Maybe someday

I should probably post things here. Maybe someday…

Ike

I moved to Houston right after hurricane Ike hit. Literally. I arrived in Houston on Sunday evening; Ike hit Saturday morning at around 2AM. It’s been an eerie situation since I’ve been here. I’m writing this on my iPhone, so I won’t go into much detail now, but I will later.

I’m staying with friends right now because I can’t move into my apartment yet. Neither my apartment nor my friend’s house has power, and neither is likely until sometime next week. Most of the intersections I drive through daily don’t have power. I can see the moon and stars clearly over Houston. That should just notbe possible.

I’ll post more later. I can’t access the Internet except via my phone & work, so Twitter [twitter.com/atvance] or a phone call are probably thebest ways to get a hold of me.

Why I can’t shower

I’m in a dispute with my landlord and the gas company. Unbeknownst to me [and every other tenant of my apartment that I've been in contact with], we’re supposed to be paying for the hot water and the cooking gas. We have to pay for heat, but because there’s only one gas line coming into the building, the gas company bills my landlord and they split it up evenly amongst the 6 units in my building.

It was my understanding, and I based this on what the previous tenants told me when I moved in, that the cooking gas and hot water was taken care of by the landlord during the summer months because of the inequity of having all apartments pay equally for the gas heat in the winter. [My apartment is much smaller than other apartments and there's actually times during the winter that we have the heat off, but we pay the exact same amount for heat as the large and spacious apartment next door that cranks there heat up ungodly warm.]

The tenant previous to me lived there for almost four years and never saw a gas bill. His roommate had lived there for six-ish years before that, and never saw a gas bill. I’ve lived there for 15 months now, and never saw a gas bill.

Last Thursday, the gas company came and shut off my gas and removed the meter. I can’t cook; I can’t take a shower; I can’t wash dishes. My landlord tells me its my responsibility to pay it, which I can totally buy and would have no problem doing if I had been informed of it and if any of the tenants in the last four years had been informed of it.

On Friday, I called my landlord to get things sorted out. That’s when I discovered this tangled web of misinformation. By the time it was definitely concluded [on their part] that it was my responsibility and they gave me the gas company’s phone number, their customer service center had closed. This means I’ve had to walk 15 minutes every morning to work so I can take a shower. I’ve spent more than what my gas bill will likely be in the summer on restaurant food this weekend because I have no other choice.

This morning I called up the gas company to figure out how much they think I owe and when I can get my service restored. They have no record of my apartment and have no record of a shut-off occurring on Thursday anywhere near my building. Ball bounces back into my landlord’s court, because they assured me on Friday that al I’d have to do is call the gas company up and they’d have all the information right there and I’d be good to go.

Its now the end of the working day on Monday and I’m nowhere near getting the ability to shower in my own apartment back. I have to bring a copy of my lease to my landlord tomorrow morning because they have no record of it, so they can’t prove that I’ve lived there for only 15 months. Then they can go back to the gas company and hopefully make some headway.

Lesson learned from all of this: only rent apartments where all utilities are included.

I have a problem with Hillary

I have a problem with Hillary.

That’s sure to increase my SEO, but that’s not the point of the sentence. The point of the sentence is to say that I have a problem with Hilary Clinton. And her fanatical supporters.

I don’t blame Hillary for strife in the Democratic Party. I won’t blame Hillary if the Obama loses to McCain in the general election, or if there isn’t a Democratic majority in the House/Senate. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a problem with Hillary.

My problem with Hillary is that she took the primary process too far. Yes, she has every right to fight for every vote that she can possibly get. But it became obvious to just about everyone in the country that she could not win the required number of delegates to secure the nomination. And she didn’t bow out peacefully at that point. She waited until after all the primaries were over and then quickly threw in the proverbial towel. If nothing else, she and her handlers knew that Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Montana would not give her enough pledged delegates, nor would a victory in those states likely be enough to sway uncommitted super-delegates to lay their allegience at her feet.

When should she have dropped out? I don’t have a proper answer for that because this has been a most unique primary season. Just when everyone thought Hillary would be knocked out of the way by the Obama machine [New Hampshire, Texas, etc.], she managed to fight back and win key victories that kept her alive. She was a viable candidate for a long time. But there was a point, and I wish I could name it specifically, where she stopped being a viable candidate and started being that visiting family member that;s over stayed their welcome.

But what annoys me most are the Hillary Democrats who say they’re going to vote for McCain instead of Obama. That’s just being a sore loser. I know there were Obama Democrats who said they would do the same thing if Hillary got the nod, and i would use the same words to describe them. I will, though, blame Hillary Democrats who vote for McCain if Obama doesn’t win the general election; I do place some of the blame on them for the strife in the Democratic Party.

Its not that I can’t understand where they are coming from; I can. I can understand that their candidate didn’t get the nomination, I really can. Jesse Jackson wasn’t the Democratic candidate in 1988; neither was Jerry Brown in 1992. Both were candidates I supported and wanted to represent the Democratic ticket. Did I rally against Dukakis and Clinton simply because they captured more people’s hearts, votes, and delegates? Nope.¹

I can understand the frustration of giving their all [and their money] to a candidate that they believe in, and then not being able to follow that person through to the general election. I can feel the pain of all the Clinton-ites who cry foul at the flawed Democratic delegate system, and the screwed up nature of the Florida and Michigan primaries. But rules are rules, and its completely unfair to ask that the rules be bent for you and only you because if they’re bent then you’ll win. I tried that many times when I was a kid, and my dad explained to me in no uncertain terms that we all have to play on an level playing field and I shouldn’t be given preferential treatment because my brother was older. Or in this case, because her husband was President, she’s the first viable major party female candidate, and she was the presumptive nominee before the nomination process actually began and Americans in states throughout the land actually had to vote instead of answering pollsters questions.

I can agree wholeheartedly with those who say that it was the Republican controlled legislatures in Michigan and Florida who moved their primaries up to dates not allowed by DNC rules. It was Republican controlled legislatures that did that. But it was also state party leaders who didn’t agree to any proposed solutions, and it was Hillary Clinton who choose to campaign in those states violating DNC rules and agreements made between all the Democratic hopefuls. So I have little sympathy or compassion for Hillary when her campaign says that the results of Florida and Michigan should stand as they are. Obama didn’t campaign in either of those states and his name wasn’t even on the ballot in Florida. How can that be a fair election? He followed the DNC rules and the agreements he entered in to; she did not.

But by claiming to be a Democrat and actively campaigning against the Democratic nominee and for the Republican nominee simply because your candidate didn’t get the nomination… I just don’t have words for that. Its childish, its immature, and its not in the best interests of the country, the Democratic Party, or the American political landscape. If they rally believed in what Hillary laid out in her stump speeches, they’d work with the Obama campaign and the DNC to see if there can be some parity and compromise between the two campaigns. I don’t think the gut shot reaction should be to abandon their party’s candidate and side with their political opposite. I find it hard to believe that those particular Hillary Democrats have more idealistically in common with John McCain and the Republican platform than they do with Barack Obama.

Footnotes:
1. Well, that’s almost true. I didn’t support Clinton until after he was elected, but that was mainly because of Al Gore and his wife’s involvement with the PMRC and music censorship in the 1980s. It also shouldn’t matter that I was too young to vote in both 1988 and 1992.

Updated?

I really should be updating my blog at some reasonable schedule, instead of once every 6 or so weeks. What’s the ultimate point of a glimpse into my life if that glimpse is spaced so far apart?

That being said, its that time of year when not much is going on. I spent about a week in Wisconsin a few weeks ago. A professor of mine from undergrad was retiring, and there was a fantastic little party in his honor that I attended. I got to see many folks that I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was a nice little escape from reality for a few days.

Fire the Widget Makers?

New York Theatre Workshop has fired their entire production staff, effective 30 May, 2008. While cutting production staff is looks like an easy way to save on the annual budget, it speaks to larger issues if the way to solve a theatre company’s financial solubility is to fire the very people who make the theatre magic happen.

As one of my friends is fond of saying, in a theatre there are people who make the widgets and people who sell the widgets. People who market the widgets can sell them all day long, but unless there are people who actually make the widgets, they’re selling nothing.

This has been a battle that’s been fought at most theatres. The Production department is largely an expense oriented department; Production spends money but doesn’t really bring any in. Marketing, Artistic, and Development are the departments that bring in revenue. So when boards and whatnot are looking to save money, its easy to cut down on the section of the company that only spends money while bolstering up the departments that bring money into the organization.

The problem with this line of thinking is that there is that the product you are marketing [the theatrical production] is woefully underfunded and understaffed. While it is possible to produce shows without huge, Broadway-sized budgets is possible [I've been doing it all my adult life], producing shows does cost money. That money isn’t always spent on the sets and costumes that you see, but also on the labor to build, maintain, and run those sets and costumes, the labor to hang, focus, and program the lighting instruments, the various designers [sound, lights, scenic, costumes, etc.], and the stage management team to run and maintain the artistic integrity of the show throughout its run.

I find the decision by New York Theatre Workshop to eliminate their production staff to be a huge mistake and will prove to be a detriment to their productions. The article referenced above already states that the season will be reduced and the scale of productions diminished because they will be relying on job-ins and temporary labor to be their ad hoc production crew.

Much ado about nothing, really

I really need to write more here.  Perhaps I’ll get on that.

The most popular post I have on here is about the DMV.  How sad is that?

Most everything I write is classified as “Useless Information.” Another odd instance.

I haven’t posted on my Jaiku in almost a year. Something tells me I’m not going back.

Perhaps this whole post will be a series of links to my posts. How very, very vain of me.

A Night with Rollins

I have been a fan of Henry Rollins for a long time. I was first exposed to his music when my good friend Nate brought over his copy of “The End of Silence.” I was hooked. I can’t remember all that I was listening to at the time [it was 1993 after all], but it was miles different and more in-your-face than Pearl Jam, Nirvana, or Samiam ever was. [They're all good bands, and I don't mean to put them down. They just weren't Rollins.]

I was too young to remember the Black Flag days and that kind of punk wasn’t what I was in to whilst the high school years passed by, so the post-Flag, solo Rollins was the only one I knew. I didn’t even know he did spoken word tours until my brother came home with Sweat Box one day and I was hooked.

It was Jello Biafra who hooked me on spoken word albums. I was a huge Dead Kennedys fan growing up. Again, I was too young to enjoy them in their heyday, but I went at them with a vengeance once the awkwardness of adolescence began to wear off. I owned every DK album [some on tape, CD, and vinyl], and listened to them non-stop. There always was something about the music and the message that spoke to me, so when I was flipping through an Alternative Tentacles catalog and saw some of Jello’s spoken word albums, I knew I had to get them.

I can’t remember which I picked up first. I grew up in a rural area, and none of the record stores within 30 miles of my house even had Dead Kennedys for sale. I had to go up to Madison, the center of the alternative, liberal world in southeast Wisconsin, to acquire anything close to that. So, a friend and I would make the hour long drive up to Madison, find parking somewhere, and explore State Street and the surrounding area for hours and hours. There was a fantastic record store [who's name escapes me] that was kitty-corner to La Bamba’s ["Burritos as big as your head!"] that had all we sought. [There was also a wonderful t-shirt shop underneath La Bamba's that I spent way too much money at. I have no idea if all of these places are still where I think they are, as I haven't been to that part of Madison in over a decade.]

I would listen to Jello’s spoken word tapes in my car everywhere I would go. I used to be able to recite them word for word. He was an angry man, but he was justifiably angry. He had a message, he had a goal, and he was trying to convey that message and that goal to you in a calm, collected, but fact-filled way. And it spoke to me. It spoke to me in ways I didn’t know it could. And ever since then, I have always been a fan of the spoken word, not only as a means of conveying political or social thought, but also as an art form. Which brings me to my night with Henry Rollins.

I don’t mean to make it sound more impressive than it was. I merely went to one of his spoken word concerts in Providence a few weeks ago. But it was amazing! I have listened to Rollins, both his music and his spoken word, for over 15 years now, so there was a little bit of hype going on in my head. It was by mere chance that I even saw he was coming to town.

The night opened with Rollins taking the stage to thunderous applause from the audience. He launched right into his set, barely pausing to breathe. The Rhode Island Primary literally three days away, so he spent some time talking politics, but also veered into his role in the final Ruts concert, road stories, and a call to action. Its since been too long for me to recall all that he talked about, nor do I really intend this to be a review of the show.

I had no idea there were that many Henry Rollins in Providence. I should have guessed it based on the liberality of the state and the number of college students. But the theatre was crowded, standing room only. And it was a crowd that obviously knew his work: cheering, laughing, rapt attention. I’ve been to many concerts in my life, but one have had an audience like this.

Jeopardy mistaken?

I thought I had proved Jeopardy wrong. I know there have been answers/questions on the show that I know haven’t been fully accurate. My favorite was when they asked what river formed the western border of Iowa with Nebraska. [The answer they gave was the Missouri River, which does form the entirety of the two states border except for Carter Lake, an Iowa town on the west bank of the Missouri River. Therefore, all of Iowa is not east of the Missouri River, as the question/answer combo would seem to imply.]

So on tonight’s episode [25 February], the Final Jeopardy clue asked about a planet in Return of the Jedi and some biblical reference I have since forgotten. I scoured my brain trying to come up with planets mentioned in Jedi, and all I could come up with was Tatooine and Dagobah. My roommate said it was Endor, but I corrected him saying that it was the “forest moon Endor” and that the planet was never named. Alex revealed the correct question as “What is Endor?” and I was flabbergasted.

After looking through wikipedia and wookiepedia, I have to come to discover that it is inideed the forest moon of Endor, thus implying that the planet was named Endor and the moon where the Ewoks cavort was a moon of that planet and not named “Endor” specifically and to the exclusion of the planet it orbits [or orbited, depending on if you believe wikipeida or wookiepeida].

So I stand corrected. You’ve won this round, Mr. Trebek!

I am Legend

I needed to give I am Legend another chance. I had traveled to the local cinema to view the movie soon after its release. I had seen the trailers and the TV spots and it looked like a movie that would appeal to me. There’s just something about seeing urban decay [i.e. seeing what happens to modern cities after they've been abandoned for a while] and the “last man on Earth” scenario played out on the big screen that speaks to me. I hadn’t read the book before seeing the movie, a point I’m sure I will discuss later on.

The first time I saw I am Legend, I wasn’t too impressed with the movie. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. I really liked the first half of the movie, which basically depicts Robert Neville’s daily routines within New York City and how he survives day in and day out without the benefit of human contact whilst struggling to stay alive throughout the night. Again, it plays nicely into the urban decay and last man alive themes that appeal to me. I liked how Neville named mannequins and interacted with them because it not only shows how he’s trying to maintain his humanity but it also shows how one’s sanity can be strained by complete isolation. This really comes to a head when he finds “Fred” standing in front of Grand Central Station in what proves to be a dark seeker trap for him, one that is oddly reminiscent of Neville’s earlier trap for them.

The second half of the movie though [where we shift focus from Neville alone to the Anna-Ethan-Neville triangle] was the part that disappointed me. Gone were the survival dramas, the one man surviving alone mentality, to be replaced with the question of how do we maintain our humanity and our sense of society when there is no society around. Perhaps Neville’s reactions to Anna and Ethan were over the top and harsh, but how would you react if you were literally alone for three years and then suddenly confronted with human contact again, especially when that human contact is oddly reminiscent of the family you [presumably] watched die as they fled the city.

The second half seemed more contrived and more at odds with itself as a movie than the first half. I don’t know if I can place my fingers on the exact reasons why, but the first half seemed more cohesive and told a fascinating story, while the second half seemed only there to prove the versatility of mankind and the persistence of good over evil; mankind is good at heart, and that good will always prevail over the forces of darkness.

I think here is where I think the book does a better job. The book ends on a dark note: Neville is killed because he is a human, tricked by a mutating form of the vampirism that he fought for so long. He is tricked into giving information to an informant through the need for human contact, and then accepts his fate as it is given to him. While the book does give that hint of the persistence of mankind’s spirit, it does not pull deus ex machina at the end, and we are shown the [again, presumed] extinction of mankind and the emergence of its successor. One is left wondering at the fragility of man and our society, and if that is how mankind will react and collapse when presented with world-altering circumstances. You are left mourning for Neville not because he did the typical Hollywood good guy thing and sacrificed himself for the greater good [and the chance to save mankind], but because he fought the valiant fight, sought the ways to cure his fellow men from the disease that afflicted them but ultimately failed at the hands of those he was trying to aid. We mourn him not because he was a hero but because he was a martyr. The book’s ending is much more powerful in that it doesn’t exaggerate Neville’s deeds into that of sainthood, but shows that mankind is fallible and cannot solve all the world’s problems, even the ones he himself creates.

Neville in the book is more of an everyman, a simple factory worker who is propelled into mankind’s last hope quite accidentally. He teaches himself the knowledge needed to discover what happened to mankind, but it is at a drastic price to himself. Whereas in the movie, Neville is a military scientist and at the forefront of discovering a cure [even to the extent of having a fully functional and secure lab in his basement], the book Neville watches his wife and daughter succumb to the vampirism and return from the dead. We know is a simple man thrust to the forefront without the requisite skills and knowledge, and we can relate to him better because of this.

In the intervening time after I first saw the movie, I had some time to think and the movie seemed to grow on me. And then I saw Cloverfield, and in thinking about what I didn’t like in that movie [really bad dialogue, unbelievable action, unsympathetic protagonists, too much monster, not enough of what it did to NYC] it got me thinking about I am Legend and what worked well for it: great abandoned NYC vistas, great character development, believable action, a canine character that I cared about more than anyone in Cloverfield, just the right amount of monster to tease you at first but not enough to blow its was right away, and a shaky cam that is right for the scene and works well/steady cam when its right for the scene. After all, a movie that holds you interest for its duration when the first three-quarters are occupied by one single actor has got to be good.