AQ REDUX: Thirst is nothing, image is everything.

Going to St. Thomas University has been a mixed bag. Through a strike and some course requirements (fine arts credit) and lackadaisacal professors (not all) there have been some bumps in the road.

Rarely, I have contributed actual pieces of journalism to the school newspaper, the Aquinian -- or AQ as it is known in hipster circles and the cover of the paper itself. Luckily I have been able to weasel my way into the position of columnist.

Arts editors have for whatever reason given me a forum to ramble on about whatever pops into my head. I am in the process of finding copies of each of the columns I've written over the last few years and will be posting them here for your reading pleasure. I think there's one that was never published, but it will also make the grade.

Since this is the last semester at the great school of St. Thomas, it seems fitting to make this my requiem of my time spent there.


Thirst is nothing, image is everything...
by Jason Wilson

I am not cool.

The reason I am not cool is not because I lack certain qualities that create "cool." Instead, I see cool as nothing more than an abstract concept, unattainable by everyone...even the cool.

High school is a time where the segregations of social cliques hits a peak. You join the group that most closely resembles who you are on the exterior. If you have long dark hair, listen to Marilyn Manson (so 90s) and wear eyeliner...you're a "goth". If you play sports, wear polo shirts with an alligator on them (I give Lacoste a hard time), you're a "jock." If you wear vans or airwalks with baggy pants you're a "skater" even if you don't own a skateboard or have the dexterity and balance to operate one.

In each group (several go unmentioned, including sub-groups of the aforementioned) a different definition of "cool" is created and interpreted. If you don't belong, well you're uncool.

University and alternately, the working world does it in a different fashion. You strive to meet like-minded individuals you relate to on a conversational basis, but only if they wear something tasteful and to your liking.

When you meet someone, what do you talk about? The conversations tend to be simplistic and open because no one wants to be alienated and you don't want to alienate everyone you meet. Most, maybe...but not all. Simplistic equals common and common equals accessible and accessible equals popular.

What movies do you like?

What bands do you listen to?

What sports do you watch?

Books, television, celebrities, video games and products of the like all work as ice breakers and if you agree with the people you meet, the idea that that particular person you just met is cool sticks with you. If you disagree, you have no reason to extend the relationship.

Sprite lied. Their old slogan was "image is nothing, thirst is everything" and it had to be a conscious lie. It would have professional athletes like Kobe Bryant making mad dunks and cooling down with a bottle of Sprite with the label pointed perfectly at the camera. Kobe drinks Sprite and shoots threes, you can too if you buy our product!

Yes, it constantly said the opposite of what the images said and that's probably why the campaign succeeded as much as it did. It tricked people into buying the product by acknowledging the truth that Sprite would no sooner make you the next Kobe Bryant than consuming enough LSD to kill an elephant would make you the next Hunter S. Thompson or Aldous Huxley.

The pictures, however, give that glimmer of hope that maybe...just maybe you could be the exception to the rule. If you drink -- and buy -- just the right amount of Sprite then you will make the NBA and come up short for the MVP just like Kobe does every year (note: this column originally ran in spring 2007. Kobe won the NBA MVP in 2008). I wouldn't know. I've always preferred 7Up.

The image you portray, whether you do it by drinking carbonated sugar-water or if you dress like a hipster will directly and indirectly determine your social status. It doesn't matter if you're nice or a huge prick but what you look like and say.

Are you cool? Probably not because cool is not tangible. It is broad and abstract. A party girl once told me that I seemed like the kind of guy who would rather sit at home on a Friday night and read a book instead of heading out to one of the many trashy bars in Fredericton. I know she wanted to make a cutting jab at what she thought to be my lifestyle but instead I took it as a compliment.

When Lester Bangs says "I'm always home, I'm uncool" to William Miller in Almost Famous, I see myself. Granted, I am not the publisher of my own music magazine (SOMEDAY!) but I can relate to that aspect of the character.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we are all influenced by advertising and the ethos of image. We all portray an image and many will label you as "cool" of "uncool." Ask those people to define what they mean and a common response will be "cool" and "uncool." They are self-defining words, so how can they represent anything real?

"Oh, you just know cool when you see it" is bullshit or maybe I just haven't seen it, especially when I look in the mirror. That's not a bad thing.

Now excuse me, I need to take my Tommy's out of the dryer.


*I took the liberty to re-write this instead of copy and paste directly. It's mostly the same with some of the tense cleaned up. It turns out my schooling actually has taught me a thing or two.

#176: Thank You For Smoking

Thank You For Smoking (2005)
Directed and Written by Jason Reitman
Based on the novel by Christopher Buckley
Starring Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, David Koechner, Cameron Bright, William H. Macy, J.K. Simmons, Rob Lowe, Katie Holmes, Sam Elliott, Adam Brody and Robert Duvall.

It has been four weeks since my last cigarette. My quitting expedition has so far been a resounding success. Does that mean I no longer want the taste and feeling only a death-dart can achieve? Not at all...in fact I want one every day and most hours and minutes of those days.

You can call it addiction if you want, though I would never label it as such. Smokers don't only smoke because of an inherent need to fill their lungs with tar and a darkness that eats at the very core of their beings. No, smokers tend to enjoy smoking...believe it or not.

Why?

Cigarettes are murderers. They are in no way good for you and can be of no conceivable benefit in the health and well-being of your person. It's easy for non-smokers or former smokers to spout that rhetoric...and well it's true. Smoking does not improve your lifestyle or your breathing. It eats away at your wallet worse than your lungs and in most public places you turn into an outcast.

Smoking, while unhealthy, gave me an outlet...a common connection with other people of the same ilk. Working at the paper this past summer, whenever a bulk of us needed to get away from the office without leaving the work premises, CC and I would just bolt out the back door, light up a couple nails and commiserate about the day or talk about golfing or poker.

Anyone who says smoking is good for you is an idiot...but no one would say that. Non-smokers though seem to think that smokers have no idea about the risks involved in smoking. Far from it. Most every smoker I have come into contact with has alluded to the fact that he or she needs to quit. It doesn't mean that person will, but to think smokers somehow missed the life lesson that sucking a dark cloud of poison into your lungs is bad for you...well come on. Uppity non-smokers need to pull their heads out of their asses.

What I've discovered is that harrassing smokers to quit will not accomplish a thing. Usually when someone tells a smoker they should quit, it comes across as some kind of sanctimonious sermon. Self-inflicted death may be the price smokers pay, let them do it to themselves peacefully without any further pain. If someone is going to quit, he will likely do it on his own terms...unless money is involved.

Thank You For Smoking has an anti-smoking message but it's clever and not a morally self-righteous lecture on the perils of tobacco. In the end smoking is a choice, one that should be accepted in places where lighting up is still allowed. Like it or hate it, smokers are one dedicated lot because who else would step outside in 30-below temperature by choice for seemingly no good reason?

I like smoking, it's a fact. In August, when Horatio, Veda, Arlo and I travelled to Montreal to see Radiohead, I had been off the cigarettes for a week or so...a pretty big accomplishment. For the trip, I bought a pack of du maurier's and hit the highway smoking one after another until I had finished the pack by the time we hit the city. I bought another and I stayed with a friend who smoked like a chimney. It was fun. Smoking while driving takes the edge off and if you're driving an automatic transmission it makes the drive a little less boring and gives you something to multi-task with. Somehow I've never caused an accident.

But I do feel better since I've quit. Come May, when the bet is through and I've proven to myself and others that it can be done I may spitefully buy a pack of some cheap cigs and smoke all night. That or I may never smoke again...or maybe from time to time...who knows really? It's a habit, but unlike some people would have you believe it's not evil and it's not the end of the world if your 16-year old has a smoke. Most likely, we know the risks just as much. Does that make smokers stupid? Maybe...or maybe we're just stubborn.


* Sorry for no embedded links today...lazy and kind of busy...no just lazy
**Juno was weak. This was a better film from Reitman

#177: The Elephant Man

The Elephant Man (1980)
Directed by David Lynch
Screenplay by Christopher De Vore, Eric Bergren & David Lynch
Based on the books by Sir Frederick Treves & Ashley Montagu
Starring Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft and John Gielgud


If you have never felt like an outcast, you've either lived a life of privilege beyond anyone's expectations or you were too stupid to realize that things weren't always hunky-dory. In Lynch's The Elephant Man it takes the idea to the extreme physical nature of being an outcast, which makes it easier for the viewer to understand why Merrick was treated as a circus sideshow. It doesn't make it right, but because he looked so different...deformed even, his status as an outsider was sadly more believable.

In early grade school, I lived in Saint John and then Fredericton. After the fifth grade I moved to the town where I was raised through kindergarten, Woodstock (all in New Brunswick by the way). I had a lot of friends in those early days, was affable and kind and generally popular. In fact the only time there was any real rift at all was in the fourth grade when I had taken a baseball bat to school one day and accidentally hit a classmate upside the head. Needless to say, I was banned from bringing the bat back.

Returning to a place of familiarity didn't seem like a daunting task, but it was soon apparent that it wasn't a cake walk either. Shyness was never a weakness of mine, but in the sixth grade it slowly crept into my worldview. The kids were not as accepting or welcoming as I was hoping. By this time, they had their cliques and friends all locked down and had no room for a guy like me. I guess I was a sensitive child as I did end up crying once or twice due to peer criticism. It was a shock to me, how was I any different? Why was I being treated like an alien?

This isn't to say the entire school shunned me, no, I made some friends but nothing substantial. Joey was the best friend I made at the time and he was treated worse than I was. He wore jogging pants and was subjected to name-calling and taunting from classmates. If I remember correctly, the insult of choice was "grub" to indicate a child of poverty.

After the sixth grade and a few weeks before summer vacation ended I received a phone call from someone at the Woodstock Middle School where I was enrolling that fall. I had signed on for the french immersion program and it was apparently full. I had been in french immersion before and they offered to skip me a grade.

This didn't help my popularity with the classmates from a year earlier. And I wasn't exactly propelled into stardom in the eighth grade either. It was an adjustment but not entirely a bad one. Luckily I met Arlo at this time. A story we've told many times when people ask is summed up like this: I brought supplies for a project and he didn't. He mooched off me and a friendship was born. I consider him my closest friend more than a decade later.

High School was better but there was still a sense of criticism from people that didn't make any sense. Obviously every student goes through that and some say the ones dishing out the pain are the least secure with themselves of all students. The point is, this rejection from my peers helped me in the long run and it wasn't apparent until the last couple of years. I'm comfortable in my own skin and can make it on my own without the constant company of others. I still seek approval but am not devastated when I don't get it.

Merrick was hideously disfigured but was a human being underneath it all. It's a shame he was treated as such. Even the charity given on to him made him feel marginalized. He didn't want special treatment, he just wanted to be treated like a person of equal value. It is well done and is likely Lynch's most straightforward film (other than The Straight Story) and it has obvious parallel's with adolescence and the pains of growing up under the microscope of your peers.

In any case, I survived and am a better person for it. We're all outcasts, let's not make others feel that way.

Pseudo-resolution: read at least 30 books in 2009.

I consider myself to be a voracious reader. I don't remember the full tally from 2007 but it was around the 25 mark. Not shabby, I thought.

Coming to the end of the year, I expect I could burn through a couple more books and I wanted to see how I did in expanding my mind through reading this year.

To my dismay, I realized I haven't read even 15 books as of today for the entire year. I have been slacking, some would say. It would be easy to blame my old job or my classes but that's hardly fair. There have been many hours of sloth-like behaviour and poker-playing online that could have been used in much better fashion.

Here's the list of what I've read:

The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac
Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway
The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
It by Stephen King
Salem's Lot by Stephen King
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Watchmen by Alan Moore


Not a bad list. I could tentatively include The Stand by Stephen King as well as I read the second half of it this past summer. I had started it about five years ago, put it down and plum forgot about it until this summer.

Within the next day or so, The Poisonwood Bible will be complete and I'll likely move on to another to devour in the coming weeks, not sure yet what it will be.

Due to my lack of reading accomplishment -- 13 is paltry -- I am making my sole New Year's resolution. I will read at least 30 books next year. Luckily, quitting smoking does not have to be a resolution as I am two weeks into that project and have suffered no setbacks as of yet.

I am looking for suggestions of what to read in 2009. Believe me, I'll read pretty much anything. It doesn't have to be fiction, it can be politics, travel, sociology, etc. Here are a few titles I plan on reading (all for the first time...some should have been read years ago):

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce
Big Sur by Jack Kerouac
The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy
1984 by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Cider House Rules by John Irving
The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Cocksure by Mordecai Richler
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

So if you have any other suggestions, please comment here or let me know in any way you can figure out.

Also, if you're looking for books to read, check out the following lists:

50 Greatest Travel Books
Books that induce a mindfuck
Time Magazine's top 100 novels

Cheers,

JCW

#178: Nightmare Before Christmas

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Directed by Henry Selick
Written by Tim Burton, Michael McDowell and Caroline Thompson
Starring Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara and a slew of other voice actors.


Merry Christmas everyone! Okay, so I'm a week early but I'm sure everyone has been cramming full of Christmas movies, music and fruit-themed cookies/cake that you likely want to murder your entire family. It's a pleasant time of year.

Brace yourself for this one folks, I have never seen A Christmas Story and I have been informed of exactly how deprived that makes me. It's the go-to Christmas movie for my cousins. Their family watches it every year or did when they all lived in the same place. My family has its own rituals of staying out of each other's way while secretly wondering why everyone is so pissed off.

I get the gist of it, honestly I do. But it's now at a point where I've heard people building this movie up year after year that it would not live up to the expectations, it's impossible. Most of these people saw it when they were kids too, so they have the whole nostalgia factor working for them. I'd be seeing it for the first time through adult eyes. If I had kids of my own (crosses heart) I may have some benefit from it. As it is, I'd be a cynical twenty-something wondering why it isn't better than it is and I'd be chastised forever for not thinking it's the best Christmas movie out there. So instead of risking the backlash, I'll forever avoid watching it just in case.

That's probably really stupid, but for the most part I am not interested in Christmas any more. Santa Claus doesn't capture me in his mystique any more. In fact if I did awake to some bastard breaking into my house in the middle of the night any time of the year, bad things would happen. And since I went to a liberal arts university, I have developed an anti-materialism sentiment over the past few years. Luckily I haven't been completely poisoned by my peers as I haven't accepted Plato, Aristotle or Dante as my personal lord and saviour. Jesus Christ neither.

Here's the deal. I'm not religious, I don't have money and I don't need to stockpile a bunch of crap I don't need. The only thing that would be really beneficial to me as a gift would be a new camera. As an aspiring writer-at-large, taking your own pictures can really save time and effort. Alas, I know that isn't happening. The next best thing would be an ass load of books. I don't even really care who writes them, I'll read it. But other than that, what the hell do I need people spending money they don't have on things I don't need or even want? If it's the thought that counts then the gifts aren't necessary.

So that's where movies like Nightmare Before Christmas* and Bad Santa come in. They don't force the message of Christmas down your throat. It's there, sure but it has to be or someone will get pissed that the number one shopping (and shopper's death) season was sullied by cynicism. The only sappy Christmas movie that I can stomach** is Christmas Vacation, but the Griswold's are anything but wholesome.

Despite being a sarcastic ass hole in many respects towards people and things I deem as ridiculous, one of the best things about Nightmare Before Christmas is the soundtrack. In high school I was in musicals...yes...musicals, three of them to be exact. I couldn't skate - well I could, but I couldn't stop - and I was short so the sports scene wasn't very welcoming.

In my senior year I finally got a semi-prominent role. We did Jesus Christ Superstar and I starred as Pontius Pilate. On the Friday night show - the third of four - I took the stage with bravado for my first song singing about a dream. So Pilate had a vision in his sleep that Jesus would come and he (Pilate) would end up being responsible for his death.

Midway through the song I've already performed twice - not counting rehearsals over the previous two months - I freeze. My whole family chose to come on Friday for some damn reason and they see their stocky Pilate crash into the side of the stage more or less. The video, which has long since been lost, went in for the close up at the moment of truth. My eyes glazed over as I was obviously trying to find my spot. With the camera still on close-up (bastard cameraman should have gone wide!) I looked down into the front row where the director of the play was watching in horror. I smiled at her and shrugged.

This whole debacle lasted maybe thirty seconds but it felt like an eternity. I found my place, finished the song and stomped backstage cursing up a storm. Thankfully I had the presence of mind to turn the microphone off.

I channeled the rage for the rest of the shows you might say. Two of my closest friends, Arlo and DP played Jesus on alternating nights. I was the only Pilate. For four nights straight I had my best friends/Jesus whipped and crucified. Old ladies looked at me like I was the devil as they left the theater.

After you've killed Jesus four times in a week, Christmas just isn't as special...



* Tim Burton did not direct this movie...please stop saying he did
**The Muppet Christmas Carol is also acceptable

#179: A History of Violence

A History of Violence (2005)
Directed by David Cronenberg
Screenplay by Josh Olson
Based on the graphic novel by John Wagner & Vince Locke
Starring Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt.

Two Cronenberg flicks in relatively quick succession, score!

A History of Violence is still probably his most mainstream effort to date even though it has many of the same quirks and deadpan performances seen in most of Cronenberg's catalogue. The kids' performances were jarring but they weren't so bad to deter my overall enjoyment of the film.

It was one of those theatrical releases that you wouldn't have expected when living in Fredericton. The theatre in Fredericton in notorious for not playing independent films of any kind. Even beyond indies, the Coen Brothers were greatly ignored until Intolerable Cruelty (wha?). Fredericton's Empire Theatres didn't get The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou? or The Man Who Wasn't There. So you can understand why I was shocked when this one came to town.

So Arlo Newton and I hit up the movies before it drifts off for the six months or so before a DVD release. I'm fine with watching a movie on DVD, but if I have the chance to see it on the big screen I will. Sure, Arlo was keen on it too but if he wasn't that wouldn't have stopped me.

Go to a movie theatre sometime and think about how many people are there all alone. There aren't many are there? I've never understood this. Back in 1997 I went to a birthday party for a friend of mine that ended up going to the movies. Kyle and his other buddies wanted to go see In and Out, otherwise known as Kevin Kline slumming it for a paycheck.

I bailed at the theatre for The Game, David Fincher's pre-Fight Club mindfuck. It was the first time I ever went to the cinema by myself and it wasn't as sad or lonely as I was expecting.

Over the years I've been looked at sideways by many people, mostly women, who find it odd that I go to the movies all by my lonesome. My reasoning is that it isn't exactly a social experience until afterwards. It doesn't work well as a date because there's no interaction except for "putting the moves" on her with the old yawn and swipe. The only differences between watching a movie at home alone and in the theatre alone are the big screen and the fact that other people can see you.

Choosing people to go to the movies with is a tricky process if you actually care about the movie you're going to see. Ask the following questions:

1) Will this person talk or constantly ask questions?
2) Will this person sit still or will he/she disrupt the theatre with antics?
3) Is this person prone to inoportune fits of laughter?
4) Does the type of movie you're planning on seeing fit into his/her realm of understanding or interest?

Believe me, these are important questions. In the end, it's the safest bet to go alone if you really want to absorb the film.

With Arlo, I knew this wasn't a problem. The guy has been my closest friend since the eighth grade and so we know each other better than most people. A couple other people may have gone with us, but Arlo and I really connected with this film.

On the walk out of the theatre we started discussing the idea of violence and whether violent tendencies can be inherited genetically or if we're more a product of the environment surrounding us. Nature versus nurture type of discussion. Also, as is plain from the trailer, Tom (Viggo) has tried to escape his past. We talked about how this could be representative of him trying to break away from what he naturally is, trying to force him to be someone else, someone better.

This brings me to the most important question when finding someone to join you on your theatrical experience: will he/she be willing to actually discuss the film or will he/she focus on only the superficialities instead of diving deeper into the subject matter?

This isn't exactly a deal-breaker and it shouldn't be. But if you find someone willing to go further with the film, it makes the experience that much better. Watching a film is so much more than mindless entertainment, or at least it can be. It's the aftermath that makes watching a movie with others worth it, it's a sense of community.

Of course if you're going to see a Michael Bay movie, all bets are off. Go with the circus, it's going to be two hours of ADHD explosions anyway and there won't be much to talk about afterward. Basically, Bay is the fast food equivalent of filmmakers. While it may be somewhat gratifying at first, by the end you realize you've made a huge mistake.

Conversely, filmmakers like Cronenberg might not be fine dining, but it certainly is an acquired taste. In any case you're likely going to get more out of it than your dirt-variety fast food assembly line. But if you're diet consists completely of McDonald's, that might be all you want and anything else is strange and terrifying. For many reasons this is depressing.

If only Horatio had been part of our lives at that point. He has a man-crush on Viggo Mortensen that dwarfs any man-crush that any heterosexual man I've ever met has ever had.

Mets = choke artists according to Hamels

As the New York Daily News had shown in 2007 on the front page of their paper, the New York Mets had indeed thrown away a division lead only to miss the playoffs. History repeated itself in 2008 as once again they squandered a late season division lead. Now the lead wasn't as big as the one they let slide the year before, but still.

This week, a story that has been getting a ton of press is Cole Hamels, aka best pitcher of the Philadelphia Phillies, saying the Mets are choke artists. If this causes an uproar it's one of those head-scratchers. Mets fans know better than anyone, even Hamels, that their team is almost on par with the Cubs in terms of pathetic losers...okay, no one is even close to the Cubs losing ways.

So when the Mets saw seven...count em, seven late inning leads for pitcher Johan Santana be squandered by their bullpen this past season, they needed to adress the issue. Without so many words, GM Omar Minaya admitted they were choke artists by signing one top closer and trading for another.

Great news! Oh shit, what do you mean we only have three starting pitchers with major league experience? Uh-oh. If Johan could start all 162 games I'm sure the Mets would do fine, but sadly it's not the case. Sure Mike Pelfry started to show his potential in 2008 and John Maine can certainly toss a solid six or seven innings from time to time, but they are in trouble if they think that's enough.

Minaya has decided against pursuing any of the remaining top free agent pitchers like A.J. Burnett, Derek Lowe or Ben Sheets in lieu of either finding cheaper options or building from within the organization. One NY Post columnist thinks Lowe is still an option though, attributing it to rope-a-dope strategy. I'm not sure if this has anything to back it up or if it's just speculation.

Not to bring up ancient history, but trading Scott Kazmir all those years ago must really sting now.

The Putz trade doesn't make sense, at least not the timing of it. Sure I'm no MLB GM but there are warning signs abound in this. Putz missed a ton of time this season, and my fantasy team suffered because of it. Incidentally my other closer was Francisco Rodriguez...but I digress.

So trading for Putz raises the question of whether or not he's healthy or if he'll even be half the pitcher he was in 2007. As a mid-season acquisition it would have worked. Minaya could have monitored his progress and see if he was worth acquiring at all. Of course it appears that Putz was on the move regardless as the Detroit Tigers were pushing hard to land him. It didn't work and the Mets appear to have been forced to jump the gun.

Spending big money on relievers is a crapshoot. The Mets have had bad luck and poor performance in the bullpen for a couple years and now they overcompensate for it without addressing a glut of other problems. Other than Jose Reyes, David Wright and maybe Carlos Beltran, the team doesn't have a reliable offense. Sure, Carlos Delgado had a nice comeback year and Ryan Church when he wasn't suffering from concussions did a fine job too. Even if you count those two, the Mets still don't have a full lineup and the rotation is worse.

So Cole Hamels has every right to call the Mets out, because he's being truthful if a little malicious at the same time. It adds a little fuel to the fire and it gives Mets fans another reason to hate Philly (as if stealing two consecutive division titles wasn't enough).

If the Mets land Lowe like Joel Sherman of the Post pontificates about, then maybe my tune will change. Until then they're still the second unluckiest team in baseball.