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  • December 2007

You may think you are cool,
Blasting your hip-hop at full volume at eight o’clock in the morning.

But you are not cool -
It is eight o’clock in the morning.

I am cool,
For still being asleep…or, rather, I would be…would have been…

(Coffee).

Now I have to go to work on time,
Because YOU want to groove ‘longside your breakfast.
Just bogus, man.

Just bogus.

Those few readers who have been frequenting thefuriousromantic.com since its launch in early January might remember that the site tagline wasn’t always “Press Forward and Keep Yelling.” I decided to replace the previous line (”Get Mad”) with this phrase (imperative?) the day after engaging in a short nighttime conversation with my lady love about the options that we as a couple had available to us while trying to “make it” as both artists and young Americans of the non-head-up-ass variety. I will of course welcome any additional suggestions from anyone who thinks he or she might have one, but let it be known that, for us, all we could really come up with was “Press Forward and Keep Yelling.” So there that is.

I bring this up in order to introduce, in a general way, some more specific updates regarding a few things that have been promised in earlier posts on the site but have not yet appeared. That is to say: as backwards as this may at first seem…much of the actual stuff that I had hoped to share with everyone on this site hasn’t yet arrived because…I’ve been busy pressing forward. I am also storing up for a big yell.

In more specific terms: I have been working on another project apart from this blog. This may not seem like surprising news to some of you. To others, it may not seem like something that you, as a furious reader, need to know. But there are a few important reasons, relating to what you have read so far on the site, that have left me feeling that a site update may at this time be a good idea.

The first reason is that I am truly dedicated to differentiating this site from it’s main sources of information: the media and me. I don’t want this to be a place filled only with criticisms and complaints. Complainers and critics, in my opinion, deserve only a small percentage of any one person’s attention and/or consideration - and even then, this only holds true when they are either very smart or very good (if they were both, they wouldn’t be a critic or complainer). Anyway, I want more than a small amount of attention from you. In order to earn it, I feel like I should be contributing towards “change” in addition to simply calling for it to happen.

So…yeah…I’ve been working on another project. A big one. I will provide more information on this project when the time is right, but for now I only mention it as a means of providing an explanation for the following “broken promises.”

The Fiction Section - As mentioned in my post about the literary criminality of cell phone novels, I am currently in the middle of a long, indefinite break from fiction writing. The idea, when I first started the site in January, had been to populate this section of the site with those few polished short stories that I “completed” in 2006 and 2007, as well as to possibly start developing one or two new pieces as time progressed (and depending on your reaction to the older pieces). My failure to implement these steps has occurred as a result of:

1. The monopoly that my current project has held and continues to hold on my time (and life),
2. The nature of my current opinions regarding the value of traditional fiction to “the audience” at large,
3. And, finally, fear.

Regardless, I still do plan on releasing some of my work to the public…so…please be patient.All of these reasons - as far as I can tell - are both significant and legitimate. All will also, however, be dealt with in due time. The amount of traffic to the fiction section of the site has been very flattering. Despite the fact that it contains absolutely no content, it is the sixth-most visited page out of the 40+ that currently exist. I know that much of this traffic is due to the fact that many of my readers are friends - and friends that know me as more of a fiction writer than a blogger - but the interest is appreciated nonetheless. Thank you, and I promise that eventually, there will be fiction in the fiction section. Just go easy on me when that day comes.

The Video Section - This section of the site, for all offensive porpoises, is also empty. According to the last email that some of you received, as well as the inaugural video post, this should not be. There is, however, a good reason for the delay. The first webisode that was supposed to come-atcha came out well…but for certain reasons it can’t be finished until the next several webisodes are also finished. The next several webisodes can’t be started - never mind finished - because of the “big project.” Please understand that this is not due to a lack of initiative or desire. The video, like the fiction, will eventually arrive. But it won’t arrive until I can make sure that it’s up to par with both what I can do and what you deserve as an audience.

Feature Length Articles - Same old song and dance. A few longer posts have appeared on the site from its inception until now. But while these have (hopefully) offered a little more depth and insight than some of the quicker, shorter entries that I’ve been able to sneak in from time to time…they don’t quite represent what I’m envisioning in terms of the more substantive posts that you’ll eventually see once the “big project” is out of the way. Sadly enough, the list of yet-be-completed feature articles begins with the article that was previously going to be the introduction to this site. So….with that in mind…you can be decently sure that I’m going to get around to writing these sooner or later. If I don’t…then that means the whole endeavor has either failed or been derailed. Ain’t going to happen.

That’s really it. Once I am no longer under the heel of the “big project,” you’ll start seeing some of the material that you’ve been promised. In the meantime, please continue to visit the site for bits and pieces of fury and love.

Awwwww….

…grumble.

Note: This post may not be safe for worktime viewing.

* * *

An example of the difference between writing-writing and blog-writing…

When I’m writing something real, I do everything that I can think of (within reason) to back-up my work.

I save constantly and in many places (hard drive, flash drive, email-copy) at once. I print hard copies and I file them and I never throw them away. The loss of even a single, potentially brilliant phrase, can and will unman me. Whenever I lose something that I feel is even somewhat important (the essential reason why I would be writing it down in the first place) I either descend into a deep blue depression or fly into a day-long rage. This is how important my work is to me. This is how deeply paranoia, egotism, and insecurity can affect a person.

Hank Moody would be proud. Actually, he probably wouldn’t. He’d probably lash me with his tongue, probably would call me a weakling of a writer, a man dependent more on the paper (or the screen) than on just the identity itself…someone who, in place of being an actual writer, merely writes. Fuck you Hank Moody. You’re fictitious!

Anyway - that’s what happens when I write something real and then lose it. Read more

About a year ago, I was having lunch with a friend, and was just starting to launch into my usual “communications-technology-is-killing-communication” speech, when she stopped me pre-rant. “I know what you are going to say,” she said. “And it’s so much worse in Asia.”

My friend is Korean. She was born and raised in the United States but has worked in Korea and Japan for much of her life. And according to her, the average citizen of each of these countries - and especially, the average young person - is completely dependent on his or her cell phone as a source of not only communication but entertainment as well.

Now, I don’t have statistics to support that claim, but let it be known that my friend is both observant and intelligent. Even if her point of view is somewhat exaggerated - probably in the face of the possible ramifications of what’s in that point of view (something that admittedly often happens to yours truly) - there’s very little chance that she’s not somewhat right. I’ll leave it to my Korean and Japanese readers, and my half Korean and half Japanese readers, to add some more perspective or information if they feel the need.

But back to the point, before it stabs us:

Novels written and distributed via cell phone are starting to dominate the best seller lists in Japan.

Read more

Following is a list of links that you may find interesting. I emailed them to myself over the course of the week, because I had been planning to discuss each one of them separately, but that ain’t going to happen so here they are.

• The Sad Fact Link: This article from The New York Times is about vanishing blue collar jobs. The topic of vanishing blue collar jobs is certainly nothing new, and I’m sure that there are plenty of economists and sociologists and politicians and historians who will tell you that such phenomena are just a natural consequence of business. And that could very well be true. But truth won’t provide the people covered in the article with the traction they’ll need to keep from slipping into poverty. Neither will $800, Mr. President. Again, reader(s), read The Conscience of A Liberal.
• The Gleefully Relevant to This Site Link: The value of this article, as far as I am concerned, isn’t illustrated so much by the article itself as it is by the comments that the article inspired (almost 250). The main topic of the conversation is narcissism among young Americans. Unfortunately, the article itself isn’t as insightful or as thought provoking as it could be, however it did spur some conversation (again: see the comments section). Some very interesting ideas are tossed about in those comments, by both the old and the young. Check it out. And forward the link to ten of your friends or you’ll have (purple) diarrhea tonight.
• The Not A Huge Deal But Still Sort of Pathetic Link: This story is about the recent addition of Stephen Colbert’s portrait to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery. The situation itself is funny. The painting is only going to hang for a short while - between the bathrooms. But when you learn that twenty year olds “…might look at the rest of the museum, but really came for Colbert,” it gets less funny. Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe no one cares about portraits - except this guy with his bobble head rhinoceros.
• The Other Blog Worth Reading Link: I started reading Patrick Walsh’s personal blog when he started writing for Cinematical.com. He’s a good, funny, intelligent writer. More importantly, he’s a readable writer. It really blows my mind (and cups my mind’s balls) when I see how many mediocre writers are out there getting their work read - when that work is hardly readable (as in, incompletely conceived and poorly constructed.) A good writer should be able to conceive and construct almost on the fly. Anyway, Patrick Walsh claims he is not a pedophile.
• The Good Example of Something Positive That Can Be Done to Offset American Technological Waste Link: Recycle that (mobile) shit.

Happy Weekend. Check out those links. After all, Saturdays are for catching up on what’s going on in your world.

Check out this post from the NY Times Bits Blog for a sampling of what it’s like to be in the belly of the consumer electronics beast (The 2008 Consumer Electronics Show).

And, if you’re interested, click around and read a few more of the author’s posts. He looks like he knows both how to write and what he’s talking about.

This is encouraging. This is refreshing. This is a Diet 7-Up with a fortune cookie label.

NOTE: This post was initially published on Yesterday’s Salad. It is reprinted here with the permission of the author, who shares several pairs of shoes and underwear with The Furious Romantic.

*    *    *

Earlier this year, when I read about the premise for Showtime’s new series, Californication, I got a sinking feeling. My girlfriend watched the pilot episode of this “show about a writer,” starring David Duchovny in his first TV role since The X-Files, and liked it pretty well. But she warned me about watching it for myself.

“I feel like you might get kind of sensitive about how they treat the character,” she said. “He’s definitely a writer, all the stereotypes are there, but I don’t know if you’ll like it…then again…why else would they be stereotypes?” A teasing description of how many of the stereotypes fit onto my back probably followed, after which I probably bit her.

Anyway! After heeding her warning for a while, I caved. There’s just not much else out there worth watching, and Showtime and HBO have each proven themselves as surer bets in the search for eye-safe television. And, lo and behold, my lover was right. I did get kind of sensitive. In all the right ways.

Read more

You’re reading this sentence because you need to know what the hell “reprinting some old salad means.”

Could he be a counterfeiter? Or a photographer of all things insalata?

Nah. Here’s what it means…

I also write for another site. It’s called Yesterday’s Salad and it’s got a staff and an editor and recurring readers and everything. It’s sometimes silly and sometimes angry and sometimes sincere and all the time fun (unless you’re a fan of NBC’s Heroes). Check it out.

My posts for YS are written under the name ibiteyoureyes. Most of them are meant to be lighthearted and/or humorous, although many ended up that way only because I was trying not to be too angry while writing. On this site, however, my anger will be allowed to run free with the other buffaloes. The electronic flying buffaloes. Sounds like the name of a stupid indie rock band. Tonight on Conan: Mandy Moore, Kevin Garnett, and special musical guests The Electronic Flying Buffaloes. We’ll warn you when the band’s coming on, because even if they’re good the music is going to sound like crap anyway when broadcast “live” and you’d rather go to bed early.

Anyway, I’m going to be reprinting a few YS posts that touch upon topics relevant to this site. There are probably only two or three. But go back in time and toss some salad on your own anyway.

NOTE: For a “dueling review” visit Yesterday’s Salad and read No Country or No Old Men? Pick ‘Em.

* * *

I had been trying to think of a good way to start off a review of No Country for Old Men, and today I found one, courtesy of Peter Travers from Rolling Stone. Says Mr. Travers:

“Misguided souls will tell you that No Country for Old Men is out for blood, focused on vengeance and unconcerned with the larger world outside a standard-issue suspense plot. Those people, of course, are deaf, dumb, and blind to anything that isn’t spelled out between commercials on dying TV networks. Joel and Ethan Coen’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel is an indisputably great movie, at this point the year’s very best. [It is] a literate meditation (scary words for the Transformers crowd) on America’s bloodlust for the easy fix. It’s also as entertaining as hell, which tends to rile up elitists.”

Despite having what Mr. Travers might call a “more or less well-guided soul,” I was fairly pissed off by his use of such fightin’ words as “deaf, dumb, and blind.” I was greatly pissed off by the last sentence of the previous excerpt: “It’s also entertaining as hell, which tends to rile up elitists.” While Mr. Travers is entitled to his opinion, there are a few problems with taking a swipe at both the “misguided souls” of the film watching community and the “elitists” of the film watching community…in the span of a few sentences.

1. It sort of implies that only a small group of really special people (super-elitists with well-guided souls?), led by Mr. Travers himself, can truly appreciate this movie.
2. It puts the writer in the difficult position of defending an indefensible point (an opinion) from two fronts: The Stoopids is gonna yell at you in between commercials on their dying TV networks, and the Snark-Attackers are going to band together at the local bar to get drunk and skewer you…in between being clever and complaining about society and the misfortunes of their lives…before then setting off to the local indie theater to watch unentertaining movies films! full of pauses and poetry.

It’s a good thing Peter Travers is completely wrong when he says that No Country for Old Men is an indisputably great movie. I dispute, home skillet. I dispute. No Country for Old Men is a good, but ultimately disappointing, movie.

Read more

About six weeks ago, I decided once and for all to start my own blog. This was no small thing, because until recently I didn’t even like the word “blog.” I thought it sounded cheap, and more than a little dirty. And indeed it does. So be it. I myself am cheap and dirty.

Why am I cheap and dirty? Because I need to be cheap and dirty. Why do I need to be cheap and dirty? Ah, well…that’s an important question, and one that is going to take some time to answer.

The overall answer will come, in bits and pieces, from my posts to this blog. I hope that, upon reading this introduction, that you will either:

• Join me for the entirety of this (cheap and dirty!) endeavor,
• Check in on occasion to see how this (cheap and dirty!) endeavor is going, or
• Die, unhappy and alone, with your pants around your ankles (in the case that you do not choose option one or two).

For the sake of clarity, as well as in an effort to gain your continued attention, I will now briefly explain why I am making such a big deal out of the words “cheap” and “dirty,” before then finishing up with some information on what you can expect to find upon visiting this site as time marches on. And on. And over and through your body and face.

The short of it: only recently, after many years of finding every reason and excuse not to do so, have I begun to really live my life. And I’m not even doing that much. Except that I am.

Read more