Top 10 of 2012

As voted by yours truly, and as part of a time-honored tradition, I now present the list of the ten best films of the year of our Lord two-thousand twelve. As always, if you disagree with me you are wrong.

10. The Amazing Spider-Man
If you know the business behind why this movie was made, it means that like me you're probably a huge nerd and spend way too much time on the Internet. But it also means that we were sort of doomed to dislike this film.  However, because I'm also a die-hard fan of the character, I waited with bated breath to see how this movie turned out. Legal issues aside, and ignoring the money machine that demanded it, Spider-Man's return to the silver screen, while not glorious in every regard, turned out way better than I expected it to. Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy is a revelation, and the pieces are in place to turn this into an *ahem* amazing franchise.
Sorry about that.

9. Skyfall
In a year full of reboots and remakes and sequels (that's the nature of the beast, live with it), Skyfall actually manages to stand out and meets the standard set by Casino Royale so many years ago. Daniel Craig is perfect, the new additions to the story were well implemented, and the use of practical effects, amazing stunts, and engaging set-pieces make Skyfall a candidate for one of the best Bond films of all time. A perfect marriage of the old and the new, and one of the best experiences I had in the theater all year.

8. Killer Joe
William Friedkin seems to have this new thing about making movies based on plays about characters who are fucking insane. And that's exactly what makes Killer Joe so damn entertaining. Matthew McConaughey plays a deranged hitman hired by a family of trailer-park dwellers to off their mother and collect her life insurance policy. You can already guess that things go wrong. What follows is a treat to behold. Friedkin gets incredible performances from his actors every time, and the last fifteen minutes of this movie (much like Michael Shannon at the end of Bug) is one of the stand-out moments of the year for me. Unforgettable, shocking, crude, darkly hilarious. Seek it out.

7. Indie Game
This year's documentary slot goes to a film about three independent video game developers that allows us to learn about their lives, their craft, and the passion they have for what they do. Although some of them have differing philosophical ideas about what they do, they are all artists. They are all human beings. And the best documentaries should be about just that: humans and their nature. Even if you don't play video games, this movie is entertaining, emotional, and enlightening.

6. Moonrise Kingdom
Coming in to this film fresh and unclouded, I found it to be just as amazing as die-hard Wes Anderson fans did, and I don't even watch Wes Anderson movies. It's innocent without feeling kitschy. The power and immediacy of young love is captured perfectly, and it's combined with Anderson's visual flair, striking photography, and a roundtable of great performances from an ensemble cast. It's like a capsule of joy and good feelings waiting to be opened.

5. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Not a whole lot to say about this one. If you don't like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, you aren't going to like this either. If you do, then you've probably already seen it or are waiting to see it. It's not perfect (it's a little too long, little too much WETA magic, story kind of meanders and takes liberties with the source material) but it is a fun and joyous return to Middle-Earth, which is all I could ask for.

4. Looper
I knew I was going to love this movie going in, but I honestly did not expect it to end up as high on this list as it did. But it's a testament to just how great original ideas are, and how desperately we need more of them in Hollywood. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays an assassin who takes out criminals sent to him from the future, then the older version of him (played by Bruce Willis) shows up and everything gets topsy-turvy. Sound confused? Don't let it deter you. Very few films about time travel are this risky, and you could drive semi trucks through the plot holes, but that would destroy the purpose of the film. Rian Johnson doesn't want to bog you down in semantics and logic of time travel and its implications. What he does want to do is a little difficult to talk about. Good sci-fi is hard to come by, but we faithful know it when we see it, and Looper fits the bill.

3. Prometheus
Our other sci-fi candidate of the year, and it just barely edges past Looper on the count that it has slightly more to say and is made by a master of the craft, who after an extremely long wait has returned to the well to deliver a film that is big, bold, thought-provoking, thrilling, visually arresting without sacrificing believability, and includes enough fan service to satisfy us faithfuls (who are notoriously picky and difficult to please) but also remain welcoming to newcomers, reminding the new school (Chris Nolan comes to mind) to respect their elders. A mighty achievement indeed.

2. Django Unchained
Quentin Tarantino doesn't make bad movies. Django is no exception. While still ostensibly a tale of revenge, do not make the mistake of thinking Tarantino is relying on old tricks to make a paycheck. Django and his journey is the most well-developed thing Tarantino has crafted so far. Django Unchained is about a lot of nasty things, things Tarantino doesn't want you to ignore, but he also doesn't want to make a film that is preachy. And so this thematically rich, extremely well-written film gets wrapped up in a bloody, Spaghetti western-style/exploitation homage package that fires on every cylinder. It's impossible to deny. Don't write it off as just a splatterfest either. Perhaps the most incredible thing about Tarantino's latest movie is that he has learned to temper himself: when the film explodes in a parade of violence and gore, it's because the story calls for it, and you will want to leap out of your seat and roar in satisfaction.

1. The Avengers
Call me biased, but The Avengers was always the obvious choice, if for no other reason than it is a goddamn miracle this film turned out this good. Joss Whedon flexes about as much muscle as a geek can and makes a movie that accomplishes several things at once:
A) being a gigantic, holy-shit popcorn movie that nerds wet themselves over,
B) making good on a promise made many years ago that some people (including me) have been waiting most of their adult lives to see,
C) representing the capstone to a franchise that began with Iron Man that is attempting (and royally succeeding at) something never tried before, bringing different fictional characters from the comic-book landscape together into one shared fictional universe of movies, just like the comic books themselves share one fictional universe,
D) being well-written enough to bring all those characters together at once, get at the heart of who they are, create believable conflicts between them, and make sure none of them feel flat or one-dimensional,
E) raising the bar for superhero films and summer action films all at once.
The Avengers, simply put, is a monument of this generation. No matter where the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes from here or how old I get, I will always remember the excitement, the anticipation, the apprehension of waiting for this film to happen, and the indescribable joy and ecstasy of finally seeing it on the big screen.

The Brazen and the Queer

David Foster Wallace, on many occasions, wrote about how irony had replaced sentimentality in our culture, and why this was an extremely dangerous trend for art. If you need that idea to be expanded on, then this little diatribe isn't for you.
There is no songwriter alive today who is more actively aware of this than Max Bemis, and his lyrics have reflected it since he was old enough to buy alcohol. Bemis ostensibly writes what we refer to as "emo" music, although that term is all too often used as pejorative and doesn't adequately reflect what the genre is trying to say and do (one needs look no further than the aptly titled "IN DEFENSE OF THE GENRE" available in a store near you). Bemis knows that our culture is on the brink of total annihilation if we don't get back in touch with a very deep and very real, one might say "human", part of ourselves.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that means [*cringe*] getting in touch with our feelings.
See, what separates us from the animal kingdom (apart from the literally hundreds of things that separate us from the animal kingdom) is our capacity for all sorts of different emotions that affect our behavior and decision making. We do not operate on instinct alone, much the way a dog or a cat inherently "loves" that which feeds it, but instead a part of our makeup that allows for a deeper connection with a shared psyche, and in turn use that to communicate in a language everyone can understand. I'm referring to the soul, and that language is art.
However, the postmodern attitude that has dominated since the late 80's/early 90's in American pop culture has all but destroyed the notion of the "emotional" (see: emo) and, with the help of mass media, replaced it with a hip, apathetic, ironic attitude that values individualism to the point of solipsism. While this may sound shallow and harmless on the surface, it is in fact a problem that permeates every aspect of our daily life, even if you don't realize it. But where it is most noticeable is in our art.
Let's all face it: the music on the radio is shit. It's been shit for a long time and we're actually starting to forget when it was ever good to begin with, but it's getting worse. We all hate it yet we keep buying it. On one hand, we cannot be blamed. After all,  it's far easier to listen to what's being effectively marketed to you (make no mistake: it's ALL marketing). Let's pull a page from Kid Rock's book. Love him or hate him, the man makes a good point:

If it looks good, you'll see it. If it sounds good, you'll hear it. If it's marketed right, you'll buy it. But if it's real... you'll feel it. 

And he's absolutely right. But we can seek out that which we feel; we can rebel. We can rage against the machine. That's where the "emo" comes in.
Emo is my favorite genre of music, and Max Bemis's band Say Anything's most recent album "Anarchy My Dear" is my favorite record of the year for this exact reason. No other genre of music today is more in touch with this profound philosophic idea than emo. When I was in high school, I listened to nothing but heavy metal because A) I was a rebellious teenager and B) it made me feel powerful. The lyrics and themes of metal revolve around that concept almost exclusively, which is all well and good, but even that primal force of feeling is dipped in the irony-sauce, and some of my favorite metal bands from my youth seem less majestic in retrospect when I realize how un-serious and superficial it all was.
But Say Anything isn't like that. It's genuine to the point of nauseating. It takes all the things you're too afraid to think and say for fear of being laughed at and ridiculed and expresses all of them in way that's impossible to deny. Max Bemis is the paragon of it. He isn't afraid to say what he feels, in fact, he needs to say what he feels. He knows that saying what he feels is not only important but necessary, and the fans respond to it in a way that's hard to put into words. There's a reason fans of SA are more devoted than any you'll find who are hooked up to the mainstream teat (one of them being that it is actually impossible to be a die-hard fan of a popular band, but that's beside the point). It's the same reason that once a year, Max Bemis personally writes songs for and delivers them to individual fans: because we have a soul, and so does he, and when you put a SA record in your CD player and hit play, those two ethereal balls of light glow fiercely with a vibrant kinetic energy that is immediately heartbreaking, satisfying, cathartic, orgasmic; despite the fact that you and him could not be physically further apart. And for those of you out there who have never felt it, I genuinely feel sorry for you.

So fuck you, emo is awesome.

My Dearest Apollo

Wake up. What am I doing today? I don't remember.
Take your medicine. Brush your teeth. No, take your medicine first. You'll forget.
But what if my medicine is actually making it worse. Maybe I shouldn't take it today.
There's no way to know for sure. Better to be safe than sorry.
Maybe I really am addicted after all?
Not possible. That's the crazy talk.
But I'm talking to you too. And you say a lot of things. How does that work?
Hush.
Okay. Now what?
You need to work.
I can't.
You can, you choose not to.
That's even more frightening than not being able to. I would rather know that I am physically incapable of doing something rather than constantly choosing not to do anything.
You're really more afraid of yourself than you are of me?
Shitless.
Well I guess that makes sense. After all, it wasn't me that went out on that bender. It wasn't me that put that mark there. You know, the one everyone keeps asking about. At family gatherings. At friend's houses. In living rooms. In bars.
I don't remember who that is.
Yes you do. It's the real you. You think this is real? This is made up. You manufactured this. I'm here to make you confront your deepest fears.
But I can't face it. I won't. It's all made up anyway. That's all in my head. That's the alternate reality, convincing me of lies. And that's all you are: a liar.
You say this now, yet you allow the lies to become your reality. You know that the more we sit here and talk, the more you're going to realize that you're one-hundred percent completely fucked. And you should give up while you're still ahead.
Enough!
You're not even ahead as it is. You're so far behind it's stupid. You aren't in last: the race already ended and you're still crawling towards the finish line. No one's in the stands. No one's watching. They went home. So you can quit now. They don't care.
Well...
Exactly. Look at this: they all tell you it's okay, you're okay, everything's okay. How can it be okay? You've seen enough movies, read enough books to know exactly how these stories go. There's no possible way this is okay. Are you forgetting the part where
Stop!
Or the part with the crying and screaming. And all the things you shouldn't have said out loud.
That was you!
No, it was you.
No, it was you. It was always you. It was you to begin with. It was always okay, and it still is. The only reason I made things less okay is because you made me think it wasn't okay, so I said fuck it, let's make it as not-okay as it can get. But I didn't have to do that. I could have stopped it...
Right.
Wait...
Yes. Your fault.
No, that's not what I meant. It's yours. I didn't mean to.
You just said you did. You intentionally made it worse. You knew exactly what you were doing.
But that's because I thought I knew exactly what was wrong.
Which is everything.
Which is nothing!
Look: where are your friends now? They're afraid of you. They know what you're capable of now.
I'm capable of good.
But you only do bad.
No, you only do bad. You only cause me harm. Why can't I just get rid of you! Why do you fucking do this to me every day of my life!
Well, look at who's all upset now. And you've only been awake for an hour. Guess what.
Now what?
It'll be this way tomorrow too. And the day after. And the week after that. And next month. And the following year.
Oh Jesus...
So end it now! I mean, look at this mess!
There is no mess. There is no mess. There is no mess. Everything's fine. I swear to God everything's fine. I swear to
Oh dear Lord, this is hilarious! Look at you! You might as well be clutching your knees and rocking back and forth. You are a pathetic cliche.
Please don't let me cry, please don't let them see me cry, this is going to pass this is going to pass this is
This is your reality. Open your eyes. Everything you see right now: it's all real. You can see everyone's thoughts. You're a smart guy, put it together. They all know you're pathetic, because they see what I see right now: a baby! A whimpering child! And it disgusts them. They pity you.
I'm fine I'm okay I'm just fine everything's fine
So here's the deal. You're smart. Oh no, I'll give you that. Otherwise I probably couldn't have sprung up in the first place. So you know a thing or two. They're on to you, but you can still trick them. Trick them one final time. Smile, say hello, give hugs. Make promises. Sound cheerful. Make a joke, laugh along. Let them think I'm not here, and then when they turn their back, let it out. Let every black part out, bleed it out on the floor, let everyone see it, and show them what they were missing all along. And you can die laughing.
What will that accomplish?
Well, it'll silence me once and for all. That's what you want, isn't it? Plus it will prove them wrong. They all underestimate you. They don't take you seriously. They've never felt like you, they've never bled like you, you've known this all along. You were special. You were exceptional. You were genius! So show them. Make them all know. It's only fair, after all this torture. They can never give you what you need. They're only hurting you, while you hurt yourself, and hurt them, and hurt me as I hurt you as the whole big cycle of hurt perpetuates itself and never stops and you can't stop it because you don't even know where it begins or ends.
No. That's not what I want.
Okay, so then don't let them see it. Spare them the final act. They deserve that, anyway. I won't even deny that. I mean, you don't want your grand finale to leave them as fucked up as you, do you?
This isn't me! You are not me! I am me!
Or...could it be that the evil twin is the original to begin with? That I am in fact superior in every way? You know, that whole ego/superego thing. You studied philosophy. You know how this works.
No, you're made up.
Hmm?
It's all in my head. It's all in my head.
Keep telling yourself that.
I can just stop thinking about this right now and go back to...
Back to...?
What? Nothing.
What is it you were doing?
I guess I forgot...
You're getting nothing done today, are you?

"Hey man, what's wrong?"
"Huh? Sorry. What?"
"Look, you can't hide it. Something's upsetting you. Just tell me what's wrong."
"...I don't know man."

The Future is Now

Continuing with a series of pop-culture dissection pieces, let's shift gears and talk about video games.
Maybe art isn't dead after all.

In a recent video posted online by Adam Sessler (following his departure from G4 and subsequent acquisition from some corporation I've never heard of in what can only be described as the geek-version of the Conan O'Brien fiasco), he talks about the element of "choice" in video games. "Choice" here meaning: let's let the player decide how to play this game. Specifically, he mentions Dishonored, a recent title that has a singular, plot-driven story and characters but features nearly endless ways to play the game, assassinate targets, and accomplish goals. If you want to use magic, swords, sorcery, or any number of otherworldly, metaphysical powers; all options are at your disposal.
Now, this isn't a new idea. It's not groundbreaking, nor is it revolutionary. But in an era where we are constantly looking to the future and trying to decide what is going to break the mold or be the "next big thing," this is actually worth taking a look at. See, developers have had this idea for years, they just haven't implemented it properly.

Enter Bethesda Studios. Bethesda is on the cusp of this trend, and have been championing it for years. They're all about crafting a world where each player can have a unique experience. All their current-gen releases have been exemplars of this philosophy (Elder Scrolls, Fallout), and Dishonored continues the tradition but, from what I'm observing, adds a new twist to the formula. A game like Elder Scrolls: Skyrim features a robust, sprawling world and endless ways to interact with it, but lacks a concrete, plot-and-character driven story. That's not to say the plot is necessarily bad, it's just that the focus of the game is not on narrative. It's on gameplay and aesthetics. This relates back to what Sessler is talking about, though. The biggest push in video games today is towards player choice. Whereas before, we were focused on cinematic, big-budget entertainment in video games. Look at Call of Duty, Uncharted, and ultimately the pinnacle of cinema-driven games, Metal Gear Solid 4. The focus of making a game that resembles an interactive movie is slowly eroding away, and being replaced by something much more exciting: making a game where you are the director of your own movie.

Now, let's look at Rockstar Games, and Naughty Dog. Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne) are already well-known pioneers of story and character driven games. Just look at Red Dead Redemption or the arcs of Niko Bellic in GTAIV and Tommy Vercetti in Vice City. Not to mention the titular character of Max Payne, whose most recent outing on consoles featured a story many critics hailed as being as well-written as any novel or Oscar-winning film. Rockstar knows how to make great games with great stories, and it's due in no small part to the work of Dan Houser, who writes all their games and comes up with the plots. He and his brother Sam started out as two film nerds in London who decided to start developing games, and they bring that sensibility with them to the studio. However, one thing their games have lacked is strong player choice. GTA and Max Payne can only be played in one way: shoot, shoot, shoot.
And Naughty Dog? They're behind The Last of Us, one of the most highly anticipated titles of 2013. Nerds are foaming at the mouth over this game, even though there's only one proper gameplay demo of it in existence right now. Why all the fervor?
I have a theory. It's player choice. The main character in the demos for The Last of Us is shown dispatching enemies in an abandoned, run-down building in very spontaneous, organic ways, indicating that the player is free to choose how to get rid (or not get rid) of them however they want. It helps that what would once be a context-based quicktime event plays out dynamically (or not at all) and that the execution animations are beautiful, but I feel that Naughty Dog is picking up on this as well. And it's incredibly exciting. If a game like The Last of Us can truly deliver on the promise of organic, choose-your-own-adventure combat the way the advertisements look, it will be one of the most mindblowing video games of our generation.
Rockstar seems to understand this as well. This past week, details have been dropped like bombshells on the internet regarding how GTAV, the next major Rockstar title also due to arrive next year, is going to look and play like. The first object of note is the sandbox itself. Rockstar has always been on the forefront, along with Bethesda, of creating wide-open worlds to play in that breathe and pulse and come to life on-screen. This time around, the setting of GTAV is expected to be five times larger than its predecessor.
Let that sink in for a moment. A map that large will be the largest sandbox world in the history of video games, which is a feat in and of itself, but Rockstar is not stopping there. GTAV is also going to feature 3 playable characters that you can switch to on the fly, and when you're not controlling 2 of these characters, they function in this real world on their own, with their own set of priorities and ideals. Missions that involve all three characters is where all these new mechanics will meet and introduce an entirely new level of choice to the player: each character has a different role to play in each mission, and you can choose which role you want to assume. Theoretically, every player could go through this scenario and not have the same experience. Instead of Rockstar holding your hand and showing you this "movie" they've created, now you are in control of how it plays out and what it looks like. Combine this new aesthetic with the already concrete idea of fleshed out characters and deep, engaging story that Rockstar waves around like a war banner, and you have a recipe for an entirely new type of game on your hands.
Other, more mainstream developers are taking notice. Look at the most recent Call of Duty game that just hit shelves this week. Black Ops II features a single-player campaign with multiple playable characters and events where you choose how they play out and where the story goes, and the game is receiving ludicrous praise for it.
The evidence is in: today's generation of gamers no longer want to be pointed in what direction to go, they want craft an experience for themselves through an interactive medium, and it becomes its own reward. There is no more need for high scores and trophies if by the time the credits roll you sit back and realize you just experienced something you're not likely to soon forget.

It's exciting to think about the future of video games heading in this direction, especially when you consider how young the art form itself actually is. Video games are barely forty years old, and already are going lightyears beyond what film can hope to accomplish today in terms of legitimate artistic expression. Even more inspiring about the whole endeavor is surveying the popular landscape now and noticing how undeniably shit the art we're producing today is. Everyone always complains about a lack of ideas in Hollywood anymore; everything is either a sequel or a remake. Literary fiction struggles to capture an audience in a market dominated by teen paranormal romance or outright smut (see: "Twilight" and "Fifty Shades of Grey," respectively). Music that's produced by corporations and written by computers and more accurately resembles a turgid slime pours out of your radio every morning on the way to work. So where do we look for a shining beacon of hope?
The real ingenuity, creativity, and wellspring of ideas are currently in the video game industry, and I for one am excited for this revolution.

Evil Empire

It was announced today that Disney bought Lucasfilm Limited, the production company started by George Lucas that has produced, along with its subsidiaries, every major Star Wars property in history. Star Wars itself is arguably the most massive, easily recognized, all-encompassing fictional media franchise in the United States, and goes way beyond the six movies (which alone have grossed over $4.3 billion).

This is the main reason people are paying attention to the story, and is what is currently dominating your news feeds, twitter accounts, news sites, blogs, and basically every other medium in the multiverse seeking to force images and information into your eyeballs. It is likely what people will remember from this story years from now, and it's understandable why: when Disney bought Lucasfilm Limited, they simultaneously announced that they would be producing Star Wars Episode VII. The seventh Star Wars film has already become one of the most highly anticipated films of all time (probably even moreso than The Avengers or The Hobbit). It will make a bajillion dollars and everyone will watch it.

But I'm not here to discuss Episode VII, or George Lucas. It's too early to care. I want to talk about Disney.

The Walt Disney Corporation is the world's largest media conglomerate, and it's about to ruin your fucking lives. You see, the United States has a set of what are called antitrust laws that are put in place to prohibit unfair business practices and to encourage competition in the market, which is the driving force behind our economy. When one entity has control over the products, competition decreases and the economy slows down. When this same practice is applied to the arts, the quality of art decreases while profit increases. Everyone suffers, no one wins.
Why do I mention this? Because now, Disney owns practically everything. You love Disney and you don't even know it. Disney decides what you're going to see and what you're going to like. Disney has become a monopoly. Oh sure, they're not doing anything wrong in the legal sense, but to the arts they are practically getting away with murder. This affects you.
Let's break it down real quick.

List of shit owned by Disney:
ABC 
ESPN (No, really)
Hollywood Records (A major label that owns acts ranging all the way from Demi Lovato to Breaking Benjamin)
Hulu
Several local television stations from coast to coast
Saban (The guys who brought you Power Rangers, among others, although they are currently fighting to get their intellectual property back)
Pixar Animation Studios
Marvel Entertainment (This means every single comic book character you love, and every medium they appear in)
Lucasfilm Limited
And every other thing with DISNEY slapped on it that you see in stores.

If, upon reading through such a list, you feel a slight pinch in your stomach, sweat break on your forehead, or your asshole clenching, don't worry: this means you are still human. Disney will not stop until they strangle everything you love in their clutches. And why? Why must one single entity have so much power? You need not look to Disney himself. Walt Disney was a spectacular man, a real American hero. He wanted to provide entertainment to children all over the world at prices every family could afford. But did you know that nearly every major Disney acquisition of the last decade has occurred without the Disney family's consent? In fact, no Disneys are even involved in the company. Roy E. Disney, Walt's nephew, died over seven years ago. Since then, all major decisions have been handled by this man:

His name is Bob Iger, and he's the goddamn devil. He has even been quoted as saying that the Walt Disney Corporation seeks to "buy characters or businesses that are capable of creating great characters and great stories."  That article's tone now has an ominous foreshadowing quality to it, realizing that the "next big thing" was Lucasfilm Limited. Keep this in mind: Marvel Entertainment (Disney) produced one of the highest grossing films of all time this year (The Avengers). Lucasfilm Limited produces way more than just Star Wars material (but make no mistake, they produce a shitload of Star Wars material). They also own Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light and Magic, two major effects companies that produce visual effects and sound effects for all sorts of big studio films worldwide, and are considered to be some of the best in the business (I agree).
What this all has to do with, what I'm getting at here, is a new world order. You see, you don't realize it yet, but today is a major turning point in history. Today, with the acquisition of Lucasfilm Limited by the Walt Disney Corporation, marks the death of the new pioneers. In the post-Cold War era, America (arguably) would come to know two major entities that redefined visual entertainment forever: George Lucas and Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs, of course, was the founder of Apple and Pixar Animation Studios, and his legacy since his death has proven his influence on the popular culture. His name speaks for itself, I need not delve into his accomplishments or remind you of his renaissance-man stature. George Lucas was the hive-mind, singular creative consciousness behind Star Wars and every other major Lucasfilm property (including, to an extent, Indiana Jones). Now, say what you want about Lucas: say he ruined Star Wars with the prequels, say he raped Indiana Jones and shit on your childhood and say he can't write his way out of a paper bag. These things may be true. And you're free to believe them. But do not deny the impact he has left by creating those properties to begin with. The man is a goddamn genius. And now he's gone. With Disney gobbling up his brainchild, Lucas is no longer the man behind the scenes, pulling the strings. You're celebrating this now (want proof? Just look at all the fanboys on Facebook jizzing themselves in anticipation for a Lucas-free Episode VII), but you've simply traded in one devil for another. And this one has much larger, sharper teeth.
As for Steve Jobs? Oh right, he's not around anymore either. These men were true artists, people to be admired. They epitomized the American dream. And with them, that dream dies today.

Creativity : stifled
Competition : nullified

Welcome to the new dark ages.

America's Next Author - Social Writing Contest

Did you enjoy "The New Aesthetic"? Then maybe you'll take some time to swing on over to America's Next Author and vote for it to be a finalist in the first ever social media based online writing contest! While you're there, feel free to leave an honest, constructive review and share it with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and any other social media outlet!

America's Next Author - Social Writing Contest

Contextual Mediocrity, Pt. V (The New Aesthetic)

A crisp breeze rolled down the street and nipped at Nicholas's face, and he drew the collar of his jacket up around and his chin and braced himself against the cold.

It was rush hour. All around him, on both sides of the street, pedestrians trudged along back to their homesteads. Working men, men in suits, women in heels, people with coats and blazers and dresses and large hats. None of them looked at each other as they passed, bumping into each other with barely a murmur of apology as they hurried along. Nick saw all this and felt even more despair. He wondered how so many men and women could occupy so small an area and see each other every day, coming and going, yet never even acknowledge them or realize that they were all people, all the same deep down. He wanted to reach out and grab them by their lapels and shout at them, demand that they explain why they had all abandoned their fellow man. An even worse chill was blowing through him, and it wasn't just the weather. It was the cold, impersonal way every person on the street treated each other. For a moment, Nick marveled at the irony of how technology had utterly failed in its one sole purpose: to bring people together. Cell phones and social networking and personal computer tablets. Instant messaging, emails, texts. None of this was improving the way human beings interacted with each other, Nicholas realized. In fact it was having the opposite effect. Technology had revolutionized communication, all right, but it had turned everyone into isolated, solitary beings. A whole new generation of people living a life aesthetic, self-absorbed and tone-deaf. A text has no warmth to it, no real sense of connection or understanding. It is cold and impersonal. It rings false. Friend requests are not friendly. Emails cannot be sealed with a kiss. And you can not hug someone, kiss their lips, feel their heartbeat next to yours, through a video chat. Nicholas watched all the cars rolling up and down the street, breathing and undulating through the natural flow of traffic. It was like a living organism, he noticed, but even the drivers always stared straight ahead or looked at their phones or lit cigarettes. The only time a typical driver on the road ever interacts with another driver, he realized, was out of anger. Someone cut me off. Someone is speeding. Someone forgot to use their turn signal. It was pathetic. Didn't people care about one another anymore?

He saw and felt all these things and shoved his hands in his pockets, looked down at the sidewalk, and began to silently weep as he put one foot in front of the other. Nicholas no longer wanted to be on this planet. He did not want to be alive, not with these people. He thought, what's the point of continuing on if things never get better? If you cannot reach out and touch someone? Humans were not meant to go through this life alone, and what exacerbated his feelings the most was the fact that he had become one of them. He, too, had fallen victim to the new system. Nicholas Allen had been sucked in and now, he feared, he would never return to the real world.

No one paid any mind to the young man shuffling down the street and crying as the sun sunk lower and lower, plunging the world into night.

Ariel sucked down the rest of her margarita in one long, exaggerated slurp and lightly pushed the glass toward the center of the table where it joined the other three. Emily wore a perpetual frown on her face and kept looking around, mostly staring down, occasionally looking back at her friend, wondering if she would say anything. Hoping she would say something first.

The two of them had not spoken in over thirty minutes. Once Ariel put up her walls, it was nearly impossible to tear them down. Emily did not even know how to try. What was especially distressing to her at that moment was the inescapable feeling that she had forgotten how to get through to anyone, be it a total stranger or her best friend.

Ariel opened up her purse and began fishing around. Emily, not without a small degree of hesitation, opened her mouth nervously. “Ariel? Are you leaving?”

No response.

“Hello?”

She reapplied some lipstick and examined herself in pocket mirror.

“Please talk to me. Say anything.”

Ariel straightened her hair and scooted to the edge of the booth. “We are two completely different people. And that's fine, we don't have to be like each other. We don't even have to like each other. What use are friends anyway? I have plenty of friends like you, they never did me any good.”

“You've had a lot to drink. I don't think you should be driving.”

Ariel swayed as she rose, and planted a hand on the table. “I don't think we should meet up anymore. Let me live my life, you do the same.”

Tears welled up in Emily's eyes. Her face started to grow red and puffy.

“Oh, come on.” She rolled her eyes. “Look, it's not that big a deal. Okay?” She flashed a false smile, then whirled around and glided her way toward the door, her steps marked by a drunken swagger.

“Ariel, please don't do this.” But her words fell on deaf ears. She sat in a sort of stunned silence for a moment, and looked around the restaurant. Most of the patrons had left, drunks were now grabbing their keys and shuffling toward the door. She glanced at the bartender, who looked away quickly and pretended he hadn't been listening and observing. He looked back. Their eyes met. He shrugged.

A moment had passed while Emily paid her bill, when suddenly a car horn sounded outside followed by a god-awful screech. She turned on her heel and ran outside.

Nick approached the intersection and wiped tears off his cheeks, sniffing loudly. His heartbeat singularly pushed him along. What happened next was fast and nearly imperceptible. A harsh squeal of brakes, an abruptly loud car horn. A feeling of something extremely heavy and powerful slamming into his side. All of the breath being forced from his lungs. The ground falling away from his feet, a view of the sky that rotated, glimmered in twilight, and then concrete rushing up to meet him. A brief sensation of extreme pain. Blackness.

Ariel Schuler stared straight ahead, unable to believe her eyes. Her knuckles held the steering wheel in a death grip and turned white. For a moment she could not think, was paralyzed by shock, and then quickly yanked her seatbelt off and leaped from the car, ran to where the boy was lying on the ground, unmoving, and her heels nearly slipped in spatters of blood and chunks of hair and flesh that surrounded the body. She had struck him with her car, catapulting him ten feet in the air where he twisted horizontally before colliding with the pavement. His head had hit first.

Suddenly Emily was at her side, crying and hysterical. Ariel merely stared at the lifeless form of the young man. She did not know how much time passed while she tried to make sense of the scenario. A strange silence enveloped the previously chaotic street that deafened Ariel until the faint wail of sirens could be heard from far off, rushing to the scene, but all she could say when the paramedics and eventually police officers arrived, over and over, shaking her head, was “I never saw him.”  

Contextual Mediocrity, Pt. IV

Emily could instantly tell the just-turned-twenty-one crowd apart from those who had been frequenting bars and other establishments that served alcohol for years by how loud they talked and laughed. The typical frat boys always made as much noise as possible as they shuffled outside to smoke and then return inside, always checking out the same girls in the booths (like Ariel) on their route to and from, in what she assumed was some sort of primal method of establishing dominance in a pack ruled by seniority.

“Do you think that guy over there is checking me out?” Ariel cocked her head behind her towards the bar, where the bartender was still stealing the occasional glance at their table.

“I don't know.”

“He's kinda cute.”

“I suppose.” Emily noticed Ariel still had her phone in one hand, and she glanced at it occasionally between bites of food.

“Mmm,” Ariel swallowed her food, “did you hear this one. Someone just posted this link on my wall. This news headline says 'Suicide now leading cause of death by injury' or something. Hmm.”

Emily looked up. “What?”

Ariel looked up. “What?”

“What did you just say? Read that again. What does it say?”

“Too long, didn't read,” she waved her hand as if shooing a fly.

“Whatever.” Emily rested her chin on her hand and turned her attention the other way. Ariel continued looking at stuff on Facebook, watching videos and laughing at people's pictures. Finally Emily realized they had found something to talk about. “What do you think accounts for that?”

“What?”

“Why do you think so many people commit suicide nowadays?” She leaned forward.

Ariel looked puzzled. “How should I know? Aren't we in a recession?”

“Well, sure,” Emily trailed off, frowning. “But...”

“Oh for Christ's sake, Emily,” Ariel put her phone down on the table and looked at her. “Don't do this. I'm trying to have a good time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This. What you always do. Let's just talk about something else. You always want to give some lecture or start a debate.”

Emily gritted her teeth. “You haven't said more than three words to me since we've been here, and now you come at me like this? What the fuck?”

“Oh, don't patronize me. This is so typical of you. I'm not here to argue, and I'm not here to let you put me down just so you can feel superior.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Just because I didn't get a fancy degree doesn't make me less intelligent than you.”

Emily's eyes widened. “When did I even begin to imply that?” Her voice went up a register. “All I wanted was to have a conversation with you. You know? Actual talking? Instead of just your new favorite songs on the radio or what's o n MTV. Don't you remember how to do that?” She put her hands up. “Well, I apologize. I must have been asking for way too much.”

“You know what?” Ariel slammed her hand down on the table and grabbed her phone in one motion. “Fuck you. You used to be cool. Then you went to school and decided to get all philosophical and worldly. You haven't even left the United States. What have you done with your life? You work in advertising.”

Emily's face reddened slightly in spite of herself.

“Exactly.” Ariel leaned back and took a breath. “I get it. You think I'm so shallow and fake. But at least I don't try to be someone I'm not. You know what? You're the one who's fake.”

Emily slowly started to become very confused. “Ariel, wait,” she started.

“No. I'm going to sit here, drink my drink, and then leave. You can...” she waved her hand again, “do whatever.”

She looked around and felt lost. “No, please. I don't want to fight. Ariel? Let's just talk.”

Silence.

“Please. I just need to talk to someone.”  

Contextual Mediocrity, Pt. III

Before his eventual slip, Nicholas was a very normal young man. Like most American males his age, he hadn't cared much for school, but he was not dumb. He had a tight-knit group of friends, but he was not popular. He did not earn stellar grades, nor did he excel at any sport, and he wasn't inclined toward any of the cheesy social clubs or nerdy groups that met after class to debate school politics or play chess. He was not a theater geek, a band geek, or a choir geek. The idea of staying after-hours repulsed him.

He preferred, instead, solitary activities where he could enjoy himself in peace. He loved to watch movies and television. The screen mesmerized him. His laptop quickly became his closest companion: he could download all the entertainment his heart desired at the click of a button. He devoured entire albums by all the latest artists before supper, and for dessert he would surf the web looking for pornography, masturbating grimly before falling asleep and repeating the whole process the next day. The limitless possibilities of the internet dazzled him. Everything and everyone interconnected, hooked up twenty-four-seven, and all the collected information capable of being delivered to you instantaneously anywhere on the globe.

It wasn't long before Nick stopped leaving the house, and soon, even his bedroom. The only connections he formed with other people were through online gaming, their disembodied voices melting into the digital cacophony that became his daily life, his paradise, his prison. He texted and emailed and downloaded and uploaded and played and slept and masturbated each day away. He lost all interest in women. The violence he could engage in through stereoscopic three-dimensional interactive formats replaced movies, and soon even the virtual warfare grew stale. His palette deadened, his senses dulled by the constant stream of stimulation. He felt naked without his headphones. He appeared disoriented when he wasn't staring at a monitor or television screen. His parents couldn't reach him. He dropped off the planet and entered a void of isolation, a self-imposed solitary confinement, away from the world and all the people in it. Graduation came and went, and he occupied his time with his electronic friends, which he believed were far more loyal than their human counterparts. Ambition withered away like a neglected flower. He only opened his mouth to consume nutrition and fluids.

This was two months prior to his fateful meeting with the fat bearded man who could not see or hear.

It did not happen all at once, but neither could Nicholas pinpoint exactly when it started happening. He simply stopped enjoying things. Television programs became boring and repetitive. Video games stirred no excitement in him. Music became static, a noise that made no sense to him. He became sterile and hollow. He reached deep down inside himself...and found nothing.

Nicholas came to the horrifying conclusion, finally after much worrying, that his life had ceased to have meaning or purpose. But he could not communicate this to anyone. When he tried, it was like pounding his head against a brick wall. He had the distinct impression that he was talking to Charlie Brown's parents. He began to fear that he would never figure out or be able to articulate what he was looking for, what was lacking. The hole inside him grew deeper and more foreboding, and nothing would fill it. Depression fell over him like a parasitic pall, draining his will to live. The worst part was that it seemed absolutely no one understood. Or maybe they simply refused to listen.

The ultimate realization came when he left the office of the therapist who could not hear him. Nicholas put his feet on the sidewalk, peered down the street, looked left and right, and became aware that no one was going to listen to him. No matter how hard he tried, he could not force any of these people to comprehend him. And nor could they be comprehended. Pedestrians crossed streets, horns blared, commuters adjusted their radios and gave strangers the bird. Nick was suddenly stricken by the harshest sensation of loneliness he had ever experienced in his life, and it filled him with despair. He was completely alone. 

Contextual Mediocrity, Pt. II

A strange darkness descended from overhead and splashed onto the table, bathing Emily and her immediate surroundings in a warm glow as the restaurant dimmed its lights for the dinner shift. Ariel sat directly across from her, but she appeared not to notice, her eyes focused intensely on her cell phone and thumbs working furiously, pounding out a seemingly endless stream of essay-length text messages. Emily chose not to ponder what on earth her friend could have to say that was so important that she couldn't even focus on her food or the drinks they'd ordered. She sighed and laid her head on her hand and looked out across the crowded dining room, surveying the young smiles and grins, the laughs and guffaws, and the beginning hints of slurred speech that would soon become more and more pronounced as the night continued and the guests that began filtering in consumed more and more. Directly to her left was a particularly young couple, definitely not part of the prime time bar crowd, who had finished their meal a quite some time ago and were now picking at the remains of bones of barbecued wings, french fries, and seasoned mozzarella sticks. The boy had a bowl of black hair, the bangs of which nearly covered his eyes and he had to continuously brush them away to get a better look at who, Emily assumed, must have been his girlfriend (or at the least, date for the night): a dangerously beautiful brunette, stern eyes and a twitch in her lips that indicated some sort of experience or wisdom beyond her years. She intimidated him, Emily could tell. But he held his own...he met each gaze, smiled at the right moments, laughed at all her jokes, kept pace in the conversation. The girl was clearly enjoying herself, but the young man was hopelessly in love. It was written all over his face, and he was acutely aware of this, constantly having to strain to not look so goofily smitten. Emily's interest was momentarily held as she took all this in, and within a moment she could tell, this smoldering brunette was going to take this boy's virginity tonight. The scene pinched her heart slightly, and she let her mind wander, remembering when she was so young and headstrong, how the boys used to lie down at her feet.

Meanwhile she could see, to her right, the bartender in another section, clad in a tight black vest, restlessly cleaning glasses and setting them on the polished wood surface upside down, paying no attention to the task at hand. Instead he was focused on Ariel, who was now slumped backward in her seat, still staring at her phone with a detached, glazed-over look, and Emily could feel that he wanted her. She wondered what that must feel like now, to be the center of attention: to know that every man in the room who saw you, even glanced at you in passing, instantly wanted to fuck you. But she let it go, because deep down she knew that not even Ariel was aware of this or could let the whole ego-trip thing go to her head. She was too wrapped up in her Blackberry to know what was even going on around her, let alone the fact that she was supposed to be on a dinner date with her so-called best friend, whom she had not seen in a very long time and that this should be a very enjoyable evening indeed. Instead they had spoken for about five minutes, then the appetizers and drinks had arrived and Emily watched, feeling somewhat dejected and ignored, as her former college roommate simply forgot she existed. She sighed and drummed her fingers on the table, trying to amuse herself, unsure of how to proceed. It wasn't that Emily was particularly bitter or resented the fact that Ariel had her own set of priorities and interests (like deciding not to finish school) that were completely separate from her own. Ariel liked working in a department store, selling superficial, expensive clothes to superficial, expensive people, and spending at least a quarter of each paycheck (after the rent and utilities at her downtown apartment were all accounted for) at any given number of clubs and glitzy joints that pumped obnoxious electronic music through the speakers and allowed her a sort of detached enjoyment—she could dance and flirt with whoever she wanted, even grind right up against them, without ever actually having to get too close—and Emily knew this. It was just that when they actually decided to get together and sit down (which was happening less and less frequently, maybe once every two months), she found she simply had nothing to say. It was as if they were living on two separate planets now, one where Ariel existed in her own little bubble and floated around, poking other bubbles curiously and then reverting to its own isolated, fixed position, while Emily meanwhile was getting caught up in the void of the real world: commuters and traffic and nine-to-five and coffee bars and cigarette breaks and Letterman. What it really came down to, it dawned on her suddenly, was that they had absolutely nothing in common anymore. She had graduated from college over three years ago and moved on; Ariel, on the other hand, seemed to just drift further and further inward, never growing or expanding. Her entire experience and perception of reality was drenched in the music and media that permeated every aspect of 21^st century life, and she did seem to not mind this, while Emily desperately fought and railed against the consumer-machine, trying to maintain some sense of self-control and individuality without forfeiting what she valued most: that primal, deep connection she felt toward other human beings, the part of her that was aching for attention and companionship but always ended up disgusted with what she found waiting behind every door, every phone number, every blind date in every over-crowded, noisy cafe across the street from her office.

She snapped out of this tangential train of thought and realized she, too, had started to daydream and drift off in her own head. She suddenly felt very annoyed. She no longer valued their time spent together, watching Ariel text her boyfriends and laugh at inside jokes. Instead, she wanted to go home. She eyed the young couple to her left, who were beginning to shuffle out of the booth, with envy. The boy, wisely, Emily thought, pulled out his wallet and dropped a hefty tip on the table, then flashed his date a smile and offered up his arm. What a gentleman, Emily thought. That confirmed it: he was definitely going to score. She felt a wistful longing for the days of her youth now, wondering what had happened to her freedom, to the days when she could meet someone's gaze and know precisely, in that moment, that they were seeing her in return, and that connection, that hidden part, would glow vibrantly and confirm what she was experiencing was genuine. She wondered what had happened to her and her friend. No; what had happened to society. To her generation.

“I said, do you think I should try the Yogo-Berry Martini?”

“What?” Emily shook her head and realized Ariel was actually saying something to her. “Oh, I don't know,” she sighed. “Why not?”

Contextual Mediocrity

“I don't think you're listening.”

Nicholas Allen tightened his lips and tried to focus on the large, sweaty, bearded figure seated in front of him. “Hello?” he asked again. “Are you hearing me?” His voice entered a higher register.

The fat man clicked his ball-point pen and scribbled on a clipboard clenched in his left hand. His words were cold, clinical, calculated. “Are you suicidal?”

Nick had never known how to answer this question. “If I had a dime for every time I've heard this in the last two weeks...frankly I'm tired of answering it. What does that even mean?”

Silence. Scribbling. “And when's the last time you tried to hurt yourself?” he murmured, detached.

Nicholas didn't care to define the difference between attempting something and actually accomplishing it. It no longer mattered. This was the third therapist he'd been plopped down in front of in a fortnight. They were all the same. All clinician, no heart. They couldn't hear what he said. They couldn't see him, see a human being trying to communicate something so simple and primal and debilitating. They could not help him. His throat began to tighten, the syllables that tumbled forth choked and half-wrought with the same sense of helplessness and desperation that now permeated his life, looming over him like an ominous thunderhead, black as pitch: “I need help.”

He cleared his throat, eyes never leaving the clipboard. Same robotic monotone. “That's what we're here for, son. Now, what's your date of birth again?”

The first time Nicholas cut himself, it was rather by accident.

Unsure of how sharp a lone razor blade really was, and how effective it would be in ending his life, he conducted a quick experiment on the back of his arm, well underneath his wrist. It looked like such a simple thing, surprisingly pliable, unassuming. It did not appear sinister. It did not suggest, through any aspect of appearance or by method of handling, that it was capable of inflicting destruction and pain.

He closed his eyes and sliced in a wide arc, swinging his hand down and across in a rapid motion. The skin cleaved immediately, a gaping maw suddenly appearing where flesh once was. It was very deep and red. Blood flowed readily and covered his arm, quickly drying into a sticky sleeve, and the excess dripped with unexpected speed, increasing, now regularly falling in a straight line like a faucet that's been opened only part way. Nicholas cried out in surprise and dropped the blade onto the linoleum of the bathroom floor. His eyes widened. He was struck by the pain, instantaneous and sharp. He held his arm against his stomach, rocking back and forth, groaning until the pain subsided. He considered picking the blade back up and continuing the job.

“Nicholas?”

He shook the memory away and refocused on the present. He reminded himself of the steps. Focus on the present. Live in the moment and open yourself, let yourself experience it as it is, accepting and nonjudgmental, until it passes, then move on to the next. “I don't understand the question.”

“Have you ever attempted suicide?” the fat man repeated, sounding either bored or annoyed. Perhaps both.

Nick drew a deep breath into his lungs. “I know what you're thinking, so I'm not going to answer your question. I don't even know what it means. I am not scared or confused because I want to die; I am confused as to how you do not. How everyone does not. I don't want to feel this way anymore.” His confidence began to falter. “If you want to give me medication, fine. I'll take the medication. But I've been through this before, and it didn't help. What I need,” he leaned forward, hoping to make an impression, “is for someone to listen. Please. I just want to talk. I need to talk.” The man clicked his pen, and rolled it over in his fingers, his expression unchanged. “Okay?”

There was a precarious moment of silence, and Nicholas Allen could almost feel his life hanging in the balance, a feeling he was becoming all too accustomed to, and he shivered in its wake as it passed.

The therapist frowned and looked back down at his desk, then leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “I think we should refer you to another facility. You see, son, this isn't exactly what we do here...”

But Nick didn't hear the rest. He put on a calm face and began considering all the ways he could get out of this facility as quickly as possible. He did not panic, at least not outwardly. Nor did he scream, or yell, or cry, or threaten the man. He had learned how to hide his anxiety, the terrible monster that sneaked in and grabbed him at will. If you didn't, if you let them see it, it was a sure way to get locked up again. And Nick didn't want to be locked up again. He knew exactly what he wanted, he had made up his mind as soon as he realized this one was deaf too.

He wanted to die. Tonight.  

Some of Which Should Probably Be Removed

Take one.
Transcribed verbatim from Kevin Nix's Facebook page, December 27, 2011:

As the year draws to a close, looking back I can say with no hyperbole that 2011 was the hardest, most challenging, and most rewarding year of my entire life. I can't wait to see what the future holds.

One of the interesting things about becoming an adult and getting older is that you're always learning something new about becoming an adult and getting older. Here's one: no matter how bad you think things can get, they can always get worse.
2011 was, indeed, a challenging year. I had some of the lowest lows and the highest highs. I plumbed the darkest depths of depression and made one of the most difficult decisions of my post-high school career.
The Summer of 2012 made 2011 seem like a cakewalk.

Take two.
I've been gone awhile. I had to take some time off because I got really sad. Three days in an inpatient psych ward, one visit by the police, countless nights spent up with friends worrying, approximately one pint of tears, one scar, two incredibly frightening phone calls, several burned bridges, several cartons of cigarettes, and a new daily regiment of 300 milligrams of bupropion a day later, I can say that I'm feeling a little bit better.

Take three.
Okay, so maybe I wasn't completely serious going in, and maybe I botched the execution horribly, but you can go fuck yourself if you think I didn't at least think I knew what I was doing at the time. I got scared. You would too. It's fucking scary. It's like a separate, ethereal, intangible entity that can enter and exit you at will, often with very little warning. It is highly resilient. It is both yourself and detached. It is both your mind and someone else's. You have to learn how to fight it. You have to learn to recognize the signs and brace yourself. You have to be strong. You have to pick yourself up after being defeated; over, and over, and over, and over. You do not get to quit. You have to do whatever it takes to defend yourself against it.
You have to do these things, or it will kill you.
There are steps. There is a process. There are options. You can choose to buy into them or you can choose to go it alone. Except you were going it alone the whole time and where did that get you? Think again. Go back, re-evaluate. Maybe this will work.
Recognize your strengths. Set goals: daily, short-term, long-term. Take inventory. Learn to control your breathing. Keep a journal. Take your medicine. Keep cards with names, lists, and phone numbers in your wallet. Don't try to go it alone. Remember not to always trust what your mind is telling you. Relax. Remember that the world is not going to work with you. Prepare for the unexpected.

Take four.
If I were an addict, he'd be my heroin. There he is, coming towards me. Beeline. Quick, turn around. Puff on that cigarette. Harder. Inhale. Hold it in. Let it out. Glance back, but the words are already escaping his lips and they're directed towards me. My head swims, vision goes blurry. Was that him or the nicotine? Nevermind, this is actually happening. Focus. The wind is blowing hard. It's hard to hear. Ask him to repeat that. Frown. I try pretending that he isn't shattering the almost zen-like focus I'd built for myself as a survival mechanism over the past three weeks. Wait. Oh shit, I can feel it. My feet are floating towards him unconsciously. I didn't command myself to do this. Fuck you, brain. Cooperate. He's speaking now. Real words, he's real and he's here and he's in front of me oh jesus christ he's smiling now wait no please don't apologize it's my fault i'll never do it again i promise oh please god don't be mad at me
That was it, I can feel it now. He's flowing into my veins. Oh come on, I thought I was over this. This goes against everything I've been working on. No, I don't mind that you're a mess. Hey I'm a mess too. Let's be a mess together.

Take five.
Okay, so that was a little melodramatic. See? That's how easy it is. To fall back, I mean. To lose progress. Slide backwards. But I can choose not to think like that. They taught me that. I may not be able to control my environment or what happens to me, but I can choose how to react to it. I can train myself to treat love like a gift instead of a disease. It does not have to cripple me. Make it something healthy. Learn the signs. Learn how to anticipate and react. The process works if you believe it can. Not everyone believes it will. Don't listen to them. Your normal cognitive patterns are what brought you here in the first place. That's why we're fundamentally altering them. We're going to make you better.

Take six.
It's good to be back. I've had a lot of support along the way. No one gets this far without it. You know who you are. You know you are loved and appreciated. I could go on, but some things really are better kept to myself. Let's get creative again.

Still Me

Burn another evening, and watch the hours tick away, while I continue to try to scrub the scent of past lovers off my palms. You infect every pore, not so much a human presence but a viral essence, until I don't want to sleep anymore. My eyes grow red and weary, staring at the ceiling, praying for you to come along and sweep me off my feet.
A series of precisely calculated missteps that throw the entire machinery of these carefully laid plans into disarray, now I gaze upon the wreckage and wonder where I went wrong.
Perhaps it was the moment you said "Please," or maybe it was when I said "Yes." Now the moments from my past tick by in my memory, and each one becomes a sinister herald portending my fate.
Like when I put the key in the ignition.
Like when you sat across from me with want in your eyes.
Like when I looked up at the stars and could have sworn they were all lined up and smiling just for me, and I smiled right along with them. But your smiles were lies.
Now where do I go from here? I do not want you so much as crave you. What started out so innocent quickly turned black and red, a poison I willingly injected into my veins, distorting the chemical concoction and creating an entirely new strain in my brain. This was new, this was safe. But now it has turned old and sour. New life? Old habits. Die hard? I know not any other way.
The crash and burn extended further than I could have possibly anticipated. Now you'd need a fucking search and rescue team to find my remains, scattered as they've become across this concrete jungle. Penniless and hopeless, desperate to find the missing ingredient. Was it you all along? No, we were destined to be alone.
Was it the itch you scratched that flipped the switch inside? Was it the fear of knowing you'd become part of something bigger than yourself? Is it my punishment for caring too much? Will you say you didn't feel it too, glowing so brilliantly between us you could feel the heat it emanated? Or was it a nuclear meltdown, signaling us to run away? Never before have I witnessed an act of passion so cold, an air of passivity so aggressive.
But it doesn't matter. Whatever path I'm on now, you are not in it. You are still you, and I am still me. Slightly more wounded and staggering, but still me. Somewhat defeated and lost, but still me. Still searching, still hoping, and still thinking about you...but still me.

Amazing Journey

Exactly one hundred twenty-six days ago, I silently made a decision. A promise to myself. In six more days, I will see that promise fulfilled.
Getting to this point required a large amount of hard work, dedication, and focus. Being that I am an inherently lazy individual, my definition of "hard work" is likely a little lax compared to others', but it felt like moving mountains.
This isn't something I came to overnight. It was an ongoing process, still is, something I take with a large grain of salt and no small amount of trepidation and fear. But, in the last five months, I think I've learned to conquer fear. Or at least quell it to such a minute sliver that I can effectively pretend it does not exist.
Not that I claim to have some sort of special knowledge or secret key to fulfillment; the only thing I know is that there are many things I do not know. I like to believe wisdom lies in knowing one's limitations, and I weigh these on a daily basis. The human condition, and striving to understand it, is a many fractured, contradictory science of ifs and buts. If I pretend I am unafraid, fear ceases to exist compounded with ignoring something does not make it go away, for instance.
In choosing to set my sights on reestablishing a life in Indiana, I hold no malice toward the life I built here, the people I met and knew, the accomplishments I made, and the immense help I received in doing so. You could go so far to say that nothing I have yet built for myself has been made independently, that to pat myself on the back for doing anything is selfish and ungrateful. Part of choosing to forge ahead in a new (yet old) place is in pursuit of true independence: living in a castle you built from scratch, with no help whatsoever.
I do not hold any illusion that I am there yet, or even that I am ready. For all of my hard work and dedication I poured into these last years, those efforts are nothing compared to the monumental task that lies before me. But what I am ready for, and I hold true for myself, is that accomplishing these goals is my number one priority.
When this year began, I had high hopes and dreams. Most of these were shattered completely (one of the reasons I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions; life changes too quickly and without notice to make those big-picture plans for yourself), but I did choose to climb out of the rubble and emerge a new man. I think I've done a well enough job. If you do not immediately recognize me, do not be afraid. Sometimes I do not even recognize myself. But I learned that it is a natural evolution, a fulfillment of early promise, a promise in itself of things to come.
I learned that wallowing in self-pity and misery is no way to live, but is in fact a great way to die (as I nearly discovered), so now I choose how to think. This may sound trivial, cliche, or void of any great philosophical truth, but I learned it is a great secret, one worth uncovering. Learning and choosing how to think. I learned that one of the greatest obstacles our generation faces is falling into a default mode of solipsism and self-centeredness, albeit in a different form than most people think of when they hear the word "selfish." I learned that my default mode of thinking is usually to assume that I am a victim, an unfairly treated and shit-upon individual whose struggles are so much more vast compared to others that I should be a martyr. I learned that feeling and thinking that the entire world is out to get me, that every other lifeform on earth's sole purpose was to fight and degrade me, is just as bad as solipsism, and a very sinister form of selfishness. I learned that in order to be who I want to be, I have to realize and accept the fact that I am but one man in a large sea of people, no bigger or more important than anyone else. Humbling yourself like this, I learned, is also extremely difficult, and does not happen overnight.
My transformation thus far has been multifaceted. I shed the shackles of the past, the memories and experiences that I feared had broken me as a human being and permanently labeled me "damaged goods." I accepted my mistakes, and purged many of the demons that had led me to this solipsistic attitude. I lost weight. I fought to change my physical appearance to reflect the changes within. I made straight A's in school for the first time in the history of my secondary and post-secondary education. I discovered renewed purpose through a talent I had previously assumed was worthless. I made it my mission to sharpen it. I made peace with a man I blamed for all my problems. I sought to learn how to strengthen the bonds between me and those I call friends. I strove to embrace change and accept it.
Change is a funny thing, though. I understand that it is the only thing you can rely on in life's journey. But I have also come to believe that part of this quest is to reject certain notions of change. We fight and struggle against the chaos of our journey to hold onto some things, to make sense of the storm and resolve some sense of order to our lives; to find some constant, some platform and base to rest on when we are weary, to collapse on when we are defeated, to get back up from when we are motivated, to celebrate on or cry in. I cannot tell if this is foolish or noble. But I believe that those of us that achieve it attain a certain level of happiness and fulfillment that others lack. I will go with the flow, and ride this wave, come what may, but along the way I will make sacrifices to hold onto the people I love. This is my test. This is my spirituality.
Just wait and see.

R.I.P. D.F.W.

Here is the scene:

V.F.W. Post #6917. The entire back room, which is about the size of a small indoor concert venue,¹ has been rented out for a baby shower. My cousin, whose mother has undertaken the mighty task of planning and pulling off this shindig, is the young mother-to-be. She has hired outside help to come in and strip and wax the floors, the cost of which I won't even bother to divulge here.² We arrive shortly before 11:00 AM to begin preparations.

Two rows of five fold out tables, each about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide, are placed in the direct center of the room. The entire hall is flooded in fluorescent light, courtesy of three rows of five fixtures each. Each table has a light blue silk cloth draped on top of it, along with chintzy centerpieces, party favors, small baby-bottle shaped containers of candy and gummy bears, and small blue pens (the purpose of which will only be revealed later). Each table has eight fold out chairs stationed around it, four on each side. The east and west walls are adorned with heavy, dark, navy blue curtains to cover up the dart boards that hang on the walls. Banners reading “IT'S A BOY!” are strung across the top of the curtains.

Small sandbag weights, each holding a plethora of multicolored helium balloons, are placed in the center of each table.

The south wall has four more such tables, each with matching tablecloths, clustered around it. Each table has about a dozen trays of Korean food. The husband of the young mother-to-be is half Korean, and his family (but mostly his mother's friends) have showed up en masse and each one has prepared native dishes. There is enough food to feed a small army.³ The western wall has two eight-by-four tables lined up alongside it, each with its own light blue tablecloth, with the addition of darker blue tableskirts attached around the edges, making them appear more festive. Perched on top of the tables is a multitude of presents and gifts. They completely fill the table, and getting them all to fit was not unlike an amateur game of Tetris. In addition to the bounty of presents are three separate cakes: one chocolate, one white, one marble.

The tables with the presents are also adorned with helium balloons, and excess balloons are placed on top of unused, stacked-up chairs in the far northwest corner. Thin, blue paper streamers are strung across the ceiling, meticulously twisted just so as to give them a helical shape, and crisscrossed to meet in the center, where another cluster of balloons are hanging from the ceiling.⁴ Also along the western wall is a sine wave of colored lantern-lights hanging from the ceiling, which are plugged in to the northern wall via extension cord.

The extravagance of the occasion cannot be overstated.

Guests begin flooding in shortly after 2:00 PM, and I wisely choose a corner seat in the back (i.e., the north end), a vantage point from which to observe. I am here to determine the answer to a question that has been nagging in my brain since the whole thing started: what really is the point of a baby shower?

Food is served immediately. The line takes over fifteen minutes to get through, and all the people standing in it constitute a veritable melting pot of cultures; an Americana microcosm. Koreans outnumber Anglos and Hispanics about 2-to-1, of which there is about an equal number of, and there is one lone Brit. His name is James, and the task of keeping him company sort of fell on me by proxy. Everyone else in my family has sort of fell into a separate niche of company, save for my youngest cousin, who is shoved so far up his girlfriend's ass it's hard to believe he's consciously aware of anything or anyone else around him. The final table in the buffet line is filled with over a dozen porcelain plates arranged on tiered platforms that contain fresh fruit and vegetables and dips of every conceivable variety. The honeydew melon is remarkably fresh.

James and I fill our plates to the brim and take our seats in the back. We don't speak much, he mostly makes pointed observations about how much different this ceremony is in the United States compared to the United Kingdom.⁵ I have no idea what any of the food on my plate is. Some of it I've had before at other social functions where Korean dishes were served, but I know not the names of these dishes nor what their ingredients are. Indeed, only one has meat in it so far as I can tell, the rest seems to be made up of rice, beans or seeds of some kind, and small, stringy, crunchy noodles that taste like something that would typically be fed to marine life in captivity. It smells like an indoor aquarium. My plastic fork snaps in half with a loud thwack when I attempt to cut into the meat, so I relegate myself to a mountainous heap of refrigerated deli spirals. My stomach begins to hurt after less than ten minutes.

My family is spread out rather linearly: my mother sits in the row in front of me, my aunt two rows in front of her, and my youngest cousin one row ahead of her. My cousin's girlfriend appears to be staring at me for the majority of the meal, and I shift uncomfortably in my seat, trying to avoid letting her know that I am aware that she is indeed staring at me and that it is making me uncomfortable. A large man in a red shirt and a backwards cap sits across from me and James. He has large tattoos on his arms in the design of pirate flags. I instantly despise him.

Despite this being a specialized celebration, there are in fact three pregnant women here.⁶

A cavalcade of small children (who were presumably only interested in consuming sweets) are running around the room, screaming at each other and making guttural noises that I cannot decipher. Three of them are small Hispanic girls, their pink and green dresses presenting an image so diametrically opposed to their demeanor it is downright frightening. They are like miniature, well-dressed nightmares.

After the meal, a raffle is held in the form of small games,⁷ the winners of which get to pick from a selection of pricey home appliances and sundries. No one seems to be really interested, despite the fact that my aunt's loud voice and years of experience as a teacher allows her to command the large room instantly and hold everyone's attention. Another couple sits down across from me and James. The man says to us “I'm not playing baby games,” then looks to whom I presume to be his wife and says “You can play baby games.” He and James sit and pick at the candy on the table, popping sweets into their mouths absently.

Instead of playing along, I continue to sit by myself and observe.⁸ I still haven't figured out what the point of all this is. I can't help but feel that it's kind of obnoxious. There are more gifts here being handed to the young mother-to-be than all of my birthdays and Christmases combined. And for what? They're technically supposed to be for the baby, but the baby isn't even here yet, so really they're for my cousin. It's not like the baby really needs them, or even has the capacity to be grateful for them. Sure, the baby needs clothes and diapers and such, but my cousin is well-off, and her husband can more than provide for the child. The whole affair is just gaudy.

A sort of post-meal lethargy steals over me, and I saunter outside to have a cigarette.⁹ It is well after 4:00 PM now. While I'm smoking, several guests begin filing out, heading home early. I contemplate jumping in my car and leaving as well, but, being part of the family, I will be expected to stick around and help clean up afterward. Leaving now would definitely assure me an ass-chewing later on. James peeks out momentarily and asks for a hit off my cigarette.¹⁰ I shudder to think of how much money this whole bonanza has cost the parties involved. Granted, my cousin's husband's mother is extremely well-off, and it means very little to her either way, so long as her son and daughter-in-law are satisfied, but this has undoubtedly put a severe strain on my side of the family.

After smoking, I find that the nicotine has done little to reinvigorate me, and I end up taking a small nap with my head on my arms at the table.¹¹ When I awaken, nearly everyone has left, and my cousin is still seated at the front of the western wall, unwrapping presents. My mother is sitting next to her with a pad and pencil, diligently documenting everything she receives and collating the various cards and notes attached to the presents. I stumble groggily to the refrigerator behind the tables of food, which several Korean ladies are beginning to clean up and put away before leaving, and get a bottle of water, then slouch back down in a chair and check my phone. Some of the balloons seem to empathize with me. 5:30 PM. My youngest cousin is already gone, he had the good sense to get out before he was asked to do any manual labor, and is most likely at home right now boinking his girlfriend. I shudder again and shove this thought from my mind.

Finally, after the last present is unwrapped, and everything is loaded into my cousin's husband's truck, and the trash has been taken out to the dumpster in the dirt parking lot, and the folding chairs and tables have been picked up and stowed away in the northwest corner, and the floors have been swept, and the streamers taken down, and the leftovers loaded up in my aunt's car, and the balloons shoved in the backseat, and everyone double checking their pockets to make sure they haven't forgotten anything, and all the perfunctory hugs and goodbyes have been executed, I make my way back to my car, which has been sitting in the sun for over seven hours now, put my key in the ignition, shrug and say “Well, at least we got a free meal out of it,” then pull away, and merge onto the highway in the setting sun.

1 For anyone reading who has been to the Emerson Theatre in Indianapolis, you wouldn't be far off.

2 Hint: it's a three digit number, and the first digit is larger than five.

3 I have no idea what this expression means. How large is a “small army”? There were roughly eighty people in attendance, but this hardly constitutes any army, even a small one. Suffice to say, there was a shitload of food.

4 These particular balloons are not filled with helium, for obvious reasons of elementary physics.

5 Including, but not limited to, calling diapers “nappies”.

6 One of the attendees, in fact, seems confused as to which baby's arrival she is supposed to be celebrating.

7 Mostly puzzles involving coming up with words for animals using each letter of the alphabet (the entire shower is centered around the theme of Noah's Ark and under-the-sea type gaiety), and a house variation on “The Price is Right.”

8 It's not like I could really win, anyway. I'm technically part of the group that's hosting the celebration, and awarding me prizes would undoubtedly be seen as nepotism; besides which, none of the items on display really interest me.

9 Salem Menthols, which I got on sale, and are not my preferred brand.

10 Which he affectionately refers to as a “square.”

11 A practice which I perfected in high school, and still to this day seems like second nature to me, despite the incredibly awkward posture involved.