Thursday, July 30, 2009 :::
When you imagine what a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert might be like, with its down-home charm and its even down-homelier fans, you might be tempted to fill your mental picture with a barnful of vicious, judgmental stereotypes. That's simply wrong, and I'm here to tell you that-- Well, that your assumptions are absolutely correct, all of them, and you can bet your commemorative Robert E. Lee plates on this.
From the word go, things just fell into place. We're talking two Confederate flags in the parking lot alone, flapping proudly under the afternoon sun, and this was before I even stepped off the car. The vehicle in question was a shiny new Dodge Ram, which Deadpan had generously offered to ferry the crew deep into red county, and seconds after disembarking, a fellow with a thick drawl wandered over, marveling at the make and model. Truly, the truck was like a hick lodestone.
You may wonder about proper attire at such an event, and the answer is yes. In instances where shirts were actually worn, they took the form of fan apparel, Confederate flags, and even a recreation of the General Lee, complete with Confederate flag head wrap. And there was a comforting consistency to it all because the concert itself applied a similar aesthetic to its graphical wizardry. Lynyrd Skynyrd had managed to yoke the Adobe software suite to a hypnotic stream of antebellum flags, spinning guns, and even a blackface cartoon clip, in what I presume was a deep, nuanced meditation on race relations in the entertainment industry. At this point the Professor reminded me to be thankful that Vietnam was over, since I was likely the only Asian dude in a three-mile radius. Then, fade to "Freebird."
Jesus! Or "Rock N Roll Jesus," specifically, because Kid Rock then took the stage and all was set right. He's a consummate showman, first and foremost, and whereas Skynyrd proffered a genuine strain of redneck, the brand of redneck Kid Rock sold was the calculated kind. His band actually had black people in it, a veritable concession given the audience, yet he also performed a song list that resonated with the diehard Skyn Heads--is that inappropriate?--and when the first strains of "Cowboy" swept through the amphitheater, the crowd lost its mind. There was an authenticity to the moment. I could see the appeal. I'm glad I went. I'm also glad I didn't die there.
Posted by Ben at 11:59 PM
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 :::
A far more riveting headline--God, Guns, and the Time-Space Continuum--awaits us in Thursday's post, but tonight will be a lot mellower, since at this hour I'm basically being powered by some rum-heavy mojito. This month was packed and, with one particularly hectic chapter concluding earlier this evening, it's mostly behind me now. And as I drove back home, midnight right around the corner, prodigious drops of rain pounding the windshield, it clearly felt like the slate was being cleaned: new day minutes away and the horizon before me thoroughly washed, like a primordial reset.
But then I realized that nothing's truly ended per se. It's not like I can nap for the rest of the quarter. Tomorrow will probably be just as busy, albeit a different kind of busyness, and this realization was comforting because it means I didn't plan that far in advance. Certainly I appreciate plans. Really I gravitate toward the short-term variety, though, and seldom do I think more than a few weeks out. This is how people normally function, right? You won't find any five-year plans here. In fact, my five-year plan is to never have a five-year plan.
Three days left in the month. I'm tired, yet I'm also renewed. It feels like the capacity to get stuff done has increased, and that's got to count for something. What's going to happen in August? Who knows? But here I am--one dash and a dot away from the next step.
Posted by Ben at 11:53 PM
Thursday, July 23, 2009 :::
I suppose it's uncouth to think about one blog while you're updating another, but that is precisely what I'm doing now, bad manners all dialed up to 11, for a very good reason. I'm not thinking about FlickFool, mind you, our 50-word movie review site I updated approximately 50 times before disappearing completely. It's a dismal state of affairs in that part of town, really. I renewed the domain name a few weeks ago, which apparently doesn't forward correctly anymore, and truth be told it felt a little bit like online alimony. Terrible, I know.
Nor am I thinking about any spiritual successors to the site you're browsing right this moment. A Firsthandrants.com could be possible, I guess, but the more premium quality rants would probably sound to you like a solid string of filthy swear words, you Philistine. No, I'm thinking about the company blog, where I'll be contributing about once a week in short order, and it's a venue that is basically the polar opposite of all you see before you.
For one thing, I continue to be mortified whenever Secondhand Rants wends its way into real-world conversation. Obviously it's public. At the same time, though, it's not intended to attract attention, since I'm writing here primarily for myself. I'd feel dumber if I didn't. It's, like, by all means you can read it. I simply don't want to know you read it. A company blog, on the other hand, thrives on attention. It's why it's there, after all. No profanity will be allowed, I've confirmed, much to my dismay. I imagine excessive italics won't be tolerated either.
The appeal here lies in the potential for growth. A professor once offered the following diagnosis of my writing: postmodern, sometimes charming, grammar is mostly there, but I need to learn to be relevant. Relevancy. Relating. To write for other people. This is the puzzle I'm trying to crack. For my first post, perhaps I'll tell a few jokes, talk about what I ate for lunch, and then offer incisive commentary on the local weather, all under my new pseudonym: the Loan Ranger. Yes.
Posted by Ben at 11:57 PM
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 :::
Much like the downpour blanketing the neighborhood right now, this month--with 11 packed days to go--feels like the proverbial fire hose from which I may very literally be drinking. When I look back at our last two posts, the underlying tone seems to be hopeful, and I don't think I'm in quite the same place tonight. You could say last Tuesday and Thursday were the story I'd like to tell: how, beset on all sides by responsibility, I ultimately prevailed, borne by sheer dint of will and the strength of my convictions. The real ending may be markedly different, though. We'll see.
Kid Rock and Lynyrd Skynrd will both be in town this weekend, and despite my best efforts to avoid this concert, it appears I'll be going. For most of the attendees, I imagine such events are chances to unwind, opportunities to get roaring drunk against a live soundtrack. But for me, I'm going out of morbid curiosity and, more importantly, because it will be free. This time, however, I won't be nearly as prepared. This might be a good thing. One positive by-product of being busy, I've realized, is the propensity to just do things, rather than overthink them.
This will be a shot at normalcy, in other words, at least for a Sunday. Certainly I won't be completely ignorant. I recall seeing Kid Rock on TRL in high school, for example, and witnessing his debilitating inability to wear a shirt, which I believe he's overcome in recent years by donning the American flag in varying configurations. And Lynyrd Skynyrd? I've played "Freebird" on Guitar Hero. So, y'know. I also suspect you won't find their known works on NPR. And clearly they're unaware that real vowels exist.
Other than that, I'm going with a clean slate, ready to let the experience shape me as it will. I see two immediate possibilities on Sunday night: either I will emerge a more learned person, or I will be dead, facedown in a pool of PBR, vomit, and cigarette butts, shot by an authentic Confederate-era revolver because I hailed another concertgoer's wife as a "sir."
Posted by Ben at 10:49 PM
Thursday, July 16, 2009 :::
Tonight, just a few hours ago, I sat dazed in my cubicle, eyes rapidly glazing over, with two instances of PowerPoint splayed across my desktop. My day job had long ended and now, in the corporate witching hour, the cogs of industry began to turn once more for responsibilities outside the office. Before me was a deck I should've banged out last month, but here I was, caught in my own horrific version of happy hour, wondering whether I had bitten off more than I could chew. Normally I spend my time in Excel, province of endless numbers and trippy formulae, so I was ill-equipped to take advantage of more creative software. I was at a loss. I may as well have been trying to write a poem in Sanskrit, understand.
Specifically there was a fancy slide before me, lined with graphical flourishes forged by who knows what unchristian means, and I wanted to use it. Only problem was the original artist had embedded a logo entirely useless to me in one of the corner swirls. But I continued, undeterred in my quest to "borrow" this slick-shit border, by popping open MS Paint, dropping the correct logo on top of the existing one, zooming 8x, and painstakingly freehanding around it, pixel by pixel, like a master forger.
Ten minutes into the process, I started feeling energized. Resourceful. Also, hungry. Emboldened by the progress in this brave new world of presentation production, I started pacing around the office, fully believing my run of luck would feed me as well. And in a way it did, for lo! There in the breakroom sat a multigrain bagel, complete with a depleted tub of lukewarm cream cheese. I don't think it belonged to anybody. Having secured an entree, I proceeded to rustle some peanuts, along with a stray can of root beer, and then dinner, finally, was served.
Whereas I had been a pauper but a few minutes ago, poor in spirit and light on snacks, now I dined as kings are wont to do. Then, having sufficiently malnourished myself, I returned to my dark work. The final product was spectacular, virtually indistinguishable from the original, and upon getting a second wind I dove into the deck itself to add some actual text to those fancy borders. One slide, then another, followed by yet a few more, and I was done, my magnum opus completed. Thanks, liberal arts education. You taught me so much.
Posted by Ben at 11:37 PM
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 :::
I remember thinking on the Fourth of July how brutally busy this month would be, and as one neighborhood firework exploded after the next--drumbeats heralding inevitability, in a way--a sinking feeling grew, slick and unsettling, until I wanted nothing more than the Gregorian calendar to give me a pass and skip straight to August. But the only way this wish will come true, apparently, is if I do it the old-fashioned way and grind it out for another 17 days.
It's easy enough to parcel out your routine: health, social life, family, work, and so forth. I tend to like having one of these areas on the fritz at any given time. The friction keeps you sharp, I believe, and besides, it's unrealistic to expect everything to happen smoothly all the time. Now, when two or more of these pieces explode, so goes the theory, the stress begins to gather. Settle. Coagulate.
It feels like I'm neck-deep in the storm right now. I hesitate to use the word "burnout" because it strikes me as weak, a conceit tinged with self-pity and an overwhelming lack of motion. There's this sense of wallowing. Waiting. And I'm well past it. Instead, I'm turning to this framework of skill acquisition again--namely, what can I gain from this situation? Is there knowledge about how to do something, ready for the taking?
Absolutely. Here's what I'm currently learning: how to approach an endless swirl of tasks and commodify the fucker. It's this idea of nailing down a mass of half-finished things, regarding it coldly, impersonally, and then breaking it into palatable pieces. Units of Done, as it were. 17 days. A mere half-dozen posts from now, and I'll be on the other side.
Posted by Ben at 11:53 PM
Thursday, July 09, 2009 :::
There was a moment during the AT&T National when Tiger spat in disgust at a shot gone wrong, and as the expectoration sailed through the air a connection was made. There was a kinship. Sure, he's worth a little more than I am and has a better swing than I do, and he likely had a diehard fan or two who tried to collect said loogie to sell on eBay or possibly keep, but in that instant our frustration with the sport was one and the same.
If you're new to golf, one refrain you'll probably hear is to keep your head down. I've certainly been told this enough times to make me wonder whether I'm actually in, like, a war zone or, even worse, a prayer meeting or something. I realized last week that perhaps it isn't just a matter of bowing your head and going all monk, so much as a reminder to focus on the ball until it takes flight. And when I combined this with a quicker backswing, the game once again made sense to me, its secret frequencies reverberating with an easy logic.
Now, more than ever, I see the business upside to golf, the boon to corporate life. The green itself is basically another forum on which non-golf matters are conducted. Cost of admission? The ability to wield these vile pieces of metal comfortably in a broader context. There's still a long way to go for me. But it's a skill I must obtain.
Recently I considered the career benefits of getting some more edumucation, until I came to my senses and recalled my disenchantment with the ivory tower. I think it was yet another e-mail solicitation for alumni donations that did it. Honestly now, does any other product or service on earth regularly ask you to pay more for it, even after you've paid in full? Truly, these schools are cunning contraptions. I sat down and did the math, weighing the preposterous calculus before me: would I rather pay $100k-$150k in tuition or green fees? For once, the outdoors got my vote.
Posted by Ben at 11:58 PM
Tuesday, July 07, 2009 :::
Two years ago, on a summer evening not unlike this one, I held forth on Asian culture vis-à-vis sanitation vis-à-vis free-market dynamics, all in three paragraphs. Your hair was fairly blown back, I believe, and tonight we're returning to the scene of the crime. Think of this as our own spin on Asian Awareness Month, though I loathe to call it such because--let's be honest here--it won't last for a month and, more importantly, both you and I are probably aware Asians exist.
I visited the same grocery store last week and, as soon as that familiar fishy smell collided with my nose, declared the establishment a cultural touchstone, a regular way for me to gauge my relationship with my heritage. Bottom line? No change. I still detest it. The store itself had undergone some changes over the months, with the sanitation rating in particular jumping more than ten points--proof positive that the civilizing influence of standards had finally reached these parts.
Even so, the overwhelming sentiment for me was revulsion. Sure, the place was empirically cleaner. The 96.5 spoke to the high likelihood that a cat wasn't taking a shit in the bok choy anymore. No, I was the issue, specifically my streak of cultural self-loathing, so I framed myself against the larger context, tried to connect with the population at large. And I did, in a way.
Shoppers invariably fit into one of three groups. You've got the natives, who are clearly at home. This is their Safeway, you know? They evince a familiarity and comfort with each aisle. Then you've got your mixed couples, with the non-Asian counterparts likely displaying bewilderment or a kind of practiced stoicism that will carry them straight through checkout. Finally, you've got your wholly non-Asian couples and families who trek through the wares with an amused look, almost as if they were living a Discovery Channel feature on curios and sundries of the Far East.
My current identity lies somewhere between the second and third groups. I feel like a National Geographic photographer at certain points, outside viewing in, albeit one prone to periodic fits of disgust, like a fellow in a pith hat in the Serengeti who suddenly wants to punch the giraffe he's filming. And were I to have a mixed family at this point, a trip to the Asian supermarket would necessitate a stop at a Cracker Barrel shortly thereafter, where we'd proceed to smear Americana all over ourselves. It would be the only conceivable remedy. I know I should want to be closer to the first group. I just don't know if that's the script talking or what.
Posted by Ben at 11:56 PM
