Month: August 2000

Reflections Of…

Now that it’s been a year since my first online journal entry, I thought I should take a moment to pause and reflect about what I’ve gotten out of this little experiment. (Those of you who know me better will be think, and rightly so, “Pause and reflect? Day-um, Sparky must have a BUTTLOAD of work that he’s procrastinating about.”)

Overall, it was a good idea to start it. I’ve never been very disciplined about keeping a journal, although I’ve been partial to the idea ever since I first read Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy. The decision to post the entries on the web site has been a good motivation for me to keep writing. Not only do you people keep nagging me if I slack off, but the feedback I get encourages me to keep going. It’s also been a great way to make lots of new friends, which has probably been the best part about it.

My original thought for the journal stuff was for it to be a way for people who knew me to keep up on what I was doing so I didn’t have to write so many similar e-mails. As fate would have, almost no one I know reads this regularly, and it’s become a tool for new people to get to know me a little better. That’s been a nice surprise, and it’s helped get me over some of my inherent shyness. I’ve found myself meeting people who already know too much stupid stuff about me for me to worry about making a good (and possibly misleading) impression. Hell, this sort of shameless self-promotion has even gotten me laid a few times. God bless technology!

My writing has also gotten a hell of a lot better. Writing more often has made it easier for me to control my voice and sharpen my skills. The journal writing has gotten closer and closer to the way I actually speak and think, and my paying attention to that aspect has even helped me with more formal writing, which I’ve been doing more and more for work.

Why all this introspection? Well, aside from marking the anniversary of this journal, I’m also beginning preparations for my 30th Birthday Blow-Out Shindig. Yes, it’s true, and you’re all invited! Details to follow, but if you have any desire to boogie with Sparky in his spacious Williamsburg loft, make sure to keep your calendar free. Details to follow.

Me and My Crap, God Bless Us

I get lots of compliments about my spacious loft in the ‘hood and the veritable museum of crap that I keep inside of it, but my secret shame is that I usually hate being such a pack rat. There’s no way that I could live in a smaller apartment even if I wanted to. I have already managed to discard truckloads of thrift-store clothes and furniture, old books, records, stacks of unused paper and art supplies, shoes that seemed cool for about a week, etc., but there always seems to be more lying around or more coming in. I get very sentimentally attached to a lot of my things, or I think that I ought to maintain my own reference library of books or source material for mix tapes or collages. I have lots of neat things, but it’s a real pain in the ass.

A lot of the time, I just wish I could be one of those glamorous minimalists who can live in a modest apartment filled with nothing more than an elegant little futon, one or two achingly beautiful Eames chairs, and a thin, futuristic laptop (perched on a long, otherwise empty desk made from a slab of something interesting with spindly metal legs attached) for good measure. I want to own about 10 pieces of beautiful, versatile clothing, and 3 pair of shoes at the most. Maybe a few Polaroids of frolicsome moments pinned to the wall for decoration.

Even that laundry list seems like a lot when I look at it. The irony, though, is to have so few things would probably mean spending enough money on them that each wouldn’t deteriorate immediately. I could probably sell my warehouse full of stuff here and invest in that new life. I probably wouldn’t be able to afford the rent on a place nice enough that I wouldn’t need to camouflage the structural defects with knick-knacks, though. The trouble is, if I got rid of everything, I would go crazy from the recurring instinct to wander over and look for the box of old photos or that old book with the crazy picture in it. Or I’d want to make someone a card with that old paper and some of the little plastic toys in that other box. Or I’d tell an anecdote that could only be illustrated by that one…Oh well, you get the idea. If I ever have the clearance sale, just promise you’ll keep in touch in case I have a relapse and need access to all the toys.

Battle Below the Ground

Brainstorm! I was taking the subway into work this morning (on-site work, not the usual stay-at-home-in-my-underwear work) when I was reminded of a good idea I had a while back. This one-armed harmonica player carrying a paper coffee cup filled with change entered from the back of the car, playing the same three bars of eerily perky music over and over again. After he passed, a chubby Asian guy hawking batteries and cheap plastic toys approached from the front of the car. No one was happy about any of this, even though some change was thrown in the cup and batteries were purchased.

OK, so here’s the idea: subway Face-Off 2000! It would be a video game with two missions. You’d be some classic subway merchant or panhandler — the guy with no legs on the skateboard, the Asian battery guy, the woman with the sandwiches from the homeless shelter, the deranged lunatic, the doo-wop crew, the school-candy seller, the beligerent bum, the Islamic preacher with the incense and the big mouth, the break-dance troupe, the deaf guy with the sign-language cards, the one-armed harmonica player, the mother-son mariachi duo, etc. (I swear to god I have seen all of these, repeatedly) Anyway, you’d be one of these characters, and your mission would be to make it from one end of a ten-car subway to the other. Your goal would be to get as much money as possible from the exasperated or angry commuters and the terrified tourists. Your success would depend upon the desirability of your wares or the effectiveness/pitifulness of your schpiel. Along the way, though, you would also have to dodge the police and avoid pissing off any subway riders who might get in your face. The big challenge, though, would be the Face-Off: You enter a car from one side, and have to battle for dominance of the car with another panhandler/merchant who enters from the other. You naturally would run into a few of these on the whole train, as we all do. The two of you would have to battle to the death, probably with someone getting thrown onto the tracks. You win the battle with no points if you’re doing OK but your opponent flees the train at a station.

OK, that’s my idea. You read it here first and I have the documentation, so don’t try anything shady. Programmers, call me! Next time, I’ll tell you about Poetry slam! and stage Mother showdown!