Excerpt from "Oil!"

Excerpt from Upton Sinclair's "Oil!"

~ He had a sudden fit of desperation; and instead of the particular kind of embrace which has to do with dancing, he put his arms about her in a way that made it impossible for her to dance. This was a crude procedure, no credit to junior classman and leader of fashion in a high-toned universtiy. Bunny knew it, and was in a panic. She would not understand - she would be angry, and send him away! But no, she was not angry; and somehow, she was able to understand. There is an old saying, that fingers were made before forks, and in the same way it is true that embraces wre made a long time before words. Bunny became aware that his clasp was being returned - and by a pair of capable arms, that were able to hold a girl upside down in the air and carry her into the surf! It was all right!
"Oh, Vee!" he whispered. "Then you do care for me!" Her lips met his, and they stood there in the moonlight, locked together, while the organ music rose to a shout.
"Vee, I was so scared!" And she laughed. "You silly boy!" But suddenly she drew back her head. "Bunny, I want to talk to you. There's something I must say. Let me go, and sit down, please - no, in that chair over there! I want us to talk quietly."
There was fear in her voice, and he did what she asked. "What is it Vee?"
"I want us to be sensible, and know what we're doing. It seems to me hardly anybody I know can be happy in love, and I swore to God I never would get into it again."
"You'll have to get a new God!" Bunny had managed to recover the use of his tongue.
"I want us to promise to be happy! Any time we can't be happy, let's quit, and not have any fuss! Let's be sensible, and not go crazy with jealousy, and torment each other."
"You'll be a plenty for me," declared Bunny. "I surely won't make you jealous!"
"You don't know what you'll do! Nobody ever knows! It's the devil's own business - oh, you've no idea what I've seen, Bunny! You're nothing but a babe in arms."
"You'll be good to me, Vee, and raise me up!" "How do you know what I'll do? How do you know anything about me? You want me, without really knowing what I am or what I'll do! I could have told you a million lies, and how would you have known? The next woman that comes along will tell you a million and one, and how will you know about her?"
"That's too easy, Vee - you'll tell me!" He sank down on his knees before her, and took one of her hands, intending to comfort her; but she pushed away.
"No, I don't want you to do that. I want you to think about what I'm saying. I want us to decide in cold blood."
"You make my blood cold," he laughed, "telling about the vamps of Hollywood!"
"Bunny, a man and a woman ought to tell each other the truth - all the time. They ought to trust each other that much, no matter how much it hurts. Isn't that so?"
"You bet it's so."
"If that means they give each other up, all right - but they've no business holding each other by lies. Will you make that bargain, Bunny?"
"I will."
"And I want you to know, I don't want any of your money."
"I haven't got any money, Vee - It's all Dad's. That is the first painful truth." "Well, I don't want it. I've got my own, and I'll take care of myself. I've got a job, and you'll have yours, and we'll let each other alone, and meet when it makes both of us happy."
"That's too easy for a man, Vee!" "It'll be a game, and those are the rules, and if we break the rules, it's cheating."
Bunny could assure her that he had never cheated in a game, and would not cheat in this one. So he overcame her fears, and she was in his arms again, and they were exchanging those ravishing kisses, of which for a time it seems impossible ever to have enough. Presently she whispered, "Some one will come out here, Bunny. Let me go in, and I'll dance a bit, and then make my excuses and get away, and you come up to my room."

There is light in my lady's house

"Thank God you see me the way you do, strange as you are to me"

Interesting day. Starting from the very beginning of it, I had the pleasure of having one of the better conversations I can recall having with the lovely Samantha Escobar. All things were discussed and even as the conversation concluded around five in the morning, I was ready to keep going. I ended up not being able to fall asleep for another hour or so after that. Needless to say, I woke up late. Probably somewhere in the 11:30 - 12:00 region. I woke up thinking that the day might begin well having just made this connection with someone who up until a couple weeks ago was almost a complete stranger to me. However, I woke up feeling quite the opposite. I didn't want to get out of bed. There were children yelling at the top of their lungs outside, the ice-cream truck parked across the street sat for hours emitting its insufferably repetitive jingle of "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" and it was just one of those morning when you realize that you don't actually have any reason to get up and that just makes you sad. And then after finally getting up, I start feeling all of this anxiety.

• My car has been parked in the same place for 4 days. Is it ok?
• I don't have a job. I haven't worked a set in a month. Running out of money.
• How am I going to pay rent.
• My registration is still expired. Need to get new stickers.
• Mom is calling. What does she want? Is she going to ask if I've gotten any work? I don't want to deal with that.
• How long do I have to live in Koreatown? I kind of hate it. So much so that I don't even want to go outside and be reminded of it unless I have to.

So just all of this shit piles up in my head, my first instinct is to start drinking or to smoke but I convinced myself that wouldn't really make it better. So I'm sitting here having a fairly bad day when my phone rings. It's Mr. Trent Ellis and he has a job for me. Almost instantly I felt better. He got me a 2nd 2nd AD job on some short for the next six days at $125 a day. Not the best rate but I'll take it.

So anyway, my day got better. And as thoughts of all of the negative things left my mind, positive ones came rushing in.

• I'm going home in a little over a week.
• I get to spend July 4th in California for the first time with my good friends.
• I have friends that think of me when a job opens up.
• I'm living on my own and getting by.
• I just met one of the most intriguing, unique, lovely, inspiring people I've ever met and we seem to get along.
• Things are constantly changing. New things happening. Life is being lived and I'm feeling pretty goddamn lucky to be where I am.

Nights & Weekends

NIGHTS & WEEKENDS (2008)

Written & Directed by: Greta Gerwig and Joe Swanberg

So I just recently watched this movie. This was two days ago. I'd been searching through the Netflix "Instant Play" options and decided to do a search for The Duplass Brothers and in the results were

• Cyrus
• Baghead
• The Puffy Chair
• Nights & Weekends

Now the only reason Nights and Weekends popped up is because Jay Duplass is in the movie for a minute and I think he produced it or something. Also seeing that Greta Gerwig had so much involvement and because I enjoyed her performance in Baghead and in Greenberg, I decided to give this a try.

Almost immediately, with the opening shot of the film, you can tell what you're getting yourself into. It's clearly a very low budget movie with minimal camera work and an improvised script. Although there have been many instances in which I'll begin watching a movie like this and just instantly get fed up with it's unambitious nature, this was different.

It opens with Mattie and James, the film's protagonists fucking on the kitchen floor. Or rather preparing to bone. The camera is set in one position for the entire scene which lasts probably 5-7 minutes. And the scene doesn't actually portray any sex. They sloppily enter the kitchen, fall to the floor and spend these 5-7 minutes undressing each other. And it wasn't pretty, ya know. Articles of clothing don't come off as easy as movies usually depict. But with this, it felt so real. Like these two people are REALLY about to fuck. And from that point on I was hooked.

The film goes on and you soon realize that you're not in for a plot full of drama or really a plot at all. The film explores the difficulties of maintaining a long distance relationship. It's separated into two halves. The first half being a time when they were together all of the time. The second half depicting their relationship suffering from the long distance.

Say what you will. I understand this isn't a film that would generally receive very much enthusiasm, but I thought it was great. I felt that the two actors portrayed some of the more genuinely REAL performances I've seen in a long time. I believed that relationship. For a moment, I believed that these were actually people that some camera man was following around.

...and it really inspired me, ya know? I realized that, although the stuff I want to do will be slightly more plot driven, the most important thing I want to portray is real life. And this is a sentiment that is constantly thrown around by amateur filmmakers. People want to be "truthful" and "honest" in what they're portraying but that can come down to the truthful reaction Shia LaBeouf has when a robot is chasing him. When I say it however, I mean that I want to capture the moments that people live their lives for. The moments that make people nostalgic. Create scenarios where people can be totally and completely intrigued based not on just conflict necessarily but on a conversation, a mannerism or a look because it's just too real for them to look away.

And I really fucking hate when I get on these rants about where my convictions and passions lie because when I read it back to myself, I feel like I come off sounding like a douche.

But alas, I am who I am and I feel what I feel. And I felt more after watching this movie than I have felt doing anything in a long time.

I've ruined music for myself...but I'm gonna try and make it better

This morning, I woke up well past my desired waking hour. As I walked out into the living room, a heaping pile of records sat on the couch. A friend of mine lent them to me last night but I'd momentarily forgotten due to alcohol induced short term memory loss.

So it's raining out, it's Friday, I'm sure there are things I could be doing but....the rain just takes away my ambition. My hangover doesn't help much either. So with that said, a rainy day seemed like an ideal day to listen to these records; which I'm doing as I write this. Currently, I am listening to Abner Jay, which I'm totally digging.

So I sit here listening to this and eventually I'm going to have to get up and switch sides because I want to hear what else Abner Jay can do. I'm engulfed exclusively in Abner Jay and I can listen to this record as a whole and listen to each song that comprises the one album. And it is this pleasure, (giving the entire album our attention, hearing every song that one musician has to give,) that we've lost with the internet.

Give me an artist. Any artist. Within half an hour, I can go online and download their entire discography. In the case of someone like, I don't know, Tom Waits, that's maybe 25 albums, give or take. Am I going to take the time to sit and listen to all 25 of those albums on my computer? (In the Tom Waits example, my answer is yes, but with just about anything else, no.) No I will not sit and listen to every album and song to JUST be listening to it. This is why I totally understand why people have record collections. With a vinyl record, listening to music isn't just listening to music. It's an activity. To sit down, and listen to a collection of songs from start to beginning. The way we listen to music now, is download as much as we can from an artist we like, (and I unfortunately am no different in this case. I'm just as guilty,) and then maybe stumble upon some of it when we're listening to our entire library on shuffle. The problem is that we have so much access to SOO much music that we don't take the time to listen to appreciate each one as it is. There might be that one song that you like and you just listen to that song.

It doesn't even seem like people listen to CDs anymore. I remember when I would buy a CD and play it in my car until I knew the words to every song. I'd wear it the fuck out and then buy another CD to do the exact same thing to. That doesn't happen anymore. Remember going to school and discussing with your friends whatever CD was big at the time. You didn't even know the names of the songs. It was always, "Well I like number 3,6 and 7." "Oh, well I really enjoyed number 10." Songs were represented by numbers. But that didn't matter because people were at least listening to all of the songs and determining which ones stuck out the most.

Anyway, the point to all of this really is just that music is too easily available today and the selection can just be overwhelming. And so this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to stop downloading music until I listen to what I have. And even then, I sound like a douche because I download music to start with. But I rationalize by buying what I really like on vinyl. Except for Tom Waits because he's impossible to find and then when you do, he costs more than I want to pay. But one of these days, when I start making some money, I'm going to invest in a better record player and start buying records regularly because although collecting vinyl seems to be a fad right now with a certain kind of people, it's one that I completely get.

(The record by this point has changed to Mazzy Star's "Among My Swan." Really awesome. I had never heard of them but I'm glad I know them now. See what happens?)

...and then you're able to grow a beard.

I don't care much for needles. In 2nd grade, I was well aware of what a needle was and very well knew the concept of "getting a shot." This particular year my sister, being in 5th grade had to get a standard shot and I was told that when I reach 5th grade, I would have to get the same shot. And thus began a three year wait that I thought believed would take forever.

The thing about going to any kind of doctor is how much more intense the pain is than what it would be if you were doing it yourself. To the doctor, your skin isn't a layer of sensitivity but rather like a piece of meat. They just plunge the needle right in there with no regard for your pain. It slides in, sometimes a little blood dribbles out, push the plunger and take it out. It seems the doctor, after doing it so many times, forgets that it kind of hurts. Then again, as a doctor, I guess you would have to forget that your actions are causing others pain in order to get anything accomplished. That makes sense. But I'm eight years old and the only perspective I can see is my own and I know I don't like the idea of needles penetrating my skin.

In fifth grade, my eleven year old sister had begun the countdown for me. I don't remember what exactly the shot was for but it's one of the important ones that everyone is supposed to get at that age. I remember thinking fifth grade was forever away and how I wouldn't have to worry about this shot for a long time. So I lived these three years doing and and learning all kinds of things but the thought of this needle was always present. The point being that although 5th grade came faster than I thought it would, I still remember those three years going by very slowly. But the day finally came.

Before I had time to mentally prepare for the actuality of the whole thing, I found myself walking through those depressing hospital hallways, smelling that smell. Whatever that smell is. Why hasn't someone corrected that smell by now? It's like a mix of latex, bleach and laundry detergent. And then it gets worse when you're walking by the food service department where you can additionally mix in the smells of fried chicken and green beans. Maybe someday we can convince hospitals around the nation to take a small portion of their budget and use it towards some candles or potpourri. I'm convinced such an action would receive appreciation from everyone.

And so anyway, I eventually make it to the venue of torture and try to find any possible element of comfort on this loose piece of tissue paper that is annoyingly always just resting on the examination chair without anything to really hold it down. It is never attached or securely placed and I hate it. I didn't mind so much back then but presently, I propose that maybe after splurging on the candles and potpourri maybe they can invest in the development of tissue paper with adhesive edges or something. I don't know what it would be but in an age when things like the iPhone and GPS and silent velcro exists, we should have some way of keeping an examination chair sanitized without the goddamn tissue paper.

So after the standard warning the nurse always gives you, ("the doctor will be with you in just a few minutes,") and then the standard hour you have to wait after that, (and this is all after already sitting for hours in the waiting room,) and after you've examined every aspect of the office, (medical posters displaying anatomies of various organs and systems, the jars of tongue depressors, cotton balls and dum-dums, the boxes of latex gloves, etc. And then you notice the needle disposal bin that says "Bio-Hazard" on it which reminds you why you're here,) the doctor does his little courtesy knock, walks in with a folder, and he asks a lot of questions that you don't really know the answers to. ie: "Are you allergic to anything?" -- I now know that I'm allergic to shellfish but there was a time when I didn't know that yet and my answer to this question was always "Not that I know of." And he would nod his head and be ok with that answer. I mean, how are you supposed to know really? Isn't it possible that you're allergic to A LOT of things that you've just never been exposed to yet? the answer is yes, it is possible, but I guess it's not a big enough deal for them to investigate any further.
There has also been the question, "Are you a smoker?" -- I began smoking in high school but for the first year or so, it was just an occasional thing. I could make a pack of cigarettes last a couple months. So during this phase when asked this question, I'd have to say "Well, I've smoked, but I'm not a smoker." And he says, "Do you buy cigarettes?" "Yes, but they last a really long time though." I think he wrote me down as a smoker but I didn't feel that this was accurate. I didn't yet feel like a smoker. I didn't feel addicted. But I guess he had his reasons. Anyway...yeah doctors ask questions.

So I got the shot and as always, it's never as bad as you think it's going to be. Even now, 10 years later, I hate the idea of needles. Especially IVs. The thought of a needle entering your skin and then just staying in there makes me seriously queasy. But yeah, it's never all that bad.

Well...I've reached this point and realized I've come far from the point I was initially trying to make which was that when you're young, the years don't necessarily go by slow, but they seem to be full of so much more activity and discoveries and makes it feel as if they're going by slow. (I tried expressing this by discussing the time it took for that shot to finally come. However, I started ranting about the hospital itself and the whole experience of it which mostly wasn't true of that particular event. I don't even think I was in the hospital for this particular shot. I don't even specifically remember getting it but I remember thinking about it and I know that it DID happen, so that's what's important anyway.) But now, three months out of college, that same amount of time, three years, seemed to go by so much more quickly and was filled with so much less. The older you get, it seems your life is mostly comprised of repetition in small variances. But when you were young you were learning all of these things and experiencing all of this stuff for the first time so it seemed as if the years were more meaningful. There was something to live for but you didn't know just yet what it was. But when you find it, you lose something and it makes the years all blend together and before you know it....

....you're able to grow a beard.

11:11

In an hour from now, (10:11 at the moment) the time will be 11:11.

To most people this happens to be a significant time. We've all heard that if you happen to look at a clock and it reads 11:11, you should go ahead and make a wish. It's much like a shooting star or the step before blowing out birthday candles. However, much like both of those things, wishing upon the time 11:11 rarely yields any results.

I remember learning of the 11:11 concept when I was probably a Sophomore in high school. It was brought to my attention by Lara Price. Lara has been the only true follower of the 11:11 rule since I've known her. If she notices it, she will always bring it up. Or at least she used to. Anyway, when I used to hang out with her, and she would announce that it was time for wishing, I would close my eyes, which apparently aids in your wishing, you always want to close your eyes, and I would wish for something, knowing that it would most likely not come true. I would usually wish for the same thing every time, just in case. And no, It never came true.

So after a certain amount of time I stopped wishing.

Now if I were the person reading this right now...I would assume that this post is going to end with me re-embracing the 11:11 policy and finally making my wish come true. That would be great for me.
But that unfortunately is not the case.

No, this post is about a coincidence that has so far spanned the length of about 2 weeks. Only today, about 30 minutes ago, did I declare it as such.

So here is what happened.

It seemed like I had been seeing 11:11 a lot more frequently. I would just casually be checking the time and there it was. Now...yes...we all do this. It's not really a big deal. So much so that it took me two weeks of seeing 11:11 almost every other day before it started seeming strange.

And that's really all I can say about the first two weeks. I saw it a lot.

Skip ahead now to the past three days.

Monday Night/Back Seat of Mike's car
Mike, West and I were driving to Jesse's house to drink. I'm sitting in the back seat and I look at the tiny digital clock on Mike's dashboard and it's 11:11.

Tuesday afternoon/Internship
I'm sitting at my internship typing up a detailed synopsis of a 15 page short story. I read the story. Wrote out notes. And then wrote a preliminary synopsis long-hand. I then sat and wrote out the actual copy on my computer. After typing the final period I look at the time. 11:11.

Tuesday evening/Car
Driving back from hanging out with Christina. It's raining hard. Cars are spitting watery mist all over the place. My windshield wipers are not working very well. I can barely see the lines on the roads. It was kind of scary. I had been paying extremely close attention to the road. And then the rain stopped and things began to get calmer. Now that I have a little time to relax, I pull out my phone to check the time. 11:11.

...At this point, I'm starting to be freaked out by this time. I feel like it is unnatural how many times I've noticed it. And I'm even considering writing about it since it's things like this that I have been writing about in this blog, (except for the last one, that was random.) But again, i talked myself out of it thinking it was too common of a thing to discuss.

So the turning point happens tonight, now maybe 45 minutes ago.

I don't have any new shows to watch. Nobody is in the house. I kind of just want to roll a J and watch something. So I decide to Hulu some recent Conan Obrien episodes. I choose one with guests Michael Moore, Seth MacFarlane and Rodrigo y Gabriela. So I'm watching it. Some laughs here and there. But then, after Moore and MacFarlane, Conan introduced Rodrigo y Gabriela and he lifts up their new album which is titled "11:11."

If that was anti-climactic for you...yeah...it seems kind of bland...but to me it was a true "what the fuck?" moment.
Does this mean something? Does it mean I should re-gain some faith in wishing upon 11:11? I don't know. But this is what I'm going to do. It is 11:11 in 41 minutes.

And I am going to make a wish. I'll let you know how it goes.

I Have a Dog and His Name is Rags

Come back with me to Kindergarten....but first...look at that word. Kindergarten.

Kindergarten.

What a weird fucking word that is. Kindergarten.

Anyway....So back in Kindergarten and all through grade school, you probably remember having to memorize those stupid songs so that you could sing them to your parents at the "school concerts" during Christmas and Spring. I feel so sorry for my parents having to go to those. I know they say they were proud of me and were happy to see how much I accomplished but Goddamnit. A bunch of high pitched kids that don't know how to sing....all singing at one time in unison. It had to be awful. My mom, for whatever reason, videotaped all of them, as if we were ever going to watch them again.
I will admit...I often will visit home and put in some old home videos. I think they're hilarious and entertaining and kind of informational. But those old "school concert" videos? No. I've never re-watched them because they have to be excruciating. At no point in my life do I think I will ever have the desire or the need to re-experience any of that.

But this almost has nothing to do with what I'm trying to say.

In Kindergarten, in preparation for one of these concerts, my teacher, Mrs. Rentfro, had a little song for us to memorize. And that song was "My Dog Rags." Now being as this was Kindergarten, I don't have a perfect recollection of all of this but I'll do my best to give you the play by play.

Now from what I can remember, my teacher had made up this song herself. (I don't believe that's true anymore, but at the time up until a week ago I did.) I remember her coming to us one day and talking to us about this wonderful song that we were going to be singing about a dog named Rags. She told us the lyrics as so:

I have a dog, his name is Rags
He eats so much that his belly sags
His ears flip flop and his tail wig wags
And.....

And then she stopped. She asked us, thinking for some reason that we as Kindergartens had the ability to be creative, what that last rhyme could be. Something that rhymes with wig wag.
I remembrer thinking really hard about it and coming up with nothing. And then the girl next to me raised her hand. Brooke Burgener.

I want to take a second and describe my relationship with Brooke Burgener in Kindergarten. Not that it will contribute anything at all to the story, but just because I feel like sharing it while it's in my mind.

Mine and Brooke's relationship began with a pair of pink scissors. We both had a pair. I did not come to Kindergarten equipped with scissors. Mrs. Rentfro however was prepared for this and had extras to give out. I got the last of them and they happened to be pink. Whatever. I had pink scissors.
Anyway, I was a 5 years old boy. I colored outside the lines, I got dirty at recess, I pretended to sleep at nap time. Whatever. I didn't give a fuck. So when it came to projects that involved paper, glue, and scissors, I didn't wait for glue to dry. I don't have time for that. I cut right the fuck through it, glue and all. Eventually, after enough of these projects, my scissors became ruined. They wouldn't cut for shit.
Brooke Burgener's pink scissors however were in perfect condition. They cut paper so well. I was envious of them. Being what I thought was clever back then, I would often switch out our scissors while she wasn't looking, sure she wouldn't notice based alone on the fact that they're pink. How would she be able to tell the difference?
Well she did. And we had an on-going battle throughout that particular seating arrangement. It eventually ended with me getting a new pair of scissors. Blue scissors. But anyway. Brooke and I didn't get off on the right foot.

Now bag to Rags the dog.
We needed something that rhymed with wig wag. Brooke raises her hand.

What if he didn't walk straight and he walked zig zag instead.

Good job Brooke.
So from that point on, the song came to be,

...And when he walks he walks, zig-zag
He goes flip-flop
Wig-wag
Zig-zag
He goes flip-flop
Wig-Wag
Zig-Zag
I love Rags and he loves me

And that's the story of how the song My Dog Rags came to be.

BUT

Fast forward 16 years. I'm sitting in my apartment. I'm in college. I'm watching the movie Short Cuts. I haven't thought about My dog Rags in 16 years. There is a scene in Short Cuts with Julianne Moore, the guy from Tremors, Dennis and Dee's mom from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and some other blonde guy. Julianne Moore and the mom from It's Always Sunny are drunk and singing. Do you know what song they're singing? Do you?

Fucking, My Dog Rags. They're singing My Dog Rags. How is this possible? All of these years thinking my Kindergarten teacher wrote that song and here it is being sung in a movie that was made in 1993 which was the year that I was actually in Kindergarten.

And do you know what else? Guess how Rags walked in the Short Cuts version?
FUCKING ZIG ZAG.

I felt so much at that moment. I don't know what. I just felt lied to. I felt betrayed. But I also felt a little satisfied knowing that Brooke Burgener wasn't as clever as I always thought she was.

And so, I may never know the genius mind who truly wrote "My Dog Rags."