Doughnut Entertainment

"I am a man; nothing human do I consider alien to me." 
-Terrance, Heauton Timorumenos,

I am not an intellectual. I’m not even intelligent by the classical definition—not that I am sure of the actual definition because I’m a fearful if I look it up in the dictionary it would make me upset. And nobody wants that...    

I used to write a blog nearly every week for about a year and a half. I have since been on hiatus from bloghood. The main purpose of my blog was to discuss my life without a great job or steady girlfriend. Now that I have both, blogging has been on the back burner for quite some time. But I’m trying to climb back in. The following blog should certainly not be called a “study” in humanity. Simply, it's not a “study” based on the definition of “study,” (which I sadly looked up). The following blog will not and should not be used in the advancement of humanity. In fact, if you are either an alien or a cultured historian of the year 3037 who is grazing over the scope of ancient (2012) internet for the “keys to the past,” please do not use this as a source in your paper. These are just simple observations from a dude in his pajamas. Then why read this? Well, you have done sillier things. I guess we all have. We are a world of silliness—but the good kind.

Why do we do anything really? Listen to music, watch reality TV, watch HBO, follow sports, read books, drink Pinot Noir, drink Miller Lite, play video games, people watch, people watch, people watch—life seems like nothing but a constant game of people watching. We just want to know what other people are doing. It comes from the innate curiosity of figuring out why we were born with brains. What makes us so special? Our brains fucking rock and why is that? Human brains are like the bees knees.

We figured out how to do so much; from building a fire to building a killer playlist in our iTunes. The thing is, as soon as we started figuring shit out, we said to ourselves, “How am I figuring shit out?” “Why am I figuring shit out?” and “what kind of shit are you figuring out?”

 I work in Reality TV, which was the antithesis of my earlier strangled prism of the uniformly non-conformist—“pathetic is the stupid world and it’s unappreciative philistines plugged into the brain of the lowest common denominator, bad taste in music, worst taste in art”—viewpoint I had on the culture. It started throughout my childhood of basic cable as I witnessed reality TV drip into the blood stream of American culture. For a while there, I was with the majority of people in thinking that the very essence of reality TV was revoking the esteemed merit of creativity. How could theater, over the course of a few hundred years, go from Shakespeare to a dude named Tech on Real World Hawaii? In my days of reading Kerouac under my parent’s dime, I originally just thought we were getting dumber. The more evolved we got, the less complex, the less sophisticated; I thought to myself. However, as I developed into a man of the workplace and out of the world of academia, on my own, I have discovered reality TV is not hurting culture, certainly not, it’s simply doing what we have been wanting to do since the dawn of civilization. It helps us understand the why, how, and what kind of shit are people are figuring out.

We enjoy reality TV because it’s a simple way of looking at other people’s problem solving skills. Actually, it’s quite remarkable. In years before, we simply looked at journals of the past as described by news writers and discovered by historians, in order to even get a glimpse into the minds of fellow humans. My 7th grade social studies teacher told me, “we study the past, so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past.” (Or something like that. Honestly in 7th grade I was more concerned about hiding unforeseeable surprises arising and perfecting the art of the “flip up”).

It would be simple math: Napoleon was short, so he wanted to compensate his height by taking over a few countries here and there. We understand the thought process of Napoleon based on the information given at that particular time, which was obviously limited. We can kind of relate to Napoleon on a human level—I mean, who hasn't wanted to take over the world at one point another. You know, to prove to everyone in your 7th grade class that you weren't just a kid hiding the little tent in his pants. Simply put, we could only guess what people were thinking back then. Not just in the mind of a warlord, but in the mind of the carpenter, the farmer, the guy who hunted alligators in the swamps of Louisiana (seek Swamp People on History Channel).

 For centuries we wanted to figure out the thought process of fellow man. We trusted historians to decode the information given at the time. Now, as information is as plentiful as the hairs of a scruffy, little puppy dog, we are beginning to grasp a better understanding of the human thought process. The intellectual will argue that Reality TV shows no better understanding of man, rather a glorification of a Dorito chip centered mind. But isn’t there a Dorito chip in all of us? Isn’t it that Dorito chip what keeps us going? Whether we spend our lives looking at the world from an intelligent standpoint or a sinuous standpoint or a standpoint in which our main focus is just to get though it, we are all kind of just finding ways to justify the means. In this we look to other people for help. The underlining statement of Reality TV is based on the fact that we judge others in order to judge ourselves.

When I was in 9th grade or so, the finale of Survivor drew 55 million viewers. As an astute historian/9th grader, I deemed it the biggest cultural event on TV since the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Not to toot my own 9th grade horn, but in a way, I was right. Survivor took seemingly regular people and dropped them off on an island in a “real life” scenario which was supposed to emulate a real life event. People have to choose to kill and eat, or in this case, kick out of the tribe a person they deemed “unsatisfactory.” I imagine if this were an actual, non-made for TV, event, it would take several months before a tribe member to be eaten or killed. For the purposes of a TV network, they had to bestow “challenges” which would determine who gets eaten (or sent home to air conditioning and a microwave). Come on, every person has at one point thought about being deserted on a desert island. This was the closest you can get to actually witnessing it unfold in front of your televised eyes.

As season one of Survivor ended, we watched live as one unit. One American culture, all 55 million of us. What was so astonishing at that moment was it (I think) was the first scenario based reality TV show. Of course Real World and Road Rules were the shows that really put reality TV on the map, Survivor was the true Da Vinci of its genre (I may be the first person in the history of written thought to compare Survivor to Da Vinci, but just roll with it.) Remember, Survivor was the first major network show—before you could watch anything your heart desires on the internet or on demand in your living room—to put a wide variety of people in a certain, very unique situation.

During its success, a lot people made the argument that Real World and Road Rules were the first of its kind and should have been given the proper trophies of originality. I actually remember a radio DJ in Philadelphia screaming about the merits the Real World and how Survivor simply stole the idea of reality based television. Though Real World was the first of its kind, it was sold to a very specific demographic. The show took random 20 something year old strangers and just dumped them in a nice house to fight about dishes. Now this happens all the time through Craigslist. The beauty of Survivor was that it doesn’t target an age demographic, it targets a certain curiosity found deep down in all of us.

The Survivor Finale was such an event because every one of its viewers pretended to be in the shoes of the contestants. Every character could relate to any demographic. The only characteristic somebody would need to have in order to enjoy Survivor, is that of human instinct. We watched Survivor because it gave us, as one entity glued by the spirit of empathy, another chance to think about ourselves.

We love thinking about ourselves. We love showing our thoughts to as many people as humanly possible. (Thus blogs). We also like seeing what other people think about. Again, it’s the why, how, what other people think about, that concerns us on an individual level. From the dawn of time we wanted to know the way other people handle things. This input/output relationship of culture has been going on since man starting writing on walls.

It began with that first human who picked up a stone and started drawing on walls. He wanted to show everyone that he killed an ox. And I guarantee when somebody came over for caveman tea and entered his fellow caveman's stone walls, he looked around and saw the carved drawings and possibly said, “Oh, I killed an Ox too. How did you do it?” The visitor Caveman looks closer to the picture on the wall and says out loud, “Oh, the old stick in hand and yelling loudly technique. I do that too, sometimes.”

The human element of destruction and the thirst for superiority has never gone away. We watch reality TV because we believe, in some way deep down inside, that we want to feel superior. We want to feel that we would have made better choices than the subjects on TV. We feel the same blood cells running though our bodies as we did when we watched slaved soldiers in the lions den thousands of years ago.

We watch Reality TV for the same reasons we stare at car accidents. We like to see other people’s failures because it allows us escape from our own. On the flip, we enjoy others successes because it reminds us deep inside what we are capable of. The basic premise of entertainment is to share experiences. Our values, our goals. And Reality TV is just a different medium to accomplish this visceral idea. To say Reality TV is worthless to the growth of culture is like saying the instinctual human idea of empathy is worthless. It is like saying humans are worthless. Well, I’m here to say we are not. I am pro-human and therefore, I am pro-Reality TV. (Both of which, to a degree)...

 I believe when Reality TV becomes a problem is when the audiences main focus in their own lives is to suffocate themselves in the lives of others, the people on the screen. This can be said of everything. Reality TV is simply the Doughnut of entertainment. Just like the doughnut, it is not the issue of the incising substance existing, but rather the overuse of the substance by the consumer. The same can be said with Sports, Film, Music, Travel, Blogging, and Pizza.

 I guess the moral of the story is don’t hate the player, hate the game.

The Gallows Pole of Charlie Marks

So where do I go from here? It’s been quite a while since I last had a good chance to sit down and pump out some hard, salty, words. I usually like to look around, encounter events or people, and write it down so internet can enjoy. Ah, good old internet. It just seems that the last few months all the creativity got sucked out of me. I started listening to Led Zeppelin which I am pretty sure has nothing to do with it, but it makes me question my path through life. What if I started listening to Led Zeppelin at an earlier age? Now, I consider myself a big time music fan, but somehow Zeppelin never really crossed my path. My friend Rob was always really into AC/DC and now he is working directly for Judd Apatow. Actually come to think of it, everyone, well mostly everyone, well mostly every one of my friends in high school who listened to AC/DC turned out to be really successful later in life. I guess I was shy to Led Zeppelin because everyone I knew who wore a Led Zeppelin shirt usually were a bit off—you know, kind of smelt like a breakfast sandwich, really into Resident Evil. When I first got into music, 6th or 7th grade, I became obsessed with Stairway to Heaven and Free Bird, but by 8th grade I started to lose interest and moved on. As for others who stayed with Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd, they just got really into it.

Heavier music naturally kick starts your emotions. You listen to it every day, all the time, and your life just seems to be lodged in a higher gear. Music also compliments lifestyle. The Hells Angel’s are (now I am hypothesizing) not hauling ass down the highway to check out the new Belle and Sebastian record. But I shouldn’t stereotype. What I am really trying to say is that maybe one listens to heavier music because one’s life is in a higher gear.

To be drastically stereotyping again, I am also quite surprised when I hear of a right wing conservative who listens to Iron and Wine or Wilco. But nothing is more surprising to hear a conservative listen to John Lennon. That’s just flabbergasting. Don’t you get it? This is guy is singing about everything you despise i.e. love and whatnot. “I listen to it because it sounds nice,” they say. I’m not trying to pick on conservatives because clearly there is only so much Toby Keith one person can take, I’m just saying for me it’s hard to just ignore the lyrics. For instance, if something sounded really good to me musically—let’s say if Wilco changed the lyrics of the song Pot Kettle Black from,

“Sleeping eye sockets
Baby suck your thumb
I'll keep you in my locket
A string I never strum”

to

“Poor people suck
baby don’t tax me
I’ll keep you locket
Freedom, freedom, liberty”

I would probably have to question the merit of the song. And I would have to admit that the song wouldn’t resonate as much with me. Now, I do not want to say that I have any idea what, “Sleeping eye sockets/Baby suck your thumb, I'll keep you in my locket/A string I never strum” really means, but at least I know it doesn’t secretly mean “Obama is a socialist.” And that’s something I can live with.

Buffalo Springfield has a classic song called “for what it’s worth,” which is one of the strongest popular songs of the 1960s to protest the Vietnam War and is now played every few hours on any classic rock station anywhere in America. The song is so popular that right now, as you read these very words, there is probably a station somewhere playing it. So if 90% of people who are into classic rock likes the song and 50% of them are anti anything liberal, then mathematically speaking, conservatives love the song. They will literally sing, verbatim every lyric, but then you’ll ask them if they were in favor of the Vietnam War they would reply, “Of course, we had to stop the spread of communism.”

Certainly not to equate the two:

but to think, right now, at this very moment, there is somebody in Alabama, driving in his old pick up truck, literally on the way to a Klan rally listening to “For what it’s worth” and humming along—moving his index finger back and forth on the steering wheel, strumming to the beat.

Now I don’t want to pick on conservatives, but the point is, to their credit, they don’t mind venturing out of their social roles to listen to whatever they want as long as it has a good sound. I touched on this point before, but I argue that a lot of people in the artistic world feel contractually obligated to like artistic music. As though you can’t possibly truly enjoy a Kandinsky painting if you listen to Metallica.

We get stereotyped into listening to a particular brand of music based on our hobbies. You have to think to yourself, “Do I like this music because I truly like it or because it identifies best with the culture I am in.”

A friend of mine is dating a Brooklyn based hipster. When I told her I enjoyed the funky fresh styling of 311 she laughed uncontrollably in my face. And for the rest of the evening, it was as though everything I would say after that point would be invalid because I in fact loved 311 in high school. “What do you know about 20th Century Post-structuralism? Is that somehow covered in the 2001 classic 311 album From Chaos? I am going to laugh to myself out loud and continue to laugh in my head for the next several minutes as I drink my obscure IPA brewed from a Portland based company I only heard of—not that you care cause you are drinking Miller Lite and wearing a Flyers hat… Look at you, pathetic.” (For a non-311 I was impressed that she knew the exact year and name of one their less popular LP) (Nonetheless)

I could be mis-quoting her.

To take it full circle:

I never really bothered with Led Zeppelin. I heard them on the radio so many times that I never really thought to investigate further. I just listened to Zeppelin III and boy it is good. Very rocking. Very groov’in. Listen to the song, “Since I’ve been loving you,” and try not to bob your head. It is the type of music that is what it is on the surface. No further examination needed. It is what it is, but for what it is, it is good. Great even.

Listen, I don’t know where I am going with this. I think I made enough points to let you know that music shouldn’t be based on your hobby or culture. I think it’s unfair to think that you should listen to the music that best express yourself and not to music that just sounds good. Unfair to yourself that is. And that is something you probably already knew. So really you learned nothing new from this blog. I’m kind of just writing this as a letter to myself from 10 years ago. Can the internet travel back in time to deliver this blog to my AOL email of 1999? If so, here’s a copy of the letter I want the internet to send to myself.

Dear Lil’ Chuck,

Just listen to Zeppelin III. You shouldn’t be 25 and first listening to it. Also, prepare yourself for some failure. Boy, its going to be fun. Also, take better English classes in high school. Trust me, they may be harder and you’ll actually have to study once in a while, but you’re blogs will be much better in the future. Also, study advertising or PR in college not Film and Video. And watch your weight. Start exercising. Don’t quit baseball. Don’t bother watching any Philly team until 2008, it will just be a waste of time and loads of heartbreak. Invent Facebook and watch The Wire when it’s on TV so you can say you liked it before everyone else.

Oh, and changing your name to Charlie is going to be a bit tougher than you think.

Sincerely yours,

Charlie Marks

PS ….Sucker

Man Man Part One

It’s been a little over 25 years since I first was granted a penis. Since then, I have picked up on a few different behaviors in overall manhood. The common grounds and the confusing counterpoints. A lot of men have many theories on how to be a man. Sometimes the pee pee just isn’t enough. For instance, at work a few weeks ago, one of the stockroom guys walked passed me as I was eating a salad and said, “Grown men don’t eat salad.” Though he said it endearingly and I absolutely take no offense, I felt it ironic because when I later saw him in the warehouse, he was listening to Lady Gaga as it blasted out of a radio. And to note, there was chicken in the salad. And olive oil.

In JR High School, I was socially reprimanded by a peer for dapping my napkin on the grease of a government issued piece of pizza. As though somehow grease from a public school cafeteria is the key ingredient to having a successful penis. Lesson being, there is nothing more manly than high cholesterol. One underscore of middle school is the fact that a banana is best eaten in the privacy of your own home. This poses as a stiff contrary for women. I learned in biology class, and this is a scientific fact, that for women and women only, bananas actually taste better and provide more nutrients if they are eaten either at the beach, by the pool, driving, walking, in the office, riding a bike, or reading a book (if you have hot reading glasses on). So eat those bananas girls! Calcium! Cal-Ci-Yummm!

Food and drink play into gender roles just as much as driving or spicy mustard. I feel that girls get away with a lot more because, simply, they don’t care as much. Ask a girl whether she prefers spicy mustard to yellow mustard and she’ll probably just kiss you on the cheek and change the subject to Ronny and Sammy’s latest fight, cry, make up, and fight again stint. For some reason, girls can not grasp the philosophical and cultural impact of spicy mustard—or simply they just don’t care. They (girls) can walk up to the bar and order an IPA, Miller Lite, Martini, or a Mud Slide, and not think twice. But if you are a guy who wanted to order a Mango Margarita with extra mango’s and a tumble of cherries, somehow you become subconsciously (in the mind of others) as an assured wuss. People may not say anything to you, nor may they even think about it, but deep inside their heads and somewhere in their minds, the idea of a Mango Margarita with extra mango’s and a tumble of cherries becomes a catalyst for inception. Somehow the Mango Margarita becomes a dream walker and plants an idea inside of your head. An idea of the subconscious. No matter who you are or who you think you are—you can be a very progressive person, acceptant of others, and without a single bone of prejudice in your entire body— yet if you see your good friend holding a nice Mango Margarita between his fingers and sipping out of a purple straw, you’re just going to assume that he doesn’t want to watch the Eagles game on Sunday. You assume he has other plans. Now, you won’t be able to figure out why, but there will be something telling you that you shouldn’t even ask if he wants to come. And after the game you say to yourself, “Oh I don’t know why I forgot to ask Jason over for the game. He is a good friend and all of our other friends came. Somehow it slipped my mind.” That’s not a slip of the mind my friend, it’s actually the opposite, that’s your mind, in the most subtle form, telling you something. Mango man probably doesn’t like football.

There are other things, ideas in the subconscious, which provide a keen sense of judgment you may have on another man. I strongly believe, on a more conscious level, that a man’s handshake is a 90% accurate description of the man as a whole. Now a strong handshake may not necessarily make a strong man, but a weak handshake is almost always equal to a weak man. It never fails to amaze me when I get a weak handshake. I mean, it’s amazing. It’s incredible that in the age of the internet, cable TV, and affordable college, some men still can not learn (in any fashion or at any point) that having a weak handshake is detrimental. Catastrophic even. I mean, do the Chinese know this? Do people abroad shake hands properly? If so, I figured out why China is beating us at everything. Even if your father or uncle never explained to you how to properly shake somebody’s hand, wouldn’t you have picked it up somewhere in your 20+ years with a penis? Don’t you get it? It is in the same column as wearing a Speedo on the beaches of the Jersey shore. Don’t you get it? I mean, with Speedo’s, wouldn’t the uncomfortable notion of a constant feeling of ball suffocation be sort of a warning sign that it’s a bad idea? It’s not like Speedo’s really air it all out. And plus, where do stick your money when you go up on the board walk for cheese fries?

Same goes with guys in their twenties or young men in general named Richard but introduce themselves as Dick. I mean, I guess if you grew up in the 70s or earlier and the lingo was okay at the time and it just stuck, but if you are a young man in the year 2011 and you non-ironically go by Dick, don’t you know that it makes you sound silly? I mean, right there on the spot, good handshake or no, if you say, “Hi I’m Dick,” it kind of sounds funny. Don’t you know that in today’s age and culture the word “dick” is a synonym for penis? Walking up to a stranger and saying you’re name is Dick is like saying your name is Penis. As a writer I use synonym’s all the time. I replace a word with another of the same meaning to help prevent repetition. To illustrate this let’s see a conversation between a masseuse and a guy named Dick, but instead of using the word Dick lets pick a synonym…say Penis.

Penis, a shoe salesmen from New Jersey, walks into the massage place named Happy Endings. The Happy Endings employee, Claire, a nice woman in her 20s, approaches Penis with a smile. “Hi, welcome to Happy Endings, do you have an appointment?”

Penis perks up for a moment, “Yes, my name is Penis Wilson. I had an appointment for 3pm,” he says.

“Oh Penis,” Claire reply’s, “I thought you would never come”.

Penis shakes his head, “I know, I’m sorry I was a bit sick and it took me a while to get up.”

Claire playfully pats Penis, “Well Penis, I’m going to make you feel much better. I’m going to rub you hard and I’ll release all of your energy. Then, Penis, you’re going to be completely relaxed.”

Penis smiled and became very excited to be inside of Claire….’s massage room.

See what I mean? But it doesn’t stop there, in addition to being another word for Penis, Dick is also used as a synonym for asshole. “Quit being a Dick.” If your name is Dick you have to understand that people use your name, what you are called on a daily basis, as a way to insult other people. If the saying went, “Quit being a Chuck,” I feel as though I would want to be called Charlie. Rick is a good name. Richard is a good name. So why, why subject yourself to Dick?

Many things go into being a man and having a penis. I have such a long list that I will have to break it apart. This ends the first part. If you have any important theories in what it means to be a man, please tell me. Don’t let me forget anything.

This blog is:

To be continued…..

Merry Christmas, you damn fool.

The ornaments look pretty, but they’re pulling down the branches of the tree.

Over the last decade, maybe longer, there has been an apparent war on Christmas. And just like the “war on drugs”, it will be a constant, never ending problem for people who are concerned and an undemanding annoyance to the others who simply don’t give a shit.

People get angry when somebody says to them, “happy holidays,” instead of “Merry Christmas.” Why? Why get angry? First of all—now I’m not a master of the English language (in fact, I got a C in regular English my Sophomore year of high school)—but if you celebrate Christmas and New Years within a week of each other, that would pluralize the word “Holiday.” If anything, people of Buddhist religion should be offended by such a statement (all they get is New Years and Nirvana). Secondly, if you get really upset when somebody, whether it be a store clerk, mailman, or a kickball referee who seemingly makes up the rules during a playoff game, says to you, “happy holidays,” would you rather them say “take care,” “goodbye,” or “smell you later?” Would you rather them not say nothing at all? I guess what I am trying to say is that when somebody tells me, “happy holidays,” or “have a nice holiday” I am, even for a moment, reminded of what this season means—family, friends, celebration, reunion, crab cakes, ugly yet awesome sweaters, and another copy of Pearl Jams VS (quick note: just because I like the band, doesn’t mean I need another copy of their critically acclaimed, best selling CD).

There is also a lot of controversy about companies like Best Buy, who use the word “holiday” during the “holidays.” And really, again, who gives a shit? Do you really care if the guy selling a 76 inch TV 10% less under a deal called a “holiday sale” really affects the sanctity of the birth of our Savior? The point is, whatever you call it, whatever it is; the meaning behind it is far greater than any word or any phrase preached by man.

I am a Christian. I do understand that the 25th of December is, most likely, not the actual anniversary of Jesus coming to earth, but the annual day we as humans acknowledge the night the Lord popped out of Mary. But, as a Christian, praising God and thanking Him for Jesus, is something I do everyday. Christmas, however, is a bit different, a bit more special. And the reason this is to be is directly associated with the lure around the season.

Traditionally, the opening of the Christmas season is on Thanksgiving (unless you’re Sears, in which case it is August). This is because Thanksgiving is the last holiday before Christmas and it is conveniently one month before the holiday (thus giving plenty of time to get gifts). So as a kid, this was the day you made your present list…

Now a few years ago a great, local, social philosopher named Basenfelder (I forget which Basenfelder it was exactly) created a fool proof plan to get the absolute number one gift on your list. Say you wanted a Playstation Two and Madden 2003, which is a very expensive gift. If you were to comprise a list of things like the new Strokes album or a VHS of Bad Boys 2, and then add to that list Playstation Two and Madden 2003, your parents are more inclined to go with the cheaper gifts (like the action packed thriller ride starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence). The point is; if you provide a choice between gifts, the parents will most likely go for the least expensive. So what you have to do is comprise a list so outlandish that everything else seems a bit mediocre in comparison.

Say you want that Madden ’03. Now, don’t come off the bat wishing for it right away. In the Basenfelder plan, asking for presents is like dating a girl; bringing a condom on a first date can be a turn off. You don’t want to be too straightforward. Now, this may go against the modern form the Christmas asking process—if Christmas movies from the 50s-1994 have taught us anything, it is that one must plead with your parents to the point of tears for your favorite gift until you find that Christmas is about family values (in which case when you learn this lesson, the gift will miraculously appear before the end credits)…But no, this plan, the Basenfelder plan, has you holding on to your wish until the very last second.

You must first ask for a trip to the moon or Antarctica. Then for a horse. And then for the government to deregulate Four Loco before your date with the girl from Alpha Omega Tri. Then for Canada. Just ask your parents for Canada. Now get a little softer. Ask for the entire collection Masterpiece Theater on Blueray or a one year old Samoyed. Then gradually get less expensive until you reached the bottom of your list, which will be the Playstation Two and Madden ’03. Your parents will have no choice…suckers. Compared to the horse ride on the moon, Playstation Two is a perfectly assessable gift. And before you know it, you’ll be playing with Donovan McNabb on the easy level dominating the other teams until he screws up too many times and gets traded to Washington, who will ultimately bench him for Rex Grossman, all on your brand new Playstation Two. EA Sports: It’s in the game! And it’s a Christmas Miracle!!!

……………….

It’s all in the magic of Christmas. You know, it may be balmy to get caught up in the world of presents. But the idea of giving somebody you love a gift once a year and having a gift given to you, whatever that gift may be, kind of says something about our society. In this rush hush world of Facebook, Blackberries, and Coke Zero, it’s really nice to have a day where everything shuts down and people remember “the love we take is equal to the love we make.” And whether you are religious or not, that’s what Christmas does.

Now although Basenfelder may have rolled his eyes when I wrote about my belief in God’s visit to earth, he was one who truly understood and valued the holiday of Christmas. I feel that whether you are personally an Atheist, Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, or Canadian, the idea of friends and family traveling distances, short and long, to get together under one roof. To have dinner and talk about the year. To speak with frank certainty and careful thought. To reflect. To love. To argue. To forgive. To be as one. That it is a true day of celebration. And whatever you call it or for whatever reason you do it, nothing will take away it’s impact. It is used as a yearly reflection and time of comradely. And if the business of Christmas allows for families, who would not normally see each other, get together, than isn’t it all worth it?

Who gives a shit if people say, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, or Go Fuck Yourself—nothing takes away the celebration of amicableness and the honor of love that comes with Christmas—whether it is 12 days, 12 hours, or just a few minutes on the phone. Soooo……

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! FROM YOUR FRIENDS AT MY BLOG. (WHICH IS JUST ME) (MEANING, YOU HAVE ONE FRIEND)

Quick program note: I actually don’t know if it was Steve Basenfelder or John Basenfelder or even Josh Barbash who told me about the Christmas Present Plan. It could have been nobody. It could have been just me thinking about this plan while I was simply just hanging out with one of the Bases.’ Either way, earlier in this article I definitely stole a line from Johnny Base, and it’s from a speech he gave in either the late 90s or the very early 2000s. Can you guess which one?

Measure for Measure

This one is for the artist, the person who hates art, and the people in between (not to be confused with everyone)

What it means to say you know what it means to be art.

I guess art is a fun word to say. We use it all the time. Some people say “the art of” something. Even if the something has nothing to do with art. Saying there is an art behind ANYTHING means that the (insert anything here) has a bit more meaning. “The art of using public restrooms” is just a nice way of saying, “how to shit without touching the seat.” The problem with using the word “art” is that as soon as you do, it is automatically qualified for criticism. People absolutely love criticizing art. But this is not a bad thing. If people are inheritably able of criticism, they are inheritably able of acceptance. Art is in our blood. In our brain. In our balls. This instinctual criticism is at the level in which, when somebody doesn’t like a painting, it as though they believe the painter consciously was trying insult them. When I see a 50 foot paper clip in Center City I reflexively think the artist was actually trying to piss me off.

But Chuck, art is an expression of self:

If art did not matter to people, people wouldn’t feel anything when they viewed it. Music, film, paintings, and photographs all have meaning to everyone. However, if it has no meaning to the person doing it, does it have meaning at all? Is it even art? Say, if the film, Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch meant nothing to a single person, including to the most naïve of children or dogs—if it literally was not enjoyed by a single breathing creature—but if the filmmaker put his true soul into, expressing his complete self, how can you not call it art? Or if George Lucas put nothing into nor could care less about Star Wars—if he worked on it just as if it were a job at a salt mill—can it still be considered an art? Or would Star Wars just a hobby for nerds? Now, of course I think Lucas put his heart into Star Wars and Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch was made solely for monetary gains (not artistic value), but the point is that art starts and ends with the artist. The process of analyzing the art is somewhere in the middle.

I consider filmmaking, for the most part, to be an art form. And though the final cut is a collection of expressions from many artist; the director, the writer, the actors, the set designer, the DP, costume designer, ect, the ultimate achievement is the art. A painter expresses you the world through what he feels. And on a smaller (and sometimes more intimate) scale, this process is similar to the way the filmmaker express’s himself. In either art form, generally speaking, the artist first experiences life then reflects upon it. This reflection may not be completely true to the experience, art can be a balance between cogitation and creativity. Johnny Cash may have only stayed in jail for a few days at the most, but he can certainly sing about a lifetime in Folsom Prison.

When I go to the cinema (I say cinema because it’s classier than saying movies) with people or I watch a film in a crowded living room, I often hear someone point out the fallacy of a particularly scene. They’ll say, “There’s no way that could happen,” or “people don’t talk like that in real life.” And for a few moments, I think to myself, “Well, duh, it’s a movie…I wonder if they’ll mind if I put hot sauce on the popcorn. I love hot sauce on popcorn. I just don’t want to ask them straight up, because maybe they will think I’m weird. Ah, I’m sure they would like it if they tried it… kind of like watching hockey. There you go, putting hot sauce on popcorn is the hockey of food. It may seem like a mess at first, but once you start, you’ll never turn your head… I’ll write that in my blog. Marks, you are a genius.” Anyway, when I get the “people don’t talk like that in real life,” what I would like to point out to them that the film is not real life. These are ALL fictional characters. These are ALL fictional lines. This whole world is fictional. And though the people are humans and not robots and the places are usually real, like New York (where a lot of films take place), it is still all fake. Whether a narrative filmmaker bends the truth of the world to the extreme or not at all, it is and will always be fiction. If you want to watch a film completely accurate to real life, watch CSPAN or security video’s from elevators. Even so called Reality TV is so controlled and cut so delicately that it creates false moments in subjects lives—highlighting certain conversations or certain situations that would otherwise (in real life) be totally unmemorable. Just add some dramatic music and cut to a commercial and any life moment can be a cliff hanger. Is that reality?

Chapter Two:

Recently, an old friend and cultural philosopher told me sports take our instinctual thirst for war and destruction and places it in a controlled setting, which is significant sign of a civilized society. Though there can be violence which stems from sports (I was almost in a fight twice during a kickball game a few weeks ago), for the most part sports is an outlet or a medium to express competitiveness than can otherwise go to (perhaps) war, battling, dueling, and other channels of aggression. I know that people like Rand Paul would like dueling to be around again, but I’ll stick with watching The Flyers.

There are many things that go into having a civilized society. I believe that we are critical of art because we know we need it to survive as a society. It helps us understand society. And when we see art that doesn’t help us understand our world, we can sometimes shun it as though it has failed us. I even feel like a failure as I view it. If I make it through an entire, one hour long episode of Jersey Shore, with commercials, I actually feel like a failed—as if by seeing that the show was on, life gave me a pop quiz.

Now this says more about me than the makers of the show. I certainly do not blame the creators of Jersey Shore for people watching Jersey Shore. Their intentions and goals were to, with the help of hint fabrication, document a particular kind of character from a particular kind of culture that was previously only seen on youTube or the boardwalk. The intellectual problem with the show is not caused by the colorful characters nor is it the flamboyant theme; it’s that we never learn anything about the souls or thoughts of the characters. It is as though the characters (Pauly D, Snooki, and company) are used like animals in a zoo. We know very well how they act, but we no nothing of how they feel. And for this same exact reason, the show succeeds.

Which brings us to another, yet more confusing issue; we as a society still love crap.

But how is this true? If a film is trying to be intelligent, yet comes up short, we for some reason dislike it more than a product which has no goal of intelligence. I know a lot of very smart people who absolutely despise Juno, yet find Jersey Shore totally acceptable. I suppose it is easier or perhaps more fun to point out the dumb parts in a smart product than to point out the smart parts of a dumb product. It is though we want to prove that the smart product is certainly not smarter than us, and that we are smart enough to enjoy things seemingly stupid. It’s like smart, college kids who ironically watch Sponge Bob or Friday the 13th. “I’m smart enough to see pass the stupidity.”

This is a prime example of how we as humans are instinctively competitive. (See how I go full circle?)

Pointing out the flaws in films is a way for people to win a battle with a defenseless entity. It’s like arguing with a barking puppy. People should just look pass the barking part and admire how Dodger wags her little fluffy tail. If we go through life pointing out what is wrong with it, we will never see how cute it is when it chases its tail.

Chapter 3: Pearl Jam

I love the flaws. Perfect art is not perfect to life simply because life is not perfect. With the exception of Back to the Future, is there such a thing as perfect art?

I think a lot of people could agree that most of Beethoven’s symphonies are the most perfect pieces of music ever assembled. As much as musical brilliance as anyone could ever achieve or comprehend. Take everyone who would agree with that statement and ask them if they prefer to listen to Beethoven 9th over their favorite rock album. What would they say?

When I listen to bands like The Beatles, Radiohead, or Wilco, I think to myself that their music is perfect rock and roll. I have also been to 42 out of 50 states in America, and feel that New York is the greatest city in the country. However, Philadelphia* is my favorite city and Pearl Jam is my favorite band.

It’s hard to say there is more stuff to do in Philly than New York or that Yield is musically better than Kid A. I’m not trying to make that argument. But I love Philly and Pearl Jam for very similar reasons; the imperfections. Pearl Jam reminds me of myself; energetic at times, emotional at others, straightforward, sometimes profound, and sometimes full of crap. I like Eddie Vedder because he rambles nonsensically for many minutes, yet is sincere with what he says. Vedder doesn’t succeed all the time, but he tries. Life is a batty mixture between candor and bullshit; I feel Pearl Jam is the same way.

I could never write a song as good as any Pearl Jam song, yet I feel like I can. This, for whatever reason, makes me feel good when I listen to them. I feel like the imperfections in their music, both live and on disk, is similar to my own failures and success.

I am Pearl Jam.

*this can be explained in my blog titled, The Philadelphia Story. Go ahead, read it some time. Not now of course, you have another chapter to go.

Chapter Four:

I was watching the Eagles game with a friend of mine and a commercial came on asking for money for a youth centered organization. It was like the YMCA, yet I feel it was some other organization…so let’s just call it the YMCA. During this commercial for the “YMCA,” the ad in some way or another mentioned that the group was, “allowing kids to go on field trips,” then, “allowing kids to learn about space (or some shit)” and then finally, “allowing our kids to explore the world of the arts.” Now it wasn’t until this last part when my friend said, “I’ll support the other stuff, but I’m not going to give to the arts.” This bothered me a bit. Those little minority children reminded me of myself when I was that age. I was that kid in High School who prayed for funding for artistic activities.

I, of course, understand the need to promote the sciences and mathematics and field trips—these things are obvious. It’s less obvious to point out the importance of the arts because what society gains from the arts is not seen physically. Rockets and iPods don’t come from Shakespeare. But the arts are just as important because its creates the gift of free thought. Sure, we can concentrate exclusively on construction of property and advancement of comfort through technology, but to have life with this narrow isolation—to live under the notion that all we need is food, shelter, and water, metaphysically speaking we will be nothing more than any other mammal on earth. If we received God’s gift of reason and critical thought, wouldn’t it be a waste not to use it? Would you really want a world just black and white and robotic with existence?

The arts undermine the establishment, but yet the establishment is completely fine with it. Music is, was, and will always be the simplest, and yet, at the same time the most complicated form of communication. A picture is worth a thousand words, yet a million thoughts. Films and theater show examples of life, love, and loss—they are used for reflection and advice. We need these things like we need water. The iPod has been around for 10 years. Automobiles have been around for over a hundred years. But art has been around forever. And it will always be.

Here’s the moral of the story; you need the arts…dick.

Music and Women and Garlic Mashed Potatoes

It was in the early stages of Chuck when:

In the late 1990s, as a youngster in grade school, I invented the flip ‘up in the front’ hair style and the iPod. Though other people like Steve Jobs and Carson Daily took credit for both of these things, it was I who truly first came up with each concept. Growing up with my grandparents I was introduced to the hair style ‘up in the front’ look while I watched 50s and 50s style TV shows like Leave it to Beaver and Happy Days where predominate characters in each had the hair due exactly like a young Chuck Marks. So obviously, I didn’t “invent” the hair style, but I re-introduced it to youth of the 90s. As a third grader, when everyone was socially into the elementary school version of grunge (Ace of Spades), I was kicking it with the ‘up in the front’ look. It wasn’t until 6th grade, when people graduated to the Backstreet Boys, that they realize I was right, and before you know it everyone was using level 8 max hold Xtreme hair gel to completely flatten every inch of their skulls except the very inch from their forehead thus creating a “up in the front” look. Then when I did it everyone called me a poser. Later that year I stopped gelling my hair and started listening to Pearl Jam.

As disappointing as it is to not receive credit for UITF (up in the front), it is much harder to realize that I was the one who came up with the iPod and not get my proper due. Hair styles come and go but Steve Jobs will always be a weirdo. It’s not like I told Steve Jobs my idea, so certainly he did not steal it. And it’s not like I wrote him a letter; at that time, computer screens were still black and green and I was receiving extra help in English (though it was my native tongue). I guess the idea sparked as I was struggling to listen through a scratched and skipping compact disk. See, no matter how much a took care of my CDs, no matter what I did, they always, always wound up scratching. (If I only knew that my CDs would be a prelude to my love life I could have saved myself a lot of trouble and actually studied in school instead of thinking about women… In the end, with CDs and relationships, thinking back I could have given a bit more effort.) Anyway, as our family was coming back from a Christmas party in New Jersey, my CD (being played by a CD player with a 30 ESP), was skipping like little school girl. I put the CD player down in disgust and ask my father how songs get put onto CDs and why CDs were so sensitive. He first said that CDs were not that sensitive and that I just don’t take care of things the way I should. After a lecture on how to properly put my bike away, he then professed that information gets digitally placed on the CD and the player reads the info off of the CD to create the sound, which in my case he claimed was shitty. After defending Beck’s album Odelay for a few inconvincible minutes, I said that the walkman companies should just put the information directly on the CD player without using the CDs. And just call it a player, thus throwing the whole concept of a compact disk out the window… My whole family said it was a good idea, and then we started complaining about garlic mashed potatoes. Now it was understood that garlic mashed potatoes can be a good add on for a meal of this caliber, a Christmas meal, but one also has to have real mashed potatoes too, I mean it’s Christmas not Flag Day. Aunt Dotty didn’t think so. And when I, plate filled with biscuits, turkey, crab cake, stuffing, cole slaw, and other fixings, looked for the potatoes, Aunt Dotty pointed solely to the garlic mashed potatoes. I carefully chuckled, thinking it was a Christmas joke. I looked at the counter behind me. I looked in the oven. I looked in the cupboards. The refrigerator. The Microwave. Behind the couch. Then I realized that there is no such thing as a Christmas joke. This was a Christmas reality. No regular, American made, terrorist free, mashed potatoes. Instead, drastically replaced, Al-Qaeda loving, Mussolini style, garlic mashed potatoes. If there is an antonym for the phrase “Christmas Miracle”, I would use it. And if it wasn’t for Twisted Metal Two on Playstation one, Christmas would have been ruined forever.

Now, over ten years later, my invention the iPod is one of my favorite devices. I have become addicted to it. But like all drugs, the good ones at least, there are some side effects. For one, I can no longer go for a run without listening to the This American Life, Preston and Steve, Adam Carolla, or the Fresh Air podcast (nothing gets me pumped up like Terry Gross). Since I am conditioned to have something playing in my ear while I run at all times, when my jog last an hour or more, I am not able to bear my own thoughts. I keep thinking to myself, “You’re a bad runner because you are a bad person. You are a bad runner because you are a bad person.” I need a little Ira Glass to help me along and get my mind off of things.

But that’s more of a personal problem…

One technical problem with the iPod is something you (as a musician) can take advantage of:

When the iPod is touched inappropriately and goes into the PLAY ALL mode, the songs start aphetically. I can not comprehend the total number of times I inadvertently heard the synthesize drums on the opening seconds of Ah-Ha Take on Me. I can’t be the only one who ever made this mistake.

Though I play the drums and guitar, I am by no means a musician nor do I ever aspire to be in a band (and If I were to ever drum for a band, I assure you that it wouldn’t be a good enough band that could get me hot, tattoo chicks with bangs. Or a band that would ever be on someone’s iPod.) But, as a guy who owns an iPod, I would suggest this to someone with musical skills; whatever your band name may be make sure it starts with an A. If your name is, for example, The AAA’s, and somebody just so happen to have your band on their iPod, but they don’t go out of their way to listen to you, they will be forced to listen to at least the first couple of seconds of your song every single time they touch their iPod inappropriately. Your band could be the next Ah-Ha. See, every time my iPod PLAYS ALL, I am reminded of Ah-Ha. For at least 3 minutes, I think about Ah-Ha. I think about that fun pencil cartoon music video. I think about 80s films. I think about Val Kilmer as a teenager. And if your band was called The AAA’s, I would think about you.*

This is a technical problem, but:

One of the biggest side effects from the iPod, on a societal level, is a much more exigent matter to discuss. Most of us in our mid-twenties can claim that growing up we listened to our music on either a walkman cassette or a CD player. The magic of both of these devices is that it was required to listen to whole albums all the way through. I guess in theory you could skip your way to your favorite song, which is perfectly fine, but if you chose not to sit there in your Grandpa’s Ford Escort in silence, you were kind of forced to listen to the rest of an album as well. This made the album, the record in its entirety, vitality in it self.

So think about this:

If Dark Side of the Moon made its debut in March of 2010, would it have the same effect as it did in March of 1973? Now, there are many different variables that go into this of course. For one, rock music was much more popular back in ’73 than it is now. So the music itself, if made today, would probably be celebrated amongst people who were into today’s version of that style of music rather than the, Justin Beaver centered, larger audience. But, because of the iPod and iTunes, I argue, if Dark Side came out today there would be many more people downloading Money and Time rather than downloading and listening to the album in its entirety. And the lack of this notion, the lack of technology like iTunes which eludes people with the option to download just one or two songs, I say, is the reasons why Dark Side of the Moon has made such a mark on time…(that and it’s cool to fog the air and link the record up to The Wizard of Oz.) The point is I feel that the album is more appreciated because people were forced to listen to the whole thing.

Which poses another question, if an album that came out in the 2000s, but had the equal conception and exotic uniqueness of Dark Side of the Moon—say for example, if Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out in 1973, would it be now more of a house hold name? Even if a more conventional band, like the very popular group Nickelback were to make a dreadfully experimental concept album, would people listen to it? Or would they only listen to that song about photographs and guys named Joey. Would a band like Nickleback even exist if the iPod were not invented?

I wonder how many bands would not even exist if you couldn’t buy their single on iTunes.

Chapter Two:

There are only a few people, the ones born in my generation, know the true excitement of making a mix tape. Of course there are mix CDs, but for some reason it just doesn’t add up to the rush of putting together a solid mix tape. Sitting there with your hands on the STOP button, waiting for the perfect moment to end the song, followed by the impassioned analytical process of figuring out which song to play next—which of course is based on mood, tape motif, the ending of the previous song, and beginning of the next potential one. Sure, you get all of this pressure while making a mix CD, but if something doesn’t sound quite right—if the order of songs is not in perfect harmony—in a mix CD, the change you make in the playlist is unnoticed. However, when making a mix tape, if you decide to make a change, there will be a loud unavoidable click; therefore allowing the listener know that you’ve made an initial mistake, in which case you are named a failure and you get put on a list.

Making a mix tape also takes time. Unlike a mix CD, where all you have to do is listen to the first and last seconds of each song, when one makes a mix tape one must listen to the entire song. All the way through. And carefully. You can’t just put it on and walk away, you have to sit there and listen to it and stop the tape before the next song begins.

On a side note: whether it’s a tape or CD, putting two songs in order as they originally appear on the album is most likely cutting corners. There are exceptions, most notably, Queens We Will Rock You and We are the Champions.

No pain no gain: It’s really the effort you put in a mix tape that makes it unique and special. Making it easier to mix songs takes the sweat out of it. A sweat that only a few were likely enough to enjoy.

Plus it shows that you care…

I haven’t made a mix CD for a girl in years, but it’s been way longer since I have made a mix tape. I think if I met a girl who would enjoy listening to a mix tape, and had access to a tape player, I would marry her on the spot…

This ultimately brings us to how music affects my love life. See, I want to be able to have conversations with women about music. A girl can be of a different religion, race, or of a different political philosophy as me—she can literally say that we should go back to the gold standard, say that Global warming was created by Nancy Pelosi, be dreadfully convinced that (because of her vast foreign affairs experience) Sarah Palin can solve the Palestine / Israel problem, like garlic mashed potatoes, even love garlic mashed potatoes, be a Dallas Cowboys fan, hate ice cream, hate crab cakes, love canned cranberry sauce, absolutely hate cigarettes, absolutely love cigarettes, absolutely hate hamburgers, be literally the biggest fan of the Big Bang Theory, hates my blog, wears a DARE shirt non-ironically, absolutely love hamburgers, or thinks that Spin City was the only credible thing Michael J. Fox has ever done, and I would STILL like her and STILL date her and STILL marry her if I could have a 45 minute, intelligent conversation about Paul Simons Graceland or John Coltrane’s Giant Steps…and if she likes my two dogs. You know what? Even if the girl like today’s pop music, but hold’s an intelligent conversation about it, I could still dig it. If a girl can fully explain why the forth track of the latest Flo Rida record succeeds on a contextual and socially evocative level, that girl would still be the one for me. The point is, finding a girl who is truly and sincerely and intelligently into music, trumps all other qualities. So, I guess, if you are a girl and you read all of my ramblings on music that eventually got you to the end of this blog—to this very sentence you are reading right now and you were not bored, give me a call and let’s go on a date…you can even wear your vintage, McCain/Palin ‘08 shirt.


Chuck 0ut.

*If you are an artist, feel free to take the name The AAA’s. That is my gift to you.

Dodger Dog and other points

Listen, I know I walk a tight rope. I don’t have a good paying job. I don’t live in a cool apartment. And really, I’m no Brad Pitt or even a Liam Nesson, for that matter. So when I approach a woman in a bar or the park or at a garage sale, I have to make sure everything I say and do is absolutely spotless. Now the cooler the girl, the easier it is, but when you start quoting Back to the Future Two it’s a real gamble. Odds are, as seen in Knocked Up, girls have no idea who the hell Doc Brown is, let alone Biff Tannen, Jennifer Parker, or the dynamics of the space time continuum (which explains why the film only rated a measly 8.4 out of 10 on IMDB.)

Sports references are okay with the ladies, but don’t start telling a story about Tommy Greene just because the girl is wearing a Phillies shirt. What I noticed is that 8 out of 10 times a guy should NEVER bring up sports, but if a girl shall approach the subject, it’s okay to go with it as long as you don’t debate her on issue’s like Andy Reid’s decision to have Mike Vick run it up in the middle on 4th and 1 with less than two minutes left in the game. Even if you do wind up dating this woman, would you really want your first conversation be an argument?

Obviously having good teams in the city is always a magnificent thing. You can’t walk 90 feet in the city without seeing someone with a Phillies cap. It’s great. But the draw back is that everyone starts to know everything about the team. When the team is the forefront of social activity, things start coming arise. Take for instance, a girl who simply likes sports, but doesn’t watch ESPN or listen to Mike Missanelli every day—a girl who gets into a particular sport for the in-moment excitement and nothing else—she most likely doesn’t give a shit about it outside the minutes within the game. If you were to move your conversation, with said potential lady, to the topic of the Philadelphia Hockey Flyers and you started spitting off random facts about the importance of icing during a 3 on 5 or Canada, you know you could lose the girls interest very easily.

There are certain risk you take when bringing up sports in conversation.

1) The potential girl will lose interest and start to look around for her friends. She’ll find her friends and leave you to watch Sports Center on mute.
2) The potential girl will know more about the sport than you do and you look like an idiot who likes dogs and magic cards.
OR
3) She actually wants to continue speaking with you, but due to lack of knowledge on the newly introduced topic, she now has nothing to offer to the conversation—which makes her feel uncomfortable.

In the latter case, she will search in her mind drastically to make some sort of relevant comment, which will mostly result in, “Dan Carcillo is really hot. That mustache is makes me quiver.” At that point, you now know at least this one thing; Carcillo is now your enemy. You find yourself rooting against him. You drop him from your fantasy team in the fantasy league you previously forgot you were apart of. Remember the Ryan Howard dilemma in my previous blog, Sports and Wine? A woman telling you that she has a crush on the guy you athletically look up to is basically the same thing; you won’t be able to look at him the same way. He will score a goal and you will cheer, but only a great sense of reluctance and jealously.

It is along these lines that over the last few years I have learned to hate Chase Utley for the same reason guys from New York/Jersey secretly hate Derek Jeter. If you ever go to Phillies ballpark you’ll find EVERY SINGLE GIRL is wearing an Utley shirt. The same goes with Jeter at Yankee stadium. If you were to take all of the talent and all of the skill of Jeter or Utley and put it in the body of Paul Giamatti, do you think every girl in the Tri-State/Delaware Valley area would be sporting their numbers? Meh, I think not. It’s kind of similar to hating Brad Pitt or Leonardo Dicaprio—they are both pretty boys who you are instinctually commanded to hate, yet one made Fight Club and the other Inception, which makes it hard to have any revulsion towards them. It’s fun to make fun of a pretty boy if he strikes out or stars in All the Pretty Horses, but once he does something of merit like win the World Series or anchor The Departed it’s hard to preach against him.

When I was living in LA:

I was taking my morning run through South Central near USC. Now you may have heard of South Central, Los Angeles in Dr. Dre songs, but I assure you it is not as bad as the doctor suggest. A friend once said to me that it is earthly impossible to have a dangerous ghetto if palm trees are present. Which is true. The only problem I ever had in South Central was when the taco guy on the corner of Fig and 38th shorted me 35 cents. (Hector, if you are reading this, I will get you. I will get you one day Senor. !Venganza! Venganza, indeed)

Anyway, I was running this one fine morning in the June of 2009, when I saw a raggedy young puppy in the middle of traffic. She had the dirty fur of a Columbus night walker and a fresh collection of real bad ass dread locks—not the kind of dreads rich kids from the suburbs who listen to Phish wear, but actual, Malibu Rum commercial dread locks. She was all alone, nobody calling after her, nobody caring. She ran amongst the cars, slightly evading each one as if it the highway was a game of dodge ball. And I stood there for a moment and watched for second. Then I did what anybody would have done. The most logical thing—what anybody would have done…I continued running. (I was in the fucking zone).

I continued running through the warm California air, admiring how the smog highlighting the Los Angeles sky is oddly handsome, when I came back to see the same dog doing the same exact thing in the middle of the street. And really, in true Los Angeles fashion, though this cute puppy dog was inches away from getting smashed by each passing Prius, nobody gave a shit. So, for the first time in a long time, I picked the girl up and took her home.

That day my roommate and I took her to various veterinarians to see if she had a chip in her that could identify if she was loved or not. She was not. We then went to the LA County SPCA to drop her off to puppy prison. I asked the puppy warden how long they’d keep her before she goes to puppy death row and the man said, because of over crowding, only four days. All of California has this problem; human and dog prisons alike. I then asked if it was a likely chance she might get adopted before the four days. The man sat there in his official brown button down shirt, Smokey the bear hat, and dollar store silver badge, arms crossed, while he shook his head claiming no. It was at that very moment when the dark eyed doggie sitting in my arms looked right into my eyes and with the love of a thousands pounds of kibble, licked my unshaved face. It was over. She was mine and I was hers and there was nothing either of us could do.

At first I thought I could just be a foster parent to her—take care of her, while I looked for a permanent guardian. Who knows? Maybe she could see angels in the outfield during an Angels game like in the movie Angels in the Outfield staring the Inception guy from 3rd Rock from the Sun…But that didn’t wind up happening. However, similar to Angels in the Outfield, I had to learn the lesson that raising a foster child is difficult because the minute you get attached, the child gets adopted by Danny Glover. And exactly what happened, I got attached.

When it was time to move back to Pennsylvania, it was a no brainer to bring the pup back with me. There we were, driving up the 10 out of LA, heads out the window, yelling, “So long, Stink Town!” She and I traveled back east in the summer zephyr, both rejected from the city of Los Angeles and on our way back home.

I named her Dodger. My mom and dad named me Charles. I go by Charlie and Chuck interchangeably. Dodger goes by Dodge sometimes and sometimes I call her Fiffa World Cup or Dodge Caravan or Dodge Stump the Fans or BuBu; all for different reasons which you can ask me about in person.

My little Dodger is one of things I am most proud of, even though she is a pain in the ass sometimes… But aren’t we all? In life, sometimes we shit on the rug and other times we don’t, as long as somebody takes us for a walk every now and we’ll all be cool.

People say to me that I should tell girls the story of Dodger. But how do you bring something like that up at a bar? Whenever I walk my two dogs in the park or down the shore and another dog sniffs my dogs ass, I always know if the dog is a rescue. You know why? Because the pompous prick tells me as soon as he or she gets a chance. “This is Fluffy. I rescued her. I’m telling you this because I want you to think that I am awesome. Did you rescue this one? Are you as good of a person as I am? Because I’m really awesome. I rescue dogs. I also read books and donate to public radio.”

I don’t want to be that guy. Just because you didn’t pay for your dog, doesn’t mean you rescued it. I only have Dodger because she is stupid enough to run through traffic and she is fucking cute. If she were a less cute animal like a squirrel or a giraffe, I would have kept running and thought nothing of it or that the circus is in town. Let’s face it; dogs are cute and friendly as hell. Most of them have true love in their hearts. I guess the point is that I needed Dodger just as much as she needed me. I’m no hero; I’m just a guy without a girlfriend.

Back to the issue at hand:

Finding the right thing to say to a girl is tough, but using stock stories like “rescuing” a dog just sounds cheap. And I feel cheap telling it. It’s kind of cheating. Wouldn’t it be more rewarding to find a girl by thinking quick and with wit.

See, in the amount of time you have to make an impression—the thinking on your feet, making every word count, type of interaction can either make you or break you. Picking up a girl and going to an interview is essentially the same thing; in both cases, you’re trying to receive some sort of “job”. (Don’t think too hard about that pun). But in both cases, don’t make a great deal out of something small. You’ll just feel silly.