Mental Graffiti

I may not know where I’m going, but I know all too well where I’ve been

Daniel — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:37:28 +0000

Hey everyone. It’s been good bit since I stopped in here, longer than I expected at any rate. It hasn’t that I’ve not had any thoughts or opinions on matters at hand, its just that I’ve been thinking about a lot of stuff and didn’t know what – if any – of those thoughts I really wanted to make public.

As I recently noted, I’ve been having some health issues. More namely, chest pains and heart palpitations. The last of my series of appointments (with the Cardiologist) was on August 20th and it looks like my entire cardiovascular system checks out OK.

It turns out that a lot of my symptoms, when taken together, quite eerily mimic heart problems but the heart itself is fine.

Still, there were some days in there when I really felt like I might die. I haven’t taken care of myself very well over the last 10 or so years and it’s come back to haunt me.

Many people who know me now might be surprised to find out that before I was this mass of humanity, I was actually quite an athlete in my younger days.

I played 5-set tennis matches, marathon basketball games, street hockey and football just about as often as I could – even in the middle of a Miami summer.

I even was in an amateur wrestling federation in South Florida for about three years. Like the big feds, we were pre-determined and scripted, but we were still athletes and could give and take as good as any.

So what happened? While it’s hard to pin it all on one event – after all, everything that happens effects us in some way – I can easily say it started with serious emotional trauma. I won’t go into too fine a detail here (trust me, the details alone could take up two or three posts), but suffice it to say I had my heart and trust betrayed in a very serious way to the point where I contemplated suicide, only to be pulled back from the edge by family and a few very close friends.

That was in 1997. I was about 240 lbs back then, about 15 pounds above my playing weight in high school, but I was still in good shape. Since then, I’ve put on over 100 pounds and basically lit the fuse that turned my health to utter shit.

I also became a burden to those same friends and family who’d helped me come back from the brink. At first it was just financial – I had nothing and it was gonna take some time before I could stand on my own two feet again.

Then it became more serious, because I was unable to handle being a person again. My inability to be social, crippled by a deep, heartfelt mistrust for anything human that had grown out of the previous betrayal, made it impossible for me to take anyone or anything at face value. If someone offered me help, I wondered why they were doing it. What was in it for them? Would they pull the rug out from under me at the last moment and leave me in a heap while they went off to laugh about it?

When someone offered to buy me lunch because I was broke, I made a note of it because I was sure it would come back to me later on when they wanted recompense. Nobody, not even friends, did things just because they cared about you. I was convinced of this.

I began to resent people for their success. When someone got a promotion, got married or came into money, I just didn’t want to hang out with them anymore. Doing so just reminded me of how much I hated what I’d done with my life.

Everyone gets envious when someone else has a run of good fortune, but I’ll be the first to admit that the level of my envy was disturbing. If I let it, this envy could quickly grow to near-hatred of the individual, even if they’d been a long-time, close friend.

It’s these feelings that kept me from going to my High School Reunions. I was a financial failure. I was overweight. I never finished my bachelor’s degree. I didn’t have a wife or kids. Why did I want to go back and see the people from high school so I could be reminded of their successes? I began to resent THEM too, even though I hadn’t seen them in years. It was better that I stayed away, I felt. I didn’t need them rubbing my nose in their great lives – they wouldn’t have done this of course, but you try explaining that to someone with severe anger and trust issues.

It didn’t help when the people who DID stick with me (saints, all of them) didn’t quite understand why I couldn’t just “snap out of it.” To be fair, this kind of continues today.

A lot of people just don’t realize that I’m NOT like this because I WANT to be. They’re always telling me to just let things go. I’d love to. I REALLY would. It’s not like I chose to be this way. I hate it about myself and there isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t wish it away.

But it’s not that simple. It’s not a switch I can turn on and off. It’s not a conscious decision I make. It’s just who I’ve been for 13 years, for better or (mostly) worse.

There’s a line from the Broadway Musical Wicked that perfectly sums up how I feel about it (and it might be why I relate to the Elphaba character so strongly). When confronted about her personality, she snaps “Do you think I like being like this? Don’t you think life would be a lot easier for me if I didn’t care so much?”

And that’s really what it’s about. A lot of people would prefer I be another way. Hell, so would I. But if it’s deeply ingrained, its not something that can be accomplished just by deciding it so, no matter how many self-help experts tell you otherwise.

Sometimes, it changes over time. Sometimes, it takes a life-shaking event to snap people back into perspective. Sometimes, neither helps at all.

Luckily, I had my life-shaking event when I thought my heart was failing. Sure, it ended up being much ado about nothing, but I didn’t know that for a while. In the interim, I realized I’ve been slowly killing myself with hatred and disdain and had the sudden realization that in the end, it was all so silly.

I’m sure some of you reading this (if I haven’t bored you yet) are thinking “we could have told you that.”

And some of you actually HAVE told me that. But I had to realize it for myself before I could change anything.

Why am I telling you all this? To be honest, I’m really not sure. I didn’t even expect this to be the topic of my post today. I had a completely different idea in mind, but this just all came out.

Even the illusion of mortality can cause you to step back and re-evaluate a lot of things. I’m glad I got that chance. There are a lot of friends from my past out there that I’ve wronged in one way or another, mostly by passively cutting off contact with them. I’m only one person from their past, so its not like I hold myself by some inflated sense of importance, but still, I did them wrong even if I didn’t actively attempt to do so.

I hope some of them read this. And if they do, I hope they accept my apology. I know I can’t even think to deserve forgiveness, but I’m hoping for it.

Culinary Challenge #1: Cooking the “vile weed.”

Daniel — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:18:27 +0000

Hey guys. A few posts ago, I mentioned that a viewing of The Meryl Streep/Amy Adams film Julie & Julia had inspired me to try a cooking challenge of my own: Once every two weeks, cook a dish containing an ingredient I normally detest. Granted, since I’ve started cooking regularly, that list has shrunk considerably, but there are plenty of candidates out there.

Case in point: the ingredient I chose for my first challenge: The Dreaded Brussels Sprout (*cue eerie music*)

Whenever I ate Brussels sprouts as a kid, they were always served the same way: boiled. The smell was nauseating and the taste, well, there are very few things I’ve literally gagged on while eating them. Brussels sprouts is one of them.

So, when I announced that I’d be attempting to cook something with this evil miniature cabbage, the reaction wasn’t surprising. Oh sure, there were a few people who proclaimed their love, even a couple who gave me great ideas on how to cook them. Most, though, reacted with sheer horror.

One friend told me I was on my own, even refusing my request for a prayer, saying “sorry, you brought this evil upon yourself.”

One said that the only way he’d eat that “vile weed” was deep fried and dipped in chocolate.

Even my dog thought I was crazy.

Brussels sprouts? Seriously?

But, that was kinda the point. Could this thing, this vegetable so reviled be turned into something edible?

I went looking for an answer and came up with an interesting idea: Saute’ them!

In my experience, sauteing makes everything better. So, lacking a recipe or any idea how to go about doing it, I went to my old standby, Epicurious, and found this:

Brussels Sprouts with Caramelized Shallots

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter, divided
1/2 pound shallots, thinly sliced
Coarse kosher salt
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
4 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 pounds brussels sprouts, trimmed
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup water

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in medium skillet over medium heat. Add shallots to melted butter and sprinkle with coarse kosher salt & pepper.
Sauté until soft and golden (about 10 minutes), then add the vinegar and sugar; Stir until brown and glazed (about 3 additional minutes).
Halve the Brussels sprouts lengthwise then, with flat side down, cut sprouts lengthwise into thin (1/8-inch) slices.
Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add sprouts, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Sauté until brown at edges (about 6 minutes).
Add 1 cup water and 3 tablespoons butter. Sauté until most of water evaporates and sprouts are tender but still bright green (an additional 3 minutes).
Add shallots, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

Pretty simple recipe, all told. And last night, I tackled it.

The first thing I did, as I usually do, is gather up the ingredients so I could do a “roll call.” My memory is not what it used to be, and more than one recipe has been sabotaged in the past because I forgot something.

Hail, hail, the gang's all here.

Ok, so everything’s in place. Good. Most of the recipe, as stated, is pretty easy, but the first part is time consuming: Prepping the vegetables. 1 1/2 pounds is a lotof Brussels sprouts to halve and slice, and the shallots (which oddly enough look like giant garlic cloves but taste and smell like mild onions) took a fair bit of time as well. Eventually, though…

All sliced up and nowhere to go...

With that done, it was actually smooth sailing after that. Caramelizing the shallots proved to be trivial. Melt the butter, toss in the shallots, coat them in the butter and cook em up until they glisten. I added the apple cider vinegar (which, by the way actually has a stronger smell than regular vinegar) and the sugar and a few minutes later…

mmm...caramel

The sprouts were a bit more problematic simply because there were so many of them. I have a rather large skillet but even it had trouble holding all of them, making even heating and cooking a bit difficult. But, with a good flat spoon and some elbow grease, it worked out, made a lot easier once the water and butter were added.

If it's Tuesday, it must be (Brussels) Belgium

After that was done, I just had to put the two pieces together, resulting in a colorful, incredibly flavorful hash that contained almost none of the telltale bitterness I remembered from when I was a kid. The shallots added a light, subtle sweetness to the hash and cut through what little bitterness the sprouts still had.

I think it would make a great side dish, to be honest, especially in the summer. I am guessing its probably even good cold, as a slaw type side disk, but i haven’t tried it like that yet.

Brussels Sprouts & Caramelized Shallots!

One variation I am really looking forward to trying: replacing the olive oil with rendered bacon fat. According to my trusty culinary sidekick The Flavor Bible, bacon is one of the best things to combine with brussels sprouts, so yeah…saute the sprouts in the fat, crumble the bacon over the hash at the end.

In conclusion, Brussels sprouts become another example of how any ingredient, when used correctly, can create a lovely, tantalizing dish. They’re not evil at all, it turns out. Just misunderstood.

Till next time (I’m thinking artichokes), happy eating, all!

Music that needs your attention – The Frames

Daniel — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 04:58:37 +0000

Before appearing in the 2006 movie Once with friend Marketa Irglova, Glen Hansard wasn’t too well known on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. Since then, though, his brilliance has slowly been making the rounds. Each month, it seems, I find out someone else I know has been exposed to Glen’s music, either through the film, or because they caught a video of him on YouTube.

I usually don’t make music recommendations, but if you enjoy folk rock at all, or just like listening to musicians who really know what the hell they’re doing, you owe it to yourself to check out Glen’s band The Frames.

The band hasn’t put out an album since before Once came out, and because of that, Hansard is now more associated with Irglova via their collaboration as The Swell Season.

But The Frames are equally good, if not better – especially live. They’ll be together again in early September at Electric Picnic 2010, an Irish music festival. Their appearance has fans – like me – hoping beyond hope that they’ll be getting back into the studio again soon.

That’s all I really wanted to say today, but I wanted to leave you with the lyrics of my favorite of the band’s many incredible songs:

What Happens When the Heart Just Stops?

So what happens when the heart just stops
Stops caring for anyone
The hollow in your chest dries up
And you stop believing

So what happens when the heart gives up
But the body goes on living
The blood crawls to a slow and stops
And flows away

Well we got no one to meet
No love we would beseech
We only have ourselves to blame for everything
There was no answer in the dust
And I’m missing you so much
And now you’re sleeping
And I’m leaving

Empty-handed waiting
Time it will subside and we’ll agree
It was a given
Well there was no standard we could set
And the world it does regret
To have to leave you in this state of bereavement

You see I’m feeling everything
Nothing gets by

There is a hollow in my chest
The time I won’t forget
There is no comfort in the eyes
They put us always to the test
I can’t prepare myself for that
But I work it out in time
There is a love that flows between us
Ever-changing everyday
I worked myself up to a crawl
But I’m not fearing it at all
We have no reason left to stay
And that’s why we’re leaving
There was no answer in the dust
And no one out there to trust
There is a lie that drags us
Beating and pulling into disappointment

I’m disappointed
I’m disappointed
I’m disappointed

It’s so late, till you’re gone

Until next time, fair play to you all.

There’s a panic on the streets of London…

Daniel — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:50:04 +0000

Panic on the streets of London
Panic on the streets of Birmingham
I wonder to myself
Could life ever be sane again?

—The Smiths

When the sun sets tonight over London’s skyline, the populace will know that there is only one more sleep left before the entire city is dumped headfirst into Opening Day 2010.

The Barclay’s Premier League kicks off its football (the European kind) season tomorrow, and for the first time, I will be paying attention. See, I’ve always watched soccer at a distance. I’ve respected the athletes but found it very hard to become emotionally invested in the sport. It’s kind of hard to do when the best teams in the best league play in Europe and some of the games start before 8AM Eastern Time.

But, with this year’s World Cup I found my interest transformed. I didn’t just watch the games, I absorbed them. The more I watched, the more I began to see why the rest of the world finds so much to love in this crazy, beautiful sport.

Sure, I’ll admit that Landon Donovan’s last minute goal against Algeria helped, but there were games involving teams I didn’t care a lick about that had me nibbling my fingernails in nervousness.

I have some friends who are soccer fanatics. They recognized this change in me and plainly stated that if I really wanted to sink my teeth into the sport and keep myself interested, I needed to pick a team to root for.

Makes sense, really. You’re always more likely to pay attention to something in the long term if you have a rooting interest. So I did my research.

A lot of people said I should root for Manchester United. Please. Even a soccer newbie like me know that’s like rooting for the Yankees. They win all the time because they spend an absurd amount of money on players, and they have the most fans of any soccer team in the world. That was the easy way out.

Then there’s Chelsea. If United is the Yankees, then Chelsea is the Red Sox. Bleah. On top of that, apparently their leading scorer Didier Drogba is, to quote one of my British soccer-loving friends, “a boorish twat of a human being.” I don’t like rooting for twats, so Chelsea’s out.

Then people suggested Arsenal. Ah, the Gunners. I can get behind this team. They build their roster with smart signings rather than throwing money at every problem. Still, when a team is well known enough that even I know their nickname and their reputation, I feel cheap rooting for them. I needed something different.

And in the world of the Barclay’s Premier League, there are few teams as different as Tottenham Hotspur. They’ve been a decent team in the past, but last season they broke through and surprised a ton of people by finishing in the top four of the league, qualifying for the UEFA Champion’s League for the first time in their history.

It helps that their name is so off the wall. What in the hell is a Hotspur? I had to look it up. The team took its name from the 15th Century knight Sir Henry Percy. His family owned several large tracts of land in the Tottenham district and he was known as a fearless, heroic warrior on the battlefield. He became known as Harry “Hotspur” because he had the borderline insane willingness to charge directly into the worst part of a battle.

So the team took their name from an insane knight. How can you NOT love that? Plus, they’ve adapted the Hotspur attitude into how their club plays, and even in their team motto “Audere Est Facere” – To Dare is to Do.

Looking further into Tottenham, I found that their fan base is amongst the most loyal of any team in any sport in the world, and as someone who has rooted for the same NFL team – the Miami Dolphins – since I was 4, I found that heartening.

Plus, we American sports fans have nothing on British fans. If you’ve ever caught a bit of soccer on TV, you’ve probably heard the fans chanting in the background. Some of them are singing traditional team songs.

Some of these chants, however, would probably get you thrown out of some stadiums in the States, if not killed by an opposing team’s fans.

In one video I saw on YouTube, a group of Tottenham fans were singing “I’ve Been Sleeping With Your Sister” (to the tune of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”) to a similarly sized group of Arsenal fans.

Can you imagine trying that here? Someone would pull out a gun and shoot you.

And its not even close to being the worst one. There’s a Tottenham song that begins:

My old man said ‘be an Arsenal fan.’
I said ‘fuck off, bollocks you’re a cunt.’

That’s amazing, and nobody is safe. There’s a song aimed at Liverpool and Everton which contains the line “please don’t take our hub caps away.”

I think one of the reasons that the fandom in the Barclay’s Premier league is so intense is the close proximity of the teams. Unlike American sports leagues, where the teams are spread across the country, most of the clubs in the Premiere league play in or around London. In fact, the headquarters of Tottenham and North London rival Arsenal are a mere five miles apart.

That’s insane. It’d be like FSU and UF being across town from each other. Can you imagine the fights?

So I’m officially a Spurs fan. Yes, “Spurs” is the team nickname. Not “The Spurs,” just “Spurs.” Don’t ask me to explain it, though, I’m just an American soccer newbie.

If I was going to be a Spurs fan, though, I had to sport the team colors. I went online and found a nice ball cap with the club crest:

Go Spurs!

I will be wearing that hat all day Saturday, when Tottenham opens their season against Manchester City. Kickoff is 7:45AM Eastern time. I’ll be awake and I’ll be watching.

So, I’m already getting up before 8AM on a Saturday to watch soccer. I think I’m slowly becoming insane.

But for me to REALLY transition into a rabid soccer fan, there is one more thing I need to learn – how to become a hooligan.

It’ll take me a bit, i suppose. I’m not used to being a hooligan, but I have plenty of time to practice.

Hooligan

I’m ready to drench myself in the insanity. Bring it on. Hell, I’ve already added an item to my “bucket list” because of this craziness: To watch a Spurs game live inside their home stadium, White Hart Lane.

In fact, I’ve been scheming and trying to figure out a way to hide myself inside Rachel’s luggage so that she accidentally brings me along when she leaves for London in a couple of weeks for a college semester abroad.

Alas, I think she’d notice the weight difference, so for now I’ll have to root for Tottenham from this side of the pond.

GO SPURS!

Should our favorite books be turned into films?

Daniel — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:14:07 +0000

We all have favorites. Favorite movies, favorite songs, favorite foods. And to each of these, we hold a certain amount of fanatical loyalty. We love them, we don’t care who knows and if everyone else doesn’t understand, that’s fine.

But when it comes to books, the intensity of that fanaticism raises to beyond a fever pitch. Avid readers seem to consider their favorite books as akin to parts of their heart and soul. It goes beyond fandom into something much, much more complete: zealotry.

Despite my less than serious tone, I don’t consider this a bad thing at all. Books are easier to become emotionally invested in than songs or movies. Movies are over in a couple of hours, songs in a few minutes.

Books can take days to complete. You have to find time to fit them in. If you work full time, you almost have to schedule your day around them in order to get any reading time in. In these days, especially, reading is a commitment.

So it makes sense that the characters and stories held on pages hold more weight to people than most films do to moviegoers.

Noting this, I have to wonder how often film executives take any of this into account when deciding what books to adapt to film. The answer is pretty clearly never.

There are some books that probably should never be adapted to film. This list varies depending on who you talk to, but its clear – sometimes a literary work is so encompassing or beloved that making a movie out of it will do nothing for it’s legacy, but will only serve as an abridged version of what made the book so great in the first place.

And with some books, that’s akin to a crime against art.

Below, I looked at some of my favorite books and plays (which can be accessed in the menu above, under Books) to determine which of them should be adapted, which should never be attempted, and of the ones that already have been adapted, which succeeded.

The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

This is probably going to make quite a few people upset, but in my opinion, while the Harry Potter films are good movies (a couple have crossed into “great” territory), as adaptations, they’re a mess. There are too many small, but important plot elements left out – and I’m not talking about “a really cool scene” that I wanted to see filmed, I’m talking about smaller personal moments that added to the lore and the characters’ depth. The worst offense? Leaving out the explanation of who “Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs” were in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Criminal. It made the patronus scene essentially meaningless, and robbed the moviegoers of some great back story. And it would’ve taken no more than four to seven minutes.

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein

When you consider how monumental a task it was to even film these in the first place, you’d be inclined to give them a pass even if they ended up being less than spectacular. Luckily, no such problems. No, the films weren’t perfect (shield surfing Legolas, anyone?) and at points the narrative went against the text (repeat after me: There were no elves at Helm’s Deep), but for the most part, Peter Jackson’s adaptation stuck with the spirit of the original books. His passion for the material was obvious, and it shone through in his casting choices. Seriously, can you even picture anyone else but Sir Ian McKellan as Gandalf the Grey, now?

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

They already adapted this one in 1974. I’m tempted to go back in time and beat someone with a stick. It’s one thing to try and turn a sweet, philosophical, hopeful children’s book into a Hollywood film. It’s completely another to make it into a musical. Look, I like musicals, but whose idea was this? If nothing else, it proves that destroying childhoods is not a new thing for Hollywood. They were doing it back in the seventies. They (and everyone else) needs to leave this tender classic alone. If they don’t, I’m gonna have to cut someone.

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Spielberg’s 1993 film adaptation of what’s become the quintessential dinosaur novel was good for what it was. It was fun, wonderfully directed, had some amazing set pieces and didn’t try to be anything else. And it’s the perfect example of what I meant when I talked about an “abridged version.” The book was so much more than that. The cautionary aspects of the original story were touched on in the movie, but they’re so much more developed in the book. The characters are better developed, the science less esoteric and the action more concise. It was a good movie, it just wasn’t that accurate an adaptation.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

I’ll be damned, they got one right. The framing of the film to include a man reading the story to his sick grandson worked incredibly well, and the casting was first rate from top to bottom. It helped that Goldman (who also wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids) penned the script and knew which parts of his classically bizarre table to leave on the editing table. Anybody want a peanut?

The Once and Future King by T.H. White

The book is absolutely massive and I think Hollywood did the only thing it could do under the circumstances: adapt different parts of the tome into different films. We’ve seen several film versions of the events in the novel over the past few decades: The Sword and the Stone and Excalibur just to name two. The Arthurian legend is so well known, in my opinion, mostly because of these films, so although they aren’t perfect, I really can’t fault the attempts. Without them, most wouldn’t know the mythology at all.

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin

Well, we’ll find out next spring, when HBO launches A Game of Thrones – season 1 of the television adaptation of Martin’s sprawling fantasy universe. I not 100% convinced that an adaptation will work, but if it had to be done, this is the way. The spot on casting in place is a VERY good sign.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

I never used to want an adaptation of this John Irving novel about the little boy who changed so many people’s lives. Then, Hollywood released an abomination of a movie – “loosely based” on Meany - called Simon Birch. Now, I want more than ever for someone, preferably Irving himself, to script an adaptation and get this story to screen as soon as possible so I can scrub Simon Birch from my brain forever. The film changed so much of what made the book so wonderful: Owen’s unshakable presence, his confidence and emotional stature despite his diminutive size, the depths of what made the character tick and his darkly poetic end. The only scene they got right was the opening one – where “Simon” accidentally kills his friend’s mother by hitting her in the head with a baseball. After that, it was…I just…sorry, I need a drink.

Beach Music by Pat Conroy

Despite the success of The Prince of Tides, not every Conroy novel should be turned into a movie. As much as I adore this book (revealing fact: the ending affected me so much that I cried myself to sleep after finishing it), I can’t imagine a movie being able to portray the deep relationships held within or even come close to duplicating Conroy’s almost unfairly elegant prose. Apparently, studios have been trying to squeeze a script out of Conroy for years, but he keeps putting it off. Go with that Pat, go with that.

And with that, here’s a question: Are there any books you all love enough that if Hollywood ever butchered them in an attempt to bring them to screen, you’d seek some sort of revenge? Er…not that I’ve done that. Recently.

(As far as you know, anyway)

Allow me to cook you a story…

Daniel — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 23:46:40 +0000

Today, I watched Julie & Julia. I added it to my NetFlix queue because it had Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in it. I had a vague idea of the story, but never any of the specifics.

The “Julie” half of the movie is about Julie Powell (real-life writer) who has started several writing projects but has never seen them through to the end. She likes cooking – a lot, actually – and uses her time in a kitchen as a way to come back to herself after a day amongst a Government run cubicle farm.

She decides to give herself a challenge – and a deadline. The challenge because she needed more from her life and the deadline because she’s afraid that without it, she’ll never get it done.

The challenge: To cook her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking – all 524 recipes – in a year.

Her husband gives her the idea to blog about it. He thinks it would help her get back in touch with her writing. She eventually relents, and off we go.

So, yeah….she’s a writer at heart who loves cooking, uses it as therapy and blogs because it gives her attainable, short-term goals where her writing is concerned.

Basically, she’s me in a skirt.

After watching the movie, I had the sudden, easily-explained urge to cook something. There wasn’t much in the house that I could prepare at the drop of a hat, but I eventually managed a spicy beef casserole over macaroni.

Nothing fancy, but hey, I can’t always cook confit biyaldi.

As I was putting together dinner, something occurred to me. I view cooking the same way I view writing. Sometimes, I just have to do it. When I’m inspired to cook, I always come up with something really good, even if its not high-class gourmet level food (though that has happened).

When I try to force it, I don’t get any satisfaction out of it. Even if the food comes out good, it doesn’t enrich me at all. That’s why I usually only cook if I offer to do it before hand, for special occasions or for parties.

Even the process is pretty much the same:

The ingredients are your characters, and you probably even have a few favorites you might use multiple times because they really liven up what you’re doing. (mine are mushrooms, garlic and tomatoes).

You have an outline – the recipe – which, when followed to the letter basically gets you what you want. The real fun, though, is tweaking that recipe as you make it. Switching out ingredients, changing measurements, adding something out of the blue to give it a different texture, etc.

Don’t we all write like this? Even those of us who don’t write to a concrete outline (like me) find ourselves throwing stuff in at the last second to see how our own characters react to it or to simply give a kick to a narrative that seems to be running out of steam.

The actual cooking is basically the writing process. It’s taking your characters and your plot outline and crafting your tale. How will it be at the end? What story are you trying to tell? Is it sweet? Bitter? Spicy? It’s all up to you – and the answer could be different tomorrow simply by adding something new.

Tonight, my casserole was spicy because I used cayenne pepper in it, plus a dash of cumin. Tomorrow, using the same basic ingredients – beef, mushrooms, onions and garlic – I could create a sweeter flavor simply by taking out the cayenne pepper and replacing it with honey, or maybe by cooking it longer & at a lower temperature.

It’s all in the process. The only thing that says the same is you.

And its that process that keeps me going back to the kitchen again and again. When I write, I find relief when I complete a project. I’m glad its over because I’ve put everything I had into it until it was time for release. When I wrote my last Dungeons & Dragons adventure, Shards of Shattered Darkness, it marked the end of a two year writing ordeal that a four-part series, filling me with frustration, anger, sadness, exhilaration and the rush of creation.

By the time it was released in June 2008, I was done. Spent. I didn’t want to write another word for any role-playing game system. I’d written or co-written eleven separate adventures in four years, and I was simply burnt out.

With cooking, I relish each step. Shopping for the ingredients is probably my favorite part. There’s just something so inherently calming to me about searching for the perfect cheese or the right cut of meat. I can’t explain it. I sometimes think I’m crazy, but all artists are to a point, so I am in good company.

Prepping the cook area is never a chore. The cooking itself is always a joy. Even cleaning up afterward has become part of my ritual. I’m not the tidiest person in the world, but God help anyone who clutters my cooking space. While I’m creating, the kitchen is mine. People learn that quickly. After all, I have knives.

This wonderful exuberance I feel when I cook is the exact thing that’s keeping me from going to culinary school. I don’t want it to become a job. I want to always love doing it, and I think if I put myself into the system, I will end up becoming resentful of the very thing I love so much.

At the same time, I need a new challenge. As much as writing for Wizards of the Coast burnt me out, it allowed me a chance to flex my creative wings and see a project through to the end.

So, here’s what I’m foisting on myself. A cooking challenge: At least once every two weeks, I am going to cook a recipe or dish that prominently features an ingredient I normally cannot stand to eat.

This challenge is more about opening up myself to new tastes than it is about finishing anything, so there will be no deadline for this challenge. I will just keep it up until I run out of ingredients to hate.

Or at least until the writing bug bites me again.

Bon Appetit!

It was 20 years ago today…

Daniel — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:27:53 +0000

Today is my 38th birthday. I don’t write this in some vain attempt to get good wishes, believe me. A lot of my friends only found out today’s my day via Facebook because I don’t really bring it up. I don’t like to call attention to the fact that I’m getting older.

In fact, normally, I wouldn’t mention it at all. It only comes up because this morning it hit me square between the eyes that I turned 18 twenty years ago.

I even remember where I was the moment the clock struck midnight on August 6, 1990. I was sleeping on a bus.

No, really

I was in Illinois with the rest of the Miami Sunset Senior High Mu Alpha Theta Mathematics team, attending what would be my last high-school related event: The National Mathematics finals at Northern Illinois University.

One of the things the different teams did was take a day off from the competition, load into busses and go to Six Flags Great America, a theme park outside DeKalb.

It was at this park that I learned of my affinity for Whack-A-Mole and my dislike of free-fall style roller coasters. It was a great day. So much fun. I still remember a lot of the details.

But it was also incredibly exhausting. I fell asleep on the bus on the way back to NIU, only to be awakened at the stroke of midnight by a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday” that my friends Russell Ackerman and Bach Nguyen had organized. They got everyone on the bus – even kids from other teams – to serenade me.

It was the first memory I’d have of my 18th birthday, and it remains the best.

But wow…things have changed so much since then. When I started college the following month, grunge was just starting to hit its stride (Nirvana’s now classic album Nevermind was still over a year from release). MC Hammer was still at the top of his game and “Ice Ice Baby” was about to become the most popular song in America.

Hell, the Internet was barely even talked about outside college campuses. My first brush with it was at Florida International University’s computer lab, where I saw some students playing MUDs via old VMS terminals.

The Florida Marlins – who’ve won two World Series championships since 1997 – didn’t even exist yet. Neither did the Tampa Bay Lightning, who won the Stanley Cup in 2004.

Smartphones? Heh…not quite. There were cellular phones, but they were blocky, heavy things that were almost impossible to lug around. If you wanted to get in touch with someone, you used a landline or used this fancy new tool called “e-mail.”

Ghost was the highest grossing film, and Dances With Wolves was about to win the Oscar for Best Picture. It’s hard to believe even now, but once upon a time, Kevin Costner’s name was money-in-the-bank in Hollywood.

In Living Color, Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks and Tale Spin were just starting their runs on television, while Mama’s Family, ALF, Mr. Belvedere and Duck Tales were going off the air.

Computer games still came on floppy disks. The most popular video game console was the original Nintendo Entertainment system.

But despite the inherent culture shock experienced by going down memory lane, the most telling changes have all been personal.

I learned to love literature that year, thanks to my AP English teacher, John Kendall. Through him, I found my adoration for Pat Conroy, John Irving and William Faulkner.

My love for Mathematics also bloomed that year, through Frank Caballero, who is still the best teacher I’ve ever had at any level. I’ll always be thankful to him for making me realize that “school work” didn’t have to mean “boring.”

I began to view writing as more than a hobby, an attitude that led to a publishing credit in The Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor as well as a thick portfolio of official Wizards of the Coast-approved Dungeons and Dragons adventures.

I got my first job and became familiar with the term “disenfranchised youth.”

I rode on a plane for the first time.

I found a passion for movies I never knew existed, and fell hard for animated films.

I had my first real girlfriend. It didn’t end well, but that was a failure in me. I wasn’t self-confident enough to be myself and ended up causing trust issues in her, which is something I’ve not been able to reconcile even to this day.

It took me a lot of years to finally “grow up,” but I finally go there. I’ve had my heart, my bank-account and my confidence broken in the process (each more than once) and hey, lets be honest, there are some holes I’m probably gonna be climbing out of for the rest of my life.

The thing is, I’m glad I’ve come to that realization in time and can do something about it. There are friends from school that didn’t get this chance. Some died because of negligence. A couple because of poor decisions. Cancer claimed one.

I think about that every time I start lamenting where I am in life. I may have put myself here, but at least I’ve got the chance to fix it.

I just hope I’ve grown up enough to actually do it

Life is just too short for negativity.

Daniel — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:29:56 +0000

I first attempted to write a fantasy novel back when i was in high school. It was silly, had no direction and eventually fell apart, but there were a couple things about it I’ve always remembered.

One was the realization at how much I loved writing dialogue. The other was a single line uttered by one of the hero’s friends: “Only when life appears near its end does it truly seem to begin.”

Corny? Yeah. I admit that I was fishing for something “meaningful” when I was writing back then, but even now – actually, more now than ever – the sentiment rings true for me.

See, for the past month or so I’ve been experiencing chest pains and palpitations and yesterday I started a battery of tests and scans yesterday to determine whether the chest pains (and other symptoms) I’ve been experiencing are related to something serious like a pulmonary embolism or congestive heart failure, or something relatively minor.

And there’s a chance it could be nothing. But there’s a good chance it could be something, and it’d be my own fault. I’ve not taken care of myself over the years. In body, sure, but also in mind.

Too much of my time has been spent dealing with negative emotions – both my own and that over other people. Anger, fear, sadness, frustration, you name it, and what’s it got me? Nothing but stress and a lack of satisfaction with my life and the world.

So for the sake of my own health, I’ve had to make a conscious decision to leave negative emotions out of it. For good.

Before I closed REELFocus, one of my last posts implored people to be passionate about whatever they did, whether others thought it silly or not.

Now, I’m expanding that. I’m imploring people to not waste a single moment on negativity. Live for the positive. Life is too short to obsess over details that don’t matter in the long run.

I know that seems like outdated thinking, especially in the age of the Internet. Hell, the Net is built on negativity: trolling, fanboys shouting down those who disagree with them, nitpicky complaints about stuff that really don’t mean anything. It’s the life blood of the World Wide Web.

But why? Before, I’d try to explain it. Maybe post about why I think people are so negative on the Net. But even that doesn’t matter.

What matters is that it happens at all.

Negativity hardens the heart. Yes, getting angry can be cleansing. But being constantly angry – or constantly looking for something to be angry about – isn’t healthy.

And I know its a pipe dream to wish that it would all just go away. I know its idealistic and its unrealistic to wish for it. But it’s not going to stop me from doing it.

I keep hoping I’ll see the day where people will get angry at injustice as much as they do about who wins Reality TV shows.

I keep hoping that someday, politicians will be judged by their individual selves rather than the party they represent.

I keep hoping that people will be able to accept others for their political or religious differences instead of starting a war.

I will continue to hold out hope that one’s tastes in movies, books, music or video games no longer seem tantamount to sin in a world where there are things far more important.

And I will keep praying that some day, Christians who publicly spout hate will be silenced and that those of us who try to live by Christ’s example of love will be the norm and not the exception.

In short, I’ll keep on hoping for change, because people are different and being angry about it is not only a waste of time, it’s also counterintuitive.

Why spew hate at someone who disagrees with you? Even if the point of concention is political or religious ideology, its STILL just an opinion. You believe you’re right. But they believe they’re right just as strongly. Arguing about it will get you absolutely nowhere and will do nothing but make the world a more hateful place.

Instead, save that energy for something else – bolster your own side. Volunteer. If you truly believe in what you’re saying, put your actions behind it. Supporting your cause or your faith is far more productive than screaming down the opposing side. Let it get back to “may the best man win” instead of the “who looks the least bad by comparison?” atmosphere that exists today.

When you find yourself about to argue with someone because they love a movie (or book, or musical artist) that you hate, or hate one that you happen to love, redirect that energy. People have different tastes. Debating them is fine, arguing about them is as well – to a point. But when the arguing crosses into name calling, hurtful statements, questioning of intelligence and someone’s viabliity as a human being, it has obliterated a line that never needed to be crossed. Instead, do something creative. Write, paint, draw, cook. Whatever it is YOU do, do it. The world would be a much better place if everyone tried to create art rather than constantly argue about who’s fans are right. Here’s a shocker: You’re all right.

Everyone’s opinion is correct to THEM. If you like directors like Godard or Tartovsky and someone else perfers Michael Bay, does that really affect you in any significant way? Enjoy the artful styles you like, let someone else watch stuff blow up. Its no skin off your nose.

Someone else likes a different video game system than you? Ok, let them. Enjoy yours. Let them enjoy theirs. This difference in tastes and preference of brand is what creates competition and what makes ALL games better.

This negative energy can be redirected if people allowed themselves to get past the “I’m so right and you’re a moron if you don’t agree” mentality. The world can IMPROVE if people put some effort into it.

We have a responsibility to improve ourselves and the world we live in. Waste no more time on misplaced anger or what has happened to you in the past. Focus only on what you CAN do from here on out. Be positive.

Life’s too short for anything else.

The Tallahassee Writers Group brave the classics of Hollywood!

Daniel — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:47:50 +0000

As I wrote in my last post over on REELFocus.org, I closed that blog and opened this one because I couldn’t commit the kind of time necessary to continue with a more “professional” blog. I also didn’t want to limit myself to just talking about movies when there are so many other things I am interested in.

So of course, here in my first post on Mental Graffiti, I am going to talk about movies.

More specifically, about the movie marathon that I attended this past weekend. Once a month or so, the members of the Tallahassee Writers Group (of which I am a member) organize a movie marathon as an excuse to get together at an apartment, eat good food, hang out and watch movies for 12 hours or so.

This started after we decided to stage a marathon viewing of the entire run of the short-lived (but always awesome) TV space western Firefly. Our excuse in doing this was to introduce it to the couple of members who’d never seen it, but in reality we just wanted to get together and watch it again.

Since then, we’ve done a hodge-hodge “play whatever we’ve got on the shelf” marathon, an animated movie marathon, a “so bad its good” marathon and this past weekend we reached into the past and did a classic movie marathon.
We watched six films in all and somehow didn’t overlap casts once. I’m still not sure how we managed that, but here is what we watched:

We opened with The Philadelphia Story, the 1940 comedy starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. Right there, really, is all you need to know to understand just how ridiculously amazing this movie was. Even now, 70 years later, I can’t think of a movie with that kind of powerhouse cast. Just crazy. Now, the movie itself was practically flawless (***** from me, easy), but I did learn something about the female members of the Writers Group – forthwith referred to as the Glitterati – that kinda made me worry for my safety (did I mention I’m the only male in the group?)

See, Katharine Hepburn’s character, Tracy Lord, is a very strong female character. And it’s a wonderful character to boot. But as the movie unfolded, the Glitterati kept egging her on – imploring her to remain awesome, which is certainly not a problem, and then dropped into a conversation about which male character she should marry – noting that Jimmy Stewart’s character would be easiest to train. At this point I wanted to hide under the table. It wasn’t the conversation that worried me – it was how serious they sounded about it. I tell you, sometimes it’s telling to be the only man in a group full of women – and sometimes, its terrifying. I kept wondering…am I being trained? Are they manipulating my brain with their womanly mental waves, training me to do their bidding without me knowing it? I mean, I already willingly cook for them when we get together, are they going to have me rubbing their feet next? (Not that I’d mind…probably). I eventually shook off the fear, but it gave me something to think about.

From there we moved onto Casablanca, which is the most quotable movie ever made. Yes, more quotable than The Princess Bride, more quotable than When Harry Met Sally… There are no movies that have had as many bits of dialogue enter our every day vernacular. It was while watching this that the generation gap between me and the majority of the others in the group smacked me across the face. For the most part, I don’t know their exact ages (they’re women…I ain’t goin’ there, thanks) but most are at least 10 years younger than me (one is only 13, but you wouldn’t know it – she acts with more sense and maturity than most people I work with), but most of them had never seen Casablanca. One who had was admittedly not a fan. I had a hard time processing this information. I mean…its Casablanca! I felt like Spongebob when Squidward told him he’d never tried a Crabby Patty…can you use those two words in a sentence together like that? Does not…compute.

After Casablanca, we moved to Witness for the Prosecution. It’s obvious to me after watching it that M. Night Shymalan’s entire career was spawned after he got drunk one night and watched this movie. The first 98% of the film is a pretty standard courtroom drama, but the last 2% contains such a double WTF?? ending that the filmmakers felt compelled to put a narrated disclaimer over the closing credits asking the viewers to not spoil the ending for those who hadn’t seen it. I mean…what the hell? Can you imagine trying that today? The internet would have the ending leaked all over the place before the end credits finished rolling, and the narration would be mocked and used in jokes for months. It’d become its own meme, I’m sure of it.

Then came Psycho. The funniest part of this was watching the two or three who hadn’t seen it before. Those of us who had were constantly in need of censoring ourselves when talking about the presumed murderer…saying stuff like “well, he..er…she did it because,” so as not to spoil the ending. Two points: I feel like an idiot for forgetting how wonderful Hitchcock was at framing a shot, and the smile Anthony Perkins flashes at the end of the film is 100 times creepier than anything else that happened in the movie – no mean feat.

After the two dramas and the horror film, we switched gears and screened Singin’ in the Rain. It’d been forever since I’d seen it and man, I tell you, I need to buy this film. Debbie Reynolds is as cute as a button in it, and both Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor just made us all feel like unathletic slobs as we watched one ridiculous dance number after another (more than once, someone called out to the screen “I hate you all!” and we all understood). Fun bit of trivia: When it came time to film the famous “Singin’ in the Rain” sequence, Gene Kelly had a 103-degree fever. The director wanted to send him home, but Kelly refused without at least trying one take. And that’s all it took. That entire musical number was filmed in a single take. That’s beyond absurd. And its why Gene Kelly is the man.

We ended the evening on Swing Time, which has been a favorite of mine for a while. I have to admit, though, my tastes had to have changed a lot since I first saw it, because it didn’t age well in my eyes. Oh sure, the dancing was still as ridiculous as I remember, but whereas I forgave the execution of the plot before, it really bothered me this time. It wasn’t a total loss, though. I got to watch Astaire and Rogers waltz to “The Way You Look Tonight” which, all in all, is not a terrible way to end an evening.

So, six movies down. And this weekend, we’re doing it again. Normally, we’d space em out, but one of our members (Rachel) is heading to London for the Fall Semester near the end of August so this is our last chance to get together en masse. Much food will be prepared and eaten, many jokes and stories will be told, cats will demand attention and we will watch a slough of foreign films. It should be fun. At least, thats what my trainers tell me.