Showing posts tagged shit my dad says
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I thought this thing would tell me why everyone hates Jews. I’m going to bed.

My father’s succinct review of A Serious Man, one of the best movies of 2009 as far as I’m concerned, a perfectly crafted piece of cinema art from beginning to end. It doesn’t really have a message, or a point, and maybe that’s the point. Sometimes things don’t have a point.

I’m not selling it very well. It’s probably on Netflix or something. Go watch it. It’s scene after scene of delicious Jewish cinema magic.

Related: My slightly-related review of Take Shelter

On Hitler, Part II

  • solo1temp@gmail.com: He knew he was uninspired?
  • murphyb@gmail.com: He never really tried hard to be an artist. He passed the first two tests so the potential to get into the school was there but failed at the final hurdle. Rather than being fuelled on by his first two successes he passed the following year in idleness, suggesting either a MASSIVE ego, or a latent understanding of his own uselessness
  • murphyb@gmail.com: He also refused to tell anyone he failed the tests because it would be an external expression of a reality he knew but could hardly deal with
  • solo1temp@gmail.com: Well that does suggest a certain sense of narcissistic sociopathy, yes.
  • murphyb@gmail.com: His failure as a creative genius. He either thought he was amazing or thought he was the opposite and constantly had to prove himself, living on in the legacy his father had left him
  • solo1temp@gmail.com: Well he's coming across as almost sympathetic there. Was he nothing more than a cauldron of influences beyond his control?
  • murphyb@gmail.com: No he was the sole arbiter of his destiny, as we all are. But he was weak and allowed his surroundings to shape him to the point where he was no longer his own man but an empty shell, embodying ideologies as dry and lifeless as he had become
  • murphyb@gmail.com: The more people fear they have nothing to say, the louder they become, grasping at straws.
  • solo1temp@gmail.com: My father says that the empty vessel makes the most noise.
  • murphyb@gmail.com: What Germany did in following such an empty vacuous ideology it has to constantly deal with itself
  • solo1temp@gmail.com: Vergangenheitsbewaltigung
  • murphyb@gmail.com: But Hitler was just a fool with an empty, hopeless dream, driven by hatred and a refusal to accept the reality of his situation as an untalented and unpromising lazy orphan
  • solo1temp@gmail.com: I wouldn't vote for it but it seems to imply that 36% of Germany may have been in roughly the same mental place.
  • murphyb@gmail.com: Lacking inspiration and imagination?
  • solo1temp@gmail.com: Driven by hatred and a refusal to accept the reality of their situation, empty hopeless dreams.
  • murphyb@gmail.com: Thats true. Perhaps he said everything they wanted him to say
  • murphyb@gmail.com: That's interesting
  • solo1temp@gmail.com: Perhaps he WAS them, in the only ways that were important
  • murphyb@gmail.com: It's not something I think most Germans would choose to admit though.
  • solo1temp@gmail.com: They wouldn't have to if they had a representative to do it for them.
  • murphyb@gmail.com: That's true
  • solo1temp@gmail.com: Like the Christians in America who sit back and let their leaders attack homosexuals, while being in utter denial in their home lives.
  • solo1temp@gmail.com: Being all nice and polite.
  • murphyb@gmail.com: Yes that's true
  • solo1temp@gmail.com: If gays were rounded up and herded into pens, I'm pretty sure none of THOSE people would raise too much of a fuss.

Disco Fudge

When I was 16, I went to a disco. I suppose the young people might call it a “nightclub” now. It was being held in the Rowing Club, a two-story building beside the river in Irishtown, Clonmel. I didn’t want to go. I was talked into it by my parents, who were very concerned about my reclusive nature, and felt that I should meet some people my own age and have “fun”, although they never explained what that word meant. I was given specific instructions to not come home before 11:00 pm. 

It was noisy and horrible. I got talking to a girl, and she said that she was having horrible stomach pains. I expressed concern, and her friend told me to ”leave her alone” it was “her monthly” something. I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. I told her if she was getting this sort of stomach cramp often, she should probably see a doctor about it. Everyone laughed at me, so I went downstairs and called my father and told him I had to go home because I wasn’t having any fun, and I wasn’t sure what that meant anyway. It was 10:30 pm. My father understood immediately and took me home. 

“It’s OK, Barry,” he said in the car. “You don’t have to go to those things anymore.”

I’m Turning Into My Father

My father used to say he stopped listening to rock music because it all started to sound the same. “How can you say?” I enquired in whiny elevated tones, before running up to my room, slamming the door, and blasting OK Computer at top volume while crying into my pillow (not really).

There is an ad on mainstream US television which samples the first bars of Santogold’s Disparate Youth. Whenever I hear that track, all I can think of is the LCD Soundsystem’s You Wanted A Hit. Which is weird, because whenever I heard that track, all I could hear was Cleveland Rocks from The Drew Carey Show. Am I crazy? Am I getting too old? Play them for yourself and let me know.

37

That’s how old I am today. Go me.

I’m not worth anything, really. This is not a self-esteem issue; I happen to think I’m awesome, and funny and so on, but I have no value to society. As we do not yet live in a world where creative comedy genius is rewarded ipso facto, I should find a job. I did actually try. Not very hard to be honest, but whatever; I made the attempt.

For ten years, from 1997 to 2007, I owned and ran a jewellery shop in Ireland. I liked it and I was good at it. In fact, I was so good at it that I’ve lived the last five years in the U.S. with no income whatsoever on the basis of my business. So, I thought that would be a good idea to explore that avenue. I got an interview with a lady who assured me in every way except by handing me a signed statement that I had the advertised job of working in her jewellery store. This did not come to pass, which I found disheartening. 

Then there was a whole thing with a casino. I crashed and burned with unnecessary drama, but I got some great blog posts, which are accessible by clicking the job tag. But that’s pretty much it.

I have friends. I’m older than most of them. I know people who do amazing things with their lives. Some of them are music teachers and some of them are graphic design artists and some of them are parents (which is probably the most worthwhile thing anyone can do - no, seriously) and some of them are educating themselves towards specific goals. Some people are just better than others. And I’m not one of them. I’m just a guy typing stuff into the interwebz for his own amusement, and if it occasionally tickles other people, well that’s a bonus.

I’m not depressed. I’m not sad about any of this. I don’t need cheering up, or encouragement, or validation from anyone. If I need anything, it’s a job. I need someone to pay me to do something. Ideally, it would involve writing, as setting my own deadlines has proven a weak incentive. I have three books half-written. Some of you have read some of the things I write, so I’m not making it up. But I find it hard to finish anything. I get an idea and run with it as far as it will go. And then I get another idea. And so on.

The only writing I ever finished to my satisfaction was a series of television scripts. It’s a dumbass office comedy, and again, some of you have seen some of them. But I finished an entire series worth of scripts. I thought it might be fun to try and get the thing made, even if it was just for crappy-quality YouTubes. All I need is a working camera, two office-style sets, and five people. I’d be happy with that. So I roped some friends into getting that done. And that didn’t work out. So I found another group of friends who said they were interested. And that didn’t happen. So I found another group of friends who said they would be interested. And that didn’t happen either. Here I am, living in Los Angeles, and I can’t find five people, two office-like sets and someone with a camera. So I became disheartened. 

I could teach. I’d be a great teacher. I could teach English or history or geography.  My degree is in Classical History and Geography, which covers a lot. But to teach you need teaching credentials and to amass college credits and I can’t afford to spend that kind of money, and as I am not a citizen I (quite correctly!) can’t apply for federal aid.

Keep in mind that I am 37 years old. That’s an age that most of you can’t even picture in your minds. I know, because when I was 21, or 24, or 19, I couldn’t picture it in my mind either. 

I’m not disheartened any more. Here’s what I want to do. I want to get a job. But to be honest, that’s secondary. What I really want to do is get my books finished and my scripts filmed, even if I have to fucking green-screen myself and upload it to my own vimeo. I don’t care how I have to do it, but that’s project alpha. And it will happen. Because I want my worth to society to be expressed as a function of my creative output, not that I worked in a job. That’s just how I want it to be. 

Normally I don’t care. I don’t feel shame when someones asks me what I do and I don’t have an answer. That sort of thing doesn’t bother me at all, although maybe it should. However, I have a father. He is 79 years old and he is the most awesome person in the world. If you want to taste the awesome, check the shit my dad says tag. He says when he was 37, he couldn’t picture himself being 79. But he did something with his life; he is a contributing member of society and he is universally loved and respected in the community. And every so often he asks me what I’m doing. He says he doesn’t want to hassle me, but the ladies at the bridge club keep asking him how I am and he doesn’t know what to tell them. I don’t know what to tell him about what to tell them. I’m not doing anything. 

Check in with me this time next year. I think I’ll have something to tell my father.