The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

"Hold still. I've never done this before, and there will be blood!"

What is it that always draws me into the darkness? Such questions as this are what keeps me up on nights like these.

I just saw this new movie. I have not read any of the novels, nor have I seen the Swedish version of this film. But ever since I saw the trailer for this version, I knew that resistance would be futile. I must go down this road.

The film as a whole is not as unusual as I thought. I found the solution to the central mystery entirely predictable, and I've seen films that were far more noir than this one. However, the thing that sets the film apart, and has ensnared my mind in unusual layers of dark and morbid fantasy is the character of Lisbeth Salander, as played by Rooney Mara. She is a force that can not be contained, even by this film. It seems she must have a life all her own that reaches far beyond this, and I must know all about it. It took only a few minutes of this movie and I knew that I needed to get to know her better, and then maybe kill some people with her.

Terrible things happen to her in this film, but then she comes back with some terrible things of her own. But when she does the terrible things, we understand why. We revel in it. I haven't felt such savage rage and uncontrollable blood-lust since....hell, I don't even know that I ever have.

I better go take a cold shower right now and sing some hymns.

Saturdays With Sergio

It sometimes seems that the older one gets the more life begins to lose its flavor. Nothing is ever as good as it used to be any more. You can watch the movies you once loved, but they just don't have the magic any more. But the true masterpieces - like fine wine - only get better with age.

The first time I saw The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly I was probably 13 or 14 years old. I saw it on the tv on a Saturday afternoon when I had nothing better to do, and it kind of looked like a piece of crap, but somehow it was awesome in spite of itself.

I definitely didn't have the right kind of eyes to see it properly at the time. My first impression was that it was real ugly. It is a strange American Western filmed in bleak, nondescript locations in Italy. The photography looked like it was peed on and left out in the sun to dry. Many of the actors in the film seem to be inexperienced locals. The dubbing sometimes doesn't line up with the picture. I'm pretty sure a lot of the extras aren't even saying the same lines, or even in the same language as the crude sounds coming from the speakers. Even the instruments on the soundtrack seem to be out of tune, or maybe broken.

The film begins for a good 15 minutes without any dialogue, and there doesn't seem to be any significant plot until a good hour has gone by. It's just one brilliant scene after another. But where is it going? I had no idea until it was all over.

All in all, the film seemed like some kind of hot mess. It was refreshing to a 13 year old who was tired of all the glossy hollywood westerns. It seemed like something that was thrown together without the refinements of movie executives, and test screenings, and focus groups, etc. I liked it.

But the older I get, and the more films I have seen, the more I can appreciate the savage genius of this film. I don't think anything about it is accidental. I look at the same dusty landscapes, in that same nasty, brown light and see something that is far more beautiful than anything that ever happened in Monument Valley. I now see that all of the things that look like flaws are just what makes it special. The ugliness, and the decay, and the out of tune guitars all lend it a sort of rare credibility in the world of westerns. The more I know about photography, the more I know that it must have been a bitch to make this movie look the way it does.

The actors are all perfectly cast. Clint Eastwood (who no one knew before) plays a particularly complex anti-hero who you want to root for even though you aren't quite sure what he stands for. Eli Wallach plays an even stranger anti-anti-hero that can always make me laugh and cry at the same time, even when I don't know why. And most of all, Lee Van Cleef plays one of the most infuriating villains I can recall. It is truly beautiful, and quite disturbing how much Van Cleef seems to get off on this character.

The story is sort of a Western Oddysey. Fate puts these three characters on a mythical quest for gold, but they are constantly beset upon by strange circumstances along the way. They confront the most unusual obstacles. For instance, there is a large scale civil war battle, commanded by a drunken captain, that prevents them from crossing a river until they figure out how to deal with it. It's probably the largest and most expensive scene in the film. I can't picture any other western that goes to the lengths of creating such an epic scene that doesn't really have a whole lot to do with the rest of the plot. The filmmakers also, apparently, built a cemetery that seems to stretch as far as the eye can see in every direction just for one scene in the film. (I googled it. The cemetery is not real.)

The film is shot and cut in a way that would seem to challenge regular audiences, and yet it is somehow the 4th most popular movie of all time according to IMDB.com with an average user rating of 8.9 stars out of ten with 206,317 votes.

So today, I decided to watch it whilst cleaning the house, and although I have seen it at least 25 times, I certainly did not regret it. A true masterpiece the likes of which was never seen before, has not been seen since, and will not be seen again.

I just had to share that. And now I leave you with my list of top 7 one-of-a-kind movies that could never be duplicated in spite of all efforts to the contrary. These are the movies that reach a sort of intangible perfection when everything just seemed to come together in a way that can't be explained by simple luck.

1. Apocalypse Now - This film is so completely brazen in its artistic vision that no one in modern hollywood would even be allowed to attempt something so completely ridiculous. Not to mention that it would probably be the most expensive movie ever made if it was subjected to modern economic realities. I look at this film and am convinced that Francis Ford Coppola created, and fought his very own war just so that he could film it.

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark - The very people who made this film have attempted to recreate it 3 times since. All three of those sequels are a dismal failure compared to the original.

3. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly - 'nuff said.

4. Jaws - I can't explain it. Either you know what I mean, or you never will. It is what it is.

5. Alien - If you ever have the chance to see this in the theater, you will be terrified. Thousands of horror thrillers have been made in its image since, and they all suck, including it's own sequels. It's the real deal.

6. Solaris (1972) - Few have the patience to deal with this movie, but if you can take it you will be rewarded. A science fiction masterpiece that goes all the way.

7. Amelie - A chick flick that even the most hardened dude can get behind. If it doesn't make you cry joyful tears than you have no soul.

Drive

"I don't have wheels on my car. That's something you should know about me." - The Driver

I haven't posted much about movies lately, or really about anything at all, because we seem to be in a seven year drought of creativity. I feel like there has been a general mood of non-excitement all around me. The vibe is decidedly mellow. (Although I did have a really great first anniversary last weekend. I just don't feel like getting personal in my blogging these days. Let it suffice to say that Rachel is great at making my life interesting, but that's about it for the excitement in my life in these dark times.)

I always get in this mood at the end of summer where I want to fight against the slowing tide. I start to feel guilty about all the things I was going to do, but never did. But lately I have been feeling like I should just go with it. I should take advantage of the rare time I get to do nothing at all. So today, when my Manager called and told me that I was cut for today, I told myself that it was okay to just sleep in. I gave myself no expectations for this free day.

A couple of drowsy blinks after that and I found that it was 1:30 pm. I woke up. I took the dogs outside to poop. I yawned several times and scratched an itch on the back of my left thigh. I walked around the house and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked at the food in my fridge for a considerable amount of time. I did not eat any of it. Then I decided I should do something I used to do all the time, but almost never do anymore: go to a random movie in the middle of the afternoon with all the other daytime perverts.

First I was going to go see The Killer Elite, but soon realized that it was not actually showing yet. So then I thought I might go see Straw Dogs just out of morbid curiosity. I can't quite grasp why that remake has happened. But even I couldn't will myself to confront that. Not on a Thursday anyhow. So I looked at the movie app on my phone and decided I would go see Drive.

It must have been about 2 minutes into the movie when I started to cry tears of regret for all the terrible movies I have had to sift through in recent years to find this shining pearl of rare, and unmistakable beauty. That may sound like a quick judgment to you, but trust me. When it's right, it's right. When you have dedicated as many years of your life as I have to sitting in sweaty movie theaters with all the wrong people, watching terrible things and trying to understand what it all means, there is an instant recognition of greatness. It just has a certain smell to it.

A great movie is something magical. It is much more than the sum of it's parts. If you don't have that magic it can't be faked. It doesn't matter how many Oscar winning actors are in it. It doesn't matter how big the budget was. You can make a $300 Million dollar monstrosity of a film with Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, and a bunch of three-dimensional blue people who have sex with their pony tails, and it will still put me to sleep in less than 40 seconds.

I have started to believe that I am the problem. Maybe I've seen too much and just don't like movies any more. Maybe nothing impresses me any more. I have been accused of movie snobbery many times. Many times, indeed. But than a movie like Drive comes along and proves to me that the magic is still there after all.

Drive is about a guy who drives cars. He works in a garage by day, fixing up cars. Sometimes he does stunt driving for B-movies. And by night, he is a driver for hire. He doesn't ask questions. You tell him a time and place, and he will be there. If you watch the previews you might think it's kind of like The Transporter. But it's not.

It stars Ryan Gosling, who is quickly becoming the younger Hollywood actor with the most interesting career. I don't think Drive will make a lot of money. Even though Ryan Gosling gives one of the best performances I have seen in a long time, I can almost promise you he will not win any awards for it. And yet, for some reason, he decided to do this film anyway. His career is definitely on the rise. He didn't have to do a weird art film like this, but he did. This is the sort of movie that would usually have a mediocre, unknown actor in the lead. One might argue that it doesn't need someone with the talent of Ryan Gosling. But I disagree. It ain't easy to play a guy who says almost nothing but still keep the entire audience at the edge of their seat for 100 minutes.

So I give a special thanks to Mr. Gosling for coming down from his comfy romantic comedy perch to do something dangerous. I shouldn't be surprised though. This is, after all, the same guy who starred in a movie about a guy who falls in love, and has an innocent, platonic relationship with a sex doll.

Besides Gosling, this movie also gives us a really disturbing, and not even remotely funny performance by my favorite comedian, Albert Brooks. I was very disturbed, especially because it was Albert Brooks. What is this world coming to? I'm sitting in a darkened room watching Albert Brooks do scary things now. Nothing can be trusted. Nothing is safe any more.

I'm not sure what else, besides the acting, to praise in this movie. I'm not good at explaining why a certain scene is good at making me feel a certain way. I just know how it makes me feel. This movie made me feel all kinds of wonderful things that I haven't felt at the movies in a long, long time. It took me for a ride. I liked it. With that said, I don't really recommend this movie. If the preview made you want to watch it, you should probably rent The Transporter instead. This movie is not what it seems. It's way better than that, and you probably won't like it. Maybe it is my snobbery talking, but I just know that it takes the right kind of eyes to appreciate art of this magnitude. Too many times have I tried to share these things with people only to have them tell me that they hated it, and I must be screwed up in the head to think it's a good movie. But I know what I saw. I can't wait to see it again.



P.S. Movie geek trivia: The "special thanks" section in this film's end credits thanks Alejandro Jodorowsky. I don't expect anyone who reads this to know who that is. But take my word for it. It's sufficiently weird that it has had me thinking about it all day long.

P.P.S. I think I have a title now for the mysterious photo series I have been thinking of doing all year, and which I have spoken almost nothing about to anyone. I haven't even written it down, but it's definitely building. I think I will call it 'Survivors'. And there will be blood. Oh, yes! There will be. My mind is sometimes a scary place.

I Need Some New Inspiration

I haven't been doing much photography lately. I have some strange photos that need to be released from my mind, but I'm not quite ready yet. So last night I went and photographed some silly kids at the Zombie walk in SLC. Along with trying to get some silly pictures, I was also using this weirdness to reflect on other dark themes that I am thinking about lately. It was good times, and reminds me that we all could use a bit more weirdness in our lives. Or at least I could use some anyway. I'm not sure what it is that draws me to these kind of things. I have an unnatural fascination with the end of the world. And although Zombies are mostly pretty lame, they do symbolize the ongoing de-evolution of humanity rather well.

Of course, photographing zombies is no easy task. People pretending to be dead looks nothing at all like actual dead people. It ends up being cheesy, which isn't necessarily bad. Zombies are, after all, somewhere near smoked gouda on the cheese scale. Therefore, I threw myself into this crowd and had a good time trying to capture some authentic zombie moments.

I posted some on my photo blog, but I felt I had to omit one of my favorites for conceptual reasons. And that is why I have decided to post it here instead. I love this picture because this girl looks so completely not dead. She is way too happy to be remotely believable as a zombie. It makes me laugh, but is still kind of disturbing. Maybe even more disturbing than the other ones. The look of child-like wonder in her eyes is priceless. It's like someone is about to hand her a new baby kitten, right after she finished eating the last one.



I apologize. That last sentence was a horrible thing to say, and not quite accurate to the real scene. In fact, she was in reality looking at a human baby when I took this picture. That's the truth. No animals were harmed.

A Better World?

"Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while a great wind carries me across the sky." - - - Ojibwe saying

At this moment I am very small. I am no more than 4 inches tall, and shrinking by the minute. I am almost gone. There will be nothing left for you to see, and yet the relentless beating continues on. I stare into the face of rage, eyes aglow with vengeance.

"What you need to ask yourself is, 'do I want this job?'"

It seems like a trick question. I feel confused. I have to say yes, but my heart is beating, "No! No! No!" How did I get myself into this contradiction? I glance over to my boss who is standing in the corner looking intently at his shoes. It is not either of our finest hours for sure.

The truth is, I don't really want this job at all. I always say I do when people ask. I put the best face on it. What I really, really want is to have a job that pays me a decent living so that I may support my family as best I can. That is what I feel will make me happy. But life is no longer cheap. Maybe it never was. All I know is that the world has a way of carrying you along on a path, and it seems very difficult at times, perhaps even futile, to kick against the current.

Is this fate? Or are we all living the lives we chose?

There is a crushing weight of responsibility that I feel, and it makes it seem like I usually have no choice at all. I continue to do what I must. These are the thoughts going through my head as I stare into those burning, red eyes that make grown men cry.

Have you ever found yourself fighting a fight that you can not win?

The beating continues.

"Tell me, please, why I should keep you, because if it were up to me you would be done."

I guess I should explain myself here. It was a bad, bad day. I had an accident. A small accident in the grand scheme of the universe, but I work in a job that can not afford mistakes. I made a big mistake. I blame no one but myself. I feel plenty bad about it already, but nevertheless I must stand and bear this tongue lashing with humility and grace. I am a leaf on the wind. If it were up to me, I would rather be talking to Anton Chigur right now.

I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. I make mistakes constantly. I'm only human, but maybe I'm even more human that some others. It seems I blunder through life making the best choices I can, but every choice narrows down my future choices until I get to a point where there seems to be no more choices but to jump in the current and let it take me where it will.

Because of choices I made long ago, I now find myself working in a miserable job that gives me very little fulfillment, only because it will one day give me a decent paycheck. I'll never get rich from it, but I will be able to live comfortably with the things I need, and some things that I want. That's the lie I have been telling myself for years, that it is better than the alternatives.

What I do is I drive a truck that is packed with boxes, and I must get rid of them one at a time until there are none left. I run, and run, and run all day long. I almost never stop to take a lunch break. If I stop to pee I have to run that much faster to catch up again. It's a lot of responsibility, a lot of pressure, and one day a lot more money than I'm making now. Is it worth it? Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not sure any more. But what are my alternatives?

Truthfully, I have no idea what the alternatives might be. I have, for years, assumed that there were none. That has often been my excuse. I have a degree in photography. It is a field that people are notorious for not wanting to pay for. On the other hand, there are people who are highly successful at it without even so much as a degree to stand on. Beyond photography, I really don't have a lot of marketable skills to back me up. 11 years at the same company has provided me with nothing that would be useful to other companies. It has given me a range of talents that are very specific, like memorizing thousands of zip codes, playing a literal version of tetris at 250-600 pieces per hour, yelling at people, cursing, etc. These are things that don't necessarily look good on a resume. But I am smart. I am a hard worker. I am good at adapting to a wide range of situations. I think I work well under pressure, and with all kinds of scary people. I am not completely useless, am I?

Maybe there is something more out there waiting for me. It's also true that maybe there is not. I know that I have the power within myself to stay on this career path, and succeed. I am sure that it will get easier over time. But do I really want that? I feel that I have hit rock bottom with it now. I must move forward from here, and do the best I can to continue to ensure my own security, and the good of my family. If I'm going to stay, I need to embrace it completely because that is the way to get better. And I can't keep on feeling sorry for myself. I am living the life I chose.

But I am now more motivated than ever to look beyond my comfort zone. I want to find a way out. I want to believe that it is possible to make a decent living, and be happy. Therefore I must also open my mind to the other possibilities that maybe I have been ignoring in favor of a seemingly safer path. I know now that there is no safe path. There is nothing you can do that life can't find a way to screw with it. Life is chaos.



On a lighter note, now that I have written a bitter, and negative diatribe, I should tell you about the ways in which I have chosen wisely, and the ways in which I am fortunate. I have chosen a beautiful wife who always supports me, but also pushes me to be better. She believes that I have a choice, and that I can do better. She sees potential in me that I do not.

I have two kitties who always kiss my face and give me comfort when I am sad and lonely. They don't care what I do for a living. They would be perfectly happy if I did nothing at all but lay around with them. That's how they roll.

I have two dogs that feel like my children. They definitely keep me on my toes. But they also give me unconditional love. They are always happy to see me. So what if they sometimes eat my ice cream. It's a small price to pay.

I have great friends and family who have always accepted me for who I am, even when they thought I was wrong. Those are the people that I choose to be around. 1 true friend is worth far more than all the others.

I am even fortunate to have a job at all. Even a job you hate is better than no job at all. You can't ignore that truth in this day and age.

I feel better already.

"At the top of the mountain, we are all Snow Leopards."

Vita Ipsa Loquitur

I fear sometimes that I am becoming a boring person. I never have anything very interesting to say here these days. And I used to be so crazy and weird. But what happened. I seem to have lost a lot of my old weirdness. Not to say that I am no longer weird. I just used to be weirder.

If you wrote your own autobiography, what would it be about? I always wanted mine to be so legendary that it would be banned from high school reading in most states. It would be the kind of story that ruined people's lives forever, an epic chronicle of biblical proportions. I think it would be called "Vita Ipsa Loquitur: The Doomed Man's Travelogue In Black and White".

As you can tell from the title it would be a light-hearted, and inspirational sort of tale, a hero's quest of sorts. It would have to be filled from cover to cover with adventure, romance, and all kinds of swashbucklery in general. I imagine it as a cross between Homer's "The Odyssey", Bram Stoker's "Dracula", and the film "It's a Wonderful Life". And, of course, it will be 100% true.

Can you grasp that? I think it would start out something like this:

Prologue: The Black of Night

"Vampires?" The captain asks dubiously. "I doubt it. Not this far north. The climate wouldn't suit them at all."

"You may be right", I reply half-hearted. Nevertheless, I did meet one last night. He showed me things that would not soon be forgotten, and I knew he was not finished with me yet. I look out over that same bleak horizon where I saw Captain Sveinsson's burning ship, Urd, succumb to the fathomless deep not quite a fortnight agone. Now it is only the white-hot sun edging ever closer to it's inevitable demise. A cold wind is blowing off the Atlantic Ocean, and I sigh heavily in resignation. "It's lookin' to be a cold one."

"Yes, my friend." There is a long pause as we both consider the gravity of the situation. I look down at my grandfather's compass that hangs around my neck, long since broken. The moments pass heavily by until the captain finally breaks the silence. "This man that you spoke with, this vampire, perhaps you brought him with you. Perhaps he has troubled you for a very long time."

"Perhaps."

"And you never did tell me how you came to be here yourself?"

"That is a long story", I say, "And I don't care to tell it right now", I answer his next question before he can ask it. Truthfully, I don't know the answer to the questions. How did I get here? And why? Looking back at it, I can't make any sense of it myself.

"Very well. I understand." He shrugs it off. "It doesn't matter. We will find our way back soon."

I am not as hopeful in that regard. I still have this one problem, this great big loose end, this thing I came here to do, and I know there is no going back until it is done. Not for me anyway. I am not sure what I would be going back to, for that matter. I reflect darkly on these things as the sun begins to slip below the waves taking all remaining color with it. I am not afraid, only anxious to get to the next horrific twist of the knife.

I run my fingers through my long, thinning hair. It is falling out faster every day. I don't have much time left before I will be too weak to fight it any more. Tonight might be the night. Am I ready? The Captain shudders as though for a moment he knows my mind, and all the ugly things that lie in it. He starts to say something, but is interrupted by the sudden, atavistic booming of the drums. Every night that same terrible rhythm that will haunt my dreams for years to come.

I am certain now that the captain and I are the last civilized men, forgotten on this God-forsaken island amidst a sea of unrelenting madness, and the savages are just waking up. Things will start moving quickly now. We must cling desperately to the last vestiges of our neglected faith.

"Hafðu augun opin, vinur minn."

"Aye, Captain."

"Please, call me Snorri." He pulls out a tall bottle and offers it to me.

"Why not?" I consent. I hand the bottle back. We soon finish every last drop of it between the two of us.

"You know, my friend, one good thing about this place?"

"Tell me!" I beg. The drink is already twisting my sense of space and reason. The esoteric, animal part of my brain is beginning to take hold as we succumb to the darkness, even as the distant voices of the newly damned begin to scream in terror.

"The night lasts only four hours."

But alas, I know all too well that four hours can be a very, very long time.




So there you go. I just need an advance from a major publisher to begin for real. About half a mil would probably cover it.

Cool Camera

So, I went to Fujifilm.com today to see if they still produce the film that I wish to use for the Color Fest in March, and I discovered that they have been the first to think of something I have been wishing for for several years now.

The coolest looking digital camera yet:


Now, it isn't quite the camera I want to buy. For instance, it does not have a full frame digital sensor. This camera is obviously aimed at the pro-sumer market of retro tech-geeks, but there are good reasons why I wish that I could get something like this.

In my experience, I have found that people are super impressed when you carry around a huge, 15 pound monstrosity of a camera with all kinds of atavistic bells, whistles, attachments, and a ginormous, phallic lens. People say, "Wow! That is a nice camera. How did you afford that?" But, besides being a pain in the rear for the photographer to deal with, I also find that people get terribly intimidated when they find themselves in front of that beast.

On the other hand, if I point my humble Nikon FM at them:


They let their guard down. They don't take it quite as seriously, maybe. They say things like, "You have to know what you're doing to use a camera like that." They give you some sort of benefit of the doubt. Therefore it is a lot easier to take their picture when your ridiculous camera is not getting in the way.

Furthermore, most of that expensive camera is dedicated to doing tasks that a camera doesn't really need to do, like color balance, and creating histograms, and other esoteric nonsense that can be taken care of with computers, photoshop, etc. And that is why I have wished that Nikon would release a Nikon FM-Dslr. In a perfect world it would use the minimum necessary electronics to capture and store a Nikon Raw image file with a full frame sensor. It wouldn't even need to have a view screen on the back. I could do without that. It would have a knob on top for the shutter speed, and ISO, and would accomodate all Nikon manual lenses, therefore removing the need for aperture adjustment, and auto-focus mechanisms in the camera body.

It would have absolutely no automatic settings, except maybe a TTL flash setting. It would be the first fully manual, stripped down, professional DSLR on the market. It would sell exceptionally well to pro-sumer retro geeks, and me. It would be awesome.

Terrence Malick

Oh, Terrence Malick, has it been so long?



I think this is just what I need.

The Spirit

Being raised in the LDS faith, I was brought up to believe that the Spirit of God would manifest itself by a "burning in my bosom"; that if I was faithful, and obedient to the laws of God I would come to know the truth. But this never happened to me. In my 18 years of going to church, reading the scriptures, and praying, I never felt anything good. At best I felt bored. At worst I felt a complete emptiness, and a growing sense of inadequacy. I was told that I was not ready for the answers. I was told that I didn't want the true answers. It was always my fault, and for a long time I believed it.

But as a skeptic I find that I really do want to believe. Nothing would make me happier than for God to show up as a burning bush and tell me what I'm supposed to do. People have accused me of believing in nothing. I don't agree with that. I do believe very firmly in things. I just can not believe it anything based on absolutely nothing.

Of course, there came a time when my mind began to rebel against those notions. I came to believe that there were two obvious explanations why I could find no faith within myself:

A) It's all bullcrap

or

B) God hates me

Both of those answers are equally appealing at various times. But they mostly made me feel angry for a very long time. Particularly, I felt a deep, and burning rage for everyone who ever told me that if I would just pray more sincerely then I would find the answers I sought.

Eventually I did kind of get over it. While the beliefs I was raised by will never go away, I found a way to get enough space between me and them that I could reflect on what I believed and felt in my own heart. After all, why should a person be tied down to experience things the way that everyone else does? I began to seek experiences of a different sort. I wanted to get to know myself better.

I asked myself, why would God hide himself so completely from us if the very purpose of our existence was to believe in Him? It's not logical. I'm pretty sure that God has never spoken to me, at least in the sense that believers say he does. I'm inclined to believe that there is a God. It seems more unreasonable to me to think there is not. But he remains silent, detached, abstract. I decided it was futile to try to know God before you even know yourself. And I firmly believe that a life spent entirely on knowing yourself would be a life well spent, and a busy one at that.

As I began to be better at following my own heart, and my own desires, I have gained far more than I ever gained in church. I will risk my very soul on the truth of that statement. I know in my heart that if I had done what others wanted me to do, if I had gone on a mission for instance, it would have been a sort of spiritual death for me, because I know there was absolutely no desire in me to do that, and if I had it would not have been for me, nor would it have been for God.

In spite of my great heresy, I have often felt something that could be interpreted as "The Spirit". I often felt it while racing over high mountain-tops on my bike in those crazy years. It was a sense of being more deeply alive. It was a feeling of great power, and great weakness at the same time. It was a sort of liberation from the trappings of the mind when I could become a purely physical being.

Later I would feel it while exploring the rarely seen parts of the Buddhist Temple in Taiwan. It was a feeling of great humility, and yet a sense that I was playing a small part in everything. In one room in particular, I felt a deep connection with the entire world, and I knew that I was so small as to be almost nothing at all, but somehow I was still vitally important in spite of my obsolescence.

I have felt this Spirit when looking at great works of art, and sometimes not so great works of art. I once felt it while looking at a segment of Roman sidewalk at the UMFA. I feel it at the Spiral Jetty every time I go there, or in Moab. It manifests itself in a sense that there is something valuable in the pure experience of this life itself. It doesn't matter what you do. It's just important that whatever you do you experience it as fully as you can. It's vitally important to be open to whatever comes your way. These are some of the things I began to believe.

We spend so much of our lives trying to be somewhere else, it is rare to find yourself capable of being right here, and right now. I find I can do this more easily in bizarre, and remote places. I have felt most at peace with the world while floating down the Colorado River, staring up in wide-eyed wonder at the blood-red cliffs above. I feel something beautiful and mysterious while driving at high speeds across the empty salt flats of western Utah. I have spend hours upon hours staring at the Great Salt Lake and not even needing to ask questions about it.

In Iceland I felt the full weight of existence bearing down upon me, and for a while I even embraced it before it got too heavy. I learned on that trip that not all spiritual experiences need to be warm and fuzzy. Sometimes what your soul needs is to find the darkness for a little while. I felt things within myself that I have never spoken of, and perhaps never will, but I still wake up in the night sometimes thinking I am still there. It was a very dark time that I will always cherish. I learned more about myself in the darkness than I ever learned in the light.

On the other hand, I have walked in the light as well.

At places like the Holi festival I have been filled with the feeling that life is good, and worth living in spite of all of it. Sometimes a person just needs an excuse to let go of all the crap and party hard.

My wedding really was my happiest day. On that day, unlike any other day, I felt completely as though I was exactly where I was supposed to be, among all the right people, doing all the right things. I had absolutely no doubts in my mind, no more questions to answer for a little while.

As time goes by I get closer and closer to this spirit. I feel I understand it more and more. I would not be so arrogant to claim that it was God speaking to me. Maybe it is just a part of my own soul recognizing true beauty when it sees it in all it's light, and dark mystery. But I do know absolutely that I do have a soul. I know that I am so much more than random particles in space. I know that this life is far more than a simple test of loyalty and obedience. I feel it growing more and more every day. I feel it when I look in Rachel's eyes. I feel it when I read a great book. I sometimes now can even feel it when I'm just lying in bed on a Saturday morning, doing nothing at all.

I know it was always there, but I have only become better at knowing it when I see it. And I try to live by those beliefs that I have found. I strive to be better at living in the moment and letting the good and bad happen, and just feel alive amidst it all. We are here to experience, and anything that tries to cut you out from the experience of life is evil, and must be fought hard.

"Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night."
- - - Dylan Thomas

Valentine's Day

Let me begin by saying that Valentine's Day is much better when you are married than when you are merely dating. At least it feels that way to me. I think I understand it better. I could never figure out why everyone ran out to pay lots of money for flowers that are going to die next week, and chocolate wrapped in pretty, heart-shaped packages that will be thrown away tomorrow, and all that other cheesy stuff. I never felt there was any true romance in a box of petrified, tooth-chipping hearts with lines like "Kiss me", and "lol" written on them. I always thought, and still do really, that Valentine's Day was created by greeting card companies. But it does serve a good purpose when you can get beyond all the fluff.

In the dating world, I always felt that Valentine's Day was the day that all the girls get out their measuring sticks and compare whose boyfriends are the sweetest. I shouldn't be surprising anyone if I say that most guys couldn't care less about any of that sweet stuff. They just don't want to be in the doghouse. Furthermore, I have always been the first to criticize the over-the-top Valentine's mentality because a good person should always be striving to make their significant other feel special and loved. I know I am always trying to do just that, even though I sometimes fail.

Valentine's can be extremely stressful in the beginning of a relationship. Society puts so much pressure on it that it can easily make or break a couple's chances. A guy can easily get lost among all the cheese. Who can ever know just how much cheese is appropriate to the stage of the relationship he might be in. As easy as it is to do too little and look like a jerk, there is also great danger of going too far and looking like an idiot. It's a precarious balance, a high-wire act between confidence and desperation. Fortunately, once you are married you should know the person you are married to well enough to know what the rules are.

Once you are married you find that all the fluffy stuff doesn't matter any more. And I find that I really don't care what anyone else thinks about my relationship. So go ahead and measure away ladies. This was the first time where I felt truly able to appreciate Valentine's day, and the opportunity it gives to have our very own day. It's easy to get caught up in the current of life and forget to let your wife know just how special she is. I find that to be true even this early in marriage.

I love my wife very much, and never want to take her for granted. I want her to always feel special. So this year I looked at Valentine's as an opportunity to do something extra special, just for her. And that's what I did. And it was a great Valentine's Day. If you want to know all the things I did, I'm sure she will tell you all about it. I never like tooting my own horn too much, and She will probably describe it better than I anyway.

But I must also say Thank You to her for making me feel extra special, and sexy in ways I won't get into here. She also got me some really awesome presents. For instance, she got me this most excellent gela-skin for my Kindle:



I have been needing to make that Kindle (which she also gave me for Christmas) all mine, and some Vintage Dr. Gonzo will do the job nicely. It also goes perfectly with the giant Hard-Cover edition of The Curse of Lono by Hunter S. Thomson, with full size illustrations by Ralph Steadman. I have been needing this book for a very long time:







Yeah, that's how my wife rolls. She will buy me overpriced books with crude illustrations that she might never understand, but she knows I love them and gives them to me anyway. That's some love there.

Love you, love you, love you, Rachel.

The Work Situation

The last few months I have felt as though I was engaged in an epic battle against a life of indentured servitude to the man. For 11.5 years now I have grunted, and sweated my life away to move all of your packages in a never-ending game of Tetris. I never really minded it for most of that time. It really isn't a bad job. It could be much worse anyway. For reasons that are too complex to explain any more, I was always content to stay in my safe position. It seemed like the right thing to do. And I always felt I could escape at any time I wished. No one told me that the Recession was coming.

So then, when I found myself feeling less content with my station in life, I found that there was nowhere else to go. Nobody has been promoted within the giant corporation I work for in quite some time. As people start to retire, or leave the company, those positions are not filled. Cut backs have been the buzz word around town. Nevertheless, I was determined to squeeze my way up the ladder, and this is how it has progressed:

Last fall, the Human Resources manager informed me that they had lost the paperwork documenting my qualification to be a driver. Therefore, I would have to take the class again. Why not? I queried. It's forty hours of paid training to sit in a room and do nothing but watch videos. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I do get bored quite easily, but I will never say no to getting paid to be bored. So I did it.

Once I became re-certified to be a driver, I was returned to my regular job of playing extreme tetris, for a guaranteed 17.5 hours a week. I continued to harass the human resources personnel to make sure my paperwork was not lost again. I also continued to harass the Wasatch management about whether or not they were going to need utility drivers for the christmas season. They kept on telling me that it would happen soon.

Meanwhile, I applied for 2 full-time openings that appeared on the communal bulletin boards.

Sometime right after Thanksgiving, I received a call from the Wasatch Center informing me that I was to be immediately trained on the road. It would seem, to use old man Rob's terminology, that I was about to be given my very own starship. I was elated, and equally terrified. Everyone started coming out of the woodwork to tell me that it had been nice knowing me, and that they thought I was very stupid, but it was my funeral.

Let me digress to explain something about the attitude of UPS "hub rats". Although UPS drivers get paid substantially more than employees of the hub, and get to work during the daytime, and get to see the sunlight, and get to talk to real people, and don't have several supervisors literally breathing down their neck every moment of working time, and get treated generally with respect, It is the belief of most hub rats that being a driver is so completely horrifying that it is better to work double shifts in the black of night for half the pay. The hub is filled with horror stories of what will happen to you if you dare to leave behind your rusty cage and strive for something better. It is noble to stay down there at the bottom where you have no real responsibility.

So I was apprehensive about it. I had been listening to this propaganda for more than 11 years. Nevertheless, I could not stand the thought of another year down in that cesspool of humanity.

By the time I started training to drive I got a call from Human Resources informing me that I had won the bid for a full-time hub job. I told the Wasatch management and they said they would convince the hub to let me stay on as a utility driver until Christmas so that they wouldn't have to start training someone else.

For two of the most grueling days of my life I was trained in Park City. I don't want to talk about that. But then I was put on what would be my utility route for the remainder of the peak season: Cottonwood Heights. The first couple of days of that did not go smoothly, but my mind was working on solutions to my hundreds of daily problems. The next day I would do things a little differently, a little faster. Pretty soon I knew exactly where I needed to be all the time, and I was getting done early. And just as it was getting really good, they assigned me a driver helper. Pretty soon, I was letting him do all the grunt work, while I was spending my time organizing and figuring out how to get everything done even faster. It was beautiful.

I would come back to the hub with my empty truck, long before I needed to be there. The management would scratch their heads and wonder why I could figure it out so easily, and the other utility drivers could not. I got my ass severely kissed on several occasions. It seems that if you do your job as a driver, people like you for it. In the hub, a person who does their job is merely given another job to do on top of the first one. Those who do not do their jobs, on the other hand, are given an easier job.

Alas, Christmas arrived, my loyal helper Jake and I said our tearful farewells after all that we had seen, and it was back to the hub for me. The Wasatch people begged me to stay on Utility. I told them I could not do that because Utility gets no work after New Year's. And although I hated the hub more than ever, after my 4 week escape, I need the guaranteed 40 hours that my new full-time job would afford me.

The bitter hub rats were immediately all over me to tell me how stupid I was once again. They informed me that if I took the full-time gig I wouldn't be able to go driving for a year, and I would screw myself all around. I should just be smart and stay part-time yet again, like a good hub rat. I was vexed. I consulted the union people. They told me the same thing. Now I was very vexed, but I tend to distrust the union, so I initiated a nearly two week, epic struggle to get answers from the human resources. The human resources people are slow to tell you anything, but they never lie. Eventually I found out from them that everyone else was full of bull, and if I officially accepted the full-time position I could still become a driver the very next day if a position became available.

Let me digress again to explain something about unions. They are completely retarded, and will constantly tell you that they are there for you, even while they beat you over the head with a club, steal all your money, and your clothes. Then they will leave you to die on the side of the road, and when you manage to survive they will come back and tell you that it's the management that screwed you over in the first place, and ask you to give them more money. I have always been treated fairly by UPS. I can't say the same about the union. They have never done anything for me as far as I can tell. The signature at the bottom of my paycheck is not Jimmy Hoffa Jr.

So I became full-time. Thus began an epic game of musical jobs. The first day I was told I was doing the same job I always did: pink belt loader. A couple of days later I was told I was the pink belt irreg sweep. Then I became the west wall irreg sweep. Then I became a blue belt loader. Then I became the west wall sweep. Then I became the purple belt sweep. Then I became the irreg belt sweep. Then I became officially a member of the irreg belt, but spent most nights sweeping the west wall anyway. Some days I was told I didn't really have a job, and I should just "look busy", which is not as easy as you might think. I spent some good time playing solitaire on my phone in the restroom on a couple of nights. Then they certified me to pull the irreg trains, and that pretty much brings us up to the current situation.

Being a full-time hub rat is the worst job I have ever experienced. That's the short version of the story. I hate it every minute. I pass the time by thinking evil thoughts, and conspiring in the shadows with other dark minions. Every day I feel I become weaker, and more mean-spirited. The full-time jobs are known as "combo" jobs, but are often referred to in the hub as "combo douches". The irreg people are often known as "irreg douches". Therefore, I find myself slowly becoming an "Irreg Combo Double Douche". That is my title. I survive it only because I know it is temporary. Eventually I will escape to become a driver for good. I am not afraid because I have been there and seen the truth. Being a driver is awesome. Being a hub rat is merely willing yourself to a minimal standard of living. I should have figured that out 11 years ago. But in any case, I'm ready to go now. I now resume my constant harassment of the management on a whole new level to make sure they do not forget that I am waiting. My vampire days are over. There is a cure.

As the good doctor said, "At the top of the mountain, we are all Snow Leopards".

The Wedding Daze Part 5: The Reception, The Vacuum Cleaner Mystery, and Time Travel Theories.

I can't say I remember my wedding reception all too well. I have oft times observed that the reception exists for everyone but the bride and groom, who really just want to get it over with so they can, um, sleep. Right? But it is very important to have this giant party where everyone can come and shake your hand, and ask you how it feels to be married, and you can smile and exchange awkward small talk with all your distant relatives and friends. It really is a good time. But for me it was all just a big blur. I never got a very good chance to take it all in, and I don't even remember who all I talked to.

I do remember that I danced with my wife, which was very nice. I confess, I never dance normally, so I thought that might be awkward. But I think I did ok. I wasn't really caring what everyone else thought at the time. I was just having a good dance with Rachel. I liked it. Then I had a dance with my Mom, which was also good. And then I went back into the blur of hand-shaking until I had to come back and do a money dance. It started out awkwardly, and I was worried that no one was going to dance with me, but Rachel's sweet Grandmother from South Carolina came to my rescue. Then I remember dancing with Denice, and Alyssa, and Teri, and Michael, and I'm forgetting some people, I know it, and then I filled in the awkward spaces by dancing with a lot of little girls. They loved it the most.

All in all, I got maybe $25 in the money dance. Rachel got somewhere close to $300. It's because she's a lot hotter, and a much better dancer than I am.

When that was all done there was a lot of crazy dancing, of which I took very little part. I didn't want to ruin the cool vibe with my horrible dance moves, and I was having a good time talking to everyone, even though the attempt to talk to everyone was giving me a lot of anxiety. I'm not used to being anywhere near the center of attention.

Eventually it got to that point where we were just soooo tired. So then we went upstairs to our suite and, um, slept.

The next day we sorted through all the cards, and gifts, and stuff and managed to match every gift up to a card, or at least a name, except for the vacuum cleaner. According to eye-witness accounts, the vacuum was left by a man who walked in and left it at the beginning of the reception. Logic has failed to help us deduce who this gift came from in order to send them a thank you card for it. It was a very nice gift. I use it often. Reggie is terrified of it. The only description we have of the vacuum gifter is that he was 'a man'. And that he did not seem to be familiar as anyone's family. It all seems so mysterious that it has stuck in my mind ever since. But no answers have been forthcoming.

We received many, many more gifts, and cards. It was all very generous. I feel almost guilty about how much we received. It was crazy. There are some I haven't even been able to open and use yet. There just isn't enough time to put all that goodness to good use. But I will.

Just last week I was reflecting back on the reception, and saying to someone that if I ever get the chance to time travel I will go back to my reception as a guest, so that I can enjoy myself. I'll probably get really wasted on the excellent, champagne that was served, of which I only tasted a little myself. After all, I didn't want to get myself into a state where I couldn't enjoy a good sleep later. So my time travelling self will probably put on a cheesy mustache and party like I'm a guest at my own wedding reception. It would be awesome.

Robert and I are often pondering the mysteries of time travel. We often have way too much time on our hands at UPS. So I was discussing this with him, and we came to the conclusion that now that I have thought of that idea, we could prove that I will one day time travel, if we could find that I was at the wedding reception. Of course it would be highly unethical of my future self to do anything so brazen as to appear in any of the photographs. Therefore I would have to be discreet. Of course, my cheesy mustache disguise would be the perfect way to blend in at my wedding, as you surely can imagine if you were there. And being such an ordinary looking guy, and so easily made invisible when I want to be, it would be no problem to blend in. Especially since if anyone saw an old guy who looked like me they would just think I was a distant uncle and take no notice whatsoever.

But, knowing myself as I do, I know I wouldn't be able to resist the urge to leave some clue behind to taunt myself for years to come. But it would require great subtlety. I couldn't risk altering the future by letting myself know that I would one day travel back in time. So what would I do? A card would be way too obvious. My bad hand-writing is way too distinctive. I would probably leave some random, but not too obvious gift from my registry that would stick out in my overly-imaginative mind and...

Kazart! That's it. I understand now. The vacuum cleaner makes perfect sense. It's just the sort of thing I would leave for myself because I always needed one, but never had one before, and it was only a matter of time before my brain came to this twisted logic and realized that it was a gift from the future, but could never be proved as such, and it would drive me insane. Aha! It makes perfect sense. If you don't believe me, just go with it. It's the best explanation I have. But if I'm wrong, then to the vacuum gifter, I most sincerely thank you for it.


Cheesy mustaches.

I will upload more pics of the reception later.

Who Wants To Jump Off A Cliff With Me? And Other Chill, Wintry Dreams of Summers Past.

The day ticks slowly past as my tentative grip on reality continues to erode. I'm standing at the bottom of a narrow crack in the earth, somewhere near Moab, with Aron Ralston trying to figure out how to properly cut off an arm with a dull pocket knife. It's tricky business, and there is little room for error. The terror trickles down my spine. What's next? What's the score? Let's do this!

But then I am jolted back through time and space by my melancholy kitties jumping up on my chest for some attention, and I realize I'm back on my couch in South Salt Lake. I feel depleted by my journey to the desert. I better drink some kool-aid, and post a blog about it, before going back. Kool-aid really hits the spot, and does wonders for my mental and emotional endurance.

My ability to move spontaneously back and forth between South Salt Lake and Canyonlands National Park is made possible by my new Kindle. My wife loves me so much that she gave me one for Christmas. It provides me with some much needed escape from these January doldrums. I need some adventure. I need a sunburn on my ass. I need to see something that I haven't seen before. I'm a needy, little needer is what I am, and I wish this Wednesday could be more like a Friday already.

The most harrowing adventure I have had in recent weeks was when I was briefly driving for UPS and I found myself in a sticky dilemma where I had to deliver a series of random next day air package in 7 minutes: 1 mis-labeled package to the sixth floor of 6350 South and 3000 East, 2 heavy boxes to the third floor of 6360 South and 3000 East, and 3 envelopes and 18 large boxes to The Store at 2050 East 6200 South a couple of miles away. Impossible you say? Perhaps for an ordinary, sane person. But I have surely done weirder things. With the right kind of motivation, and a little creative problem solving, a person can be made to perform wild and desperate acts. I like to move fast. The wheels of commerce must not be made to stop. But that's another story. Let's just say I got it done, without even breaking any rules. I find my adventure where I can in these dark times.

2010 was a bad year for my adrenaline addiction. All in all it was a great year for most things, but I can't even recall a single time that I could say I nearly died during that time frame. I do love being alive, but it's good for a man's soul to stand on the edge of a tall cliff and stare into that precipice every now and then. It's difficult at times to comprehend the difference between life and death unless you can walk up to the fence in the middle and peer over at the other side. I have done this a few times in my younger, wilder days. Once or twice I even stood atop the fence and jeered at the hounds of hell whilst peeing in the wind. Can you grasp that? Never mind. That too is another story.

Where was I?

I got a Kindle for Christmas and it is probably my favorite of many gifts that I got this year. My Christmas was very full. I got more things than I even know what to do with. I got an Ipod too, which I am currently using to listen to some Wu Tang Clan. "Wu Tang Clan aint nothin' to f*** With!" So I'm locked and loaded. I got my reading material to feed me deranged inspiration, and I'm pumping some mad jams to crank me up into a crazed, and dirty blood-lust. I'm almost ready.

I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions. They are almost always about superficial ways of being more attractive to the opposite sex. I have no time for dieting, or going to the gym. And I wouldn't go to the gym even if I had the time to waste. Life is too short for that, I can promise you. Nevertheless, I can't overcome the New Year's appeal of new beginnings and second chances. So if I confess to a New Year's resolution it is to have more fun. I intend to spend some quality time thinking a little less, and living a little more, Hanging with the right people, and making no excuses. And I'll try and drag the right people along with me, probably kicking and screaming. I will get some photos out of my head. I will see and do weird things that make no sense at all, and this time I will ask all the right questions.

It's 2011, but let's party like it's 2012 if you know what I mean. Let's cut this damn arm off already.