i'm not dead, just sleepy

hey team, i know it's been a bit, but moving is tough. anyway, this is a quick little post reminding you all that yes, i am alive, and yes, i will be back to regular posting starting this monday. i owe you a destroy the universe rant, but i'm going to save that and give an extra long one a week from today...so monday we will again try to start on a postive note. anway, i hope all of you are well out there in cyberland, and i'm going to be a bit better about this posting thing, as soon as i catch up on some much needed sleepytime. right, so i'll talk to you soon.

all kinds of hugs and kisses.

moving before moving...it's the warm up

so, i haven't forgotten to post, it's just that i'm a little strapped for time. you see, i'm moving, which isn't awesome. my house needs to be empty by sunday, and i really haven't done as much as i should. hence the non-blogging of late. but when i do get settled in (at my mom's, how unreasonably cool am i? although i am kidding, of sorts, i still find it funny that my mom's feet haven't touched the ground since the intial prospect of getting both of her boys back home for the summer...before they move to oppposite sides of the earth) i plan on getting back into the swing of things and telling you all about it. anyhoo, i need to go pack...i don't want to, but i need too. talk to you soon superfriends.

Things that make me want to save the universe...

so this is it super-friends, that thing i was telling you about. i was talking with my new york magazine guy a little while back and i pitched this idea to him...the idea being that i was going to write, every month, about something that made me want to either, save or destroy the universe. i had this idea a little while back and it's something that's been bouncing around in my head for a bit...so this is where you guys come in, you can tell me what you think of it. like i said, i will be posting something every monday and friday, and the way it's going to work is like this... on monday i will be saving the universe, friday i will be destroying it. i figure this way, you can start the week with something nice and positive, and end it with something to argue with me about. i think that's a good way to do it. anyway, and in honor of susan's comment, i'm going to start this week with something that makes me want to save the universe...

Comic Books

Every Tuesday I escape to other planets and universes. I leave real life and let my imagination take me to somewhere new. I have this place that I go to, it is my LCS (that’s local comic store for those that aren’t as nerdy as me.) There I find people like me, dreamers that long to live in a planet not much like this one. When I talk to them I realize how much we all focus on the stories that come out of this store. In minutes of reading the stories that come out each week, we talk about what just happened and how the people that inhabit these stories will be affected. They are our friends, our heroes, our enemies.

The genre of the comic book is a funny one, in a few short years it has become a perfectly viable way for novelists and screenwriters to tell stories that have been floating around in their heads for years. I want to be one of those people. I want to tell stories of heroes surviving against all odds, stories of people living up to their namesake, stories of the human spirit. I love it. This is the best way to show, well, the best qualities of being a human. If you take someone that is supposed to be a hero, you are essentially showing traits that every human should have. Fearlessness, bravery, strength, honor, this is what the best parts of humanity are built on, and superheroes show this in a superb and flashy way.

I have lived my life with quite a bit of crippling self doubt and somehow reading stories of these heroes and their struggles has made me put a lot of it into perspective. I may not be a hero in the cosmic sense of the word, but I now know that by living by the standards set by my favorite heroes, I may not be saving the universe literally but I can at least live my life as a better person. Reading these stories have at least showed me that. I can save my own universe.

So, on that note, who is my favorite super hero? Good question. Usually, if you ask any amount of people who their favorite super hero is, you generally get the Superman, Batman, and Spiderman answers. It’s expected and there’s nothing wrong with that, most people only know those heroes. I am not one of those people. My favorite hero, bar none, is Wally West, or to those that don’t know, The Flash, the fastest man alive. Go ahead, ask me why.

Wally West was the sidekick to the second Flash, Barry Allen. Barry Allen died. (Saving the universe ironically enough.) Wally became the Flash at age 21. He is my age, he makes mistakes, and he is the most human hero I have ever read. In the beginning of his series, he went through women, money, and alcohol like no one’s business, but throughout the series he became the actual moral center of the universe he inhabited. He grew up, he learned from his mistakes, he became a hero. I respect that, I admire that, and I aspire to that. I want to be someone who has learned from his mistakes, one that is able to use what he’s learned to become a better person. That is why he is my favorite hero; it is because I wish I was him. I want to save myself and those around me. I want to learn from my mistakes.

But where would one want to go to read about saving universes and learning from mistakes? That is an excellent question, in fact, it makes me want to tell you a story...

So a guy walks into a bar, pulls up a stool, plunks down some cash and orders a drink.

“What are you having?”

“I don’t care, just make sure it’s strong and keep ‘em coming.”

“Want to talk about it?”

Such is the lovely cliché of the kind old bartender, the guy who pours your drinks, takes your money, and charges you a whole lot less than a psychiatrist. While the warmth sets in, you find yourself talking about everything with this man. It’s an important part of human nature to talk about things and I just felt that the bartender analogy was apt for this little, well whatever this is.

There’s this place that has been in the Reno area for the past 18 years. A place where all sorts of people have gone, be them socially awkward, businessmen, parents, and all in between, to just talk about it. A type of place found less and less in this day of internet chat and fast moving coffee shops, and it’s not what you would expect. This place is a comic book store.

DJ’s Comic Kingdom and Collectibles has been around for almost two decades and has been, since it’s opening, a place for some of Reno’s most interesting people to gather and get it all out. Anything, whatever was on their minds. Though generally this talk does come laden with super hero references.

This store has loyalty. It has customers that come and don’t leave until closing. It even has customers there so much, they end up working there. Such is the case with Jake, who quite literally, is THE comic book guy. Seriously, any stereotype you can think of is there and he is who he is. He’s shy, and takes a bit to get to open up. He’s chubby and bearded, and always wears a t-shirt, jeans, and a hat. He lives in his mom’s basement, and hates large crowds. He is one of the most genuine and honest people I have ever met.

“I’ve been going to DJ’s for at least ten years, and haven’t left yet. It’s my place, it’s my thing.”

And he’s not lying. He works there five days a week, and truly enjoys what he does. Always there, and always ready to talk.

“I like to think of myself as a comics bartender. Just someone that’ll lend an ear.”

And he does, plus some. He’ll get you what you want, drop advice, and sometimes surprise the hell out of you.

“Jake told me one time, that by looking at the books I was getting, who my favorite and least favorite characters were…and what I should have for dinner.” Says, Jason, while leaning back in his chair.

Jason has been going to DJ’s off and on for five years and only stopped because he moved out of the country. As soon as he moved back though, he was right back in that barstool.

“The best part was that he was right…about all of it”

So that’s how it goes around here, people come in, they start talking and realize they’re late for dinner, and Jake knows them all by name. Remembers the little details, the stuff you forgot you told him. Stuff you are interested in and don’t even have to ask about, he’ll keep you up to date. Take Sal, for example, he’s been there for 8 years.

“I’ve been going for so long, I don’t even buy books anymore, I just hang out. Jake tells me about what I’m interested in and I can just enjoy the stories without the cash problem, because when I was younger, I realized staying alive was expensive.”

This is what it’s like here at DJ’s. This is where people come to talk and laugh and basically just get away even for a little bit. You never realize how fun it is to talk about silly things like whether or not Batman drinks scotch, until you know how much it takes off of your brain. Mental vacation. Getting it out. Talking with the bartender. Try it some time. Jake won’t let you down, and neither will any of the other customers, they all know each other as well. Seriously, it’s a “where everybody knows your name” kind of a thing. So head down there, walk in and pull up a stool.

“What are you having?”

“I don’t care, just make sure it’s strong and keep ‘em coming.”

“Want to talk about it?”

And there it is friends, only a small part of why comic books make me want to save the universe. these things are more than colorful pages, they are what drives a lot of me...i know that may be kind of geeky, but i'm totally cool with that...it's part of being part of it that makes it so wonderful.

coming soon!

ha, i totally got you...didn't i? anyway, by order of the title of this entry, i'm going to tell you what is coming soon. i'm doing this thing, it's a written thing, and it's a bit of a proposal for an column i may have in a magazine when i get to the city, so i thought i would try it out here. just for you guys. see, there is the love. right, so this "column" of sorts, the very early version of it, is going to be posted here, and will be new every monday, and every friday. hmmm? whatever am i talking about? well that's the point of the "coming soon!" i'm trying to build anticipation. hopefully i've done that. anyway, have a wonderful weekend, i'll see you when it gets busy again.

p.s. remember, that's a new something, every monday and friday...they kind of go together. it's all very...cosmic.

all kinds of love,
tom

in retrospect, i shouldn't have cut my hair so short.

so it's really late, i'm really tired, and i'm doing lot's of homework i should have done a long time ago. i suck.

however, i'm also watching season one of grey's anatomy. because i am apparently, a sorority sister. but that's not the point. the point is that patrick dempsey has fantastic hair. now, since i come from a long history of truly tragic haircuts, it's refreshing to see a man with such great hair, hair that i could very well have. but not now, not for at least three months. i cut my hair too short.

anyway, just a thought.

strangely optimistic, and just in time for finals...

Maybe it is my electro-magnetism

It’s not that I’m an especially “glass half-empty” kind of guy. Really. Fine. Well, at least I’m trying not to be. For serious. Yet, especially apt is the bar setting, at least for this kind of beverage thinking. I mean, how easy is it to see the glass mostly drank? Here’s an example: when you belly up to many of the fine establishments in the Reno/Sparks area you are presented with a most depressing scene, the one where the in-bar gambling screen shows the losses of the previous patron. You look at the last poker hand, or blackjack hand, or the losing keno numbers and know that the guy before you was trying so desperately to win. And he didn’t. It’s depressing. It’s glass empty if you will. When I see this screen I can’t help but think of how much whoever it was before me wanted to win. How much they wanted that extra cash to pay for who knows what. I see it, and know that this is how it works. There are always more losers than winners. Unless, of course, you are my best pal, Kris. Then, the outlook as it were, is completely different.

Kris is (and undoubtedly so) the most insanely complex and simple man on the planet. Truly a question wrapped in an enigma. I’ve known him for my entire conscious life, really. From the awkwardness of middle school to the awkwardness of college. In that time, I’ve been a stoner, a jazz musician, a stoner, an artist, a rock star, a brain, a comic book artist, and a writer (tentatively). Yet Kris has always been Kris. He loves cars, spending money, and growing up as fast as he can. By this I mean that I’ve never met someone in such a hurry to be married with children. Which, to me, is amazing when I consider how entirely toxic growing up (and by extension, children) fully is[1]. This man was born to be a family man. (He even talked about it in the boy’s locker room in middle school.) But there will be more on that later. For now, let’s look at the insane (yet truly endearing) logic of this man, whom I call my best of friends.

Every Monday (or so, since Kris has recently entered into a relationship that, alas, has no room for me) he and I like to head to a local watering hole. We drink cheap beer, smoke Camel cigarettes, talk about our lives, and of course, gamble. Kris is an RV salesman, so he makes pretty good money. (I say good money coming from the standpoint of, we’re both 22 and I am a broke college student.) He often spots me a twenty while dropping at least a hundred dollars into these (unreasonably) depressing machines. This is how we bond these days. I’m alright with that, if I can at least spend my time with my family-obsessed friend.

Kris is currently engaged to a Russian stripper. She is intense and, I’m sure, quite capable of bench-pressing me. And, as it turns out, she is rather possessive. This, he is quite okay with. He makes it clear that every time he gets engaged (this is the third time) his fiancé will own him. I understand this. It doesn’t mean I’m okay with it. But we still have our Monday night gamble-fest. This is where we can be the friends we've been and talk about how hot the servers are. I come to the bar in a bad mood (usually for no reason other than that I’m usually in a bad mood) and by the time I leave, my spirits are lifted. Must be the free gambling beer and that fact that I’m able to bitch about the things going on in my life, of course while losing my loaned Hamilton. Kris does this as well, but for some reason, far better than I. He manages to win money while bitching.

He says that it’s all about electro-magnetism. I’m still trying to understand this.

“Dude, don’t mess up my electro-magnetism.” He says, staring at the soft glow of the screen. The buttons, pressed with muscle memory and the cards fly past.

“You’re joking, right?” I say, staring at my own glowing screen. My buttons pressed with a little more care, a little more time. The cards sort of saunter past.

“Not even a little bit. The machine can tell when you’re putting out good vibes, and bad ones too. That’s how you win, not by luck, but by…”

“Electro-magnetism.”

“Right.”

I’m not joking. This is how he actually thinks. He says that this is why I never win. I am bad vibes. I am the glass empty. What a dork. Yet, some of me, (not all of me, but some) wants to believe in what he is saying. After all, homeboy usually wins every Monday that we play. Me? I just waste his twenty dollars. I am a cooler[2]. I am the one that never wins. I leave the depressing screen for all to see. It’s not that I do it on purpose. I just have shitty electro-magnetism, I guess.

Anyway, like i previously mentioned, Kris is engaged. (Again.) He met this girl hot off the heels of his last engagement, and felt that he needed to do it again. He wants to be married. He wants to be a dad. He’s an idiot. He’s just him. I can at least respect that he’s always known who he’s wanted to be. (No matter how tied down that may be.) He has come up with his outlook for life and that is more than I can say for a lot of people our age[3]. Kris wants what he wants and understands the concept of electro-magnetism. This is more than I know. I suppose I want to take some of that, and I do admire that he has at least figured out something that he can make sense of. “If you think positively, good things will happen. The world just knows, man.” Fair enough. This speaks far more than my belief in everything happening for no reason. The latter certainly seems more glass empty than the former. His seems much sweeter. Much more Disney. I’m all right with trying to get in on that. Perhaps this is why having an outlook, even one dependent on electro-magnetism is so important. When you have something to hold onto that is completely your own, you don’t feel so “me against the universe”. You actually feel like something or someone is on your side. Cheering you on. Pouring you full glasses of whatever you want. This is important and something I desperately want to learn from my weirdo of a best friend.

So here we are, a Monday night, drinking an gambling. Kris’s electro-magnetism is in full swing and he hits a $300 dollar jackpot while I’m in the bathroom[4]. I walk back and he tells me that, “If you only think positively, then it happens.” And I believe him. I mean I still have yet to hit something worth any amount of note-worthy cash, but he does it almost every time. Maybe it’s more than just thinking that you will win, maybe it’s all in your electro-magnetism. Maybe it’s just having that kind of outlook for everything. I’m not sure. Then he does something weird. He puts some of his winnings back in the machine that just gave him so much. He loses twenty.

“This way, when the next guy comes up to play, he doesn’t see that the machine just paid out. That way he can start fresh.”

“But won’t that discourage him from playing?”

“Just the opposite. This way he doesn’t know that the previous guy just won. This way he can try for what I just got.”

I’m beginning to see what he’s talking about. It’s not so much that you approach everything thinking that the glass has been drunk dry, but rather that you have a chance to pour yourself a cold one. To make your own winnings. That you can make something for yourself. How incredibly attractive. I mean really, if I knew that every time I walked into a bar (or any setting that revolves around winning) I would walk away a richer man, all because of the way I thought, I would never leave the house in a bad mood. I would know, that no matter when I got home, or what I did during the day, that my outlook, my electro-magnetism, played an enormous part. I made my own fate play into what I wanted it to be. I changed my day according to my outlook. It may not work the way you want it to every time, but damn it, the times that it does, would be so much sweeter. It would be something akin to knowing the answers to the test the night before. Anyway, I may still approach the bar stool with thoughts of depression, but for the first time I’m beginning to see how maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe Kris really is onto something. Maybe I’m going to finally understand what it means to be on a winning streak. Maybe the glass is full. Maybe it’s just my electro-magnetism.

---

[1] See when I say toxic I mean the fact that I am way too young to be thinking about having children or even being married. I understand that some people my age feel differently, but come on, I don’t even think of myself as grown up, so how could I possibly think that I am capable of taking care of a wife and children? Thus being married with children is not awesome. At least right now.

[2] For those unaware, a cooler is one of those un-lucky types that will never win a hand and, consequently, causes all those around them to lose their hard-earned cash. It’s an unfortunate lot to be. I believe there was a movie about it starring William H. Macy. He’s a pretty all right actor.

[3] And what I mean by this is the fact that, or at least from what I’ve seen, most of the kids my age will believe anything that they can so long as it makes them feel better about the decisions they make. A personal outlook will not coincide with what a lot of society tells us that we should or should not have. Companies will tells us that happiness lies in credit cards, or TV’s, or game consoles. A personal outlook that preaches the belief in positive thinking will not gel, namely because that moves away from the kind of hive thinking popular culture thrives on. Kris does not know what the number one single in America is. He is okay with this. He does not need to be “hip” or to think what Maxim tells him to think.

[4] Coolers only cool while in close proximity. Or at least I think so.

right, this is me...i'm...blogging?

hey superfriends,

so i've done it. or at least sort of. i am now a member of the internet "community". i'm so high up i can see susan's blog from here. and there's some guy down the "street" that has some weird things to say on the state of the universe...i feel so at home. i also feel weird, but strangely, very...not lame. (but also very lame at the same time, i'm entirely paradoxical. there will be much more on that eventually. we've only just begun. right?) truth be told, i think this is going to be a good way for me to stay sane in the small (very small) studio that i'm going to be living in very shortly. that's right, i'm not there yet, in fact i'm writing this before tuesday, so you'll even see me. the thing is that i wanted to make this before i got swept up in you know, the life-changing, air-traveling, mostly awesome-ness of being the small boy in the big city. the apple, if you will.

also this way i can get some emails, and make some electronic friends and lick some electronic stamps. you say i take this electronic metaphor to far, do you? i agree. anyway, expect ( i take that back, don't expect, or you could, but then i may disappoint you and i don't want to do that) to see a tremendously long-winded post near everyday (as soon as i move, as it is, everything is going to be boring until then) about the things and people i'm going to encounter. anyhoo, that's about it. it's going to be you and me and a lot of sentences. i can't wait, really.