Surfing and Shakespeare

Last week, I saw Toy Story 3. It is, admittedly, a good film, but I feel as though it may fail on two distinct levels. While the characters, plot, voice-acting, animation and directing are all top-notch, I feel that the problem with this movie was tone. The idea of Andy leaving for college and the psuedo-mortality theme of toys being relegated to an attic, daycare, landfill, etc, seems, in my mind, a bit over the heads of Pixar's younger audience members. Perhaps I'm not giving America's youth enough credit, but on the other hand, I thought Wall-E delivered incredible messages in a packaging that was much easier to process for those both young and old. Staying fit, going green, etc. are all take-away messages that are practical and hopeful. Toy Story 3's take-away, after the college elements have been stripped away, plays like some sort of New-Age message about life after death, positing that in the face of death, we must be true to ourselves and accept with passive calmness what is coming, and perhaps, things may turn out for the best. Perhaps I'm reading too much into a movie about toys, or perhaps I'm simply in a ranting mood. I honestly did enjoy Toy Story 3, and I would happily recommend it to friends of the series. Further, I would also suggest that one watch Toy Story and Toy Story 2 again before seeing TS3. I did not, and found myself disengaged somewhat from characters with which I knew I was supposed to be feeling a deep, aching, empathy.

On a different note, and with a further tilt of the overly-analytical eyebrow, on the same day I also saw Montana Shakespeare In the Park's Julius Caesar. As it was on July 3rd, and the last performance of that show in Bozeman, they preambled the show with a reading of the Declaration of Independence. Sitting next to the Montana State University Duck Pond on a tarp, listening to an archaically-phrased attack on a tyrant while the echo of fireworks went off in the background, I realized that maybe, for once in my life, the old platitude that a liberal arts education actually has an application waiting for it out there somewhere was true. The events of Julius Caesar detail the overthrow of a potential tyrant (Thanks Sparknotes). The Declaration of Independence, I hope, needs no introduction.  This makes me begin to think that the liberal arts is a degree that not only entitles one to observe blindingly obvious connections, but also to work as a revolutionary. Who else has less to lose in a revolution than a starving poet/writer/fashion critic/journalist/blogger? Who has the endless hours to contemplate the injustices of a distant tyrant but the privileged children of the elite, given entirely too much knowledge, entirely too little experience, and entirely too much time on their hands? It's thoughts like these that make me wonder if somewhere, on an FBI watchlist in a forgotten computer bank in a bunker deep underground, there's a collection of every alum of every single liberal arts university in the country. They are, after all, dangerous intellectuals. As for the show itself- semi-solid, an interesting wrestling match at the opening, and easily making me reevaluate my relatively low opinion of student theatre in general. It appears that the Columbia community has been showing off some acting skills that, unknown to me, are at least comparable, if not entirely dwarfing, those of certain Montana troupes.

As for surfing in Montana? On our bejeweled, if imaginary, coastline? On our high mountain peaks? On our rolling plains? I say thee nay. Instead, look yonder, to the wake behind that noblest of watercraft, the motorboat. Using a miniature surfboard (not a wakeboard, thank you very much), one can use a towrope to jolt oneself upright, and then surf the continually generated wake behind the boat, dropping the towrope entirely. My single brief experience wakeboarding amounted to no more than me being dragged around a lake on my face for about forty minutes, being told cheerily all the while that the trick was to, "just get up," and then the fun would really begin. As to what this fun was, or to how I was to "just get up," I remained in the dark. Surfing behind a motorboat, or wakeskating, as I believe it's properly called, holds no such shallow promises. Easy, hilarious, and fun as heck (look at me, I'm Johnny Tsunami!). Overall, a fantastic Fourth of July activity.

That's all for now wonderful people. Hope you all had a fantastic Fourth!

Lions and Tornadoes and Meth Freaks, Oh My!

My family and I have found a nature trail maybe five minutes from our house. It's a narrow strip of woods  maybe two hundred feet wide between two suburban neighborhoods, and a stream runs through the middle of it. We often take our dog, a Newfoundland, on walks there during the summer months, because he's built for cold, wet weather, and being able to jump in a mountain stream helps him deal with the 90+ degree weather here. So, on father's day, while my dad and I were off bonding, my mother took our dog for a walk on this nature trail. We tend not to use a leash with him because he's slow moving and incredibly gentle, and this time he had wandered maybe fifty feet out in front of my mother when a fully grown mountain lion stalked out onto the trail about ten feet in front of her. Luckily our dog ran back and scared it away from my mother, but I shudder to think what would've happened had our dependable Silas not been there. On a further note,  my mother called animal control the next day and the cougar was removed, but there's no telling how long that cougar was roaming around within a few hundred feet of all the small children in those two neighborhoods.

As for tornadoes? One hit Billings, MT a few days ago. Billings is about a three hour drive away from Bozeman, and, perhaps needless to say, does not often get hit by tornadoes. Or at least, that's what I thought. Then I found this website http://www.tornadohistoryproject.com/, which indicates that MT has been hit by several tornadoes a year since at least 1950. My bad? Anywho, when the tornado hit Billings, no one was killed, but the twister did tear the roof off the convention center. Catch the crazy video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlGsNN7TPrc

As for meth freaks? A friend of mine is going to be in a ten minute student film, which will essentially be a ten minute parkour chase and fight scene. It's all going down at a crazy abandoned flour mill, which he took me out to yesterday. He showed me the route they're taking, over sheds and weird abandoned equipment overgrown with grass- cool stuff. My friend made it look all graceful and fantastically easy, but, of course, as I attempted to follow him at a vastly slower pace, I just barely avoided falling five feet into a big bundle of rusty, sharp scrap metal. Parkour, apparently, will not be my thing anytime soon. As for the meth freaks? We circled around the outside of the mill, and found a variety of beaten down trails in the grass going straight into the abandoned mill. There was a partially closed garage door that we peeked under. Cheetos wrappers, a couch, and a few old syringes. Needless to say, we left in a hurry. The film may or may not be moved to a new location, depending.

Montana, it seems is still packed with random dangers, but I'm still having a great time. Karate is everything I wanted it to be with chill instructors, one-on-one coaching, physical conditioning, and three chances a week to come in. I'm officially a white belt, and the gi is a nice loose fit. I'm so excited I've been practicing my blocks and kicks casualy around the house!

As for movies, the A-Team was a bit lackluster. This is coming from a guy who loves campy action movies. Other than the tank-falling-out-of-the-sky scene, there were two great over the top sequences, but the rest of the movie didn't quite hit that ridiculous adrenaline/goofy humor mix right. A lot of posturing with machine guns, not nearly enough cray tank sequences. A decent time sink, but whatever your current expectations are, lower them a few notches, and you've probably got what this movie is.

However, I highly recommend Get Him to the Greek, which is not only hilarious, but actually pays attention to things like character development, which is a traditional weakness for the comedy genre. However, as the critics are saying, Get Him to the Greek not only pounds out fantastic laughter, but also has a sprinkling of character development, and the chemistry between the stars is absolutely phenomenal. A definite must-see!

It's getting late here, so I'm signing off. More soon, depending on how quickly interesting things continue to happen to/around me, as always.

Martial Arts, Manliness, and Camp

So, it looks like tomorrow night will be my triumphant return to the wonderful world of martial arts. My grand total of experience runs for about a yearl and a half over the past twenty, well spread out, and in different disciplines. Aikido when I was in middle (or was it elementary?) school; and Judo for the past semester in college. Aikido tends to be a series of redirections, throws and holds with very little emphasis on weapons training or on punching or kicking. It's very much (as I hazily remember it, so feel free to correct me) about using your attacker's energy against him. Very pacifist, very new age, and I think the whole discipline is less than fifty years old. Judo, on the other hand, is simply wrestling with a wider variety of throws and holds, including chokeholds.

I, on the other hand, am now signed up to head out tomorrow night with my stuntman friend to begin basic Karate lessons- a brush-up for him, a totally new thing for me. Karate, as near as I understand it, seems to run on a philosophy almost perpendicular to Aikido. I've been told to expect punching and kicking in my very first class, and, to be honest, I'm very excited. I've made bizarrely successful strides towards improving my diet and exercise this summer, but I've worried about the transition back to college- surrounded by pizza joints and a near-constant influx of alcohol makes difficult grounds for dieting. I'm thinking that if I can get involved in Karate, maybe I can continue to follow it on campus, and through that find some real motivation to continue eating right, etc.

I was thoroughly unimpressed with Judo this last semester, to be honest. The chokeholds and throws were fantastic and really engaging, but they only came in the last week or two of the program, meaning that just when I was starting to get engaged with the material, the program was over. Karate, on the other hand, should drop me right into the water with strikes and kicks and whatnot- the really interesting stuff. Holds and trips are great, but they don't give you quite the same rush as throws or hits. That same rush, I'm hoping, will keep me coming back and striving to get better.

Anywho, on an entirely different note, I'm off to see A-Team tonight and am very much looking forward to some quality bonding time with my padre, and the opportunity to laugh righteously at such a ludicrously campy action flick. It looks (maybe) like it might join my recent of action favorites, a group which includes Jason Statham's Crank, and Clive Owen's Shoot Em Up, and could easily be expanded to include such greats as the Evil Dead series or really, any of Sam Raimi's or Robert Rodriguez's work. I'll let you all know how A-Team seems to me, but in the meantime, if anything on that list looks unfamiliar to you and you're in the mood for a goofy action or horror flick, take something for a test drive and get back to me.

Adios testosterone junkies!

Breaking News

Recently, I've been caught up in a flood of activity here in the 406. If I can, I offer to all of you a quick string of the events I've been up to: getting up to ten or fifteen hours of overtime (i.e. working at least 50+ hours this last week); paintballing in a random section of woods/farm/junkyard; being recruited to help a stuntman in training build an obstacle course; learning the true meaning of chess as a sport with drunken five-minute speed chess against graphic artists living in what is, essentially, a commune; and filming and taking pictures of one of our largest worksites for this summer- (once I figure out how to get videos and photos on this darn thing, expect to see a fair number).

A word on overtime, briefly- getting paid time-and-a-half is fantastic, but it begins to drag out a bit when you're doing heavy manual labor. A few days ago, I found myself unable to make a fist with my left hand after a thirteen hour day in the rain. Today, one of my two non-consecutive days off this week, my forearms/wrists/fingers are getting on a first name basis with Icyhot. In short, the money is good, but the hours are really killing my body. I was hoping that the beginning of the season -early to mid June- would find life in the wedding rental business a bit less hectic, as was the case last summer. One would expect that between unpredictable heavy thunderstorms, hailstorms, and snowstorms (yes, in June, that is how Montana works in the spring/early summer) that pre-planned galla events would take place largely indoors. However, one would be largely wrong.

Our most recent job, the largest one, and the one that I attempted, however haphazardly, to document, might serve as a decent example of this. Our largest tent- a 60' X 100' went up in a rodeo grounds, where it had been raining for the last three days. Essentially, we were setting up in a mudpit. Even the heavy equipment we use to set up this large of a tent couldn't deal- the forklift ended up spinning out. Fortunately, my boss (effectively, if not in title) is a totally badass 50-something man. He's a bit short, has just had shoulder surgery, has been doing manual labor his entire life, and has a great deal of technical expertise. When the forklift began spinning out, he had his sister (who works with us as well, ahh the joys of family life) jump in his diesel pickup, pull into the rodeo grounds, and haul the entirety of the tent and the forklift. At the end of the day, when we had driven the hour and a half back into Bozeman, he told us to clock out by stroking briefly at his white facial hair, then touching the brim of his ducttaped straw cowboy hat, uttering the phrase, "Party's over." What a man.

In a similar but much more unsettling vein, I find myself awkwardly running into a fair amount of strange racism both on the job and from a few acquaintances who grew up in Bozeman. The casual use of incredibly offensive terms, phrases, and ideas takes what I've seen from east coast upper-crusters and puts it to shame. It seems as though, here in Montana, ignorance and hatred are not yet dead, and the nasty malaise will settle on any target- the Chinese, the Mexicans, the Blacks, the Native Americans, the Indians, the Arabs, the Muslims, the Mormons- the list goes on, but my patience begins to wear thin. I never really took myself for someone with a political message -with a social agenda to push- but nowadays I could easily see myself becoming one of "those" people. The people who kill jokes, the people who turn an entire conversation on its ear to talk about the latest famine or natural disaster or genocide. Not that these issues aren't important, mind you, simply that, in day-to-day conversation, bringing them up as a first choice topic tends to turn whatever the general atmosphere is to one of guilt and depression. In other words, a downer. Yet, slamming up against this level of ignorance may yet force me to jump into that role. I realize I'm being ferociously vague, but it's hard to speak out against someone who's your senior when he or she tells you that, "All the Chinamen are jerks. They just come off the tour buses and stand around in the grocery stores like idiots and don't let you by. But that's because they're Chinamen and they don't speak our language. They should just go back to China." Mildly humorous because of the level of ignorance, yes. Terrifying to hear coming from the lips of someone 20+ years older than you? Definitely.

Anywho, enough of that. For right now I only have one last thought to share, which is simply that the movie Prince of Persia is actually somewhat worth seeing. It's a trashy action movie based on a video game, yes, but it's the first one in that genre that I've seen since Resident Evil that might actually stand on its own as a trashy action movie without the video game franchise to back it up. Not a cinematic game-changer, but if you're looking to kill a few hours to see some special effects and parkour, you could do worse than the Prince of Persia.

Adios for now, sports fans.

Sudden Doubts

Settled back in here, finally. The job is going okay, but the first few weeks are very slow, with a lot of inventory, maintenance and cleaning. Things should pick up towards July and August, but for now, it's a bit grueling.

I've met up with some old friends from middle school, which is bizarre to say the least. They're doing okay, going to MSU, and staying in a cheap but lavishly furnished apartment for the summer- 5 fish tanks, dishwasher in the kitchen, great new couch with two incredibly comfortable chairs, Xbox, carpets and rugs out the wazoo, not to mention a variety of soft lighting, and what I'm fairly sure is a 42" plasma flatscreen. Not bad for a student apartment. makes me wonder what sort of off-campus options are floating about in NYC for the coming fall. Maybe it'd be better than my 81 sq ft single, but on the other hand, apartments on the upper west side wouldn't be coming cheap.

My latest ponderings are largely focused on my choice of major. It seems to me that perhaps, I may have made a mistake. My peers -friends, enemies, and associates in the wonderful college world- all seem to have a rather passionate drive to pursue their major. Pushing a 4.0 GPA, finding internships in the field, constantly reading news related to their industry- they all seem very interested in their major. Don't get me wrong, I've had my fair share of fun with creative writing, and I think, egotistically perhaps, that I have some talent with it. Not a great deal, however, and perhaps not the passion I should have. I'll keep thinking this over, and perhaps doing some side research after work.

Oh- almost forgot! Saw a decent reading of a Mamet play recently- Glengarry Glen Ross. It went up in the slowly degenerating Blue Slipper in Livingston, maybe thirty minutes away. The theater needs new lighting to meet fire code, and seems to be one of the last classical stages in my area of MT. This reading was just part of a series of fund raisers. Richard Moreland, who played Richard Roma, stole the show. His physicality, including his hand gestures and facial features, were incredible. As it was a staged reading, there was a minor snafu with another character missing an entrance queue, but with a responsive audience (what fund raiser doesn't have wine?) he ad-libbed slightly and had the entire crowd in stitches, including, almost, himself. A great show.

That's all for now sports fans!

Setting Up

Well, I've just started this doohickey up, argued with the software for a bit, and made my first post. Hooray? Anywho. Things are looking pretty good for this coming summer- I'm living at home with the parents (which is free), and returning to my job from last summer on a manual labor crew as a team leader (which means a raise). Overall, finances should be fantastically set for me to enjoy a good fall in NYC, and hopefully, a solid spring in Ecuador.

Also, a few old friends will be in town over the summer, and the crew I'll be working with should be pretty young and outgoing, so fingers crossed for socializing aplenty. I'm also looking at going back to an internship I held last year with the Yellowstone Parks Foundation, but I'm unsure if I should spend my time volunteering/interning somewhere else. The YPF was okay, but I feel like I should try to get a little more involved with something related to publishing or teaching (good luck in MT, right?).

I'm also thinking that I might shop some of my work around to some short fiction contests. It's $10-20 entry fee, which is sort of a scam, but the prizes range from $400-$4000, plus publication. I figured that I might spend $10-20 a week on scratch-off lotto tickets after the interesting and potentially lucrative ventures I went through over spring break in CO, but maybe I'll just invest that money in a more professionally viable lotto. I figure my chances are about the same, so no harm, no foul there.

Anywho, This is running a bit long, but stay tuned and stay in touch wonderful readers. I'll see you all on the flip side!