Martial Awesome

If two English professors argued over the meaning of Xanadu in Kubla Khan by Coleridge they might throw a disparaging remark or they might debate with frenetic energy while they flail their leather patched arms in large, garish  gesticulations.  They would not however throw a spin hook kick at each other’s face.  That would be both preposterous and awesome.  However with martial artists it is quite possible that an argument, even a simple one, could lead to testosterone fueled rage punching or spinning hook kicks.  The martial arts is inherently violent and practicing any of them brings a certain familiarity to violence.  I’m not saying practicing makes you want to punch people all the time (but it might solve an issue or two) but that getting hit or hitting others doesn’t seem as alien once you’ve been in the environment.

A problem with martial arts that leads to the possibility on dangerous entanglements and ego flaring is the often convoluted and obfuscated backgrounds of differing styles.  Just with Kempo alone there are multiple splits and schisms.  This history is muddy and confusing.  Unsurprising for an art that migrated from China to Okinawa to Japan to Hawaii to the West Coast then finally to the East Coast.  Differing version of the art stayed in each of those spots.  You’ll see the Shaolin monks practicing something completely alien techniques with a few very familiar move sets.  Even in the same regions you’ll see differences; even dojo to dojo or instructor to instructor.  Kempo is just one of many arts where there are splits and arguments.  Then there is the whole my style is better arguments.  Or my style is more accurate or this the best way to throw or this the best way to hit.  Everything is up for debate.  And it isn’t something so easily discovered.  You can’t simply say that way’s bullshit mine is better.  You have to know both techniques or movements of principles or what have you.  And not simple know it on the surface but truly grasp it.  There are things I’ve been studying for five years with the art that I’m only now getting a real appreciation for.  Imagine twenty more years.  Then imagine some brat telling me he knows a better way.  It’s a fine line to walk.  Humility should reside within the soul of every martial artist but it isn’t always there as strong as it should be.  Humility is integral.  Growth is stunted  without it, you can’t listen and learn if you think you know everything, and having an understanding of how to inflict copious amounts damage is not something to be taken lightly.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this subject as I’ve been exposed to quite a few different dojos and several different martial styles thanks to some wonderful friends and martial teachers I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.  My understanding and appreciation for the arts has grown considerably.  I’ve been thrown around by people who do things that seem like witchcraft and appear to the untrained eye preposterous.  Not that there aren’t frauds out but I can guarantee the pain I felt was not fake.  Quick aside, the worst pain in my martial career involve a lock applied that actually made me think my whole arm might simple unravel, give up and never quite work right again – it was fine afterwards, mostly.  One of the things that strike me as interesting is the view set for martial artists varies much more than I’d think.  There really are places like the Cobra Kai from The Karate Kid.  Some dojos take fighting way too seriously and injury at these places isn’t an if it’s a when.  This seems unnecessary to me.  But the reason these people are studying is different from mine.  I’m quite content to hit softer or to intentionally miss my partner during application of technique.  Both are in wrong in a sense for training how to deal with a situation in the street but both let me remain working with my partner.  This is part of the root of the problem or at least one of them.

The dojo is a constructed environment.  You have a person attack in a prescribed way you both agree on some technique can be done.  This is of course totally unrealistic.  The guy in street can’t be predicted.  They might punch in a big ugly haymaker, which is likely and preferable (preferable in that I takes a long time to swing those and it gives me a whole bunch of time to react, of course that’s if I see it) or they might be high school athletes and try to wrestle or tackle me to the ground (much less preferable, their buddy might be around who could kick me for one, two ground is dangerous period).  But this prescribed way lets you understand the technique and it’s principles.  Once you get it you can deconstruct it.  Figure out why it works.  Then apply it to other situations.  That is often missing from some of the classical martial training.  Its often twenty different move set to be remembered per type of attack.  The bloating of material can be a bad thing as your plan only works before you get hit or if the arm bar is slightly more to the left.

But each dojo is its own little culture.  I’m reminded of this every time I enter someone else’s place of study.  I often remind myself as I tend to have mouth that spurts out thought before it passes through a filter.  This is bad when you are a guest and worse when you are surrounded by people who train to fight.  Fortunately I’ve been polite and humble even when I’ve been weirded out or uncomfortable at places.  It might be normal at one places to train hard and focus on fitness.  Another place is obsessed with realistic street training but not the spiritual or historical significance.  Another still might be a McDojo.  Those are universally reviled within the community.  Quite a few sprang up after The Karate Kid as every parent decided maybe their little guy might need some wizened sensei to straighten out their kid.  Meanwhile the kids haze dreams of tournaments and jumping side kicks.  The teachers simple have a desire to cash checks.  They pass on just enough knowledge to be slightly credible and produce belt factories.  The kids keep getting to next level and they show some progress but mostly its ego stroking.  They don’t produce legitimate black belts.  The legitimacy of black belts is a big point of controversy.  Some styles mandate set amounts of years beside having material before achieving rank, regardless of talent.  I don’t disagree with the practice I simply don’t prescribe.

There are whole articles on what constitutes a McDojo and what constitutes real martial arts.  I find some of it laughable.  Simply because these people often come from a very specific mindset.  They need a set of knowledge for grappling, striking and ground work.  But they slop varying style together haphazardly.  There is a reason boxers fight the way they do.  Boxers are great gifted fighters.  I wouldn’t want to fight one.  But if I did I would kick the shit out of their shins and knees.  Why?  Because they don’t train to the handle that.  Plus getting punch from a boxer sound very unappetizing.  You keep throwing up these what if and the style has to morph and change and be muddied.  You don’t just take a kick from one style and punch from another.  Picking and choosing doesn’t work.  There is a foundation of knowledge and understanding the leads somewhere.  That style moves a certain way and that’s why they kick like that.  You take the kick but not the movement you lose the reasoning behind it.

There tends to be this idea that the best fighting style is the best style.  I don’t believe that.  I’m not learning simply to be able to defend myself.  I’m learning to kick ass in tournaments.  I’m not learning to show off or make money.  I’m learning because I enjoy it and it has made me be a better person.  My martial journey has been about improvement.  In part it’s about crafting technique but it’s a also about bettering me.  That is the reason why martial arguments seem petty to me.  That’s why I simply listen when people argue about legitimacy.  Yes, I’ll sometimes get swept away and say people are not where they need to be for rank or that I think certain techniques are useless.  But I try not to do that.  I’ve only been studying for five years and every day I learn that I really have only scratched the surface of understanding.  The better I get the more I see that I can’t do.  Every time I think I perfect a stance or a punch or a movement something new pops up.

So I’ll try to stay out of argument about which style is better and what attitude is correct because the reason I chose to study might not the right one for others.  All I know is that I know only a fraction and that I’ll never be done learning.  So who am I to say one style is better or that one kind of punch is best?

Ben

The Future of Gaming

It is entirely possible that I have spent more time playing video games than any other activity.  This may, or may not, be a bad thing.  However this does give me a wee bit of experience and knowledge into world of gaming.  What gives me more knowledge is having studied and read about the subject.  Many years ago when I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life I took online classes for breaking into the video game industry.  I didn’t stay with it but I picked up some interesting knowledge.  So I feel that I have a decent wealth of experience to post about where the industry is going as well as where it could be going.

Before I delve into the future I want to talk about the past, as I find it important to know where things were so we can see where they are going.  I want to talk about the industry but also about my history with gaming.  So I’ll give a short biased view of gaming history tinted with personal experience.

Video gaming for me started in the mid eighties when I was introduced to the NES (the Nintendo entertainment system or Famicon in Japan).  This did not immediately overtake my life as it has done for so many children.  I was still very active and relied on imagination for entertainment.  The older I became the more and more time I spent with a controller in hand.  Video games were developed with slightly different intentions then.  Some of you may be familiar with the term Nintendo hard.  The reason for this term was there were simply awful soul crushingly hard games out there that just took great pleasure in destroying any and all ego you might have.  Battletoads is a great example of this.  I intend on getting past that speeder bike level one day.  But for young Ben that was the bane of my existence.  It was fun double dragon like game with cartoony violence almost in the vein of Tex Avery slapstick.  Then the third level came around and the speeder bike ruined everything.  I still think about that level every once and a while.  The worst however was Rygar.   Hours and hours learning the pattern and levels.  Slowly crawling through the level maps and defeating the bosses.  Then the last level you had to defeat all the bosses again one after another.  Then the final boss.  Who would hit me five time for every one hit I dished out.  It was infuriating.  Yet I came back for more.  Not all Nintendo games were this hard but enough were.  Part of the reason for this was padding.  They wanted the game to last more than five minutes.  They amped up the difficulty not just to make it challenging but to lengthen game time.  This was done through grinding in RPG’s.  You had to fight monsters over and over to level up enough to get to the next area and not be squashed.  I remember playing Dragon Warrrior (really Dragon Quest) and grinding with Chimeras and slimes for hours.  Also that’s the first time I ever read the word herb and because I didn’t know any better thought it actually pronounced the British way with the ‘h’ not silent.

A quick list of some of the exceeding evil games that gave more suffering than enjoyment:

• Battletoads (this game has ruined childhoods)
• Rygar
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (fuck you underwater electric level)
• Mike Tyson’s Punch Out
• Castlevania (I picked it up not long ago and got passed the medusa head area that always killed me but I still keep getting mercilessly slaughtered time and again)
• Ghost’s n’ goblins
• I would include Contra, it appeared on numerous hardest lists but I knew the code so it wasn’t so bad
• Any Mega Man game
• Out of This World (you are immediately chased by a monster you can’t kill)

I’d include more but I can’t remember all of them and thinking back on these games I remember truly how much time was spent on them.  And I replayed games quite often finding out all the little eccentricities and easter eggs.  This was substantially harder before the proliferation of the internet.

I’m glad that the ‘Nintendo hard’ practice is mostly over (save for a few games like Demon’s Souls).  I like some challenge in my games.  I loved the last console Castlevania.  It was hard, often frustrating but not unfair.  I go back to some of older these games however and I want to rip my hair out.  They taught me patience and persistence but did nothing for my blood pressure or temper.  Now we’ve gone in the whole other direction.  There’s barely any penalty for death in many video games.  RPG’s still hold onto the grinding a bit too much (see Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy) but they have evolved a bit.  I always loved RPG’s.  Looking back at some of the games I played I wondered how I thought the story lines so engaging.  They were pretty awful but I was glued to the set.  There is a primal connection to you avatar.  It’s strong connection.  You act out through them.  Your button push is translated through them.  So their actions are yours.  The story affecting them in turn affects you.  It’s a deeper relationship than you might have empathy wise with a character in a book or film.

This deep connection is part of the reason why video games are so addicting.  Another reason is they are intentionally built that way.  Stat progression is built in, item management, constant gathering and fetch quests.  Loot, loot and more loot.  Look at Borderlands 2, the whole game is predicated on constantly upgrading equipment.

Once the console wars started 'Nintendo hard' began to peel away.  It started a wee bit before this as Nintendo had such dominance in the market they were as afraid of keeping kids hooked anymore.  They had years of constant consumer behavior and addictive behaviors stored up.  The first console wars were pretty awesome.  My cousins had Sega Genesis which then seemed amazing compared to my 8 bit console.  Thinking in bits seems absolutely ridiculous now.  The thing about having two consoles is this gave developers a bit of room.  You had these strict guidelines and approval necessary to be a Nintendo game.  The Nintendo Seal of Approval was a big deal.  There were a few cartridges made without them but that didn’t happen much and not with permission.  SO the Super Nintendo came out and it was awesome.  Things like Mortal Kombat were now possible.  Or Donkey Kong Country.  These were serious graphical upgrades.  The face of gaming was changing.  Mario was being challenged, legitimately by a cooler mascot in Sonic with a bunch more attitude.  Sonic embodied the nineties considerably more.  He was, in a sense, a foreboding of the extreme era in some ways.  By extreme era I mean the bullshit marketers latched onto.  The X games being a good example and every television commercial in the nineties that was way too loud being a bad example.  Video games were growing up with the audience.  We weren’t kids anymore.  We were teenagers or getting closer to being teenagers.  I am part of the generation that first fully embraced video games.  Most of the things right and most of the things wrong with video games can be laid at the feet of my generation.  Now I think games while still appealing to us are primarily aimed at the younger generation but I’ll get to that later.

So games and systems started getting more adult.  Gamers started growing savvier.  Computer games at the time were only getting bigger with the expanding influence of the internet.  Without the net MMO’s or RTS games wouldn’t be around.  I never got into computer gaming that much having been so attached to console gaming.  I did play a few classic adventure games (like Grim Fandango and the Monkey Island series) but I never jumped on the warcraft, starcraft, unreal bandwagon.  I would however when I was older get a bit sucked into a few MMO’s.

Before I move on I figure I met explain why gaming is important to me.  Besides the fact that I’ve been doing it so long and I rather do love it gaming has been rather important for a number of reasons.  Everyone, at one point, has been picked on as a child.  It’s what happens.  I was picked on quite a bit being a shy person with learning disabilities.  I was unable to understand why I was made fun as I always thought of myself as normal.  I just went around after awhile as thinking myself unlucky or, even worse, not worth being liked.  This changed obviously.  Mostly through hard work and growing up.  I don’t think I truly felt comfortable with myself until part way through high school.  I didn’t like being me.  This was awful.  Now I love being me and I’m happy for all the things I’ve experienced.  It keeps me humble and reminds of all the things I should and shouldn’t do.  Video games brought me great entertainment and companionship during this hard time.  I found games that brought me to fantastic places, letting me forget the chaos and unhappiness of school.  But gaming was insular and alone.  It was a solitary habit.  I think that’s part for the reason I never got that into computer gaming until much later.  I had no want to relate to other people.  I did want to have friends but my social anxiety held me away from working at it.  It was safe behind the controller.  There was always another life, another continue.  You could always restart fresh if you wanted.  There was comfort in that.

After Super Nintendo was Nintendo 64.  I remember knowing a guy who had s mall game store that dealt with imports. I was able to borrow the system and play Mario64 in Japanese a while before it the states.  It was jarring and unreal.  I stared in wonder.  I really could not believe that they did it.  Now they make games for portable devices that look far better than anything from that generation.  Nintendo 64 was also a wee bit of a disappointment in some senses.  There was nothing to play at launch beside Mario and Pilotwings.  I refused to buy Pilotwings.  Eventually Shadow of the Empire came out (in the days before Star Wars was still cool for me) and I had at least two games to play.  Having been used to Nintendo Hard I beat Mario so thoroughly there were no easter eggs or spoilers left.  Then there was the Gamecube.

Nintendo finally moved away from the cartridge.  They were going to make cd drive gaming system but flaked out on the deal.  This was great for industry as Nintendo backed out on Sony.  Sony reacted by making the Playstation.  The Playstation made history with games like Final Fantasy Seven and Silent Hill.  This competition was great.  Sadly the Dreamcast from Sega didn’t fair that well even though it was years ahead of its time.  Don’t believe me?  It had internet connectivity and screens inside the controllers over  decade ago.  Plus it had one of the best JRPG’s Skies of Arcadia before the genre started getting out of hand.  The game still holds up and it had an air of fun unseen in manner other games especially in RPG department where games take themselves a bit too seriously and spending more time dealing with convoluted storylines, emo characters not fitting or twenty minute long cut scenes that look nice but happen more often than combat than actually being fun.

Not only did Nintendo move away from the cartridge they went to mini cd’s.  I actually thought it was cool.  The system wasn’t bad but the tide’s had shifted.  With the xbox and playstation 2 a lot of games didn’t hit the system or hit much later.  Exclusive games were the bane of any diehard console fanboy or girl.  For me it was bit more uncommon to see people with multiple systems.  Now I see it quite regularly.  But then again I have a job now, I’m sure that has a quite a bit to do with it.  Gone were the days of Nintendominance.  Yes, I am proud of making up that word and no you can’t use it.  Okay, you can use but only with a credit to me.

But let me back track and talk about the evolution of multiplayer.  Multiplayer used to suck.  It was wait your turn for the other guy to die and then play.  That’s why people hated Luigi.  Not because he was green but because he was consolation, he was less than, he was always second.  It’s hard to get rid of that stigma.  But eventually there was more multiplayer that didn’t suck.  Contra for one.  Double Dragon for another.  But it was always just two people.  Unless you were at the arcade then it could be four and that was fucking awesome at the time.  I do think arcades have a chance to make a comeback if they do it right.  Dave and Buster’s was awful the last time I went.  No game interested me even remotely.  But perhaps having been to awesome arcades in part of the heyday it’s hard to compare.  Multiplayer’s first big change after co-op was the fighting game.  With a demographic of mostly young boys competition is natural.  Fighting game gave the opportunity for any kid to annihilate others.  This smirking vengeance is very attractive to a young man.  The biggest change to multiplayer was Goldeneye.  This game changed everything.  This revolutionized first person shooters on the console.  It’s affects can still be measured today.  Now multiplayer has gone in very different directions.  There are games now sold exclusively as multiplayer only or engineered mostly for multiplayer use.  All the modern shooty kill various enemy soldier games are based on the simple premise that twelve year old boys enjoy shooting other people and shouting racial epithets.  This is why I don’t play online much.  I played Halo 3 online for about two days.  That was enough.  I don’t play too much online.  I do however love co-op online.  It frees up my screen and I get to play with people I don’t get to see as often.  I bought a game specifically so I could play with someone out of state.  But as online gaming becomes more prevalent local multiplayer is often fading which saddens me.  I spent countless hours playing Conker’s Bad Fur Day multiplayer on the 64 with my college roommates.  Or the various Smash Brothers tournaments.  I played so much of that game I got overexposed and had to stop playing for months.

As I grew older my wants from video game shifted.   I moved away from Nintendo fanboyism.  I remember saving up for month to buy and xbox360 over six years ago.  The graphics the first time I saw them were amazing.  It boggled my mind how much the industry improved.  I looked up on wiki the changes made to computing power.  It rather impressive.  The NES (which wiki list as third generation) was 8 bits and had 2kb of ram and a processor of 1.79 Mhz.  The Super Nintendo doubled those stats – 16 bits, 125 Kib ram and 3.58 Mhz processor.  There were some expansions next and various in between consoles but the next big system was the 64.  It had 64 bits, 4 megs of memory and a processor of 93.75 Mhz (that’s 52 times as much as the original NES).  The Gamecube again stepped up the exponentional growth. It had 24 megs memory and a processor at 485 Mhz.  The Wii, Nintendo’s next console was far belwo average for specs for it’s generation with 729 Mhz processor.  Its successor the Wii U is roughly on par with the previous generation.  Xbox 360 and PS3 were both around 3.2 Ghz for processing and 512 mb or memory.  The power and performance of the hardware has increased dramatically.  Handhelds are almost as good as previous generations.

After I was done with college and moved back home for a time while I figured out what the hell to do with my life I started dabbling in online gaming.  I played MMO’s.  This was not my best decision.  MMO’s are known to be soul sucking time wasters.  I am known at times to get over invested in new shiny things.  This coupled for a shooting star effect.  I burned myself out on these things.  I haven’t looked back.  Except for the little bit I played with the last Star Wars MMO by BioWare.  It wasn’t terrible but it was fast and sparsely populated.  It was shiny, pretty, reasonably polished but easy and repetitive.

Now that I have my big boy job and I spend anywhere between four to ten hours at the dojo plus time working out my gaming time is cut down significantly.  I’m ok with that. For really good games I’ll make time.  Otherwise I’m ok with not gaming for months at a time.  I do miss it during those times but I’ve got things to do.  It’s way adult gamers are, or at least the moderately mature ones.

So what next?  My money is on a few things.  Indy developers will undoubtedly take on a bigger role, casual gaming will continue to grow, how we interact with systems will change entirely and the computer may rise like a phoenix.  Indy games had the fortune of things like steam and then later Xbox Live to let them get the word out.  The internet made this happen.  Small teams, by small I mean two people perhaps, can make great games that hundreds of thousands of people play (examples being Castle Crashers, Braid, and Super Meat Boy).  These games can be unique and really push the envelope.  They can fixate on the vision of the lead designer.  Games in this venue have so much room to explore and go new places.

And there are a lot new places being explored.  For every military shooter game that explores the same premise, the same plot, and the same game play another five games come out that at least try to be different.  Some are god awful miserable piles of code that seem to be created for only the malevolent purpose of fooling people intp thinking that games really are be awful and you shouldn’t enjoy them.  What’s exciting is there innovation in AAA titles.  Yes, uncharted is essentially the male version of tomb raider (or the reinvention of Indiana Jones in modern day) but the game series was phenomenal and pushed boundaries.  It had a good story, solid game play but most importantly it was fun.  It may of at time be frustrating but it was always fun.  It had the right formula.  Often time developers will crank up difficulty as the game progresses and bad games will have this incline be very noticeable instead of climbing bit by bit; going from light softball pitch easy to ‘holy fuck, why did I die seventeen times?’.  But it’s been proven you don’t need to make big expensive shiny games to be a success.  They just have to be fun.  So all manner of genres are going to be flushed out.  The line between big games and small game sis going to blur, soon it will just be price point, you’ll have the $60, $50, $40, $30 $20, and under games all selling and doing well.

The way we play is already changing.  Nintendo took a big gamble with the Wii that paid off.  Now they are gambling again with the Wii U.  With the tablet like controller there is the ability to do quite a bit.  Although it does remind me of linking my game boy to the Gamecube to play Crystal Chronicles mutliplayer.  Controllers I think will be around for a long time but full motion capture is only going to get better.  Expect to see the company push even more.  Hopefully the games will get better.  I will admit I do enjoy some of the dance games.  Which may be headed for the same fad status as rhythm games.  Rhythm games screwed themselves by flooding the market.  People got aggravated and voted with their wallets.  Plus there are only so many peripherals we can take.

I do think computer gaming will come back.  I do think developers are going to come back to the platform.  It’s foolish not the program for the computer first.  You can always port from there.  It’s much harder to work the other way around and give the computer gamers what they want.  Look at Skyrim on one of the console and then on the computer and tell me which is a better choices.  Crabs with monocles and top hats should eb enough of a reason.  The modding communities are fantastic and graphical improvement, and run speed always tend s be better on a decent PC.

Casual gaming, which I avoid, is catching on big time.  Tablets and Smart Phone will outsell traditional PC’s.  It happening.  It’s the new dynamic.  Computer glasses are next with onscreen overlays. They may interact with the environment or they may not.  But gaming will be important on all the platforms.  While the games won’t be the next important step they will be where a shit ton of money will be made and more developers will have jobs.  Look at Angry Birds; simple concept, truckloads of players.  I generally dislike freemium, Facebook games and most mobile games but millions of other don’t hold that opinion.

All I know is that gaming is only going to get better and I’ll be there, controller in hand, waiting for the next great game.

Ben

Thanksgiving, So American it Hurts

Thanksgiving is a holiday that could only exist in America.  This is patently obvious because, well, it does only exist in the united states.  The concept and celebration of the holiday could only exist here.  The holiday is a remembrance of when the fresh of the boat Europeans were graciously helped by the native peoples who lived here already.  They feasted together in show of communal spirit and brotherhood.  Then the Europeans repaid this debt by stealing and decimated those that helped them.  They showed no mercy for the people who altruistically made sure they survived.  No good deed goes unpunished evidently.  Woo!  America!

Currently we celebrate the feasting meal held by the natives and the Europeans as a day to recognize that which we are thankful for as well as the unity of men and women.  Nothing wrong with that.  We do this in the most American way possible.  We indulge and overindulge like only we can.  We put as many unhealthy things in front of us and shove it down our faces numb to the aching hole we are filling with food.  We cram this down ignoring our aching, blocked  arteries and scream for more pecan rolls.  Then we have the brilliant idea with spread butter on the pecan rolls because fuck it, it’s the Holidays and we convince ourselves we’ll start that diet next week.  The diet doesn’t come and we cry into the pumpkin pie tomorrow.

Ok, forgive the bleakness.  Maybe that was an exaggeration.  Except for the butter on pecan rolls.  My brother totally did that.  I encouraged him.  Also pecan rolls are my one weakness.  They best my self-control.  Well, okay it’s one of my multitude of weaknesses.  I love pecan rolls but we can’t be seen together my waist gave me the ultimatum. My pants size won.  I wish you a joyous journey with another person.  Hopefully they appreciate your gooey bounty as much as I.  I’ll never forget you…

This thanksgiving there wasn’t enough table to fit the massive amounts of food heaped in front of us.  We had an appetizer round that took up some of the table but the main course took up so much room we had to constantly shuffle things around.  Also when there are small children around and you’re the adult the things being said are totally different.  For instance, “can you fit this all your mouth,” kinda different.  Being a reasonably intelligent man I said nothing and held back my smirk and chuckles.  This was no small task.  I giggle like an idiot every time I hear a fart, simulated or otherwise.  Yes, I am a grown man with a big boy job but fart noise are funny and don’t you dare take it away from me.

Another reason why Thanksgiving is super American is the whole family dynamic.  Adi and myself split thanksgivings.  One year with my family the other with hers.  Totally different atmospheres.    Both Jewish, well educated suburbanites with a gay male in the family but still very different.  It reminds me of the constant culture clash and turnover in this country.  The traditional versus the non-traditional.  The generation issues become readily apparent.  It terrifies me that my generation will be running things soon.  I don’t think any of us quite expect to be adult anytime soon.  But time is looming.  I’m very  much at the adult table talking about politics and jobs and hiding my own in the conversation.  I don’t feel like an interloper and want to wander back to video games and frivolity.  But I digress on that point.  This is a time for family but it points out fractured and unified families at the same time.  Many people I know are making multiple trips.  Dinner with mom then sandwiches with dad.  And that’s just one side of the family.  The effects of divorce really become apparent now.

I don’t know if Thanksgiving is as much of a drinking holiday as other but we’re in America and we are good at turning most holidays into excuses for drinking, eating and shopping.  Thanksgiving is very much about food and shopping.  I’ve been getting emails non-stop from various stores enticing me with early pre black friday deals, online specials, extended deals and all manner of consumer enticement.  I like buying stuff.  It’s part of being American.  We have a need to buy things we don’t need.  It’s part of the reason why I think we say we are thankful for certain things like family and friends but we’re really thankful for the 50 inch LCD hanging on the wall.  We worship at the altar of the shiny new iWhatever (patent pending).  I can only complain so much on this as my wife is out shopping while I mind dump these thoughts onto the page.  I know she enjoys this family bonding time so I encouraged her to buy herself something frivolous with my credit card.  I don’t entirely regret this decision.

So we have multiple version of consumption (food, alcohol, buying stuff) but we also have perhaps now the most American of sports playing prominently: football.  You could argue that baseball is more American but fuck you.  Baseball is all about patience and statistics.  Football is all trench warfare.  It’s more violent than baseball (‘Murika), it has dancing half naked women (‘MURIKA) and the biggest event for football, it’s raging culmination, is half about the stupid commercials selling you crap (MERIKAH!!!).

The only way thanksgiving could be any more American is if it stole the explosions from the fourth of July and got into a bar fight afterwards.  I would call it Thanksplosions.  That’s my word so don’t go using it without permission.

Ben

Greed isn't Good

One of the many problems from the 80’s is, sadly, that people did not really understand that Gordon Gecko was living breathing reflection of that is wrong with corporate greed.  Greed is good became a lifestyle.  People actually started acting like that fictional character more and that it acceptable.  It sometimes astounds me how farce and ridicule can be taken seriously.  There are people who think Colbert’s buffoonery is reality and that he isn’t mocking the far right.  This saddens me.  It’s not that I think people are growing less intelligent or are gradually becoming numb to subtlety and nuance because that isn’t true.  Perhaps the best literary example of satire – A modest Proposal – was not immediately regarding as harsh criticism.  That’s even more depressing to think that someone could believe eating poor children to stave off starvation and create population control within Ireland was anything but jaded humor pointed directly at the cold hearts of the England elite who oppressed the country and also those who didn’t have power but stood around and let the monstrosity of Irish oppression continue.

This greed is good mentality very much exist today.  America as a country, above all else, worships wealth.  Those who have money are deemed better than those who don’t regardless of merit or any other versions of worth.  I know I am not above criticism in this regard.  While I do enjoy money I know it isn’t as important as quite a few other things.  Of course, there is exceptions.  Money isn’t important after a certain point but before that point its real goddamn important.  Where I’m at money is occasionally tight but I’m comfortable.  I have a house, a car – albeit one held together by duct tape and prayer – and enough left over to be able to pursue a decent amount of leisure activity without worrying.  Make things tighter and put me behind the eight ball then money isn’t so superfluous or less important than being happy.  Yeah, happiness is important but eating is more important than that.

I am close enough to various lifestyle that I can understand them.  I think however there are those who are so removed from normal society, either morally or simply socially, that they have little to no understanding of how most people live.  This brings me to the rage and backlash hitting CEO’s recently.  I am rather amused that these wealthy individuals think their stances and claims are backed up by anything other than greed.  Yes, a CEO has a responsibility to his or her company in keeping it profitable.  This does not, however, mean it is acceptable behavior to throw a bitch fit when government regulations are set in place to protect lower wage workers from economic tyranny.

Many years before I was born it was normal to get  a job at a company and work there until retirement.  You’d start at the mail room and work your way up over the course of forty years to a respectable position and retire on a nice pension.  It was understood that with patience, hard work, luck and at least some quantity of brain power anyone could achieve this.  Well, any man that is.  Women’s roles have changed considerably and there are more women in places of power but the balance has yet to shift.  We still need a bit more of racial equality among the top echelons of business structure but with boy’s club politics and who you know being as important or more than important than what you know it’ll take awhile before that is righted as well.  But those times are gone.  In the seventies companies started firing people before pension was up so they wouldn’t have to pay it all out.  With companies growing disregard for the well being of employees growing it soon became apparent to employees they had options and the best method for promotion was getting a new job not fighting upstream like a salmon avoiding the bears.  I’ve changed companies multiple time.  Within the past eight or so years I’ve worked at five different companies.  I’m reasonably happy where I am and I constantly fight to keep recognition and move up.  I know if I didn’t I’d be overlooked and ignored.  I’d rather not jump ship just to get a higher payroll.

With Obama winning the election several CEO’s have outed themselves as nothing more than giant gaping assholes.  Look at Papa John’s CEO or Applebees’, or Aetna’s or even Hostess.  After the election some of these drains on society had the nerve to say that the additional cost for helping employees should immediate be baked into the product price.  Yeah, fuck that.  Maybe I don’t know slash something else in the budget.  I didn’t hear this level of bitching during the oil price hikes which surely affect every business.  Gas price increases which affect food delivery trucks and everything within the food business.  Suddenly food order for local restaurant are more expensive.  This is a legitimate reason to increase price that shouldn’t be met with scorn.  Also no one bitched publicly about it.  But paying more money to provide for your employees?  They act like this is raping the constitution.  Hint, it’s not.  America was founded on several principles none of which were hey let’s fuck over the poor.  We rebelled because of taxation without representation, among other things.  Yet these entitled individuals think it acceptable to rage out when we remind them hey pay you’re goddamn people and provide a real service and not price gouge.

Here’s a few articles to look at if you don’t mind your blood pressure raising a few points (I had more links but I can’t find all of them):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/applebees-backlash_n_2118231.html?utm_hp_ref=small-business

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/15/1161877/-My-twitter-message-to-Aetna-s-CEO-or-suffering-can-be-a-2-way-street-Mr-Bertolini?detail=hide

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Corporate-Greed/BCTGM-President-Frank-Hurt-Hostess-Demise-a-Decade-in-the-Making

It just upsets me that these privileged few either just don’t care about the vast majority of people, which essentially makes them evil, or that they are so insulated that they really don’t understand what it’s like to be anything but wealthy, which essentially makes them pathetic.  I’m unsure where I heard this quote but it sums up these corporate abominations rather well, “Born with a silver foot in their mouth.”  I may be butchering the quote but the premise is solid.  There are people out there who have no concept of struggling for money.  No understanding of being nervous about paying the bills, about seeing halfway through the month you need to stop spending already but you’re not sure how you’ll eat the rest of the month.  I just hope the dam has broken and this kind of behavior is punished.  Thre has been quite a bit of internet rage with companies, or specifically elite individuals associated with companies making disparaging remarks and then two camps forming.  Looks at what happened with Chik-Fila.  Good food for a fast food places but owned by absolute fanatics who are filled with hate and vitriol.  Yet there are a ton of people working there who would be affected by the boycott.  A company is not a reflection of just that one person up at the top.  It’s a group.  While I always applaud voting with your wallet and supporting good business it isn’t always the best decision.

So what can be done besides public outcry and boycotts.  Well, you can support politicians who actually stand up to bullshit.  I’m super excited that Elizabeth Warren won the election in Massachusetts  She looks to be Ralph Nader without all the smugness or douchebaggery.  Or you could instead of boycotting try to support businesses that don’t act like dickheads.  I bet if Aetna saw people flocking away in droves they’d do something about it.  With the exception of cable companies it’s reasonably effective to do this tactic.  These people would rather pay out the money just to keep customers.  It’s not such a firm believe they’d torpedo the company.  But seriously, fuck that Papa John’s guy.  He can kiss my ass.  I can get better pizza at a local place.

Ben

The Writer's Journey

Every once and a while I see people take up the mantle of writer.  They proudly proclaim their intent to write a novel or blog or something along these lines and my first reaction is always the same.  Smugly I think, “what can they possibly write about that anyone would care for and how will they do this feat?” They can hardly speak without tripping on their own tongue, won’t presenting their words indelibly presented for all time simply shatter them when people inevitably speak ill of their choice.”  Then I tell myself not to be such an asshole.

I have this initial moment of schadenfreaude because I know what happens I know the path they’re taking before they do.  I’ve been writing off and on for fifteen years.  I have enough experience to know the stupid mistakes they’ll make.  Then I force myself to remember I know these mistakes because, well, I made them.  I remember writing without a plan, without an outline, naively thinking it’ll come together in the end.  It’ll be more fresh and exciting this way I would rationalize.  I’ll get bored if I know what happens.  Then I look back over the older work and wonder what was I thinking.  Where was the rhythm of the text?  Where was the pacing?  The tension, the depth, the mood?  But fucking up is part of the process.  You make mistakes and then eventually you stop making them.  It’s the same for anything else.  You can’t teach experience.

Writing is a bit more special than other hobbies, at least I think so.  It’s so private and insular you can hide behind certain veneers.  You can say, “It’s only for me. My writing doesn’t need to be judged.  I only write for myself.”  Yet you truly crave the acceptance and adulation of your peers.  Or you can hold onto something and never let eyes touch it.  It’s so fragile that it will crumble under the scrutiny.  You see this spark of an idea and you carefully bring it to full roar, taking time to feed it properly and nurture it along.  It is difficult to allow another person to see your work.  You know how it should be seen and interpreted and you know it’s good.  You feel it resonate deep within you.  But it isn’t ready yet, just a few more revisions.  It jars the ego to allow something that reflects some much of yourself to be inspected, to be  held up to others without your involvement.  Then there is the fervent need to express.  Bundled up ideas all swimming in your mind just waiting to be put to paper.  You know they are magical and wondrous.  They defy convention and surpass the stale media we navigate through.  Your writing is art, all the other nonsense we surround ourselves with is drek, unfit for consumption.  Only your words will save the literate from such mediocrity.  Then you land back to equilibrium.  Maybe if I simply stop taking myself so seriously and find that part of me that simply loves doing this and invest in that things will be good.

So for now I struggle like I always have but I’m older and smarter and I think things through a bit more.  Probably far too much.  I analyze too far.  I let ideas play out in my mind countless times, I cajole a slightly different energy or felling  from this piece.  I write, then  rewrite.  I stare at the cursor, ever blinking, taunting me to fill the blank space.

So I think back to those who wish to write I smile and say I hope they do well but I hope they don’t expect success overnight.  I hope they stick with it and they shrug off my initial lack of faith.  Sometimes I prefer being proven wrong.  But enough about them let’s talk about my journey and where I’m going.  This is my blog anyway, it’s only right.  Fuck them for stealing my spotlight.  I need some god damn ego stroking…  Anyway, I find it inappropriate to judge others without placing some of yourself out there as well.  It seems too easy and disingenuous.  If I need that nonsense I’ll turn on some politically charged television and see the talking heads try to outshout each other as if volume alone can convince another person their chosen stance is incorrect.

I write this blog because I like to do it.  There isn’t much more ulterior motive.  I had, at one point, envisioned creating much more content and trying to maintain a website with this and other items but I decided that my free time, the little of it I had, was more important.  I needed to be happy more than pursue this to the full extent.  Oftentimes I feel conflicted in this regard.  I have the itch come and go.  I feel the need to throw myself into a fit of writing, hunching over the keyboard, my fingers aching as they felt the resistance of the keys.  Fortunately my posture at least has improved.  My love of writing has not diminished but my need to create has waned slightly.  I will always write because it me brings me joy but I don’t feel I need this one great work in order to validate myself or my many hours writing.

Not long ago I had several small projects taking up room in my head.  This is not unusual for me as my mind tends to go divergent paths and takes turns and wind up at unexpected places.  Somewhere in my development this was nurtured.  Recently I had a screenplay I was flushing out, this blog, a web comic I wanted to start, and several other stories running through my mind.  I would navigate between them writing on the piece I felt I had the motivation or idea to pursue.  It was silly dividing my focus in so many directions.  And yet I still managed to focus more on coming up with premises and ideas than actually writing.  It’s so much easier to come up with the concept than to actually sit down and tough it out.  Also once the words are placed and story is done it’s out there ready for scrutiny.  It’s also over.  That intensity.  That frenetic energy that comes with the process fades.  Yes there is a level of satisfaction with the work being completed but then comes that feeling.  What’s next my mind asks daring me, tempting me.

For now I’ve settled on a simple path.  Continue writing my blog when I have something worth saying.  Not forcing myself to write twice a week or even once a week.  Simply write because that’s what I enjoy.  Then to focus on one piece besides this and pursue it.  Flush out the outline.  Then begin filling it in.  Find the rhythm and the pacing and improve the little bits that start to stick out.  Ask myself what is the core element and what are the themes that should continue to run through the work.  Then dive into the characters really feel like they are living breathing creatures who take action not simply because it will move plot along but because that’s what this person would do.  If you know the person you know what would happen when placed in the circumstance.

The story I’ve chosen and the one I plan on documenting is reasonably simple.  Most pieces that involve fantasy or science fiction or any otherworldly not immediately relatable setting have a window into the world.  This window is a character as out of place as we are.  We are meant to experience this world through them.  They are our substitute.  Look at Hellboy.  They had that boring federal agent character the introduce us to the universe those characters inhabited.  They dropped him in the second incarnation as he was no longer necessary, or interesting.  It’s always the new guy who gets shown around.  News flash, they are showing us around.

My take isn’t so far off.  I plan on displacing some people from our reality and placing them in another.  But they have no guides not person to walk them through.  They are as clueless as we would be.  They are reasonably normal people in a very abnormal circumstance. On top of this I want to play the four, there are four displaced people, against each other as they have very different experiences and reactions to this displacement.  Some enjoy their new home and some don’t.  But the thing that got me excited about the idea is the thought of getting back home and trying to explain their experiences.  How does a rational person who was thrown into another reality and then returned, how do they tell people what happened?  Do they simply tell them truth knowing they’ll be thought mentally ill.  I don’t really know the answer to this and it excites me as a writer.  And hey, I’m only writing for myself anyway, right?

Ben

The Problem With Alcohol

Being vomited on can you get you thinking.  Usually about how you ended up in this situation.  Also, eww, I need a towel and a shower.  But it got me thinking as I sped down route nine home with three inebriates in the car that I’ve been here before and I thought I was done going back to this place.

Some history.  I like to drink.  I drank a lot when I was in college.  I actually never really drank before then.  It wasn’t because I was a good kid (I was but that isn’t why) it’s because I didn’t socialize a whole lot and I didn’t go out to those kinds of parties.  In college I drank a lot.  To excess and beyond.  I was driven to becoming good at it.  Not quite world champion of idiocy and drunken lyrics good but maybe like an alternate for the Olympic drinking team good.  I drank roughly every Friday at my friend Ryan’s place for a few years.  Then when I was out of college I drank near every day because I live in a city and in walking distance to bar on South Street, now closed (the bar not the street), who’s owner and bartenders I was friendly with.  So I became rather tolerant.  Of course over the course of the years I imbibed past those limits and ended up violently ill.  I got dehydrated and  put my head through a wall, I started arm wrestling matches, I drank out of shoes, I had adventures with chocolate sauce, danced on tables, played beer pong, vomited in several places including but limited to sinks, toilets, and buckets.  I have woken up confused in someone else’s bed with a different shirt on and dried puke in my ear.  I have felt the world spin with my eyes closed in such a way that should be impossible.  I have walked the dog during a party where I came to the realization that I could no longer walk upright well and just hoped the dog could figure out how to pull me in the right directions so I didn’t fall on the concrete.  I have also wandered the inner workings of Atlantic City and its garages hung over and tired getting more and more lost as I climbed down seemingly endless set of stairs that seemed to get dirtier and more sinister as I delved deeper down.  As if every step brought me closer to some lurking nightmare.  I half joked we might find pyramid head down there.  That particular night in Atlantic City I only recall how many places we drank at not how much.  Also I found out that even though it’s 24 hours of food in the casino you can’t have pizza at four o’clock in the morning because they won’t turn the ovens back on.

I have been fortunate never to seriously hurt myself when drinking.  I often had someone nurse me through the night in my worst moments.  I have been there to nurse others, walk people home, hold hair back or carry half limp bodies to bed.  The worst alcohol related story was told to me by my brother in the kitchen of my parents old house in Philadelphia.  This was of him wandering around Germany lost, paranoid, alone and half blind (his glasses were malfunctioning as a lens popped out).  I stood there enthralled and slightly disturbed.  Most of all I was shocked he was so candid in front of my mother who was visibly trying to hold it together.  I thought she might grab him and hold him close never to let him out of sight again after the story.

But I figured most of those actions were behind me now that I am older and wiser.   I don’t drink that much anymore.  This is partially because alcohol gets in the way of achieving my goal of super fitness, but also because it saves me money but, partially, because somewhere in the back of my mind I thought maybe I had problem.   Perhaps I did not have a problem but I certainly didn’t need to drink as much and toning it down couldn’t hurt.

I think one of the problems with alcohol is endemic to Americans.  I think it pairs our love of excess, our innate thirst for competition and also our culture of taboo.  Our drinking age and rules and regulation only make alcohol sexier and more enticing.  Once we are able to get our hands on it after waiting twenty one years we binge.  From what I’ve heard and read binge drinking equates to having five or more drinks per outing.  I’ve had more than five drinks in an hour.  Which of course brings up back to whole competition point.  I’ve had friends who seemed more intent to tell me how much they drank than any other news.  The hot girl in the corner in the micro mini much was less important than a giving a detailed run down of everything you drank.  Hearing “I’m so wasted” gives me vivid flashbacks to certain douche bags in college.

I think there is also this allure, this worship of booze.  We don’t just admire the drink and the drinker but we admire the person who can drink the most.  How many movies have people in drinking contests?  Even Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc introduces out heroine Marion Ravenwood though a drinking competition as she defeats a much larger man by downing countless shots.  This was a particularly handy skill used later to try and trick Belloq.  Alcohol is treated with an odd mix of respect and taboo.  We disapprove of alcoholics but people in sitcoms who spend every episode at a bar are okay.  But I digress.

Back to last weekend.  **Note, sadly this part of the story is now redacted as those involved are upset with my candor.  Aggravating, perhaps, but not worth tantrums or fights.  So I chose to the censure the post to spare their feelings.  But seeing as I am doing this I can certainly have the last word.  If you can't face the consequences of your actions don't commit the actions.  You can't be upset at the truth.  Well, you can but it's nobody's fault but your own.  But a quick recap is this don't be in your thirties and drink like an idiot you'll make a fool of yourself and ruin the DD's night.**

So it leads me to thinking about alcohol when you are in your thirties.  And I feel like the answer was supplied by Lethal Weapon, “I’m too old for this shit.”

Ben

The Problem With Being Fit

A few days ago a friend of mine asked me a question that gave me pause.  I was explaining how I was going to take boxing class on Sundays and was fitting that into my workout regiment along with karate classes, p90x2 workouts and trying to jog once or twice a week.  I told him I wanted to get ripped essentially.  Then he asked why.  I was taken aback for a moment.  Why wouldn’t I?  It’s the goal of all people to be physically fit and in peak performance, just some of us want to be there but we choose not to devote the time or effort., right?  Then I thought a bit more.  Why am I really doing this?  Is it worth it all the time all the effort?  Am I doing it for me or just to fulfill some societal itch that’d fed down my throat by media and culture.

As per usual I over reflected, over thought and mulled it about in my head for longer than might be healthy.  It ate my mind and I had to put it to rest so I could sleep soundly.  That night as I walked Mac I spent most of the walk arguing with myself.  First I thought maybe I’m just doing this because when I was younger I was made fun of for having put on some weight.

I remember exactly when the weight happened, or rather when my attitude towards food changed.  It was during fifth grade and I started to pick up the bad habit from my friend Marten, the crosswalk ladies son.  He snacked incessantly.  They always had a Slim Jim or chips or something else.  Up until that point I simply ate when it was time to eat, there wasn’t really much more thought put into it.  I didn’t seek out food, save, of course, for the occasional cookie which I would either sneak or cajole out.  My childish brain figured out the best way to get cookies.  It was simple and, most importantly, it worked.  Mom was far more stringent, or rather actually adhered to the rules, whereas Dad caved.  A five year old is very aware of these facts and is ready to exploit them.  So I’d first ask mom for the cookie because she might say yes and then there was no need for childish subterfuge.   But if she said no I’d wait a while and sneak the cookie.  I’d run upstairs to Dad and ask him if he wanted one.  He’d say no.  Then I’d say well can I have one?  He’d say yes.  Obviously as an adult it was completely transparent plan but it worked.  I’m sure being a cute little person helped the matter.

The problem was Marten’s food habit rubbed off.  I started snacking.  I started looking for junk food.  I’d eat and not really stop.  I didn’t think about it so much I’d just have a bag in front of me and I’d probably finish it.  It didn’t help that I was rather picky about food for a long time.  My main food groups being spaghetti, chicken tenders, peanut butter sandwiches and grilled cheese.  But when I didn’t snack it was okay. I ran outside constantly and was a whirlwind of energy.  I was a twig.  Weight wasn’t something I thought about.  Then I started playing outside less and playing video games more.  I started snacking in front of the television.  The one good thing that came about was I slowly started to really enjoy food.  I expanded my eating menu.  I was still eating junk food too often but I could eat all manner of foods now.  I wasn’t quite adventurous in taste just yet but I getting there.  I think all Hochberg’s have a love of food that lies dormant within them.  A deep appreciation for good taste no matter if it means a great hot dog or a fine steak or coq a vin.  But even with growth and puberty the whole not exercising as much and eating a lot did not bode well for me.  So I gained weight.  Quite a bit of it.  Of course I started gaining weight at the worst possible time, middle school.  Also to top things off I moved right before sixth grade so I knew no one. I was the new kid and I was starting to get chubby.  For quite some time I had a love and shame relationship with food.  I hated being overweight but I was bad at eating well.  When I went to college it started to change.  Freshman year I dropped a lot of weight.  Partailly because the food sucked on campus but also because I didn’t have junk food in my dorm room.  I didn’t go the groceries every week and pick up snacks.  It’s normal at my house to have a full candy jar or cookie jar.  And most everyone in my family is good with it.  But I tend to forget what I’m doing and end up with pile of wrappers or crumbs in front of me and the feeling that I just ate and large unnecessary heaping of calories.  Around the end of sophomore year I starting hitting the gym reasonably regularly.  I was finally kind of skinny again.  We’re talking a difference of over 200 pounds to somewhere in the 160’s.  I’d use the metrics system for weight but my country is obvious still ass backwards in measurement systems (I heart you metric system and your logical progression and use of math).  But for the next decade or so my weight would fluctuate.  A lot.  One thing that really fucked up my progression was breaking my leg my junior year.  That halted my workout activities rather quickly.  So bit by bit I started gaining weight.  At first I thought my clothes shrunk and then I realized, nope I just gained 10 pounds.  Good job schmuck.  So on and on it went.  I’d lose the weight.  Relax let my eye off the ball and it would creep back.

During my honeymoon (just over two years ago now) I let myself eat whatever the hell I wanted during the vacation.  It was week in Hawaii and I intended on not having any cares.  Calorie counting would not be an issue.  Shortly after this I was back in the 190’s.  I was upset at myself as I had been trying hard for a while, dieting here and there, working out, even cutting back on drinking.  I went as far as to partake in the South Beach Diet when I worked at the bank (four to five year ago) and I was an even 170 then.  I think the South Beach Diet was invented purely to upset me and make me feel bad about my life choices.  This whole no carbohydrates thing is alien to me.  My family would have bread with every meal, regardless if it was pasta, rice or starchy meal.  There was always bread sitting in the middle of the dinner table at night.

Fast forward now and I’m about 168 with muscle.  I finally feel  somewhat good about my weight and it took a long time to get here.  I cut out alcohol entirely for a few months.  I generally don’t eat the kinds of food I want to.  I exercise a lot.  But it was my goal.  I wanted to show those assholes who made fun of me that I could be in better shape than them.  I wanted to have defined abs at thirty one.  I wanted to be skinny and look good.

It’s a major pain in the ass though.  To keep on going I have to put aside hours and hours very week and push off things I’d rather do like write, read, play video games, watch a movie.  I don’t go out to eat as much as I used to and that’s one of the things I love. The food channel is kind of my voyeurism now.  I watch salivating going man I’d love to eat that… but I won’t.

So I think is all this effort worth it?  Do people think better of you if you’re in shape?  Does it really matter?  Are we just influenced by media to find skinny good?  Our culture seems to worship sex and money; the image is more important than the substance.  Being pretty is more important than being smart.  Just look at politics and the rampant anti-intellectualism there to see what we as a country hold dear.  Sadly it miht not be appropriate to call on our politician’s stances are a popular representation of American culture or what it holds important.

This still leaves me with the thought why am I doing this?  Is it a pursuit of the ideal of handsome?  Is it simply to wash away the years of teasing?  Is it because I’m just a sheep?  The sheep idea has some merit in that we create a fetish around being skinny but yet we push the idea of food, essentially the antagonist of being in shape, as needing to bigger for cheaper.  Plus it’s cost prohibitive to eat healthy.  Go to the grocery and buy a bunch of junk food and some microwavable meals.  Check the bill.  Now buy fresh produce and meats.  Its fucking astonishing how expensive it is.  Also I live near some dangerous wonderful specialty stores that like to wallet rape me.  I walk into Fresh Market or the Meat House and hear the song from Gene Wilder version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Maybe I take things a little too far with fitness and place too much importance on it.  But it’s taken me years to regulate my eating habits and it’s a constant battle reminding myself not to sit down and just eat.  It doesn’t help that I’m always hungry.  Maybe it isn’t worth it.  Maybe I’m just obsessing.  But I guess I’m okay with that.  I’m going to hit my goal of being visibly defined at least for once in my life.  After that who knows.  Oh, and I fucking miss pizza.  I think I’ll have some of that after I get those abs.

Ben