Quick look at documentary: "That Guy Who Was In That Thing"

The easiest documentary to make is one involving interesting people telling interesting stories.

(I'm guessing I'm right. It's not like spending a year following antarctic penguins around has "piece of cake" written all over it.)

The easy ones, though, can also lead to a good time. Hence, "That Guy Who Was In That Thing" -- essentially 10 dudes who play the role of non-starring "guest star"or supporting supporting character, talking about their careers.

Most of what they talk about is not surprising. The money stinks, the job market's a bit tight, and all of them, even the ugly ones, dream about making it big.

You've already figured that out. But it's in the details -- one guy gave up a Rhodes scholarship, another couldn't afford a car 10 years into his career, everyone eventually plays on Star Trek -- that an entertaining and human story emerges. These characters are all sympathetic, these are the little people trying to make their way in a harsh environment, and there's no dishing on the bigger stars, which would have cheapened the whole thing.

"That guy" is true to the name. There are no actress counterparts in this film. I would have liked to get their take, but I saw the reason why -- actresses have a whole different set of challenges that could have turned things very dark very fast. You can't have one actress tell the story about being harassed by five bosses in one day, and then switch back to the guy complaining about how he had a sneezing fit and blew off his prosthetic Klingon forehead in the middle of a shot. Too jarring.

Available streaming on Netflix.

Reveling in computer-generated love

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Is it pathetic that I read most of them? Is it worse that it made me feel all flattered?

Yes, yes it is.

Random thought

Otherwise, those people might move here.

You can dance or else

Interesting week. I took a group of soldiers to an elementary school in a sponsorship type deal. We were helping with the school's sporting event day, which was as fun as it sounds, especially in comparison to the average workday.

What struck me most about the kids today: The synchronized dancing. At certain points certain songs would play over the loudspeakers, and EVERYONE would stop what they were doing and start dancing synchronously -- including the boys. It struck me as weird. I think the prevailing personality youth culture follows is now "DJ."

I thought about my boy getting into this in a mere matter of months.

Shuddered.

Mobile shot

Testing. First post from phone.

And otherwise sitting up. Made the mistake of drinking coffee late after three days of abstinence. I'm wondering if the idea I have for a sci-fi story is decent or if it's just the vibes from the caffeine buzz.

I'm glad I missed the bandwagon on ...

Zombies. 
First off, it's too implausible. A really malignant disease or toxin wouldn't waste it's time coming up with the ridiculous amounts of energy required to animate dead flesh. If it had that kind of potential, it would just make live people dead, not the other way around. And what's the point of a disease that brings the dead back to life, just so they can then make more people dead? What do they do when they finish? Just stumble around bumping into each other and groaning non-effectively until they crumble into dust or blow up a gas station? Secondly, I realize that zombies are really about a story element, and the creepy effect of seeing dead people slithering around hits a lot of people on the subconscious fun button, but does nothing for me. It's just an emotional blank screen, sorry.

Any of several thousand apps now available on Facebook.
And they all want to post junk using my name. Really. Who the hell would accept that agreement in first place? I mean, besides 75 of my "friends" who really need to start re-thinking boundaries.

Pinterest.
See above, only I don't know what it means. It seems kind of craftish or something.

Mad Men. 
After one season, the only point I could see being made was that we are so much more awesome than those people from the past, dude. I never went back for season 2.


Food snobbery in general, coffee snobbery in particular.
A man on NPR the other day was introduced as the guy who "Writes about coffee for the New York Times."


The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
I realize it exists and is probably really evil, but I have a hard time believing more people didn't laugh when they heard the phrase "Scandinavian mafia."

The Hunger Games
I realize it exists and is probably really evil, but teenagers dying for the entertainment value sounds like a serious version of "Heathers" -- and I thought "Heathers" blew.

RIP to my nephew

Bad news in our family today.

One of my nephews died early yesterday morning in an accident, apparently after going to sleep at the wheel. The feeling for me is shock, gradually turning into a more predominant depression.

Tom -- a relative I only saw at the big family events -- was a good kid, an academic type of whom I recall being jealous because he basically started college as a junior. I think I last heard he was headed to law school and, I thought, yeah, no problem for him. He always put on a cheerful face. Always. I think I recall some moment of surliness when he was a teen. And that was it.

He was driving to the farm in Hico the night of his accident to meet up with his parents, they probably had some project in mind to clean up or improve something out there, like they always do. Hard. Impossible to know what they are going through now.

New Year Blewjowski, Part II: Sports

I figure I'll be done with these postings around 2014.

This post started out as a rant in my head, about a month ago, but I've stepped away from the toxins and have felt positive since.

I am no longer a fan of sports. Any sport. You can't make me care enough to invest the kind of passion and dedication necessary to be a fan of a watching half-naked men running around doing anything.

I lost my fanity by going to various Texas Tech fan sites during the football season, and was eventually overwhelmed by the combination of negativity, ignorance and gloating pessimism. I told myself to stay away from the comments, but somehow couldn't. "Surely, there will be a voice of reason and perspective. Someone will say that there are generally good people working here with good intentions."

And I'd read a 2,000-word rant saying that Tommy Tubberville is the devil and Kent Hance is Saddam Hussein and they all need to die. And he'd laugh at the funeral and make a pass at the widows.

Sucked the good right out of the season. The games sucked. The fans sucked. The future seemed to suck.*

And I had my epiphany: The hype machine is destroying sports, putting it on the same level of religion. Yes, religion -- have you seen some of the NFL promotions lately? The slow motion, fuzzy shots of people overreacting to a play. Treating people who dress up like fools as anything other than fools. From the promotions, it's hard to tell if Madden Football is a video game or a really special youth outreach project.

And then the self-seriousness of so many fans, preaching the gospel of why I really, really should hate Oregon.

My advice to self: Don't confuse the fun and fascinating with the morally vital. It's a game. It's always a game.

I have since tuned out the fan sites. I read about Tech in the newspaper, follow a bit of ESPN, which is a lot of fun to monitor since I stopped calling them the evil empire. And I can say without much doubt I get a lot more enjoyment out of my teams than most of you.

*Which makes me wonder why the entire state of Oklahoma hasn't lobotomized itself.

Angry end of year blejowski, part I

In note/screed form...

And where to begin. I watched an episode of Grimm a couple of hours ago, and while noting the quality of acting, special effects and the writing (all bad), I couldn't help but be intrigued enough to come back to the show, at least one it pops up on another format that allows me to watch it whenever I damn well please.

And I had to wonder why I'd want to watch it again. This led to the following conversation with my wife:

Me: In all of Sam's books and videos, do any of them have a story that you actually like?

Wife: (Sighs) If you want to start reading him The Hobbit, I'm fine with that.

Me: What about the old nursery rhymes? I grew up on those and it seems like we haven't even read anything.

Wife: We have a book, we just haven't read it to him once he learned to talk. 

It just struck me. Sam's books are all about life lessons and perfectly nice kids and quirkily drawn animals overcoming obstacles in perfectly teachable and politically correct ways. The few TV shows that he watches contain earnest characters all learning to cooperate or help the earth or animals and will eventually break out into a dismal hip-hop number. Where are the stories? I remember the tales and stories I heard growing up, not the million-and-one self-esteem lessons that didn't even feel like they were intended for me.

Narrative is crucial. No wonder the boy seems bored and keeps asking to read his non-fiction book on big cats. No wonder I'm bored with most of the "stories" that show up on TV. My reaction to most movies is, "They seriously expected someone to pony up $8 to see this?" I've come to expect today's entertainment to be 98 percent junk and I'm reasonably happy when the junk is well enough made that falls into the category of "pleasantly diverting."

Stuck in the middle

It's obvious that Facebook has taken over the vast majority of things I write for public consumption, and yet I don't write that much there because, in Facebook, your friends are a captive audience.

I should therefore write more freely here but don't really feel the urge as used to. Meh.

Start

One of the worst feelings on earth: Night before starting new job.

Even worse: Night before taking your first command and knowing that you are way left and way down on the bell curve for experience and job knowledge. Yep, this pony's going to be hard to saddle up.

Quick reviews

To be a commercial, let me say I love Netflix -- they offer a ridiculous variety of movies, the suggestion ap is relatively useful, and the instant streaming provides plenty of decent movies and all the "Bob the Builder" the boy will ever need.

Some thoughts on the latest things I've watched:

"When In Rome"

Perhaps the lamest rom-com of all time. Incredibly bad. The acting is either too overwrought or too "give-me-my-paycheck-now." It's not a story, it's a list of cliches tapped out by a 13-year-old girl who just had a double-shot of espresso spiked with Ritalin. The plot is driven by a magic fountain that seems more pulled from the posterior than the midi-chlorians* in Star Wars.

And yet: The wife and I essentially turned against this movie about a third of the way through, and ended up cracking jokes and having a good time to the end, when you see a miscast Will Arnett unable to act like he's having a good time during the dance number.

This is the "Plan 9 From Outer Space" of rom-coms. A middling movie would have been more difficult to watch. I'm probably going to check out "Rome" again just to see what else there is to ridicule.


"Beer Wars"

A documentary that doesn't do justice to a fascinating subject. For some reason the woman who created the film thinks we should really be interested in her life. (I'm not.) It also doesn't help her point of view -- which she shoves down our throats the entire movie -- that she's allergic to beer. So she's railing against the major brewers out there (mainly Anheuser-Busch) and their "tasteless" beers, when she hasn't even tasted it or the micro-brews she's championing.

But, as I said, it's a fascinating subject, and there's enough info to keep you watching. It's just that the tone of the film is so strident and banal that it becomes annoying. This film would like to be an op-ed, but it feels more like a letter to the editor from the crazy old lady. (Those of you who work(ed) in newspapers can probably understand that reference better.)

I might write more on this later, as it started a couple of arguments in my head.


"Tenure"

A quaint movie with Owen Wilson and that guy who was on Saturday Night Live for half a season, way back when. It also has Gretchen Mol, who I find attractive simply because of her name. Owen plays a tenure-seeking college professor with a wrecked personal life. It's a simple, non-challenging story that feels like someone's first attempt at movie-making. Still, it's great for a slow, fall afternoon; when you don't mind the easy pace and gentle humor. Also good if you like Owen Wilson. Or quirky stories about English professors. Or Gretchen Mol for having such a hot name.


* Yes, it is spell-checked. You're welcome.

After seeing the Facebook movie "The Social Network"

Aaron Sorkin presents a dilemma: He gives you dialogue that is rhythmic, smart and an overall joy to put in your head. However, the realist side of my brain keeps reminding me that no one is ever that clever all the time, and few people hit snide asides or perfect take downs with that kind of regularity.

I.E., the dissolution of a relationship is an emotional bloodletting. People doing the breaking up generally give the bad news with words along the lines of, "We're breaking up. And in a mistaken attempt to soften the blow, I'm now going to say a bunch of mealy-mouth stuff that can be misunderstood by willing ears and will actually make this miserable process last even longer."

For the person taking the bad news, the response usually involves incoherent rambling and ineffectual insults about her taste in furniture.

(Perhaps this doesn't follow your experiences, but I'm hoping the personal reference points provide enough of a universal outlook. And that was a hideous end table.)

What I'm saying is that, during a break up, the emotions are detonating in our heads, and maintaining physical control is tough enough, never mind the talky-talk noises.

So, while it was awesome to hear the line:

"You go through life thinking girls don't like you because you're a nerd, but that's not true. Girls don't like you because you're an asshole."

My first thought was: She just made that up on the spot? Really? Did she maybe have that come to her in the shower and then write it down? Wouldn't she need to pause and pull out a note card?

Thanks Aaron, but I get the idea the actual conversation was more like: "Hey, I don't like you and maybe we should break up but you have a lot of good things about you and stuff and maybe we can be really special friends."

Mark Zuckerberg: "But we are good times! I hate your ottoman!"

As to Facebook

• I go there all the time, but I don't participate much. I don't want to. My friends list includes about 100 people from my high school years that I never knew that well in the first place. It feels voyeuristic to follow the personal lives of relative strangers, and more than a bit awkward to share my experiences with people who never invited me to parties.
• I hate it when I make a comment and am met by a wall of nothing. All those people out there, and I can't get one damn response on my addition to the discussion about how the Cowboys suck? Did I make someone angry? How is it that the girl who wrote "I hate Mondais. ROFLMAO!" started a 30-response conversation?
• I also just realized something about the friends list: When you join Facebook, that thing explodes with requests from people all over the planet. You feel like a social behemoth. And then that growth slows down, and then you notice that you've been holding at 169 for eight months. Or was that 171 last week? Who did I hack off now?

The fun just kind of peters out after that.

Reaction to the movie:
Awesome. See it.

Thinking of Manny and Matt

I needed to get this out of my head before getting on with getting News From Hico back into some kind of working shape.

Within the first three weeks of arriving at Fort Gordon, I got the news that one of the Officer Candidates in my class -- Manny -- had killed himself. I didn't have any clear memory of the guy. He was recycled (Army term for failing out and classing up later), early in my class term, and was later kicked out of the officer candidate program altogether. My reaction was to say "That's terrible" and feel a distant feeling of sadness.

A lot of people come into the military at the end of an emotional rope, and that's not where you want to be mentally when you also have to go through the stress of training. The news about Manny didn't hit me that hard -- and I apologize if that comes through as harsh. A lot of other people remember him as a fun, enthusiastic guy they enjoyed spending time with.

Still, a person I barely remembered killed himself after going through an extremely tough failure.

Matt is easy to remember. Me and Matt went through basic training together at Fort Sill and were in the same class at Officer Candidate School.

We talked often. Matt was extremely likable, though we never became friends. He was a brilliant guy -- philosophy major. He had a look of an intense, proactive and kind intellectualism (if that makes any sense).

Mainly he was the type of guy who could talk over your head, outrun you in a race, and then beat the crap out of you after you finished, not that he would do anything like that. He flew through Officer Candidate School without breaking a sweat -- winning over the rough prior service guys without compromising the intellectualism and kindness that always showed through his personality. (Basically, everyone respected him, despite the fact that most anyone else acting that way would be labeled a geek.)

Three weeks ago, I got the news that Matt had killed himself. It wasn't like hearing about Manny.

Looking back, I guess the evidence of Matt's struggle was there. I can remember a couple of times when he seemed depressed. I didn't think much about it. In OCS, everyone's depressed, and he seemed to bounce back.

When I heard the news, it was the first time I had ever thought, "I wish I could have talked him down, it would have been so easy. His mind. His health. His freaking popularity." There were some rumors of some personal problems Matt had, but none of it added up to much, I guess, to most people's points of view.

I have a Catholic view of suicide -- your life ultimately belongs to God and, therefore, the community of people around you. In other words, your troubles do not give you the right to kill your parents' kid. I'm stuck with a feeling of disappointment in both of these guys.

But mainly I'm stuck with the same feeling everyone has after something like this. It doesn't make sense. It never will. I hope their families and friends will cope as best they can, and remember them for the good people they were.

Die movie. Die.

So Eat, Pray, Love is about a woman who dumps her husband -- and later her boyfriend -- because she has to take a monumentally expensive trip around the world in order to find herself. Really?

What do you call a man who quits his marriage simply because he's not feelin' it anymore?

A bum.

A scaliwag.

A scoundrel!


Yet a well-off woman can jump ship from a good marriage and get a free pass -- and sometimes even a societal celebration. Maybe a couple of decades ago the story rang true for average-income females stuck in negative relationships with no real options. I get that.

But when your options are either stay in a marriage with people who adore you or take a round-the-world, guru-schmoozing, I-must-find-my-inner-awesome trip... Well, you ma'am are a scoundrel!

A scaliwag.

A bum.

And a more-than-likely tedious presence at parties.

Die movie. Die.

I’m beginning to fear that someday I’ll end up reading ‘Catcher in the Rye’

A stack of the book sits on a table at Barnes and Noble, under an optimistic sign that labels Catcher and some other novels and nonfiction as “Your Summer Reading Projects.”

I don’t want too. I’ve barely read enough westerns to claim any significant knowledge of the genre outside of Elmer Kelton and that ass-clown genius Larry McMurtry. There’s got to be some more decent, likable fantasy out there, my list of must-read military books keeps growing, and I’ve been wanting to bone up on my knowledge of Native American mythology.

And everybody says Catcher is a horrible book. I’ve heard and seen about a thousand references to how it’s a horrible book. But that’s just it -- EVERYBODY says Catcher is a horrible book. Reading and dismissing it is like some intellectual cool guy patch. You get to be one of those people making sharp comments on TV and in the movies -- disdaining a masterpiece no one has called a masterpiece since boater hats were in.

Despite all the references I still remain unclear on the plot details – something about a snarky adolescent who does nothing yet becomes slightly less of a bastard. I don’t get why anybody would read it, when the primary adjectives about it are “boring”, “pretentious” and “indulgent.” Are other people able to read a book like their personal MST3K episode, throwing in enough jokes and insults to make the whole thing bearable?

I don’t get it.

I know it’s there at Barnes and Noble.

Waiting.

Anyway.

I declare this blog re-opened.

Break

Hotels and 2-year-olds don't mix. At least not after two hours. We've had a week. And have one more to go.

***

I noticed my friend criteria on Facebook has evolved. I'm no longer asking dudes who I kinda sorta knew back in high school. I'm never ask females unless we're related. And I avoid ex-girlfriends' pages altogether. I still say yes to the people who ask me, and I should probably start adding my military buddies. But I'm really not interested in communicating with more than 165 people at any one time. At least not without a bullhorn.

***

At one point, I was only worried about successfully navigating my way to officer. Now that I'm here, I have enough spare time to worry about when I'm going to find the time to succeed at what I'm doing next.

Waiting. Thursday. Not. Cometh. Yet.

From a phone conversation between people about 1,000 miles or so away from each other.

Wife (Sounding hurt): So who is going to pin you?

Me (Confused): Pin me? (Pause.) Pin me?

Wife (Sounding frustrated): Yes. People get pinned at graduation. (Hinting sound.) Usually by their wives.

Me (Confused): Pin me with what?

Wife (More frustrated): Your rank.

Me (Confused): But my rank is already stitched on the uniform. I don't know where you would pin something else.

Wife (Extremely frustrated): So I can pin you?

Me (Triumphant. And confused): Yes you can!

Into ye trash to burn, ye spammers

It's kind of depressing when the main purpose of me coming here nowadays is to delete spam comments from the posts that keep popping up randomly on people's searches. Lame.

Anyway. I'm still alive. Will be back with more eventually.

Hi Mom.

Cadence

(Wasn't there a book or a movie or something else named "Cadence"? Hmmmm ... I mean something that wasn't already a cadence.)

(A cadence is a song or rhythm called out to keep marching people in step, I.E. "Left, right, left right," in it's simplest form, or "Old King Cole was a merry old soul and a merry old soul was he, uh-huh," in one of the more complicated iterations.)

(Anyway, this post is an update, and basically has nothing to do with cadences.)

Orders is orders, and so I finished basic training and was immediately sent to Officers Candidate School without so much as a stopover with the family. I've spent the week getting some hard workouts in and preparing myself for the physical training test on Monday, which is the first significant hurdle to getting into the school. Thankfully, the scores are adjusted for age, but I'd rather take a month to work out and get ready.

OCS is a different kind of place in the military. Or at least a different atmosphere from basic training -- where you get so used to people treating you like dirt it becomes an expectation. And then we show up here and suddenly we can do things like go to places by ourselves or go to chow when we want to, etc. It's a little unsettling.

Training starts Monday. It's funny, everyone knows that it'll involve working out, academic work, field training -- but no one has any idea what privileges we'll have (cell phone, internet, free pushups, etc.) and that's what people are talking about.

The other day, we were marching to a formation, and the person calling cadence brought up a number from basic:

"Here we go again.
Same old stuff again.
Marching down the avenue.
Twelve more weeks and we'll be through."

A guy I went to basic training with was behind me, muttering "No. God, no." We're all kind of there. Everyone is actually enthusiastic about the training and what it'll do for us, everyone misses the people they can't be with.