A Sob Story (Ok, Fine, not really!)

     So, the world is pretty messed up right now. I get it. I feel horrible for the people in Harvey's path and awful for those who suffered in Charlottesville and everyone who suffers on a daily basis around the world due to racial discrimination, starvation or debilitating disease. But, you guys, I was in Hawaii and someone stole my watch!!

      Soooooo, we're in Hawaii (have to reiterate this point) and we're snorkeling. Awesome beach, cool rocks/coral/fish. Amazing time. I'm being a bit ginger with my foot as I just took the boot off (remember when I broke it? You can consult my last post if you like...) and the place was rocky AF. So I'm sloooooooow. I get out in the water, not many people on the beach, wife and kid are with me. We stay in for about an hour and a half. We get out. We get our stuff and oh shit. My watch is gone. My beautiful, greatest-gift-of-all-time-given-to-me-by-my-cousin-and-cousin-in-law-for-officiating-their-wedding, expensive Star Wars Millennium Falcon cockpit watch! So I scour the beach. I dig in the sand, I look through the car. I look high and low even though I know exactly where I put it. I always know where I put it because it really does mean so much to me. It's always with my wedding ring and my wallet. Never apart. All three things are my precious. I keep them safe at all costs. But I figured, maybe the zipper came open or something. Well as I said I look high, I look low, it is gone. And then it dawns on me to check something. I open my wallet and.......my cash is also gone. Some mutherfucker ROBBED ME! The good news is that my cards, wife's cards/cash, wedding rings, Phones, kid's tablet were all still there. Some asshole just casually strolled over to our backpack and in a flash stole my cash and a piece of my heart. In my haste to find a culprit, I actually approached a couple of transients and tried to guilt them into confessing but then I realized that they could barely walk so I knew it wasn't them and then they asked me for a couple of bucks and I thought, even transients couldn't be low enough to steal someones's shit and then ask the same victim of their crime for more! Could they? Nah! And then I almost confronted another dude but my wife made me stop and witness the amazing sunset that was happening in front of me instead. Which is probably better that she did because A) I had no proof on this guy and B) this guy may have eventually had a knife on me. 

     Anyway, while I was looking up past a palm tree and into the beautiful pink sky, I happen to notice, nailed to the tree is a laminated sign which reads: "WARNING! Do not leave valuables unattended on the beach. Lock all personal belongings in your car." So not only did he take my shit but somehow, I'M the asshole.

    Ok, it's a watch. Sentimental, yes, but just a time keeper. Earlier that day apparently we had just narrowly avoided being surrounded by jellyfish at one beach and we also were all lucky enough to avoid getting a sea urchin spine stuck in our skin, a fate that befell another little boy at the same beach. So, you know, again, this is not a disaster. It's WAY less annoying than breaking my foot.  

    So anyway, Hawaii was great. It's an island paradise. But even in paradise, dickheads grow next to the pineapples and coconuts. 

     I'll have you know that, all kidding aside, I cherished that watch. I had good solid year long run with it and  I can only hope that if it can't be safe with me, it gets to witness that red sunset every night, even if it has to be attached to that muctherfucker's wrist as he sharpens his mutherfucking knife, a knife perhaps he didn't even have until he bought it with the cash he stole from my wallet.

     I know some of you might be thinking I'm an asshole for posting something so trivial at times like these. And, while I agree with you...that's it. I actually have no argument. 

Broken

Well, it took 42 years, but I finally joined a club I had previously been proud to NOT be a part of. The Broken Bones club. And I picked a hell of a bone for my inauguration. It’s called the 5^th Metatarsal. And who knew that breaking this 5^th Metatarsal would keep the rest of my bones from doing the simplest of tasks. Breaking this one little 5^th Metatarsal is changing my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I can’t run, I can’t play basketball (because of the aforementioned inability to run), I can’t stand long enough to make a sandwich, I can’t take a shower, I can’t even do the dishes! I hate doing the dishes but right now, at this very moment, I’d kill someone to do the frigging dishes! It’s truly the worst thing to ever happen in the history of ever.  

Wait! No it’s not. It’s not even close. So far my diagnosis is fine. Spiral fracture, 6-8 weeks of healing. Or a month and a half to two months if you prefer to count in larger units, (which, why wouldn’t you? It’s why we have larger units of measure). OK, so I think that comes in at just about “Annoying” on the Official Life Adversities scale which, as I’m making it up now, runs on a spectrum from “Itchy” through “Debilitating” all the way up to “Life Ending.” So I’ll take “Annoying” any day of the week and twice on whatever day the cliché normally says.

I decided to write about this because a lot of you are asking what happened and I came to the conclusion that I needed to do right by this story and get it down on cyber-paper.

I was running to Jack’s school because I had heard about a grizzly bear that was loose in Burbank. I had been helping my neighbor retile the roof of his garage so it could better protect the 30 Syrian refugees he is harboring within and I was repelling back to the ground when I heard the bear sirens. Bear sirens?! On a Friday? Didn’t seem right. So I tore out of there, ran 8 blocks and made it to the school just as the bear started to paw at the gate. I distracted the bear long enough to allow the teachers to evacuate the entire student body to safety. My son, noticing my struggles with the bear, threw me a ruler and a pencil sharpener to give me an edge over the bear. Well, needless to say, those tools helped immensely and I was able to calm the bear down and tickle him until the animal control people got there. After an hour of accolades and a make-shift ceremony where the mayor gave me the key to the city, I noticed that my foot had swelled up. “That must have been from when you dropped kicked the bear in the face, dad,” said my son, beaming with pride.

“It sure is, son,” I replied. “I knew I had broken it but I didn’t even stop to feel the pain because it wasn’t about me. It was about defeating that lunatic bear. But it was worth it. Saving you and all of your friends and even other people we don’t even know, it was all worth it.”

“I love you dad.”

“I love you too, son. Now, help me limp to the hospital.”

That’s what happened. 

Ok, fine. Nothing. Nothing happened. I walked outside my back door, off of a step and onto a cracked brick that I’ve stepped on before, twice, twisting my ankle both times without any lasting effect. I just did it a little different this time. I just wanted to go and get laundry out of the dryer quickly before going to get my son at school. I stepped, ankle went out, heard a crack, went down, and I said “Oh fuck.” Actually, I said more fucks than that. I actually stood up (I could stand but I knew it was bad), walked over to the garage door and started banging on it; one “fuck” per bang.

Then hopped around for a while, drove myself to urgent care (really nice clean and empty), hopped in, wheelchair, x-rays, “broken,” splint, crutches, made it to a pre-planned poker game (determination), weekend on the couch, annoyance, depression, son and wife huge helps, visitors, bathing (one leg over side of tub) and here we are.

An orthopedist told me I don’t need surgery or even a cast, just a boot for 6 weeks or so and crutches for only a couple of those weeks.  The biggest blow is I can’t play basketball for 3 to 4 months. That’s a quarter to a third of a year. But it’s not forever. So, really, what the hell am even I complaining about?

So many people, SO MANY PEOPLE, are suffering through way worse things. WAY worse! Obviously anything can happen but as of right now, my prognosis is fine. So fuck my inconvenience. It could be so much worse. And, on the bright side, this injury is making me feel like James Caan in Misery so I should be able to get some writing done.  That’s what happens in that movie right?

Hell, I’ve already written my first true blog post since October. So THAT’S something!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go sit in a different spot in the house cause this wall is getting boring.

Step 2: Crippling Indecision

            I think I owe you an apology. It’s been about 11 weeks since I’ve posted anything and I feel like I broke a promise. An ultimitely not-real promise that I never promised to anyone else but myself but a promise none-the-less.

When I set out to start a blog, I figured it would be a nice way to give myself a weekly writing assignment with a casual deadline that would light enough of a fire under me to get myself to become a disciplined, focused and productive writer. Well instead, as it turns out, the reality is that it has just added one more thing to my plate that I’m failing to eat and it’s making me feel like a miserable failure! Great!

           

            What’s the problem, you may ask? Well, I’ll tell you! It’s trying to make a fucking decision about what to write about! That’s the problem! And I just said “about” twice in the same sentence!  So grammar is my problem too, apparently.

            Yes, I could have posted about the election. But did we, as a society need another article about the election? Way more in depth features were written by much more politically savvy people than I. Many more heartfelt and poignant rants were posted by much angrier people than I. And every professional comedian had an undeniably more unique and hilarious take on the situation than I.

I could have written about any myriad of Thanksgiving, Christmas or general holiday thoughts. I could’ve written about auditions and the life of an actor, how excited I am about Star Wars, how much my son is lamenting that he doesn’t have a Boston accent. I have so many things to say and yet I have no idea how to decide what to spend my time writing about!

As it turns out, I checked my birth records and at an early age I was diagnosed with the mutant power of crippling indecision. From coffee to dinner to socks to t-shirts, my days are filled with “which pair of underwear should I wear today” type decisions that ultimately mean nothing but take agonizing minutes out of my free time, in a way that leaves me with nothing to show for my efforts (except, of course, hopefully actually getting that pair of underwear on). I sometimes can’t even decide which TV show to watch which ultimately leads me down the road of not having watched anything.

What I’m trying to say to you is that I am keeping my blog (I probably will take it off of my email signature though), but my posts won’t be every week, like I said at first. And they may not even mean anything at all when they do come. But I needed to say all of this, not just for me, but for anyone else out there who is inflicted with this indecisive behavior and knows what it’s like to really not know if you’re in the mood for fucking Italian or Chinese food or pudding on a regular basis. I feel like just getting this message to you is something anyway and in this new Trump Era that is now upon us, every little thing can help.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go ahead and save this post and let it sit on my desktop until I make a decision on whether or not I should even post it.  [At the time of this posting, it had been sitting on said desktop for 5 weeks.]

TV Watching : Entertainment or Accomplishment?

“We are living in a golden age of TV,” says pretty much everyone you know who has a Netflix account. And they’re right. There is a glut of shows that are not only watchable, but they consistently achieve the highest form of entertainment being produced today. And these uber-shows are so available! They are so immediately available that sometimes it takes me an hour to figure out which one of the many listed on my queue (is it even called a queue anymore?) that I’m going to commit to next. I have found myself wracked with anxiety as the credits of the final episode of a show I have been watching start to roll, knowing that I have to decide which show to commit to next. Because I have so many that I HAVE to watch. Yes. I HAVE to.

When did watching television evolve from being an entertainment to being an accomplishment? “Hi, my name is Jay, I have a BFA from Emerson College and I’m all caught up on Peaky Blinders.” It’s true!! (Well, not the Peaky Blinders part! Only on season 2! Don't tell me what happens!!) I can envision that being my quick intro for some panel of experts that I will be sitting on in an imaginary future where people might care about what I have to say. Or if I weren’t married (I am though, sorry ladies) [(and gents)], I could see this being on my Tindr profile: “I’m a Libra, I have a cat and I just finished Orange Is The New Black. I’m only three episodes in on Justified, however, so spoilers need not apply!! [fingers in ears] LALALALALALALA!” 

TV shows have become such current events in the lives of my friends that I’ve noticed a few times they’re the only things we talk about. And I don’t even mean that in a “my friends and I have lost the ability to talk” kind of way. It’s just so literally on our minds because we are all “doing our best” to finish these shows. We are all forging ahead with the same goal: to accomplish the watching of all of them. I sometimes feel more judged on which shows I’ve CHOSEN to watch than I do on whom I’m supporting for president (don’t worry, HC). “Oh, you hate Sleepy Hollow huh? This from the guy who can’t stop watching, Gotham!?”

So my DVR has become, not a variety of options for those times when I’m in the mood for entertainment, but a “To Do” list.  When items wind up on a “To Do” list, they inherently become a chore, something that HAS to get done. And you know what? When I check something off of that list, when I erase it from the list? It feels good. Just like when I cross off “laundry” from a regular “To Do” list, it feels like an accomplishment. It feels like I got something done.

But did I actually accomplish anything? By watching a TV show from beginning to end, did I improve my life? Do I really want to answer that question? Honestly, who gives a shit? These new shows are often well crafted pieces of art that give you that same feeling upon finishing that you might get from a great book. They spark your imagination and keep you wanting more and, if done right, will create an ending that you’ll discuss for years to come. I think it’s worth it.  

But when does it end? It used to be that you would hear of a new TV show for months before it aired and the anticipation would be electric. Now, when I drive down the same streets I drive down every week, I see a new billboard each time, advertising yet another new show from Netflix that I’ve never heard a whisper of, and most of the time it’ll be available in a few days thereafter. And so I’ll pull over (because I’m not an asshole), tap on my Netflix app and add it to my Queue. Because I’ve now come to trust Netflix, as I do HBO, in that, if they produce something, I am going to give it a shot. They have proven that they are smart, competent and interested in making good TV over making profitable TV.

And now that Hulu, Amazon, TV LAND for Christ’s sake (Chrissake? Christssake?) have jumped on the content bandwagon with this same mantra of making excellent entertainment, it’s really starting to become too much. These studios are becoming too prolific. For example, I just watched the season 2 cliffhanger-finale of Pan Handle on Epix. If you know what I’m talking about, then you’re a liar because that show doesn’t exist but just for a second, you thought it did. Because it’s conceivable there are a variety of shows out there that you’ve never heard of that are way better Gotham (Just stop watching it, JAY!).

Anyway, this is a happy problem. I don’t want to seem like I’m ranting about something I dislike. I think I’m actually ranting about something that I’m afraid that I don’t dislike. As you may recall from a previous post, I worry about wasting time (fuck you Candy Crush), time that I could be spending on more productive ventures and adventures. This worry leads me down a worry hole that bottoms out at parenting. I want to set a great example for my kid so he grows up looking for things to discover and explore, not on the couch, but in the world. The other day, I found myself lamenting this very fact and was appalled after I pondered how much TV my kid watches. I explained this to my cousin who now recently has had a kid of her own. I was just talking about how I was worried that he would grow up and watch too much TV as an adult, because of the amount that I’ve let him watch as a young child, to which she replied, “who cares? That’s what I do!” And I found myself completely unable to argue with that point because as it turns out that is also, as I’m discovering, in this “golden age” of TV, what I do as well.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get going because I have 9 episodes of Penny Dreadful to accomplish.

Candy Crush-ed

          Last year (in May of 2015), I flew home and spent two weeks helping my mother rehab her body after she went through quadruple bi-pass and valve replacement surgeries. I know it sounds like a ton of emotional and physical work, but let me tell you, those 2 weeks as it turned out, represented the longest stretch in 5 years that I had spent away from raising my son. So, needless to say, I was looking forward to the break! I mean, she had a nurse coming to her house every day and my mom could barely get out of the chair. It’s not like I had to make sure she didn’t fall down the stairs, eat a marble or run into the street on a whim. Once the incredibly intense and terrifying surgeries were successfully performed, I just had to sit around and cook meals and provide entertainment. CAKE!

As you might expect from this dream scenario (in a not-having-to-care-for-an-infant way), there was a plethora of downtime; lots of napping, binge-watching Broadchurch (highly recommended) and reading books (remember those!?). My good buddy, Matt Hamill, a sometimes wine-drinking comrade of my mom’s, graciously donated his old iPad to her recovery so she was also looking for things to do and games to play on her new device. As an avid Scrabble player, she jumped right on board with my suggestion of Words With Friends. My Uncle (Happy birthday, Uncle Pete!), who had been with my mom during the surgery and who had been basically doing my job for me while I was recovering from the flu in LA, off-handedly suggested getting her “Candy Crush or something.” So I did.

The addiction began in earnest on the day I left my only-in-a-slightly-better-state mother to return to Los Angeles (I bought her a ton of frozen meals, I’m not a monster). In the few days leading up to my departure, I had dabbled with the game on her iPad while she was sleeping and I found it to be mind-numbing and ridiculous. Perfect for filling gaps in between movies and books on a 6-hour flight across the country. So I downloaded the game to my phone and the downward spiral began. At first it was just what I wanted, a harmless time-killer, something to pass the time while waiting in the terminal to board my plane.

I have never had a heroin problem, or an afterschool special vodka-guzzling affliction, but I can imagine, with the help of all of those tropes from TV and Movies, that those kind of addictions start in the same way. A harmless needle here and there with friends. A couple sips of Tito’s right from the bottle instead of making a Moscow Mule. No big deal. But then, as the addiction grows stronger, and you start to HIDE your consumption of the drug from your loved ones because you know THEY will THINK you have a problem, then you know it has become something bigger, even though you might try to deny that fact to yourself.

Well, as with heroin, so with Candy Crush. I found myself sneaking away just to get a game in, staying in the bathroom longer so that I could finish the game I was already playing, choosing to sit and play the game for fifteen minutes instead of writing or playing the guitar, telling my son he could watch another TV show instead of stopping my game and playing with him myself. In terms of time-management, creative productivity and fun parenting, I had become a complete failure.

            One year and 4 months later I found myself on the floor of my bedroom, curled up in a sweaty ball, shaking and shivering, trying to just beat one last level while my son, who was trapped under a bookshelf that he had knocked over days earlier, was screaming for food that I had neglected to even buy for him. Exaggeration for the sake of dramatic intrigue or not, I found myself sitting on the couch while my son was at school thinking about how I was no further along in my creative pursuits than I had been at the inception of this phase of my life. I started to calculate all of the lost seconds, minutes and hours that I had dedicated to strategizing how to best move similarly colored candy shapes into rows of 3, 4 and 5 so I could “acquire” striped pieces and color bombs and outsmart the computer program that had become my nemesis so that I could…what? Beat it? Finish the game? Yes, I think what I was aiming for in my 80s-video-game-wired brain was to “finish” the game. Or to “flip” it as we used to say. But here’s the thing about these games we play now on our phones. Most of them have NO END. They just keep generating new levels and new ways to get you to pay for “items” that you “need” in the game. It is an infinite hole and after finishing level 500 (!?), I looked deep into that hole and my default online frog avatar swooned.  

500 levels. What good did I do for my kid, my wife or my career in those 500 levels? How have I grown after beating those 500 levels? What will I accomplish by beating the next 500 levels? The answer to all of those questions is nothing (or a version of nothing that fits with the text and context of the question). Not one goddamned thing was accomplished. So, with great resolve, while the Candy Crush clock counted the seconds until I could play my next round, I did the unthinkable. I quit.

I’m not a quitter by trade. I hate quitting anything. At no time in my life has quitting something felt like the right choice. OK, I quit baseball when I was at the top of my game in The Babe Ruth League because I wanted to be an actor. I had been pitching no hitters in Little League and I was on my way to great things, but I wanted to be in Grease so I quit. BUT, that decision to quit came from wanting to pursue my ultimate dream and, much to many people’s chagrin, I have yet to quit on that pursuit. My point here is that quitting has never been something that I see as a positive.

But in the case of the quitting of my tumultuous relationship with Candy Crush, it was the best thing I have ever done. In the 4 weeks since, I have written 6 sketches, started a blog, had 3 auditions (seemingly unrelated but still) and have spent little blocks of 10 or more minutes organizing things in my house which ultimately adds to the overall de-cluttering of my brain, allowing me to focus on what it is I need to focus on. Like how not to end a sentence with a preposition. Like I just did.

I’m still learning. But at least I don’t have Candy Crush pulling my brain into its evil land of sugar and manipulation, thus stunting my growth as an artist. Nay, as a person.

In conclusion, I want to be clear about something. Games are great. I love games. And every game doesn’t have to lead to a life accomplishment. I do a crossword puzzle everyday because I’m a word nerd and I get enjoyment out of it and sure, maybe it makes my brain work 1% better, but it’s still a game. Games are awesome.

But this fucking Candy Crush is a life killer. Just like heroin.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to see what this Pokemon Go is all about.