Sweatpants

This year I've made several resolutions. Mostly the usual types of things: learn to stop stating my opinion as fact, start doing BJJ again, write music, read The Brothers Karamozov (this will be the second consecutive year I've made this particular resolution, but I feel good about it this time). However, in addition to resolutions, I've also made a New Year's bet with my good friend and new roommate, Chris Garnett of Swallowed Up fame. As of midnight on January 1st, we are both wearing sweatpants every day. Exemptions are allowed for work or extenuating circumstances that involve externally imposed dress codes (going to the ballet, being the best man at a wedding, etc.) but otherwise, only sweatpants, underwear, and PJs allowed. The idea came from a conversation concerning the inability to look cool while wearing sweatpants, and we decided that it would be a fun excersize to pit our stubbornness against our shallowness. The loser of the bet can chose one of the following punishments: getting a sweatpants-related tattoo from the winner or playing off-key Nirvana covers with a ukelele in the Union Square subway station for an hour. Though it started as a competition, it quickly became more of a supportive partnership in which we encourage each other to stay strong and not give in to our superficial tendencies to care whether or not we look like complete schlubs.

At midnight everyone else at the Stronghold's pizza party was on the roof watching out for fireworks (which I'm told never materialized), so Chris and I were forced to shoot our ceremonial donning of the sweatpants using the self-timer on his camera. Continuing to work under the theory that fisheyes make everything look more exciting, we used the fisheye lens that Chris Riot (not to be confused with Chris Fuck Yeah AKA Chris Garnett, Chris from the Bone Yard who now lives in 210 and whose last name I don't know, or Chris French from the Stronghold AKA 206) taught us how to attach to the camera. Below are the last photo taken of me looking good for a while, and a photo of my caterpillar-like transformation. If you want to see the whole series of me undressing, they are on my myspace.

Life is more dramatic with a fisheye

Having a job is such a bummer. I can't even enjoy my days off because I spend all afternoon thinking about how much I don't want to go to work tomorrow and I get nothing done. Whilst procrastinating on the couch this afternoon I commented to Chris that one of the drawbacks to getting tattooed frequently is that pictures become out of date very quickly. He offered to take some faux-candid shots of me lounging on the couch, accidentally displaying my recently completed sleeve from its most attractive angle, with his new fisheye lens that he got for Christmas. Unfortunately he couldn't figure out how to affix it to his camera, so instead we spent the next half hour following each other around the house, holding the lens up to one eye and keeping the other closed, because everything looks cooler and more exciting with a fisheye. The highlights included Lucy (the dog, not the sister) scaring the shit out of me when she jumped up at me, Chris' muscles (and presumably mine as well) looking great while he hit the punching bag, almost falling through the gap in our second floor, and running into assorted tables, chairs, and people. Sadly, once I returned to normal vision I was reminded that I've accomplished almost nothing today, that I have to go to work tomorrow, and that my life is actually not very interesting, plus the edges of my vision were kind of blurry.

On-The-Job Celebrity Sightings and The Future of My Acting Career

Before I get started, I have an announcement regarding my building:

A unit opened up in my building down the hall and the landlord offered us a chance to fill it with friends before they take it to a broker, so for everyone who has asked me if we have space, this is the time to move in! The total will probably be around $2400 and I don't know how many rooms are built into it right now but it's about he same size as mine and we have 10 people living in our place very comfortably. Let me know if you are interested.

Ok. Yesterday morning I finished typing, threw on pants - and then gore-tex socks, rain pants, gloves, my ear-warmers, and gloves, because it was cold and raining/snowing all day - and headed into the city. It was a pretty busy day and I pulled in about $150 between 10 and 6:25, when I was almost late to my last acting class. Yes, that's right, I took an acting class. After I booked a commercial at an open call a couple of years ago I went out on a handful of auditions and got one callback but no jobs, so I asked the agent that was freelancing me for suggestions and he told me about this class, and, given that if the class got me one day-long job it would pay for itself, I figured why not. Last night was the last class, so they had two agents from top agencies come in and watch us get interviewed and read copy; I think I did pretty well and one of them seemed at least marginally interested in me. I have no expectations, so if something happens, great, if not, whatever.

But back to my work day. We have this client, Scott Cooke, and I have no idea what they actually do. I know it is something involved in entertainment, because we often take out mailings to various media outlets, but we also sometimes do seemingly random jobs like, for example, the day before thanksgiving when I picked up two pies from a bakery, wrapped them in wrapping paper Scott provided, affixed a gift note to Katie Holmes from her manager (John something) and delivered them to the theater where Katie is doing a show. Unfortunately I only got as far as the stage door security guard. So why was Scott Cooke hand-writing a note on behalf of Katie Holmes' manager? Are they personal friends? Or was it business? The plot thickens! Yesterday I picked up a garmet bag from Scott Cooke and delivered it to Emmy Rossum, Golden-Globe nominated actress, and, more importantly to me, co-star (with Jake Gyllenhaal) of The Day After Tomorrow - my favorite natural disaster movie. She lives in a smallish building in UES with no doorman, so she buzzed me in and signed for it herself. As I handed her the cold garment bag, she smiled and made some comment about how it was cold outside. I said something to the effect of, "summer yesterday, winter today, it's crazy out there," thanked her, slid the slip into my clipboard, and headed back to the elevator. I don't really get starstruck, so I wasn't nervous or excited or anything, it was just kind of neat. I only wish I was more clever on the spot, because I would like to have stories not just about delivering things to celebrites, saying thanks, and walking away, but about chatting them up, if for no other reason than to prove how cool I am. And the real bastard of it is that I thought of a great response as soon as I got outside. See, when I mentioned the bizarre weather, I should have followed it up with, "let's hope tomorrow New York doesn't flood and freeze over," and maybe even run with it and say, "because my dad isn't an arctic researcher and climatologist plus I'm not as good-looking as Jake Gyllenhaal." Ok, maybe it would have been better to leave the last part out. Here's to fucking staircase wit.

I haven't been writing because I don't have much to say, but then again, has that ever stopped me before?

I would like to say that the computer fast was so effective at breaking my bad habits that I have spent the last two months reading literary classics and philosophy papers, writing papers, composing all of the music for the first 7" of my new hardcore band, and making Galcéau stock skyrocket. The reality, however, is that I haven't been too busy being productive to write in this thing but that I just haven't felt like it. The computer fast (which ended over a month and a half ago) wasn't a total loss; I figured out some interesting things about my work study habits and broke my addiction to Gilmore Girls. But the Searle paper is still not written (in fact, I kind of stalled on it when some complications arose in my argument), I still take forever to finish books because I read them a couple of pages at a time, and my imaginary new band hasn't yet gotten off the ground. My life is so hard, you have no idea.

Speaking of bands though, I do have some good news: I'm in one again! It's not the hardcore band I've been conceptually working on for a while, it's the indie-ish post-hardcore post-attrition band with Welch, Mikey, and Benny. This past weekend most of my close friends in DC visited so that Breathe In Breathe Out could prepare for our imminent reunion show and the new band (recently named Remainder) could prepare to be awesome. We were successful on both counts. I'm really excited about how Remainder is coming together, and I'm looking forward to our first show - the ever-controversial Positive Youth Fest V (we are listed as Breathless because that was the tentative working title at the time we submitted our demo). We've tried describing our sound using sub-genre names and band comparissons (Unwound, Stop It!!!, Cursive...) but I'm finding that the only thing that really gets the point across is the following: the dudes from Attrition playing music that doesn't involve [much] screaming. We do not have a myspace or anything recorded so you'll just have to take our word for it that we are awesome and come see us at PYF.

So finally, after a two-month hiatus during which I received a surprising amount of criticism for not updating my blog (and a ton of hits from dissappointed readers of I Could Die Tomorrow hoping for music reviews and download links but finding instead ramblings about my boring personal life), I feel inspired to write again, and about five minutes into this entry I got a call from work telling me that they need me in early. See, I've been working Tuesdays ever since I mentioned in the last entry that Brad asked me to, and I hate it. I'd gotten so used to three-day weeks that four days became too much to handle. I don't have enough time to get stuff done, and, more importantly, I don't like spending that much time riding around the city. A partial solution I came up with last week was to come in late - around 10:30 - Tuesdays and Wednesdays, since there are now three people per day and I was less needed. However, Willis, my accident-prone co-worker, crashed his bike again last night and Patty told me that she needs me to pick up cupcakes from LES and get them to 622 3rd ave by 10, so I guess I need to put on some pants. Maybe I'll still feel like writing when I get home...

The Rest of Week One and Week Two, or, Yes, Apparently He Is

After a nearly perfect Day one, the rest of the week was too busy to be a useful test of the effectiveness of my computer fast.

Though Tuesday is normally the last day of my four-day weekend, I agreed to work for Brad in the morning, and because I had scheduled a meeting for later that afternoon I stayed in the city in between. After work I sat and ate a lunch from Whole Foods salad bar while sitting on a ledge on the 200-block of W 27th, which is the de facto campus of Fasion Institute of Technology. I often eat there because it contains guaranteed ledge seating two blocks from Whole Foods and the people watching is excellent. Crihs joined me for a bit and we talked about, surprise surprise, bikes.

At 5pm I met with Matt Evans - my former professor - and discussed my potential future as a philosophy graduate student. I won't bore you with the details (because obviously avoiding boring details has been a high priority thus far), but I received some encouraging and some discouraging feedback, leaving me still in the position of not being sure what to do. I do know, however, that the next step is to read more Donald Davidson and Jaegwon Kim and to write the paper I've begun to mentally outline based on Searle's idea of biological naturalism as a means to collapse the intuitively dualist framework with which most people look at the mind.

Later that night I saw My Bloody Valentine with Adam, who managed to find tickets on the internet the day before the show after his dad lost the ones he bought months ago. It was very disappointing in a way that I probably should have expected: I couldn't see anything, they sounded just like the record only louder (and with the irritating addition of a high-in-the-mix kick drum that ruined the shoegaze vibe), they didn't move around at all (hence the name "shoegaze"), and I paid $65 for 50 minutes of music and 20 minutes of feedback. I do not, however, regret going, because they have been one of my favorite bands since high school and at least now I can say that I saw them.

The next night I went straight from work to a date, and since I'm not in the habit of writing about my personal life in this, it will suffice to say that it was really good.

Thursday, Sean and I saw Built To Spill play Perfect From Now On at Terminal 5, after riding a car service to Queens and back for a very expensive delivery, and it was way better than MBV. I could see them, they put on a very entertaining show, and they sounded amazing.

On Friday I took a Metro North train to Bronxville, home of Sarah Lawrence College, and spent the night, returning the next morning just in time to wait through several bands and then to finally see Write Back Soon - a band consisting of several old friends who, perhaps due to their anti-civilization political stance, do not have a myspace - and Swallowed Up - my roommates' new band who, despite a slightly more vague but still distinctly anti-civilization sentiment (if not actual stance), have a myspace. It was a good show. Look out for Swallowed Up playing with End of a Year and Defeater at my house, self-releasing an overly artisticly packaged 10" in the next few months, and going on tour in late January with me as band manager, merch manager, band financial adviser, and life coach. My duties will thankfully not include paying for stuff, booking the tour, or carrying anything heavy.

I spent the rest of the weekend with my roommates and the nameless person from my date on Wednesday and didn't have a large enough chunk of free time to explore the efficacy of entertainment-asceticism again until Monday afternoon. And that's when things took a bit of a downturn.

In high school, I rarely read the assigned material and copied homework, did a rushed job on it in the last moments before class started (often during prior classes in between naps) or simply didn't bother to do it. I put more effort into learning how to avoid doing work than it sometimes might have taken to just do it, and I became an effective efficiency expert. These habits continued and even worsened (or improved, depending on how much you value efficiency) in college. However, had I not figured out a way to be so high-functioning in high school, I think, looking back, that I would have been diagnosed with ADD. Not that I put a whole lot of stock in such diagnosis; who hasn't been so described? We grew up around computers and video games and internet shopping and if I waste another sentence ranting about what technology has done to the attention spans of our generation (or, for that matter, our sense of community and connectedness), it will be at the risk of banality, so I'll allow what I've said thus far to suffice in introducing my recent self-discovery: I have no ability to focus whatsoever. If I'm engrossed in a book or am in an unusually clear-minded state of concentration (as I was last Monday when I developed the foolish belief that just by promising myself not to watch TV anymore I would revert back to my pre-high school interest in reading as a necessary and sufficient pastime), I have no problem sitting and reading for hours on end. However, if the reading material requires even the slightest amount of discipline to stay focused and I have anything else on my mind (which I nearly always do), I can't read for more than 2 minutes without my mind wandering in a million directions and before I realize that I've stopped paying attention to the book I find myself staring at the ceiling pondering the meaning of life, my financial situation, a city that I'd like to visit or revisit, and what I'm going to eat for my next meal. It never occurred to me in the past that my lack of focus was a problem because as soon as my attention drifted away from reading I would start watching TV instead, but on Monday and Tuesday of last week I was stressed out be the results of recalculating my budget and a whole host of introspective issues raised by being recently involved with someone new and I got almost no reading done. Black market Ritalin is too expensive and I don't have health care, but taking up meditation and yoga to improve focus and clear-mindedness seems like too much work, so my plan is to start drinking more Focus flavored Vitamin Water.

The rest of the week was the usual work, come home, try to read, hang out with roommates, go to bed routine (with a couple more visits from a certain Sarah Lawrence student), and the weekend was similarly unproductive. Last night, however, I decided to do something radical and leave the house. I took the subway to Bedford and met Andy at Blackbird for tea. The interior of Blackbird is nice but contrived and the tea is $3.50 for a small pot that contains about two small cups' worth, but it's as good a place as any to read, write, think, and discuss. We mostly talked about his thesis, including some discussion of what role political/social/existential philosophy might have in it, which lead us in a very interesting discussion concerning the synthesis of our respective disciplines. After an hour or so there we set out to find a coffee shop to which I'd delivered Vegan Treats in the past which turned out, after a several-mile-long walk up into Greenpoint, to either not really exist or to be somewhere else entirely. The evening ended up being intellectual stimulating nonetheless and left me feeling inspired to get back to work on my various academic projects.

If you haven't heard the new Slipknot record, get it. In the meantime, listen to the second track, Gematria, on imeem or whatever because it is way good and the lyrics are totally righteous. Some examples:

What if God doesn't care?

America is a killing name
it doesn't feel or discriminate
life is just a killing field
it's all that's left - nothing's real
throw away your disposable past
and fall apart like cigarette ash
we are the fatal and vital ones of the world
and we will burn your cities down

Feed the Hungry - Feed them shit
Feed them BONES and POLITICS


etc.

Week One, or, Is Jack Really Going To Write In Excruciating Detail About His Mundane Daily Activities From Now On?

Monday was exactly the kind of day I was hoping to have when I decided to quit watching TV and movies. I woke up around 9:30 and picked up the book that was sitting next to my bed - Everything Is Illuminated. I bought it at Powell's last winter because they had a copy for $5 and I had heard good things, but I hadn't picked it up until recently. As of Monday morning I had read about 50 pages and not been particularly impressed, but I promised myself I'd read at least a third before I gave up. I read about ten pages and started to feel a little bit more involved in the plot, but took a break that turned into a nap. I woke up again at 10:30, and, angry with myself for having slept so late (for no good reason), quickly got out of bed and got dressed to go jogging.

A few weeks ago I had a fitness-related freak-out and decided to start jogging again when I was at home staying with my parents. I drove to Blair (my high school) and ran two miles around the track. It took me longer than it should have and I felt wrecked afterward, so I resolved to get back in the habit that I had discarded years ago when I started riding my bike. My route in New York takes me through industrial Bushwick, across Flushing into residential/commercial Bushwick, up to Cypress, which is the border between Brooklyn and Queens, and back home through Ridgewood. The first time I ran along that route I was shocked at how suburban - and, most conspicuously, how green - Ridgewood Queens is. There are trees along the street and yards in front of the old brick row houses.

On this particular morning, the run took a little over 20 minutes and I felt pretty good afterward; it's encouraging how easy it is to get back in shape when you have been in the past. When I got home I did the rest of my workout, which lately consists of three sets each of push-ups, verticle push-ups, and chin-ups, as well as a single set each of three different types of ab workouts. It took longer than it should have but less time than it often does. My goal is to reach the point of being able to do a certain amount of each exercise and then to stop increasing the number of reps and get really good at doing that amount quickly, efficiently, and with good form. Ultimately, I'd like to end up one of those crazy old dudes who is in too-good shape for his age because he has had simple but consistent fitness habits throughout the last three decades of his life, so I'm shooting for a two-mile run, one hundred reps per set of push-ups, twenty five for chin-ups, twenty for verticle push-ups, and an as yet undecided number for various ab workouts, and to be able to do the whole thing in less than 45 minutes without exerting myself so that it will become feasible to do it first thing in the morning every morning.

In between my first and second sets, I went out to breakfast with Tamara. We rode to Bogart street looking for a vegan cafe that I found on the internet, but which turns out to no longer exist. We opted for Life Cafe as a backup plan, and I had a decent tofu scramble over a bagel for $6, which is more than reasonable. We had a very nice conversation about, among other things, print-making. I really enjoy her company and I'm always very glad for the occasions when we talk one-on-one because I've always felt that we have certain perspectives in common that come out only when no one else is around.

I returned home, finished workout out, spent 20 minutes on my knees in the shower scrubbing the mildew, and then washed myself. And here is where it gets really good. I spent almost the entire rest of the day on the couch reading. Page 70 is about where Everything Is Illuminated starts to get good, so as soon as I sat down to continue reading I was hooked. I read the remaining 200 pages in practically one sitting, finishing just in time for Julia's birthday dinner down the hall in apartment 201.

What a fucking perfect day. To recap: running, working out, breakfast with good company, house cleaning, and reading a book nearly cover to cover in one long sitting. If I could spend every day of my life that way I probably would. I am actually that boring. Unfortunately, I agreed to work for Brad the next morning instead of enjoying my usual second day off of the normal work week, and the rest of the week was much busier.

Computer fast

While sitting on the toilet I came up with a great plan. I was going to sell my computer and use the money to buy a record player, a bunch of my favorite records (which until this point I'd only had in digital format), and a typewriter. I'd become too addicted to serial dramas and lowbrow flicks. Every time I sat down to read a book if I didn't find myself enthralled within minutes my mind would start to wander, resting, eventually, on the enticing path of least resistance: the episodes of Gilmore Girls I'd downloaded. I have perhaps the typical attention span of my generation. I lack intrinsic motivation and discipline. And I was sick of being unproductive.

Realistically, however, I needed to consider the practical pros of the computer. I'm in the middle of booking several shows, and myspace is the de facto medium of communication for all parties involved. I also couldn't possibly afford to buy all of my favorite records, even if I sell my laptop, and iTunes is damn convinient. And I don't want to never be able to watch movies - sometimes it can be a fun thing to do with company.

So here's the new plan: one whole month without using my computer for entertainment purposes. A detox. No TV, no Movies (unless I have company), no "surfing" the "internet", and no gchat. I will come home, respond to my email, choose a record or two, and close the lid. Maybe I'll read, maybe I'll write, maybe I'll write music or lyrics, maybe I'll go jogging or do some push-ups. Another approved use of the computer is writing in this blog. I need the mental exercise, I need an outlet, and I need the practice. I've been intended forever to start writing regularly - and not just when I'm traveling. My life has it's interesting moments, and it's bound to be more intellectually productive to document them than to mediate on them while eating Tings and watching Firefly.

I bought a record player anyway. It was only $30 on eBay, and it's something I've been meaning to do for a while. I'll spare you the spiel on why I used to hate record collecting and why I've started to see the merit in, if not collecting records per se, owning them. It's not a very interesting argument.

Tonight I watched Wonder Boys, partially because I was bored, partially for inspiration, and partially for one last hurrah with my old pal Windows Media Player. The book was better. So, here it goes.