Category: ultrapersonal

Maniacs at Large

I managed to get a seat on a crowded L train while coming home today, so I cracked open the copy of Snow Crash I picked up again today, and happily immersed myself back in Hiro Protagonist’s universe. A little while later, I glance over at the woman sitting next to me, who had been so caught up in something when I boarded the train that she never looked up when we all crowded in around her. I glanced down at the papers she was scribbling on and realized I was next to a bona fide fanatic of some sort.

Well, maybe that’s a bit extreme, but she had filled up a piece of looseleaf with the kind of scrawl usually reserved for manic rantings of the Unabomber variety. Scrawled across the top in big, dark letters were the words “The Birth and Circumcision of Christ,” and then every square millimeter of the page was covered in tight, messy little script, with occasional flares of larger darker phrases. she seemed to copying from — or commenting on — a ragged little booklet that was covered — COVERED — with little notes and different-colored highlighter marks. She was so intense! And suddenly she opened up the binder she was leaning on and I saw that she had at least 150 pages of similar scrawl tucked away! She was a natural born madwoman. It seemed like a Grey Gardens moment waiting to happen.

Or zinester. It all depends on how you channel it.

The Critics Praise Sparky

Fame! Fortune! Well, neither, actually. But it’s cool at least.

Thanks to a well-placed word or two from Jonno, Rumpus Room was picked as “site of the week” by New York’s own free fag rag, HX. (Of course, the issue also came out the day before my ISP shut down my site because of a bill payment problem, but we’ve settled all that now.) Maybe with all the attention I’ll get upgraded to a B-list fag now.

For posterity, here’s the review:

Sparky’s Rumpus Room
www.rumpus.org

We’ve been spending a lot of time in Sparky’s rumpus room lately. Hopefully we’re not overstaying our welcome, because this cute New York City native (yes, Staten Island does count) and self described bon vivant is a hoot to hang with. shake your booty over to Sparky’s cyber-digs and browse his collection of cool street junk, get to know his pals or let lust get the best of you and ogle the random cute guys and hunky cartoon superheroes collated in his galleries. There’s also the obligatory online journal, a photo album and a collection of Sparky’s contributions to various ‘zines and online discussion groups. The whole package is wrapped in a funky design that’s one of the best we’ve seen in a personal homepage. And best of all, Sparky’s single. [Ain’t that the truth – ed.]

Trust me, this won’t go to my head. But maybe I’ll get some out of it. Hee hee hee!

Scholarly Data

Overachiever fails out of grad school! Yes, it’s true. I got my report card from Pratt today, the one with all the classes I decided to blow off as a means of effectively quitting grad school. In a way, it was very cathartic to just let those grades go. I’ve never failed a class before — I’ve never allowed myself to fail a class before. (Considering where I am today, it’s a little funny that my only low grades in high school were for Computer science and Algebra II. so much for my nerd credentials.) It was a good feeling when I realized that a bad transcript wasn’t going to haunt me the rest of my life, not when I’m actually more than capable of learning and doing well on my own. What a revelation: Grades actually ARE just numbers!

For the record:

spring 1999 Courses

Grade

Credits

Typography II

A

3.0

Visual Communications I

F

3.0

Communications Technology I

F

3.0

Corporate Image Planning

A

3.0

Fall 1999 Courses

Grade

Credits

Communications seminar

A

3.0

History of Communications Design

Incomplete

2.0

Cumulative Grade Point Average: 2.0

If you’re familiar with the GradCommD program at Pratt, you’ll notice that I failed my basic requirements but aced all my upper-level courses. Basically, this is because when push came to shove and I still had to work full-time while going to school, I devoted my energy to the more challenging, more interesting stuff and blew off the irritating stuff they made me take. Oops, my bad.

I think I may take a stab at finishing the work for the history class. The professor was a fun old queen who I liked a lot, and who wants me to submit the one paper I finished (on Piet Zwart) to the Pratt library since they don’t have any good reference materials on him. I wouldn’t kill me to write a couple of other small papers over the course of the next few months. After all, I certainly like reading up on designers and whatnot. Maybe I’ll finally write that essay about Art Chantry that I’ve been meaning to for years now. Art Chantry totally saved my life as a designer, but that’s a story for another day…

Subsisting on Snacks

“Lots of snacking does not make a satisfying meal.” Every once in a while I manage to phrase a little pearl of wisdom just right. If only I were as good at paying attention to the good advice I dole out. That pithy little bit came up in the midst of an e-mail exchange in which I was talking about how disappointing it is to live someplace where sex is easy enough to find, but more substantial company is not. In the words of another pundit, “A little experimenting here and there can be fun, but mothafucka! I don’t think it’s fun no mo’.” I agree totally.

I’ll admit that I go through periods of carnal self-indulgence (usually fueled by frustration or boredom), but in the end I’m a big ol’ softie whose primary goal is not short-term adventure. Not only do random hook-ups rarely give me the boost of sexual self-confidence I’m craving, but they tend to undermine the things about myself that I really am confident about, ‘cuz those qualities just don’t matter in that particular game.

Romeo, Romeo, where the fuck art thou?

Hmmm, you’d think it was a year or so ago that the long, slow, excruciatingly painful process of me getting dumped began. Or something. Granted, that was an inevitable result, considering how ill-suited he and I were for each other. We would have realized sooner or later that we’d managed to confuse one another for the idealized, fictionalized memories we had of each other from the first time around. But damn, what a gruesome way for it to have happened.

Can you tell what kind of mood Sparky’s in today?

By Grabthar’s Hammer

Never give up, never surrenderGalaxy Quest. Brilliant. Hilarious. Who knew? This was the shocker of the weekend for me. This movie was so good, and I had totally dismissed it beforehand because the trailer looked so bad, and because… Well, because Tim Allen is so Tim Allen. (Although including the Toy story movies, this now makes three flicks of his that I really like. Eeeek!) But he holds his own alongside longtime faves like Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, and Tony Shalhoub. (I never hear anyone else talk about Tony Shalhoub, but he’s always really good.) And talk about special effects! Go see it, especially if you’ve ever enjoyed a moment of star Trek in any capacity whatsoever. Adam, his cool friend Laura, and I laughed our asses off, and the film even drew applause at the end, which, for a movie being viewed by a jaded NYC audience, is like getting an Oscar.

Although after geeking out by seeing science fiction and hanging out at Forbidden Planet, we were forced to retreat to Diner for a dose of the obscenely good-looking crowd and the world’s most succulent burgers.

The bummer to the weekend was discovering that I’ve almost completely forgotten how to drive since I last got behind the wheel at Thanksgiving. I’ll be the first to admit that I react really badly when I have to do things that I don’t know how to do well, and this driving thing is throwing all those issues right into my face. Hopefully, I’ll get the hang of it a little better before my road test in two weeks. Clear the roads! At least I understand why people don’t want to drive in Manhattan, though. At one point this morning I had to dodge a speeding cab, a clueless bicycist, a jay-walking pedestrian, and a freaking pigeon as I turned onto a “quiet” side street. Fuck that! I can’t wait to drive through the desert or something.

That is all.

No More Pontificating

As of last night, I am no longer a college teacher. Technically, of course, I was an instructor of a basic computer skills class at Pratt’s school of Professional studies, but it was basically teaching college. I loved teaching, and I’m glad that I’ll be doing a lot of training as part of the new job at Miles 33, so I’ll still be able to scratch the itch.

One nice thing about teaching a class in basic Mac skills is that I get a chance to start people off on the right foot, and explain to them early on my whole philosophy about how computers are still just tools, not creative solutions. And that once you get the idea of how a system works basically, you’re armed with the ability to make educated guesses and teach yourself more, rather than just operating like some kind of trained monkey doomed to a lifetime of crappy production jobs.

Having never taken a computer class in my life, and just figured all this crap out for myself over the years, it’s nice to try and save someone else from wasting just as much time as I did being mystified by the glowing box with keyboard in front of it.

Staten Island Boy Goes Home

Poingnant exchange of the day:

Adam: Wow, it’d nice to be in love.

Me: Yeah, those were the days.

So I spent most of the weekend in Staten Island, my old stomping grounds. Friday night I went to see my folks at Aunt Lee and Uncle John’s house before Mom and Dad took off for Florida again. All my dad’s brothers were in town with my aunts, which was a nice bonus. It was very satisfying to sit around gabbing with the folks and my aunts and uncles. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy spending time with my family.

Saturday I went over to Adam‘s swanky Staten Island loft to hang out for the day. We met up with two totally fun friends of his — Eva and Sally — and drove around for a while, visitng an amazing little old-school luncheonette and a great used furniture store. Later that night the ladies came back over to Adam’s and we goofed around while salsa dancing, playing with Adam’s didgeridoo and bull-roarer, Watching The Matrix (which I manage to like more and more every time I see it) and Aliens, and playing Bust A Groove, a totally nutty Playstation game where you win by dancier funkier than your opponents.

It’s always very trippy for me to drive around Staten Island, especially if I’m having fun. I hated living there so much when I was growing up, and I went to such efforts to make sure I never had to move back once I left for college, that it’s kind of a mind-fuck for me to go back and find all these fun places to go and cool people ot hang out with there. I actually get these rushes of nostalgia about my adolescence there, suggesting that I did a better job of making the most of it than I always think I did.

Dragging My Heels

I’ve been in a bit of a fog this week. Dragging my heels, yawning at work, and sitting slack-jawed around the playhouse just watching movies (Singing in the Rain, Poison, Muppets from Space) or goofing around on the website. As soon as all my houseguests left sunday, my spirits just came crashing to the ground. I always get like that after I’ve had a good time with company around. I guess I’m still not fully recovered from being such an anti-social loser all this Fall — I still feel like it’ll be weeks between chances to see friends.

Until there’s something worth mentioning….

Hello, Millenium

Well, that’s it. since no one really cares about the nerdy truth that the new M-word actually starts next year, last night basically was it. Which is fine by me.

I actually enjoyed myself this year, believe it or not. I NEVER enjoy New Year’s Eve. Last year was a looming disaster in Boston, the year before was a massive allergy attack in Brazil. I could go on and on. Last night was awesome, until my delight was squelched by my companions for the evening. Just as I was reveling in the fact that I was enjoying myself trememdously at this totally swank DJ event in a loft in Williamsburg, I turned around and Jim told me that my friend Vincent and his two friends wanted to leave. Oh well, at least I got to hear and excellent segue of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” into Rob Base before I left. We wound up back at my place with me grumpy, Jim sleepy, and the boys chatty. Oh well…

Overall, though, I must say that this holiday season went of without a hitch, once all the school nonsense was over. Christmas was lovely and warm and fuzzy, the week after was a great time to catch up and see a bunch of friends and relax around the house, I’m entertaining a few houseguests for the weekend now, and I met cool people from Thirteen who I’d never spoken to before when I went to meet Adam for lunch on my unexpected day off from work. Much better than last year’s total train wreck of a holiday season.

I was actually musing yesterday about how different life is from this point last year. I can do that a lot, actually, since I’m so fickle about apartments and jobs. But last year to this was quite a leap. I’m a little lonely now, but otherwise things are OK, and at least I’ve learned from one of the biggest mistakes I ever made.