Today is Saturday. You belong in the world.
I wasn’t sure it was Tuesday, but the rain reminded me:
Coffee ground, a Blazer loss, two misguided texts. A giggly house guest leads to a lovers’ quarrel and “Faultlines” through the rain. Fried rice does something, but not the right thing, as the sun becomes unwelcome.
I interviewed Charlie Murphy in anticipation of his March 5th performance here in Portland. Our local weekly was kind enough to run part of our conversation as their ‘Headout’ section lead.
Like many people in show business, he was a bit difficult to talk to because he’s pushing forward his agenda, hitting his usual talking points, etc. On top of that, he has a gruff, bullish attitude. As a result, there’s some fluff in here. If I could do it over again I would dwell longer on the creative process with him, as I’ve taken a keen interest in the production of storytelling.
Speaking of hindsight – looking back over this interview now, after the show, I feel a little silly for getting as excited as I was about it. He wasn’t great; he covered some of the same old material from years ago, talked about Gary Coleman and the internet (tired topics), and made a really ignorant joke about AIDS. While I have never held him to a high intellectual or moral standard, it was still disappointing to hear him tell weak jokes and rely on the same sort of misogynistic/homophobic garbage that his brother trotted out in the ’80s. Sort of the antithesis of his angle he cops in the interview.
Either way, here it is:
Sometimes she forgets it’s cold until it’s too late. She’s been up all night at that guy’s house near the highway, getting high and watching TV. When she got there yesterday it was warm, so the sandals made sense.
She woke up freezing under a crocheted blanket. Somebody was on the floor under a huge coat, their face turned away from the flashing, silent howl of the screen. It was Ricky – she hadn’t seen him show up. She stepped over him carefully and walked down the hall to the bathroom, passing by an open bedroom door. Inside was a dark mass of damp air. She peed in the dark.
The sun was coming up. She made her way back to the front room by the light peeking through the blinds. This time she knocked over some empties when she stepped over Ricky, waking him. He sat up and gathered his coat around his shoulders and knees. He felt in his pockets slowly. He pulled out a shiny white shape and handed it to her.
“Go hawk this for us.”
She turned it over in her hands. It was heavy. “What should I get for it?”
Ricky laid back down and covered his head with the coat. “Twenny.”
Brilliant purples and oranges tore across the cold sky, painting the MAX train as it passed. She waited for the bus, shivering, while the kids with fleeces embroidered with the name of their school passed her by. She should have asked Ricky for his coat, but Ricky wasn’t like that.
The bus came and she found herself sitting on the bus with the white thing in her hands. She opened it, and it lit up. It was a video game. Two screens – one with two cartoon faces talking to each other. A child with a sword talking to a green monster. The monster was asking the child, “What is it that you want more than anything in the world?” and the child said, “To destroy you.”
It was flashing “PUSH A BUTTON,” so she did.
The monster said, “What if that’s not an option?” and the child didn’t say anything.
WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I saw the movie about Harvey Pekar, American Splendor, and thought that I, too, could make comics about my life. I found these crude [both meanings of the word] sketches recently while sorting through old papers looking for my birth certificate (see earlier post). I thought I’d show them to you.
I erased some names and one unique detail that would embarrass me or someone else.
Why fight? I am an educated person. I know that violence is the communication of the frustrated, the being with its needs unmet, unexpressed. I tried to fight a man, and the spirit of that fight has not left me.
Why did it happen? I was dancing at a loft party, on a table. Liquid hits me. I figure a beer gets thrown at a wild party – I’m at a wild party. It happens again. I look, and the same group of dudes are holding up the wall, checking things out. I resume dancing on the table, which was a door. I’m hit again – a third time. Something snaps inside of me, and I come down off of that table in a fury, pushing, yelling. “You throwing BEERS on me?” and “NOW? It’s on NOW?” flying freely from my wild mouth as I shove the man I suspect is the culprit.
What set me off? What is it inside of me that made this happen? It’s not just rap music – it can’t be. This is the sort of behavior I witnessed in middle school, when I saw some of the biggest brawls in my life. The “inner city” of Portland was no Bronx, but it was serious at times, like when Michael Johnson, the Native kid from Circumstances, fought CJ’s twins (a kid named CJ was the “don” of the 8th grade, and he had two younger prodigies) in the lunchroom. It was a bloodbath. I haven’t fought since Deondre punched me in the face in fifth grade, and here I am, 26 years old, up in some guys’ face hollering, “It’s on NOW?”
I’ve thought about it a lot, and I have a couple of different theories. The one that I like (but is unlikely) is that this was an expression of my distaste for social tourism. That I was lashing out against those that would not participate in the merriment that is deserved of a weeks’ worth of work.
Another idea is that I was standing up for myself, for my self-respect. I was being silly – dancing on a table at a loft party, wearing a foppish lavender cardigan – and I didn’t want to be put down. I have a right to be this way, to dance this way. Goddamnit, I’m from here, and this is how I want to be and I’ve earned it.
Another idea is that I’m an asshole, and part of that idea is a lot of blame on a beverage that I have since sworn off of – Four Loco.
The justice of the situation came into question immediately, and thankfully a certain Ordinary Times writer was there to intervene. The loud questions I was hurling were not rhetorical – I was really asking him if he was throwing beers on me. His lack of an affirmative response made the situation less a crusade of justice than a madman’s wrath. In the heat of things I was validated by his disinterest in fighting, but what would have come of it?
When I fought in elementary school, I participated in mediation with Deondre and his mother. The mediator, Michael, was a gang mediator that practiced Taekwon-do at my Taekwon-do school, and he asked, “what could have happened? Maybe you break his leg (referring to Jeremiah kicking Deondre, who had me in a headlock), maybe you choke him to death (aforementioned headlock). Then what happens?”
What could have happened that night? What would have happened if I shoved him and he fell – hard? What if I shoved him into someone else who fell?
What did happen was I got back up on that table and danced. I don’t mean to condone this sort of behavior, but you better believe no more beer landed on me.
Some comedian once said that they thought it would be a good idea to go back to how things were in the 60s, where you could arrive at the airport smoking a cigarette, pay with cash, and extinguish that same cig somewhere over the desert. Sort of a fly-at-your-own-risk thing.
“I fucked up” has been a unfortunate catch-phrase of mine for a couple of years now, though it has been showing up less often. It’s back in a big way. Somehow I put the wrong name on my plane ticket to Mexico City, and I can’t change it.
James Sehorn. Do you know who that is? It’s my grandfather’ s uncle. It’s my cousin’s newborn son. It might be me if you looked at the situation just right. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of creativity in the process of international flight.
It is absolutely beyond me how – and even more frustrating, why – this happened. The only thing I can think of is that I must have put both of my middle names in the middle-name field on the website, and the second of the two, Sehorn, booted out my surname.
What a pain in the ass this is. The Transportation Security Agency, those dicks who make you take off your shoes (and your belt if you’re a longhair), have a new regulation wherein your boarding pass must match your ID. My passport doesn’t say “Sehorn” on it anywhere. My birth certificate does. My social security card does. Of course I can’t find those documents, now that it’s three weeks before takeoff.
I fucked up.
After three phone calls to the airline, what I know is this: I cannot change the name on the ticket because there are more than one carrier (airline) on the itinerary. I cannot change the name at each individual airline because the ticket does not belong to them anymore. Additionally, if I was to change the name on the ticket it would immediately cancel the tickets with the other airlines and I would have to re-purchase the ticket, which, in case you were wondering, is non-refundable because I bought it online. The airline would waive the name-change fee ($150) if I was willing to pay the difference in airfare toward a new ticket, but that would be $500, roughly the price of the original ticket.
I think my best bet is to get a new Oregon state ID with all four of my names on it. I called TSA and all that Kendra could tell me was to bring all of the paperwork that I thought would help, and good luck.
I don’t want to depend on luck. Not being lucky in Mexico has some negative connotations. Not letting me into the country (or out of it, for chrissakes) would be a huge problem. I’m to meet up in Mexico City with my pal Sean, who lives in Guatemala. If I never show, he won’t be completely screwed. He’s a seasoned traveler who can fend for himself. It would be a huge bummer, though. Hell, what if I can’t even get ON the plane in Portland, and I have to eat the 500-dollar ticket?
Man, I fucked up.
This is it: the end of the month. I won’t lie; I don’t want the experiment to end. I like not having a phone. The sense of freedom that has welled up inside of me has far outweighed any and all inconveniences that the lack of a cell phone have caused me. But I fear that if I continue this behavior beyond this month, some people will lose their patience with me.
This is what I’m struggling with: is the cell phone a social necessity? Am I, in effect, casting myself out of society by rejecting this norm?
I cancelled my Myspace page the other day, and true to form, there was an error and I’m not sure if it actually deleted my account. I’m sick of technology. Sure, I’m overlooking all of the ways technology has helped me, but – again – I’m certain that the problems have outweighed the benefits.
A very reasonable solution suggested to me was to get a pay-as-you-go phone, which would be useful for trips out of town, etc. That, and a watch.
I’m just over all of it, really. My only concern is coming across as if I think I’m above it all.
Two weeks have passed since my last update. Here are some things that I have noticed:
Letting go is good, but a positive attitude keeps the ship from capsizing. Arriving at a destination only to find the event is well past finished can be frustrating. Turning on one’s heel and heading for home to sulk is not the answer (as was my first impulse – I don’t have my phone, and I don’t have her number; goddamnit, I’m gonna have to go back home to call her). By sticking it out I had a great evening just being in the city, feeling alive and part of something wonderful.
It is behavior that is changing inside of me (though I have a pamphlet that says it is my DNA as well, caused by the cell phone). Because I have to think about other people’s plans and when they are expecting me, etc., I am getting much better at communicating clearly what I am doing, what I plan to do and what I am hoping will happen. The tough part can be extracting the same from others.
I was at an event last week where a phone rang and it did not even cross my mind that it might have been mine. I see this as a sign that my Pavlovian response to cell-phone action is waning. I say Pavlovian because I am certain that upon hearing a ring (or even more so, a text message) my brain juices me with some sort of pleasurable chemical. The connection was made long ago that the sound of a text message meant someone was thinking of me, and I was a junkie for it. Also, the ‘phantom ring’ that I used to hear so often has ceased.
The last weekend of the month is approaching, and I feel good. I have plans, and that is comforting, especially since the moments when I am alone and I can’t get a hold of anyone are trying – I am still pretty bad at enjoying alone time. I feel lost and lonely when I want to hang out but can’t. I ran into this hard when I moved back to Eugene in 2005, and I thought I had it tackled for good. That even-keel business comes into play on this one, though, so I have to just take a deep breath at times and take account of what I have that is good: I am warm, I have a place to live. I have friends near by. I have books to read and pants to mend.
I know it’s growing less and less about the phone, but I’m going to bring it back around, I swear.
Well, daily updates haven’t happened, but there hasn’t been much to say, really. My life’s been upside-down for a few days, so the lack of a phone in my pocket has gone unnoticed. I cleaned, organized and re-arranged my room, and now I have a neat little table to put it on and a pad and a pen for note-taking. I really want it to have a classic-phone ring like my old Sony phone did so I can hear it when I’m out of the room.
It’s funny that people assume that by not carrying the phone with me, I’m inaccessible. I check messages and return calls! It wasn’t too long ago that we had answering machines waiting for us at home. It really feels like I’m swimming against the current, but what if that current is taking everyone down the drain?
There is the distinct possibility that I’m an asshole. That I just don’t want to be bothered, and I only want to communicate with others on my terms. That I am insensitive to others’ needs.
But isn’t that a modern construction, demanding to have someone instantly accessible?
A friend was just telling me about a Milan Kundera novel called Slowness, which contends (second-hand paraphrased, of course) that when we are living rapidly, we are running from our past, and when we live slowly, we are contemplating it. Are we running from something? Shame? Change? Either way, I ‘d like to take more time to make dinner.
It is becoming difficult to divide the things that are happening in my life from the things that are happening in my life as a result of the study, and I’m not certain what is or is not pertinent to the results.
I did just break up with my girlfriend, and whether it was a result of the experiment is debatable. It would be ridiculous and disrespectful to suggest that this study was the cause of the dissolution of our relationship, and though there is no doubt that it played a part in it, this is neither the time nor the place to examine that. This is a Scientific Study, after all, and I must carry on.
The experiment does not allow for mistakes. Mr. Kevin Stone and I attended the kickoff event for the Time-Based Art Festival at the Works at Washington High School with the intention of seeing Gang Gang Dance do their wacky thing, but they were demanding identification at the entrance, and I had, unfortunately, forgotten mine at home. I took off, leaving Mr. Stone in line, with the intention of returning with his bike key (our bicycles were entwined), realizing only as I bounded down the steps and on to Stark street that it was possible that there were a multitude of obstacles preventing me from returning his key to him. What if he got in? What if I couldn’t find him again? Luckily he came bounding around the corner shortly after I had unlocked my trusty steed from his, but if it wasn’t for his foresight, it could have been yet another frustrating event in a night teeming with such events.
All of this said, it has been surprisingly tranquil in the moments when I’ve realized that I’m not checking my phone or feeling its presence. Though I do struggle with this duality: part of the point of the experiment is to pay attention to how I feel and behave without the phone weighing on my consciousness, but that inadvertently adds to my awareness of its absence and therefore disrupts the study.
I have no idea where this will take me…
