Sunday, August 21, 2005

Six with a capital F

Six Feet Under goes down tonight. Bummer.

Seldom has a show evoked such an emotional reaction out of me. The only thing on network TV that could do it is The Simpsons, which could make me laugh out loud over and over and over. The Sopranos could always elicit a smug chuckle about the hopeless, low-life characters on the show and just how funny they could be while thinking they were just.

Damn that Alan Ball and company for creating something that has really become an escapist family for me, not altogether unlike The Room episodes on the series, where the family patriarch is discovered to have maintained a room away from his family where he could go do whatever he couldn't around them, like listen to his music, smoke, etc. No one else in my immediate family watches SFU, so it became a Sunday night respite that drew me in with intriguing characters and intelligent storylines.

I always appreciated the dark humor. My best friend drove a hearse in college, so perhaps there's some wistfulness there. Something I found most alluring, especially in the first few seasons, was how the opening death, which then usually became a centerpiece for the week's plot to emanate from, was always so random and varied. And yet they found ways to work it into the storylines and help explore different cultures, different ways of living, different ways of dying, and most importantly, different ways of grieving for all the world to see. (In later seasons, the opening deaths tended to start becoming less important, disappointing, but not entirely to the detriment of the show since we already had a great show developed.

Back to the grief - it's been central in my life for the past 10 years. My father died unexpectedly in 1996. That experience has affected me more than any other life event. I started to write that it changed me more, but in thinking about it, I really think more that it has maken me more resolute in who I was. But seldom did an episode go by that thoughts of my father weren't conjured by SFU. The most obvious mechanism for this was in the family's late father occasionally appearing in the afterlife to talk to his children or wife as if he was there in person. He always had an omniscient, calm tone that really underscored the idea that these people were talking to someone who was dead. It was my favorite part of the show because more than anything, I'd want a similar chance with my own dad (realizing those exchanges really only go on in one's head).

So the pre-press on tonight's episode keep saying there will be no spin-offs, follow-ups, etc. So in typical Six Feet Under, nothing's sacred style, they'll all blow up, get murdered or otherwise meet their fate. The only real question now will be how: all together or one at a time, and what kind of philosophizing about death will we get in the process?

I dunno, but I sure as hell can't wait. And then on the other hand, I don't want it to end. Damn you, Alan Ball.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Take a Step Back

There come times in your life that things really get in what seems a bad rut. Bad turns to worse, at least as it seems, and you're left to wonder just what evil you must have conjured to deserve such rotten luck.

I tend to think life is much less karma than it is cyclical. Forget all that "one good deed deserves another" bunk. Things tend to happen independently. Can a person's energy affect things? Well, yeah, OK, inasmuch as your proactivity can affect certain events. But so much of the negative in our lives tends to really be outside our personal influence. Rather, we become the ancillary effects of other actions or inactions. To quote the bumpersticker crowd, "Shit Happens."

Back to the whole cyclical idea for a minute. I had a high school math teacher who was into biorythyms. Give her your birthday and she could plot out a chart that would show three (I think) different waves to represent three elements of life: physical, mental, spiritual. These may or may not have been the actual elements measured, but that's really not important to this discussion. It is simply that the three elements measured operate like the rest of the natural world -- on a cycle. Women have a manifested cycle every month known as the period. Men, actually do, too, but it doesn't present itself as evidently. Our bodies do act cyclically. For me, it's always been most noticeable in my complexion. It cycles from a dry to oily composition on a regular basis, regardless of my cleaning regimen. So if the physical body has a cycle, it's possible that the mental and spiritual body have a cycle. And since they're all independent, they all peak and valley at different times.

Those who believe in them would say biorythyms will show you when you're apt to be at your best ... when two or more cycles peak at same time. The reverse is also suggested. Imagine all elements hitting the low at same time.

I tend to believe some of this. Sure, the cycles don't damn you to bad happening. But they probably make it a little harder in a very subtle way. I suggest it also makes the highs seem higher at times ... those rare moments in your life when everything seems to be going so right or coming so easily. It's the sports equivalent (or perhaps biophysical explanation for) being in the zone. But I think it's less about the karma than just being at your best for the things you can affect. The good, or bad, things that happen to you and that you attribute to your biorythyms are likely results of your action or inaction. Again, though, that's the stuff you affect. Plenty more comes your way that you didn't plan for.

All that said, I return to the subject of life getting someone down. When those times happen, and they practically happen to everyone who will admit it, you gotta get out of the rut. Work against the cycles? Sure. Put on that happy face, work a little harder, fight the urge to scream out loud about everyone who makes you freakin crazy.

But aside from that, we all need perspective. Stop. Back up. Try to assess everything freshly and ask yourself if it's really as bad as you're bitching and moaning about. Usually, it's not that bad. Find those bright spots, or in some cases, those not-as-dark spots.

Blee-org.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Geeks and freaks

Turns out I'm a geek, but not as much as my best friend, Richard. On the continuum of geekiness, he registers a little right of me. After all, he was on the computer science team in high school. He works in IT now. He owned a Tandy CoCo and actually used it to program some credits for video projects we made in high school. I only had the more consumer-friendly Commodore 64 and never could understand the PEEK and POKE commands enough to do shit with it except play a bunch of store bought (by someone else) video games.

So I did nudge a little closer to Rich on the continuum by blogging before he did. Truth be told, though, he has created web pages before. And, his 'blog' is really a series of web pages he created using FrontPage. While the real uber-fuckin geeks of the world are sniffing at that, I'm saying, well it beats the hell out of my using the point-and-shoot version of web creation called Blogger. So more power to him, and fuck all you people who would look down your nose anyway.

Sorry - I'm not always this profane. I sometimes get in anti-social or angsty (may not even be a word, but if not, fuck it) moods that put me against the world. Some who've known me a long time would suggest that that's more the norm, though I'd disagree at least in recent history. There have been times in my life when I've been all bottled up, waiting for one more thing to set me off. The chip on my shoulder's been so big at times, that I felt like that damn guy on Van Halen's 5150, whatever the mythological character's name is.

Can I explain why? No, not really. Just more a way of processing my emotions. I've learned to keep a lot of shit in (even though I tend to be VERY expressive around my friends and family). But in work and public life, that shit gets all bottled up. It hasn't been an issue for quite some time until very recently. As lately as a month ago, things had just started falling into place. I was getting to a point where things really were starting to seem hopeful. I'd recently moved, gotten a new house, new job within my company, new opportunities to spend time with my family, my wife finally got a job. Then things started to splinter. My boss quit and I had to suddenly take on a whole lot of crud that I had tried to get away from in moving. My wife's job started to show signs of not being as great as first thought. I had to travel more. The baby got sick for first time in her life - causing my wife to get no sleep and me to be the one who would be the root of so many problems because of it.

So lately, I've felt like the old, ugly me has started showing his nasty face around at times. And I don't like that. My family and friends don't deserve it.

My wife and I started listening to Bruce Robison a couple years ago after seeing him perform solo at the inaugural Kenneth Threadgill Concert Series performance. We really liked his style of Texas singing and songwriting. My wife had known some of the songs he'd done for others, such as George Strait's "Desperately," The Dixie Chicks' "Travelin Soldier," and probably the biggest hit, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's "Angry All the Time." Granted, I'm not a fan of contemporary Nashville country. I like the roots country and the like, but most of the modern stuff just isn't my cup of (iced) tea.

We started listening to this Robison character, whose brother, Charlie Robison, happens to be a little more famous as a performer. Charlie's wife is one of the Dixie Chicks (Emily) and Bruce's wife is the blonde country singer, Kelly Willis. So there's a lot of talent in this family as it is. And now the Robison boys' sister has an album out - Robyn Ludwick. Soooo, for our 10th wedding anniversary, my wife and I decide to find a place where Bruce is playing and go see him. We settle on Austin, his hometown.

We saw the show and it was great. He performed at an Austin landmark called the Broken Spoke. It's a place the owner built himself in the '60s and it's seen its better days. The ceilings are real low. And Bruce is, well, freakishly tall. I think they say he's at least 6'7" -- and that's not in boots. So he has to duck his head a lot at the Spoke.

I've been listening to more and more of his stuff, ever since planning to attend the show, and started listening to some of the songs I had previously skipped past. One of those has been "Angry All the Time." I never was a McGraw fan so I tended to push that song away just because of the association. I'm not saying it's right, but I did. So I start listening to it and start to thinking about it. Then it hits me.... damn. That sounds kinda like the me I tried to leave 2.5 hours away from here.

It sings about being angry all the time and feeling like the world has left you far behind. The spouse suffers. Damn. That's what happened to me before we had moved. And that's why moving was so refreshing. It gave me a chance to be human again. Able to be civil to my wife and family and friends and have a different way of looking at the world. Things were really refreshing around here. But all of a sudden, I've begun to backslide due to circumstances.

Some would probably argue that how I act is all up to me, regardless of circumstances. Well, yes, but then that would suggest humans can turn off emotion and be rational about everything. Shit, we can't even be rational when watching fake life on TV (Need I bring up American Idol or Survivor?), so how can we expect to be rational about everything in our own lives? We can't - we react.

Do I have a point here .... well, I've been waiting for it to hit me like an epiphany. That ain't happening. But I'm writing fuck less since beginning this entry. (that one doesn't count-wasn't aggressive ;) If I can get through this storm (which may take several months), I should emerge stronger. I just hope the people around me will be able to tolerate it.