. (The only thing that comes close to indulgent is hiring his brother to do the screenplay, but I'll take Jonathan Nolan over Spider-Man 3's screenwriter/brother Ivan Rami any day of the week). He has effectively broken the Batman self-indulgent-director's-sequel-curse, and for that he should be applauded.

Tales of the Occult - My Encounter with a Tarot Card Reader

To break from the happy happy joyful funtime that is this blog, I have decided to spend a week telling stories of the deranged and disturbed. That’s right, this week is Tales of the Occult here on this blog. Each story of the occult will SHOCK and TERRORIZE if it doesn’t totally BLOW YOUR MIND!

Today’s story – the last story in this series – Encounters with a Tarot Card reader!

I pretty much outgrew the whole Tarot card thing years ago. I sold all of my sets on eBay to help pay for my wedding - including the one designed by Dave McKean that single-handedly paid for my Groom’s cake and about five dozen chocolate-dipped strawberries. (It was a limited 1st edition.)

But we found ourselves at a party one time with a guy I have affectionately nicknamed Mr. McSkuzzy. Mr. McSkuzzy had a deck of Tarot cards and he would sidle up to you and perform free Tarot card readings if you were 1) female and 2) pretty.

I think in some circumstances that Tarot cards can be effective. If you have something on your mind, a problem or interpersonal situation, that you need to clarify and articulate, they provide a great way to do so. They work like Rorschach tests – there is no inherent meaning to the pattern, but it is easy for you to project your own inherent meaning into the mess. They do not predict the future and do not give the person dealing the cards any insight or control over the person for whom the cards are being dealt.

This was apparently news for Mr. McSkuzzy, who seemed to claim that only he truly understood the cards and only he could use the cards to tell you what your problems were and you had to truly open yourself completely and totally to him and his energies for the cards to work.


And he would go from pretty woman to pretty woman, saying things like, “The cards tell me that you have issues with your parents.”

“Wow! It is like they can see right through me!”

“The cards also say you have some credit card debt.”

“It is so true! It is eerie how it is so true!”

“The cards also say you hate your job.”

“Those cards are amazing!”

While watching this I leaned over to the Mrs. And calmly explained what was going on here. “This dude is scamming these women. This is totally ridiculous.”

“I’ll handle it,” said the Mrs.

She turned her head ever so slightly to Mr. McSkuzzy and batted a single eyelash.

BOOOM! Mr. McSkuzzy was right there across the table from her, a carton cloud in the space where he once stood.

“Care to have your cards read, beautiful?”

“Sure.”

“Whoa. It looks like you got The Wheel. You must have a lot of credit card debt, huh?”


“No. We’re pretty responsible with our money. In fact, our investment portfolio is doing very well.”

“Are you sure? Because the cards say financial problems.”

“They may say that, but our brokers say something else.”

“Yes. Um…. Hurm… Looks like your next card is the Empress. You must have some mother issues.”


“I have a mother, if that is what you mean. No, we get along fine. In fact, we’re going shopping together this weekend.”

“Are you really focusing on the cards? I mean really focusing and opening yourself up to the energies here?”

“I’m trying, sure.”

“Because it doesn’t work if you don’t believe.”

“You mean, like a pyramid scheme?”

And with that he picked up his cards and walked away, leaving the score Mister McSkuzzy 0, The Mrs. 1.


Duh dah DAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Your mind is blown. Your nerves are shocked and all of your senses are now terrorized! And now we have concluded our series - Tales of the Occult!

Tales of the Occult - My Encounter with Teenage Witchcraft

To break from the happy happy joyful funtime that is this blog, I have decided to spend a week telling stories of the deranged and disturbed. That’s right, this week is Tales of the Occult here on this blog. Each story of the occult will SHOCK and TERRORIZE if it doesn’t totally BLOW YOUR MIND!

Today’s story – MORE Witchcraft!

I managed a video store when the movie The Craft came out. For those of you who have not seen the film, it was made by and for pierce-me-up teenage goth girls who wear black lipstick and leather and practice witchcraft.


Frankly, these people baffle me because I get them mixed up with all the different fashionable special interest groups. For some reason, I link teenage witches with groups like PETA, which believes that no animal should be harmed ever under any circumstances. This would seem contradictory to someone who worships pagan gods – gods that regularly demanded the blood sacrifice of animals. But I am not one to judge.

I also associate teenage goths with people who regularly glorify the so-spiritual-and-tuned-to-the-land-that-they-were-contacted-by-aliens Native American cultures - cultures that routinely kept women away from such “male-only” activities like reading. The fact that black-lipsticked suburban girls worshipped a culture that would have made them do nothing but plow a field and bear children may seem strange and ridiculous, but it takes all types.

Anyway, back to the video store. When the movie The Craft came out, flocks of teenage girls would come to the video store, pick the tape of the shelf, and gently caress it, cooing words like, “It is so real. So true.”

So I decided to watch the movie. Big mistake on my part.


For those of you who haven’t seen The Craft, it is about teenage witches who prance around and do spells and stuff together. They worship a being called Mamon who they describe as “the football field that God and the Devil play on.” This means they worship Astroturf. They have parties where instead of doing their hair and nails together, they practice magic that does their hair and nails for them. One of them turns her hair blonde with the power of magic, which led me to hope that the next one would accidentally turn her hair pink and then summon the Teen Angel from Grease. The Teen Angel would sing a song and they would go back to high school after dropping out of the Hogwarts School of Beauty. Sadly this does not happen.


What does happen is that the most obviously insane person in the group asks their St. Mamon of Astroturf for all the powers of the universe. And Mamon gives her all of this power.


This is the point where the movie completely loses me, because I do not believe anyone should worship any being that is dumber than a box of rocks. Mamon may be all powerful as Astroturf and yadda yadda, but he is an exceedingly poor judge of character. In fact, I am quite sure all of the other pagan gods actively mock Mamon for being so stupid.

“You would probably give all of your power to Eddie Murphy so he can make more movies where he plays all of the characters, you are that dumb!” they would say. And all Mamon could do is put on heavy mascara and weep a little, so that the mascara would run all over his pale goth-like cheek.

Seriously, if there is a guy on the side of the road wearing a tinfoil hat and babbling on and on about “gamma rays from Venus,” would you give him first strike nuclear capabilities? Of course not, but this is exactly what Mamon does.


And the rest of the movie consists of the obviously crazy insane, but now all-powerful witch wreaking havoc while the other witches try to stop her. Or something like that. Maybe there is a prom and some sisterhood of magic traveling pants in there somewhere, I don’t know.

Anyway, after actually watching the movie I began to try to talk to these teenage goths in the store about what a waste of time the whole thing was. Their response was to hate me for it. They would cradle the little video tapes in their arms, protecting these tapes from the horrible horrible video store manager who watched the movie and thought it was stupid.

Maybe they cursed me. Maybe they cursed my video store. Maybe they even CURSED THIS BLOG! I will never know because I never saw them again.

Duh dah DAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Your mind is blown. Your nerves are shocked and all of your senses are now terrorized! Join us next time for the final Tales of the Occult!

Tales of the Occult - My Encounter with a Wiccan

To break from the happy happy joyful funtime that is this blog, I have decided to spend a week telling stories of the deranged and disturbed. That’s right, this week is Tales of the Occult here on this blog. Each story of the occult will SHOCK and TERRORIZE if it doesn’t totally BLOW YOUR MIND!

Today’s story - encounters with a Wiccan!


One of the most important lessons I learned about managing a video store is this – No matter how brain dead you might find that person behind the counter to be, the manager turned away about fifty people who were way way worse.

I interviewed people all the time, and not very many of them had what you would call social skills. One such fellow applied for the incredibly important position of assistant manager trainee.

I began my speech, “The assistant manager trainee position is a very important position, not to be taken lightly. There is a lot of responsibility and hard work. It is an hourly wage, but can lead to a salaried position and a long-term career with our company.”

“I will need certain days off.”

“That is fine. We keep our schedules flexible. There has to be a manager on duty at all times. The store manager sets his or her hours first, then the assistant manager. The assistant manager trainee has to fill in all of the gaps, but the longer you work here the more we can accommodate your schedule.”

“It is for religious holidays.”


“That’s fine. What I usually ask when writing up the schedule is to give me at least two weeks notice and I will write your day off into the schedule. If you don’t give me two weeks notice, it will be up to you to get someone else to cover your shift. And potentially in your case, that someone should be either the manager or the assistant manager.”

“My holidays are based on cycles of the moon.”

“No problem. Just give me the two weeks notice when you need the days off. Now about the employee discount-“

“Don’t you want to know what my religion is?”

“Not really. That is your business. Now, about the employee discount-“

“I’m a Wiccan.”

“That’s nice. Now, part of the job is knowing movies so you can sell them to customers.”


“Do you know what it means to be a Wiccan?”

“No. We offer a decent benefits package with health and dental in it.”

“There are other words for what I do, but they have negative connotations.”

“Good to hear. We inventory our films by genre and then alphabetically within a specific genre.”

“I practice witchcraft.”

“Bully for you. We have the ability to special order films if they aren’t in stock.

“Doesn’t that scare you a little?”

“We get all types here. Now about our layaway program….”

Needless to say, magical WitchBoy did not get the job. Maybe he cursed me. Maybe he cursed my video store. Maybe he even CURSED THIS BLOG! I will never know because I never saw him again.


Duh dah DAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Your mind is blown. Your nerves are shocked and all of your senses are now terrorized! Join us next time for more Tales of the Occult!


UPDATE!

I post this and then a news story hits the wires:

Wiccan Stabs Herself during Good Luck Ritual

Tales of the Occult - My Obsession with Tarot Cards and Psychology!

To break from the happy happy joyful funtime that is this blog, I have decided to spend a week telling stories of the deranged and disturbed. That’s right, this week is Tales of the Occult here on this blog. Each story of the occult will SHOCK and TERRORIZE if it doesn’t totally BLOW YOUR MIND!

Today’s story – Adventures with Carl Jung and Tarot cards!

Long before I found the current state of wedded bliss which I live in now, I was a mess. I was in a relationship I considered a loving one, and opened my heart to another person. The downside about opening your heart completely to love is that you also open your heart completely to pain.

And much like a high-pressure hose forcefully disconnected from a socket, a completely flowing love tends to twist and wither the moment it separates, gushing gush gush as it does so. It is difficult to shut off this flow, so what most people do is just reconnect it somewhere else as quickly as possible. Hence, the rebound relationship or, in my case, the compulsive hobby.

During a breakup, you reach out and cling to anything that seems stable and supportive. In my case, I reached out to Carl Jung. Jung is great for break-ups, and I heartily recommend reading his work discussing way people relate to each other. You know that line from Jerry McGuire, that “You complete me” line? Totally stolen from Jung.


If you allow me to digress for a second, both Freud and Jung developed theories that were in no way scientific. They may be interesting hypotheses, but they cannot be tested in laboratory conditions to prove their validity. I assume someone could do a focus group or a mall survey to see if people do really want to kill their fathers and marry their mothers, but surveys and statistics have dubious scientific merit, too.


Most serious psychologists and psychiatrists who like to think the study of the mind should be a scientific study treat Freud and Jung as a pair of wacky old uncles who lived in an apartment filled with newspapers and cat pee. Yes, they did great things but they essentially they were kooks with no real bearing on the serious world of science.

Professors in English departments, however, are not put off by this lack of scientific integrity and dance around both Freud and Jung and consider what they have to say very insightful, even if it can never be scientifically proven.


But that is totally beside the point. The point is that Jung was into some really wacked-out stuff. He believed in UFOs and the occult. He followed astrology and talked at length about the dawning of the Age of Aquarius (that song also totally ripped off Jung). And, after reading his essays about archetypal images and dream interpretation, I decided to invest in about three different sets of Tarot cards. You know, to help me understand archetypal images and interpret my dreams.

Tarot cards do not predict the future. They present a set of archetypal images to the person who then adds meaning to the mix. Much like the Rorschach inkblot test, it can be a diverting parlor game, but the scientific methods behind it are just as dubious as those of Jungian psychology proper. But this does not change the fact that they are pretty neat and some of the artwork on them is really compelling.


So for a few months I would read the works of Carl Jung and then play with Tarot cards. I would ask the cards such deep and ponderous questions like, “Should I order my pizza with sausage and pepperoni?” and the cards would give me images like The Fool and Death – images I interpreted as “No. You should stick with the Veggie Lover’s. It will be kinder to your digestive tract.”

This fooling around with the occult all came to a head one evening when I was playing a little game of Spider Solitaire with my Tarot cards. I shuffled the deck, cut it and then played the first card. The first card is supposed to represent you and how you see yourself. In this case the card that came up first was The Hanged Man.


Anyone who knows me very well knows that if I don’t like how things are going in a game, I will try to do whatever possible to start over. My favorite word when losing in poker is “misdeal.” And I felt the same thing here with the Tarot cards.

“I am not the Hanged Man,” I said, “Misdeal!” And then I promptly reshuffled, recut, and redealt the cards. I flipped up the first card.

It was The Hanged Man.


I scooped it up, reshuffled, recut, and redealt the cards one more time.

It was The Hanged Man again!


Frustrated, I scooped up the cards and reshuffled them once more. I looked at the deck from the side and noticed that one of the cards was bent and that whenever I cut the cards, this card in particular would always come out on top.

To my horror...

I discovered...

The bent card was...

The Hanged Man!


Duh dah DAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Your mind is blown. Your nerves are shocked and all of your senses are now terrorized! Join us next time for more Tales of the Occult!

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Happy Birthday to the Silliepie Williepie!

On July 17th, my little brother will have a birthday.

To celebrate, I am presenting Five Fun Facts about Wubbahed.

1. Growing up, an unnamed older sibling often told the young Wubbahed, “Mom and Dad had me and said, ‘We must have another!’ Then they had you and said, ‘We need to stop.’”


2. He has been known to abandon jigsaw puzzles with only one piece remaining. He will lose interest, slump his shoulders, and say, “Where is that !@#$%@!in’ puzzle piece?” After abandoning the puzzle, his elder, puzzle-finishing brother has been known to go, “Look at this abandoned puzzle! I wonder if this piece I magically found in my pocket will fit into it? Oh, look! I finished the puzzle.”


3. Sometimes in his Executive Suite at his big time New York ad agency, he receives letters and packages addressed to “Wubba ‘Please Call Me Silliepie’ Turnage”. His personal assistant, Waylon Smithers, hands him this mail with a quiet little, “Does this mean I can now call you ‘Silliepie,’ sir?”

4. He has very delicate skin. Sometimes even the gentle wafting of a summer breeze can cause his tender skin to bruise.


5. All of his trials and tribulations have given him character.



Happy birthday, Silliepie Williepie!

P.S. Alex, hang in there. I will respond to your blog entry next.