Big Talk, Real Slow

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Salmon Going Upstream

“I shouldn’t have called your mother a cunt. It’s a bad word. It’s never something you should say.”

Tim, seven and a half years old, had heard it enough times in context to understand. He looked down at his hook, pretending to figure out the tangle of string.

“Here, let me do that for you.” His father put his beer down and took the rod from Tim’s hands. “You forgot the lure. That’s the most important part.” He let out a sigh. He started to untangle the string, and worked in silence trying to fix a mistake that Tim didn’t know he had made.

He looked out at the lake, just a few shades away from a toxic green. He had been to the lake before, when his parents were together, but had never gone fishing.

“Your mother is…she’s a good person. She can be, at least.” His father handed back the rod and reclined on his end of the small boat, taking a sip of beer with one hand and picking up his own rod with the other.

“We just didn’t see things from the same point of view sometimes. Do you understand that Tim?”

Tim nodded. He looked across at the distant trees, the edges golden against the cloud-white sky. At the bait shop the clerk said it was going to rain, but Tim’s father said that was bullshit and Tim believed him because he was his father. Soon there wouldn’t be a drop of green. Tim knew that Fall was coming and after Fall comes Winter. Tim wondered how Christmas was going to be this year.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Tim?”

Tim had prepared the statement in his head, but he felt nervous saying it now. “Why did you take me fishing?”

“Do we need a reason?” He took a sip of his beer. “Are you not having fun?”

Tim knew that tone and knew to placate his father.

“No, sir, it’s great. I just wondered…”

His father shifted his weight and leaned forward. “Grandpa Tim used to take me out fishing. I was about your age. Maybe younger. I want to share that with you. Maybe you’ll share that your son, when you have one.”

Again, Tim nodded, though he didn’t really understand. He looked back out at the trees. Last year in school, Tim’s class made a wheel with the seasons. Each quarter was made up to look like a different season and it was attached to another piece of construction paper with a thumb tack, so it could spin. He had always known that seasons repeat themselves over and over again. Seeing the seasons as a wheel, however, made him fully understand what that meant. It wasn’t that Spring would become Summer would become Fall would become Winter and than it was over, the way the calender ended. Tim realized that it kept going, round and round, over and over.

He heard the thrash in the water. His father, caught with a Lucky’s in hand, wasn’t fully hanging on to the rod. It bent and dislodged itself. Tim lunged for it, dropping his own rod and holding on to his father’s for dear life. His father dropped the beer, letting the golden bubbles and heavy smell spill on the boat.

“Fucking cocksucker!” He screamed out. “Keep holding the rod, as hard as you can son!” Tim adjusted himself and held onto the reel. The hook and lure weren’t really meant to be reeled in; the catch was too heavy for that.

“Tim, hold on, I’m going for her.” Tim obeyed, trying to wedge the rod back in place behind the beer cooler. Tim’s father took a few short steps to the other side of the boat, where the line met the water.

“I see her!”

He dropped to his knees. He waited. He lifted his arm and balled his hand into a fist and punched the water. He punched again, and again. Tim’s father grunted over and over, water spraying up with every impact.

“I’m going for it! Son, don’t let go of the fucking rod!”

Tim watched his father plunge his hand in the water again, almost to his shoulder. He didn’t punch the water, but he was just as quick. He growled and started to stand. He was pulling the catch out of the water.

She was short, by most measures, though Tim had never seen one before. Tim’s father had her by the hair, and maybe that’s why she looked taller. She thrashed, but was clearly weakened. Her eyes weren’t used to the unfiltered sun. Her head twisting to avoid the light. She was blind out of water, and her arms, while strong, didn’t know where to attack. Tim watched her breasts, exposed, small but firm. Her tail, large scales grey like cement, slapping against the bottom of the boat. Tim’s father raised her higher with by fistful of hair and threw her down.

She hit the side of the boat hard, but they could still hear her wet rasping, her impotent attempts to breath. Tim’s father grabbed an oar and smacked the side of her head. She stopped trying to breath. Tim was still holding the rod, transfixed by the struggle. His father let out a laugh. “God, she was a tough bitch, wasn’t she?”

Her body lay there. Tim watched droplets of water roll off her breasts.

Tim father’s took out his knife, carefully hidden away in its own compartment in the tackle box for safety.

“We did it son. We did it. This is as much my catch as it is yours son. You know that?” He knelt down and started to hack away at the lure, tangled in her hair. “You were paying attention and I wasn’t. We might’ve missed her completely.”

He stood up and looked out into the water. Tim looked up from the body and smiled. He didn’t know what his father was thinking, but he had made him proud. That was enough.

“You know, I would clean it but…”

His father turned around, setting sun at his back. He held out the knife, handle first.

“…but I think you’ve earned it son.”

Tim reached for the knife. He grabbed it carefully, trying to show that he was responsible. He felt it in his hand. He left himself get used to its weight.

“Thank you, sir.”

His father hadn’t smiled like that in years. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

Tim knelt down by the body, knife in hand, smile on his face. He loved fishing with his father.

An Analysis of the New Season of Two and a Half Men Based on a Bus Ad I Saw

I have to say that until last week I couldn’t care less about Two and a Half Men. I’ve seen episodes. I’m decidedly not a fan. I’d estimate that half the branches I work at have copies of at least one season of the show handy. It’s inoffensive to have around, and, yeah, some people like it. It fits into a broad definition of something you’d have in an office break room, something that barely asks anything of you except to laugh on cue. Again, perfectly understandable: I would never watch an episode of something really taxing (like, say, the Wire) on my lunch hour.

Even having only watched a handful of episodes, the premise is easy enough to decipher. Jon Cryer’s character (a) is a stuffed shirt and chronic worrier raising his not-so-bright son (Angus T. Jones) with the help of his hedonistic brother played by Charlie Sheen. He is a Bad Influence, but he balances out Cryer’s fussiness, so it works. There is also a sassy maid.

The bus ad (see: title) wasn’t overly complicated. The title of the show, the network, and the eponymous two and a half men. Cryer, Aston Kutcher, and Jones are all wearing suits, singing into the same microphone. That’s enough, really, because a) the show does amazing in the ratings suggesting that a lot of people like to be told to laugh on cue and b) because the show’s new goal is to establish Ashton Kutcher as Charlie Sheen’s replacement on the show (b).

The central conflict in the series has always been between the laid back Sheen and the nerdy Cryer. Together they are a nuclear family: Sheen as cigar smoking, newspaper and La-Z-Boy father and Cryer as dotting, worrying mother to Angus T. Jones half man (c). The title is a really broad play on words, but now the ad introduces a new subtext: Who, in this cavalcade of faces, is the half man?

Kutcher’s bearded face stands in contrast to Angus T. Jones’ baby fat. Kutcher has always been an impish figure. His series, Punk’d, was all about him playing schoolyard pranks on other celebrities. I’m sure that’s why he was chosen: his public image matches the archetype he’s out to play. Sheen, though, was an old school cad; Kutcher projects the air of a frat boy. To put a finer point on it: Sheen is Playboy, Kutcher is Maxim.

Angus T. Jones has had his puberty televised, and it isn’t flattering. The oafish character he’s been reduced to playing is probably the writers working with what they’ve got. In the poster he has a sneer. Because he’s a teenager? Because they can’t traffic in his charming youth after his awkward televised puberty? Either way, he is clearly a child, and clearly the one we’re supposed to believe is a half man.

Cryer though. Jon Cryer isn’t a young man. His most famous pre-2&1/2 Men role was as Duckie in Pretty in Pink and that was released the year I was born. But looking into that poster, at his softened edges, he evokes a Howdy Dowdy vibe. (Several casual “Am I the only one that sees it?” surveys have backed that up) Some photoshop was done: soften the lines in his face, makeup to give a cohesive shine, a sparkle in his eye that makes it appear glassy and dead. He’s boyish.

None of these men actually appear as a fully grown heteronormative man. Kutcher comes close, but in the show’s premiere he’s been made as a sort of Charlie-in-waiting character. Dumped by his wife, about to commit suicide, he eventually works his way into a threesome with two buxom blondes. But our first sight of him is through a glass window, soaked by a storm. He is more puppy than man.

The puppy, the mother, and the teenager all live together, all exploring different facets of modern masculinity. In viewing the opener of the season premiere, drawn by the issues of gender the poster brought up, I found out that Charlie Sheen’s character was killed in a particularly violent way. The show’s conflict has been changed into something deeper and all together more radical: what we have now is an Oedipal struggle played out. With Charlie dead, the classic patriarchy has been abolished and Cryer, Kutcher and Jones are free to explore what it really means to be a modern man in a society that is becoming (or trying to become, at least) post-gender (d).

Needless to say: I will be tuning in and seeing how this plays out.


 

(a) I never bothered to learn any of their names.

(b) I’m not really going to get into Charlie Sheen’s meltdown because that’s mostly outside the scope of this piece and something that’s had a lot of space devoted to it already. I will say that it’s pretty interesting that when people found out that Charlie Sheen was almost identical to his cartoonish character of the same name (even to the point where the real Sheen was the caricature), they stopped laughing.

(c) I’m convinced that they were made brothers as to limit the homosexual sub-textual reading. The actual house work, i.e. stuff that a 50s housewife was expected to do as her duty, is done by the sassy housekeeper as to keep some sort of heteronormative balance to the show. Even still, she’s biologically female, but coded as gender neutral.

(d) The biggest clue? Cryer’s character cleaning up Charlie’s ashes, as both a reinforcement that he was ridding himself of Charlie physically, but also, in the act of cleaning (see note c), reenforcing the idea that he is now able to act outside of traditional gender roles.  

The TV’s already gone, and, regardless, the consoles are packed away. They were one of the first things to go, a fount of distraction that would keep me from the tedious work. Of course, I just end up on my PC, which will be the last thing to go. I can play Spelunky and fool myself into thinking that I’m not procrastinatingIf I dug out my NES from the plastic bin it’s in, and then managed to find the copy of Super Mario Brothers (that I packed in a separate box) I’d be able to play the same game I played almost 18 years ago. The first stage, with all its secrets and shortcuts, is clear even now in my mind. I don’t need to dig through the boxes of stuff: it’s burned into my muscle memory.Spelunky randomly generates levels. That’s to say, I can’t look back in 18 years and play its first level from memory. Its first level changes. Every level changes. There are some constants. The type of enemies don’t change, for example. Neither does your skill set; you always have the ability to jump, unfurl your whip, throw a bomb, or launch a rope. But extra abilities and items are never in the same place, nor are the enemies, because the geography is never static. You can’t beat Spelunky with memory. You have to understand the game and how it works. ***I was right to pack my personal stuff first. I went through my desk drawers, garbage bag beside me, ready to discard everything that was meaningless. I ended up filling two bags with old receipts, bills, business cards, stray buttons, manuals to long dead electronics, etc.My personal things take up much less space. There’s a healthy smattering of movie tickets and concert stubs, but it’s mostly letters. My first batch, letters from a long distance ex, are old wounds and I’ve poured over them enough times that the individual letters have lost their power. There’s just a collective numb sadness about the whole thing, that old ache that only exists when it rains. ***Spelunky’s masterstroke is in the way it sits comfortably in the land of the familiar and the new. The randomly generated terrain gives me something fresh, something to hook me in. But the retro pixel art along with the gameplay and mechanics – some of the oldest in gaming – evoke those lazy Saturday afternoons playing Ghosts ‘n Goblins. So each play feels simultaneously comfortable and fresh.The familiar cushions the fact that, while there are new pleasures to discover, the world of Spelunky is a harsh place. When you die, you start the whole ordeal again from the beginning, and it’s incredibly easy to die. Cavemen, man-eating plants, yetis, snakes, all manner of traps: everything conspires against you. Even your own tools can turn on you. The levels, while random, come in themes, and every forth level leads to a different theme, whether it be jungle caves or sub-zero ice caverns. Each of these hides new perils, new ways to get hurt, new ways to die. The game is embedded with a terror of the unknown. If it wasn’t for that bedrock of familiarity, it might be too daunting to play.***It’s hard not to notice the parallels when I get to more recent letters and more recent exes. Patterns emerge and the repeating beats are unsettling. A narrative of desire and regret plays out several times. And here I am at regret again. Moving out of my home because it isn’t much of a home anymore, and having nobody to really blame but myself. Realizing you’re in a cycle is the first step to breaking it, but it’s also a sobering reminder of your limitations.***I’ve played Spelunky dozens and dozens of times these last three weeks. It’s a distraction, but it’s a necessary one. I can deal with things a lot better without constant reminders of what I’m losing.So I load up the game and try going straight through without using shortcuts, but I never get very far.Somewhere between playthrough 50 and 60 an unsettling thought emerges: Maybe I’m not doing so well in Spelunky because I’m just not learning anything. Maybe the problem isn’t the game. Maybe the problem is me.  

The TV’s already gone, and, regardless, the consoles are packed away. They were one of the first things to go, a fount of distraction that would keep me from the tedious work. Of course, I just end up on my PC, which will be the last thing to go. I can play Spelunky and fool myself into thinking that I’m not procrastinating

If I dug out my NES from the plastic bin it’s in, and then managed to find the copy of Super Mario Brothers (that I packed in a separate box) I’d be able to play the same game I played almost 18 years ago. The first stage, with all its secrets and shortcuts, is clear even now in my mind. I don’t need to dig through the boxes of stuff: it’s burned into my muscle memory.

Spelunky randomly generates levels. That’s to say, I can’t look back in 18 years and play its first level from memory. Its first level changes. Every level changes. There are some constants. The type of enemies don’t change, for example. Neither does your skill set; you always have the ability to jump, unfurl your whip, throw a bomb, or launch a rope. But extra abilities and items are never in the same place, nor are the enemies, because the geography is never static. You can’t beat Spelunky with memory. You have to understand the game and how it works.


***

I was right to pack my personal stuff first. I went through my desk drawers, garbage bag beside me, ready to discard everything that was meaningless. I ended up filling two bags with old receipts, bills, business cards, stray buttons, manuals to long dead electronics, etc.

My personal things take up much less space. There’s a healthy smattering of movie tickets and concert stubs, but it’s mostly letters. My first batch, letters from a long distance ex, are old wounds and I’ve poured over them enough times that the individual letters have lost their power. There’s just a collective numb sadness about the whole thing, that old ache that only exists when it rains.


***

Spelunky’s masterstroke is in the way it sits comfortably in the land of the familiar and the new. The randomly generated terrain gives me something fresh, something to hook me in. But the retro pixel art along with the gameplay and mechanics – some of the oldest in gaming – evoke those lazy Saturday afternoons playing Ghosts ‘n Goblins. So each play feels simultaneously comfortable and fresh.

The familiar cushions the fact that, while there are new pleasures to discover, the world of Spelunky is a harsh place. When you die, you start the whole ordeal again from the beginning, and it’s incredibly easy to die. Cavemen, man-eating plants, yetis, snakes, all manner of traps: everything conspires against you. Even your own tools can turn on you. The levels, while random, come in themes, and every forth level leads to a different theme, whether it be jungle caves or sub-zero ice caverns. Each of these hides new perils, new ways to get hurt, new ways to die. The game is embedded with a terror of the unknown. If it wasn’t for that bedrock of familiarity, it might be too daunting to play.

***

It’s hard not to notice the parallels when I get to more recent letters and more recent exes. Patterns emerge and the repeating beats are unsettling. A narrative of desire and regret plays out several times. And here I am at regret again. Moving out of my home because it isn’t much of a home anymore, and having nobody to really blame but myself. Realizing you’re in a cycle is the first step to breaking it, but it’s also a sobering reminder of your limitations.

***

I’ve played Spelunky dozens and dozens of times these last three weeks. It’s a distraction, but it’s a necessary one. I can deal with things a lot better without constant reminders of what I’m losing.

So I load up the game and try going straight through without using shortcuts, but I never get very far.

Somewhere between playthrough 50 and 60 an unsettling thought emerges: Maybe I’m not doing so well in Spelunky because I’m just not learning anything. Maybe the problem isn’t the game. Maybe the problem is me.  

When Your Parents Are Strangers, Ain’t No Place Called Home

Just last week, actually, just last week I’m at the supermarket. I’m just…you know, stuff for the week. I’m grabbing some Honey Nut Cheerios and this women, this really beautiful woman is looking at me. And I smile at her. She pulls her cart up and says, “John?”

I still don’t know how to have that conversation. There’s a lot of overlap in how people react, but I still can’t plan for it. A lot of people think I’m joking. That’s the common reaction. And I know what to do in that case. What I’ve established as a sort of protocol is to be really frank. “I’m sorry. I know this is going to sound hard to believe, but a few years ago I had an accident and I suffer from amnesia.” It’s so ridiculous. That’s why I understand when somebody thinks I’m joking.

And this woman, she is gorgeous. So that makes me nervous and it gets mixed with the dread of what I have to say, and I just blurt out, “I’m sorry. I forgotten all about you.”

And she just smacks me across the face and walks off in a huff. And now, right now, I’m laughing, I can laugh about this, but, uh, I was just stunned at the time.

I still don’t know who the hell she is.

***

It’s been two and half years. I’m getting to the point now where things are…well, I don’t want to say normal. But the early transition stuff was, I think, the hardest part.

Relationships. Friendships, specifically. I just felt like I was letting people down. Which was true, I wasn’t their friend. I wasn’t him. I was me, and I think there was this expectation that I would eventually become him. That my personality was inherent. Some thought that I could pull through it. I think there’s this really selfish thought – I say selfish, but I don’t mean that in a bad way necessarily – that if they really meant something to me, I wouldn’t have forgotten them. I don’t think they realize that consciously, but having seen that so many times and having heard people almost plead if I remembered such and such or “that one day”, I got that sense. Especially from Lily. I can’t even imagine. To lose your boyfriend of 3 years like that. To have him exist and not exist.

My parents. Also weird. Because, right now, I know them as Roger and Elizabeth, because saying mom and dad to strangers is weird to me. I’ve started saying it, for their sake. But, yeah, to me they’re two really sweet and kind hearted people who have never left my side and a love grows from that, but, it’s a strong friendship, if anything.

But a lot of that was early stuff. I just had to deal with that. Then there was the “now what?” stage. That took a good six months to get into. I quit his job, he worked an an admin – sorry I keep referring to me, pre-accident me, as another person, but that’s what it is. He is somebody else. Anyways, he was an admin assistant at a warehouse and going back to that, well, I’d have to be retrained for everything and…I don’t know if he enjoyed it. I certainly didn’t. But at the time I kept wondering: What do I enjoy?

***

I go out on dates a lot. Recently. I’ve started to rebuild my social life. But that comes up: who are you? What made you? I ended up meeting an ex of his, Amy, a year after the accident. She was great because she had already kind of detached herself from me, so I didn’t feel that tension I had with a lot of his friends. I haven’t had any long term relationships yet, so I don’t know what it’s like to have that association with somebody.

She told me that he would tell her these stories about going camping as a kid. Something he loved was fishing. And she told me that his happiest memory was fishing with Roger as a kid. And she said that when he told that story, she fell in love with him. That memory was just a metaphor for who he was in her eyes. And, I don’t have that. And again, there’s this imbalance about somebody opening up to you, and you just not being able to give something meaningful back.

***

There was this point, a month after I woke up, where I started to go through his…I don’t know what the word would be…his….his…stuff like Facebook and Twitter and Livejournal. Who he was. And it was interesting. For a while I wanted to…use that? Like a- like a - like a script. It was this point where I was frustrated with not being somebody and so I thought, if I could study this I’ll know who I was, who I am.

We had the same taste in music. He posted music and listening to it I thought, “Yeah, I could like this.” I thought he was funny sometimes. Sometimes I didn’t understand him at all. Lily was visiting a lot then, and I asked for her help. In retrospect, that was a stupid thing. I get that now. She was still seeing me as him. I really should’ve just cut her out completely. But she was there and she sort of “translated.”

Every day I’d have this list of questions. They were on all sorts of things. I would ask Lily about these things that I was trying to piece together from these sites, these strands of information. I remember reading stuff about exes on his livejournal and reading these cryptic blog posts. “What does that mean?” I’d ask and Lily couldn’t rightfully tell me. I would read the stuff that he would link to and find common threads and see if there was stuff that interested me. I remember one day I was just looking through his wall posts with other people. I asked Lily about this one guy, asked if he knew about the accident. We were really friendly with each other, but he hadn’t shown up at the hospital and she laughed. “What?” I asked her. And she said that I hated the guy. Like, hated his fucking guts. This just baffled me, because I had researched this dude, like everybody else he was friends with, and I had come to like him. He seemed like a decent, alright guy. But Lily told me that I would just not stop sometimes about how arrogant and pompous I thought this guy was.

I think the worst example was- was when I was looking through old wall posts and I came across stuff Amy posted and my replies. Very overt cutesy couples stuff. And…God, I feel embarassed. Which is weird. Anyways, I’m looking at his messages, private messages, and I see this back and forth of him flirting with another woman. They’re at the same time, the time stamps are right there. It wasn’t as simple as saying that he was an asshole, because he could be at times, but…why. There was no justification, not even a half-hearted attempt to explain himself. All of this other information didn’t add up to a framework where I could…incorporate this event. None of it coalesced. I stopped doing it after a month.

They have this new feature on Facebook where you can download your entire profile. His came up to about 20 megabytes. There were pages and pages and – literally I printed off these stacks of paper – all this information. Going through all that again made me decide to close the account: None of it added up to anything understandable or human.

I’m off to England tomorrow. When I get back (that is to say, back to Portugal) my dance card will be filled up for a while. Posting will resume on July 25th. Apologies for the delay.

History Lessons

I’ve been in Portugal for two months now. My biggest struggle has been trying to make sense of all the disparate threads that underline modern Portugal, a metaphor to crystallize what I’m looking at. I thought the key to all of it was the suburban alcove that I’m staying in. It’s a manufactured piece of land that didn’t exist ten years ago. What was then farmers’ fields is now condos, a gas station, a super market, and a Burger King. I still think it’s a powerful symbol: all these condos are being built while the country suffers a financial crisis that has led to a credit crash and an IMF loan with steep, and potentially devastating, conditions. But this is a symbol of the Portugal that is yet to come, instead of the Portugal I’m in right now.

After weeks the answer presented itself in a story my aunt told:

When she was a child, about 30 years ago, she had a cousin who fell down a flight of stairs. Despite hitting her head pretty hard, she was fine. But it was around that time she started to have fits. Shaking, convulsing. The whole deal.

The child’s mother wasn’t sure what to do. She took her to the village’s doctor, who didn’t really have a straight answer aside from recommending she go to the hospital. So they went to the hospital, and they ran their tests and they hazarded some guesses, and gave her some medicine, but the girl still had fits. The mother wanted answers, not guesses.

At one point, she asked the local priest, a severe man, and a known exorcist, to come and see her. She even had a seizure while he was there. The mother was hoping that the priest would have the answer, but he just shook his head, “She is not possessed.”

At her wit’s end the mother had one last recourse. Early one morning she went to the other side of town, to the village witch. The mother, sheepishly, presented her young daughter to the old witch, and told her everything: told her of the fall and of the fits, of the doctor and of the priest. The witch hears all this and says, “She doesn’t need a witch! She needs a head doctor! She has epilepsy!”

Potential

This is Reed’s daily routine.

1. After waking up, he opens up a can of Jolt Cola. If Jolt Cola is unavailable, he is willing to use RC Cola.

2. In a separate large glass, he drops three cubes of ice. Full cubes, if possible.

3. He pours the Cola into the glass. He lets it sit for two minutes.

4. He drinks the glass halfway.

5. He then opens a can of chilled Red Bull, pours it into the glass, leaving an inch at the top. He downs whatever remains in the can.

6. With his old beat-up espresso machine, he pulls a shot and pours it into the glass. He lets it sit for 10 seconds.

7. He chugs it all down, uninterrupted..

8. He lies back down in bed for 16 hours, staring at the ceiling, thinking.

Lansdowne Station Malaise

Big Money is at his strip club. It’s not open yet, of course. The laws of God and man won’t let it be open before 11. He is fine with that.

His place is next to a church. They share a wall. When he bought the place, much emphasis was placed on how lovely the neighbours were. Big Money has always tried to reciprocate.

Big Money likes to sit outside the club in the morning and get a sense of the street. It is a warm summer morning, nice now, but he knows it will turn into one of those days where the simple act of breathing becomes a chore. He has never been to his native Philippines, his mother always promised to take him back someday, but she passed away when he was a young man, so that never came to pass. Still, the stories she told of the heat remind him of this. And visa versa.

His calender is full today. He has fingers in many different pies, one of every flavour. He has a successful ATM tampering business, for one. The regulars know not to use the ATMs in his strip clubs because, sure as shit, you account will be lightened a few hundred. They shrug: the bank is insured, and will give it back. Victimless crime, really.

The strip clubs are a nice, safe business, but they depress him. The clientele make it worse. In one of the back rooms an elaborate ritual takes place: She slits her wrist, and he slits his and they suckle on the other’s wound, a sad hunger in their eyes, never fulfilled. Big Money himself fells the custom is too tribal, too raw. He is city-bred and is above such things. 

There’s talk that the entire west end is starting to be infected with airborne depressants. It is accidental, the effect coming from a nearby gelatin factory. The science escapes him, but a modern day chemist wouldn’t know what to do with the mixture either. This is something for the gypsies and warlocks, of which there are few in the city. Tell one of the witches about the combination of bones and hoofs and oils being burned up at the factory and they might tell you it’s a powerful force of bad will.

Be that as it may: The west end has him down.

Pac-Man remembers when he could run this course in 20 seconds. That was a long time ago. That was before he and his best friend and manager, Maury Horvath, were multi-millionaires. Before Pac-Man changed his name from Puck-Man (“It sounds a bit too…ethnic.”). Before his very public divorce. Pac-Man is older now. Not as fit as he used to be (and can you blame him? He puts on some much for every role). He goes to his personal gym whenever he’s got a lot on his mind. Under these unflattering fluorescents, he runs. Today, he sees a familiar face. It’s Maury. In a track suit. “Oh no. No, we’re not talking about this.” Pac-Man starts another lap and Maury, lazy on his best day, is already puffing and wheezing. He tries to keep up, but gives up and shouts, “I really think you aren’t giving this a chance.” “It’s already been given a chance Maury. It’s name was Doodle Jump. You can put me in it Maury, but that doesn’t change that this is a rip-off” Maury coughs again. He walks to the gym wall and leans. Pac-Man does not care. He keeps on running the course. “I don’t want you to think this is because it’s an iPod game either. You know it’s not about that,” Pac-Man says, zigging and zagging through the course. “You saying that it’s not about that, means that it’s about that. I know you can” -cough- “open a big console game, you’ve got that momentum, I’m just keeping you open to new paths. Championship Edition opened a lot of doors. Let’s keep ‘em open.” Championship Edition. Pac-Man smiles. He remembers that. People had been saying that he was done in this town for years, that his jump to 3D was a joke. Back in the day, even Sonic would make cheap shots him. “Sells more cereal than consoles.” Oh, how they’d laugh. Championship Edition changed that. It was a gamble. A remake, but better, with the same star and same director. Maury was the only one who believed in him in those days, and now… Pac-Man finishes his lap. “I know what this is. This…who’s the kid behind this.” “Can I smoke in here?” “No.” Maury makes his way to a bench and sits down, “I don’t know” -wheeze- “who they’ve got” -wheeze- “attached.” Pac-Man squirts some water over his head and towels himself off. He lets out a sigh of relief. His knees are killing him. “Who ever it is, they’re using my name. Not just mine. Dig Dug. Galaga. Those were good games. It just feels like a greatest hits.” “Oh, woe to you, Pac, you’re getting old. You’re reading yesterday’s news: we’re all getting old.” Maury gets up, realizes what a silly idea that was, and sits right back down. “It’s a gimmick Maury. You know that. You can see that, right? Sure, add some power dots to the mix, add some old school goons and you’ve got a hint of nostalgia, but it’s old news. I don’t want to do it.” He sits down next to Maury. His knees are on fire. “I’m sorry Pac, I’ve got to smoke.” Pac-Man just waves him off. He’s too tired to resist. “Things are more complicated then that.” “What do you mean?” “Pac…it’s…look, with the recession…certain assets aren’t as…” “Oh God.” “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to have this conversation, but we’re having this conversation. This,” he gets up and spins around like he’s doing a drunken rain dance, “All this will just go out the window. If you even have a window at the end of it.” Pac-Man is shaking. He feels faint. “Look, Pac, you can keep your integrity, or you can keep your house. But you can’t keep ‘em both.” Pac’N - JumpStarring: Pac-ManComing to an iPhone near you in 2011!

Pac-Man remembers when he could run this course in 20 seconds. That was a long time ago. That was before he and his best friend and manager, Maury Horvath, were multi-millionaires. Before Pac-Man changed his name from Puck-Man (“It sounds a bit too…ethnic.”). Before his very public divorce.

Pac-Man is older now. Not as fit as he used to be (and can you blame him? He puts on some much for every role). He goes to his personal gym whenever he’s got a lot on his mind. Under these unflattering fluorescents, he runs. Today, he sees a familiar face.

It’s Maury. In a track suit.

“Oh no. No, we’re not talking about this.”

Pac-Man starts another lap and Maury, lazy on his best day, is already puffing and wheezing. He tries to keep up, but gives up and shouts, “I really think you aren’t giving this a chance.”

“It’s already been given a chance Maury. It’s name was Doodle Jump. You can put me in it Maury, but that doesn’t change that this is a rip-off”

Maury coughs again. He walks to the gym wall and leans. Pac-Man does not care. He keeps on running the course. “I don’t want you to think this is because it’s an iPod game either. You know it’s not about that,” Pac-Man says, zigging and zagging through the course.

“You saying that it’s not about that, means that it’s about that. I know you can” -cough- “open a big console game, you’ve got that momentum, I’m just keeping you open to new paths. Championship Edition opened a lot of doors. Let’s keep ‘em open.”

Championship Edition. Pac-Man smiles. He remembers that. People had been saying that he was done in this town for years, that his jump to 3D was a joke. Back in the day, even Sonic would make cheap shots him. “Sells more cereal than consoles.” Oh, how they’d laugh.

Championship Edition changed that. It was a gamble. A remake, but better, with the same star and same director. Maury was the only one who believed in him in those days, and now…

Pac-Man finishes his lap. “I know what this is. This…who’s the kid behind this.”

“Can I smoke in here?”

“No.”

Maury makes his way to a bench and sits down, “I don’t know” -wheeze- “who they’ve got” -wheeze- “attached.”

Pac-Man squirts some water over his head and towels himself off. He lets out a sigh of relief. His knees are killing him. “Who ever it is, they’re using my name. Not just mine. Dig Dug. Galaga. Those were good games. It just feels like a greatest hits.”

“Oh, woe to you, Pac, you’re getting old. You’re reading yesterday’s news: we’re all getting old.” Maury gets up, realizes what a silly idea that was, and sits right back down.

“It’s a gimmick Maury. You know that. You can see that, right? Sure, add some power dots to the mix, add some old school goons and you’ve got a hint of nostalgia, but it’s old news. I don’t want to do it.”

He sits down next to Maury. His knees are on fire.

“I’m sorry Pac, I’ve got to smoke.” Pac-Man just waves him off. He’s too tired to resist. “Things are more complicated then that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pac…it’s…look, with the recession…certain assets aren’t as…”

“Oh God.”

“I was hoping we wouldn’t have to have this conversation, but we’re having this conversation. This,” he gets up and spins around like he’s doing a drunken rain dance, “All this will just go out the window. If you even have a window at the end of it.”

Pac-Man is shaking. He feels faint.

“Look, Pac, you can keep your integrity, or you can keep your house. But you can’t keep ‘em both.”

Pac’N - Jump
Starring: Pac-Man
Coming to an iPhone near you in 2011!

without a radio, we can all still hear it in our bones

Well, it’s…it’s 1:35 in the morning here at HITZ 103.5: It’s 1:35 a lot of places, actually. Maybe if it’s a cool night you’re getting me down on the other side of the lake. If you are, give us a call. Lines are open.

That last track was, of course, Toxic by Britney Spears. A good song. Not my favourite, personally, I’ll be honest. Unpopular opinion, but I hold up Womanizer to be the better song. Unpopular opinion. I might have to hang up my badge, my radio presenter badge, I’d have to hang it up if anybody ever found out.

The one before that was Backstreet’s Back. Off of their second album. That really solidified them. That second album—let’s look at it straight on—no sophomore slump. They just delivered. They were on a run there. Millennium came next and that has a lot of staples, a lot of good tracks there. Larger than Life. That’s off that album. You know, their fourth album, Black and Blue also solid. They all have that glossy Max Martin sound. It was a mistake to move away from that. Hindsight is 20/20. Easy for me to say.

A lot of comparisons have been drawn between them and the New Kids on the Block, but I think Maurice Starr didn’t know how to use the talent in his group at first, and then he…he stumbled on it. Still churned out two solid albums. The Backstreet Boys were better for the form. Tried slightly different things. And Martin was a good producer, but he had great talent too, and there were these little incremental leaps of genius. What do you think? Give us a call. The lines are open. While we’re waiting, let’s take a short commercial break and get to some more music. You’re listening to HITZ 103.5: The Station that Never Sleeps!

—-

Zigga-a-zig-ah. God. A classic. Just burst onto the scene. And that video. That video. Jeez. Lyrically, they’re still very playful, not really plunging the depths. We draw the Madonna comparison when talking about Lady Gaga. That’s true, it’s a – it’s a very valid comparison to make. But stylistically, the Spice Girls – you can trace a direct line to the Spice Girls.

Madonna broke new ground, but she was obvious about it. She broke new ground to break new ground and now that no ground exists to be broken, well, what do you do? Lady Gaga, well, she’s an engine of change, but—you know what? Let’s leave that open to some callers. You know the number.

No, the Spice Girls. They just…they just were something else. That video, running around in their loud casual clothes, their style, in the face of the British upper class. It’s not a class thing, though. It’s about being free. Free of everything. Free of—free of—free of ideology. I think that’s what I thinking of. They were expressing freedom. What it means to be free.

We’re coming up to 2AM here at HITZ 103.5: The Station that Never Sleeps.  

—-

It’s 3:03 AM here at HITZ 103.5. We are the Station that Never Sleeps. No matter how much we may want to. We’re having some technical difficulties, I’m told. Should only be a few minutes. That’s what that dead spot was a few minutes back, and we’re just checking equipment on our end.

Last week I was at a music festival. Primavera Sound, in Barcelona. I went to see Pulp. I am a big fan of their work, which any long time fan is sure to know. I’m usually good for one – at least one – Pulp song a night. They were great. Of course. Been out of the game for ten years, and you wouldn’t know it.

Hearing them play Underwear was surreal. Just surreal. It puts me in this different time altogether.

[cough]

Sorry, excuse me.

My..ummm…my…ummmm..ex-wife, before she was my ex-wife, before she was my wife, even, was with this bad son of a bitch. Hit her. Hard. From what she says, he was a big guy, mountain man that hated his life and took it out on her and their son. She left him, thank Christ, and we met, and I remember on one of our first dates she told me one of her favourite songs is I Will Survive. Made sense to me. I asked it if gave her strength, and she said, no. That the song only really meant something after the fact. That it reminded her of that time, of all of what she was feeling. It was a…a….a…symbol. A symbol.

You know, it’s funny, I hate I Will Survive because it reminds me of that piece of shit asshole. Sorry, excuse the, the, language. I just picture him beating her and it makes me mad. Not all the time, but sometimes I hear it, when I’m at the gas station, or in an elevator, and it just brings that to mind. Funny.

I didn’t really think of it much of that until I was at this festival. I had some off hours and walked around and I went to this band’s thing. I just saw two drum kits and I thought, “Alright, these seem like my type of guys.” I sat down and waited. Guy comes out and it’s…I don’t know…dance music, it was dance music. Stuff that you move to. Saw these kids dancing, and just moving to the music, but…it was like they were in a trance. There was nothing in between them and the music. Where ever the song went, they went too, and it was unlike anything I’d really known. Even early 90s Madonna, the dance stuff, or Ace of Bass, were impossible to get completely lost in.

These kids out here, they’re chasing something. Yeah, sure, some of this music, maybe even a great deal, is about the memories that come with it. Everybody goes to Pulp, because Pulp…gives them a taste of nostalgia. For me at least, they bring to mind that point where the secrets of sex are starting to bubble to the surface, and for you, maybe it’s just that charge of being young and overwhelmed with a vague confusion. Music has changed, you know. It used to be about the past, but you kids are looking for the future. You go to these things, all of these things and you just have your head so deep in it. There were over hundred bands playing. But they chase after them. It’s more than just hearing the new sound, nowadays it’s about hearing the next sound.

But I think, and this is going to sound weird, but that you’re trying to find music for the future. You’re going to find that one damn song that just glows, and you will build a moment to fit that song perfectly. Then you find another song, and try to do it again. Instead of having a life then attaching songs to it, you scout out the soundtrack to a future you will build. It’s not about capturing who you are, or who you want to be, but where you want to be. 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaannd it looks like we’re back in business. We’re gonna slide into a few minutes of commercials and then get into another commercial-free half hour of all your favourites, here on HITZ 103.5.