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From the Blog

Apr

living the dream

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

Sometimes I have to remind myself how awesome Meghan O’Keefe is. If you haven’t met her, Meghan is breaking into the comedy scene in NYC, the modern equivalent to a fourth tour of ‘Nam. She did this by moving to New York, getting a day job, and then doing something like five open mics a week forever (I don’t have exact figures handy). Now she’s got gigs at Peoples’ Improv Theater and UCB, as well as regular columns for The Huffington Post, Hello Giggles, The Hairpin, etc. She is Living The Dream.

I was reminded of the awesomeness of Meghan’s path when rereading Jon Acuff’s Quitter (which deserves its own post). Acuff talks about Jerry Seinfeld’s famous hour-long interview on comedy, in which he talks about his own apprenticeship in the NYC comedy scene. His method: to do two shows a night, every night, without a single night off, for eighteen months. That’s over a thousand stand-up sets.

I thought of these inspiring people because I’ve been struggling with the balance between a dream job and a day job. All of us have creative passions that inspire us. All of us also recognize the need to earn a wage and pay for health insurance. How do you balance those? When do you take the leap to pursue your dream? And is the dream that you’re about to pursue worth that leap?

I don’t have the experience to answer the first question or the financial sense to answer the second. But based on my experience, and based on what my friends (and Jerry Seinfeld) have gone through, I think I can field the third.

If you’re wondering whether or not a particular dream of yours is your true calling in life, ask yourself: how long would I be willing to labor in fruitless obscurity just for the joy of pursuing this dream?

If the answer is “weeks” or “months,” forget it. If the answer is “years,” you’re on the right track. If it’s “decades,” you have a winner.

That’s not to say that you couldn’t find overnight success. And I don’t want to perpetuate the myth of the starving artist shivering in a garret apartment. A person’s got to eat! You don’t have to suffer. You just have to be willing to suffer.

(Or, more importantly, you don’t count obscurity as “suffering”)

It’s process, not feedback, that will make your dream succeed. You have to pursue your dream with the discipline of a 40hr/week day job, only with fewer than 40 hours a week to do it in. If you’re chasing after an immediate fix, you’ll get discouraged early on. Even worse, if you find early success and don’t immediately start work on your next project, you can get distracted from your dream before it fully takes off.

Too Close to Miss has succeeded to the point that it’s paid for itself (editing, cover design, Createspace account costs). It continues to sell at a slow clip. I’m incredibly lucky in that regard. But getting to this point took a decade of experimenting with fiction, and five years of writing novels. I tell people Too Close to Miss is my first novel, meaning the first one I’ve published. In terms of manuscripts I’ve completed, it’s probably my sixth or seventh. But none of those others will ever see the light of day. They’re not marketable. I needed to write them in order to learn the novel.

Ask yourself how long you’d be willing to pursue your dream without getting paid. Not for fame, not for money, just for the joy and curiosity of practicing the craft. If the answer isn’t “a sizable portion of your life,” then it’s not your true calling. Don’t worry: you do have one. Just keep searching.

If you want to see whether my years of toiling in obscurity paid off, check out Too Close to Miss, the crime thriller that readers “stayed up way too late finishing,” available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes.

If you read it and liked it, please let your friends know via Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, or old-fashioned word of mouth.

May

let me steal this moment from you now

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

My friend RJ was the best man at my friend John Serpico’s wedding this past weekend. After a few drinks to help him over the expected nerves, he pulled out his notes.

“I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find an appropriately humorous anecdote describing John and Kim,” RJ told the crowd. “Until I was reminded that they’d met online. Specifically in the ‘Boston’ community on LiveJournal.” And RJ took out another sheet of notes and preceded to recount the bride and groom’s first tenuous conversation.

It was a touching story (“I can has friend?”). And it makes me wonder how frequent these stories will become in future weddings. So much of the social palimpsest happens in a digital medium now. The first date can now be documented with Facebook photos; the first kiss as an ambiguous Twitter update. The story is both firmer and hazier at the same time: rendered in chiaroscuro rather than watercolor, but still not quite the real thing.

This isn’t a lament for a hokier era, though. Increased documentation, when done right, is a good thing. Machines should do the grunt work for us; social machines should do the grunt work of social documentation. Who was at what event with whom. Human memory, after all, is the weakest medium for art. That’s why we stare at the “Mona Lisa,” even though we’ve seen it a million times. That’s why we listen to our favorite songs on Repeat. That’s why we laugh when our best friend tells us the story of how we met.

So keep chatting, posting and Twittering. Just choose what you say carefully. This is for posterity, so be honest.

serpico-wedding

Jan

it’s a world of hope and a world of fear

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

Three things about Disney World:

(1) When my best friend Rachel said that she was running the Disney World Half Marathon for Team in Training in order to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, I had the checkbook out already. But then she and I talked about training. I’ve never run a marathon, saving my joints for less destructive pursuits, but I could talk about the training regimen and the mentality required for marathon endurance.

“The biggest challenge,” she said, “will be crossing the finish line and not seeing anyone there.” And that is a challenge. When I tested for black belt, I took a lot of strength from the people who came to cheer me on, Rachel among them.

A couple weeks later, I called Rachel up. “Would you rather I flew down to Disney World to watch you run the half marathon,” I asked, “or that I wrote a check for the equivalent amount?”

(2) Aside from cheering my best friend as she does something she never thought she could do – and I know I’ll never want to do – I’ll also be correcting a decade-old injustice.

In January 2001, following Super Bowl 35, the Disney corporation very pointedly did not ask Super Bowl MVP Ray Lewis what he was going to do after winning the championship. Disney instead posed the question to Ravens quarterback Trent Dilfer. No one thinks Trent Dilfer was responsible for the Ravens’ win, including ESPN commentator Trent Dilfer. So I’ll restore the scales on Saturday by sporting my purple #52 jersey around Epcot Center.

(3) I liked Magic Kingdom just fine when I visited it (nineteen years ago), but EPCOT stands out more in my memory. I was fascinated by visions of the future, even when seen through the lens of thirty years in the past. I loved the interactive exhibits in Imaginationland. It served a need that I had a hard time feeding anywhere else as a child: the certainty that technology would make the future better.

I brought home two souvenirs from my first trip to Disney World: a flintlock pistol from the Magic Kingdom and a stuffed Figment toy from EPCOT. Maybe they’re still selling them.

Nov

like pun said, you ain’t even in mi clasa

Posted by Perich at 9:19 am

When NaNoWriMo started, I had this arch post in mind. I clearly had a lot to say about writing – having written four unpublished novels! – and needed to get it out there. While I wouldn’t deprecate anyone’s writing efforts, I’d make sure they knew that rushing through a novel in a month didn’t really count. My goal wouldn’t be to make people feel stupid. Just small.

And then my friend RJ announced that he’d be writing every day this month. So I said, “Well, can’t do that, now.”

Let me make clear: it’s not that I scrapped my post because I thought it would hurt a friend’s feelings. I write about things that I think will offend my friends all the time. Plus, RJ’s made of sterner stuff than that.

I scrapped my post because, if NaNoWriMo got RJ to start writing more, I was obviously wrong.

In addition to being a good friend – he got me my last job, which has now turned into something of a career – RJ is one of the smarter and funnier people I know. He’s full of clever turns of phrase. He lives an interesting life. He’s one of the very few people I believe should write more.

Any trivial event (like NaNoWriMo) that gets RJ to write more is an obviously good thing. If some offhand comment of mine had discouraged RJ from writing – “eh, it’s only a blog post every day; it’s not really worth it” – that would have been terrible. I would have been taking joy out of the world. Thankfully I was lazy, and RJ started blogging before I could say something condescending.

And this got me wondering about what else my attitude might have got in the way of.

I know I don’t rule the lives of my (few) readers. But if I keep harping on something with the same dismissive tone, I have to imagine it’s dampening someone’s spirits. There’s a difference between talking someone out of doing something terrible (like going to grad school) and talking someone out of doing something that’s good but not great.

So while I might have a post about NaNoWriMo come the end of November, I’ll use a different tone. Not out of gentle consideration (I don’t have much in me). I don’t think everybody needs to write more. But I think that the people who do need to write more need to write more. And I don’t want to shut them up.

(In the meantime, read RJ’s stuff)

Jun

did our boy do something rash?

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

We worried about rain, but it was still clear out when Sylvia and I showed up at Joe’s place in Watertown. I’d picked up some snacks and beer at the Shaw’s around the corner. Joe’s dad was grilling in the backyard; friends and family circled around. We weren’t alone, but we were some of the first people there. “Joe’s out back,” someone said. “Throwing knives with his brothers.”

Here’s the trick to knife-throwing:

Get knives made for knife-throwing. These are flat, metal blades that don’t have a separate hilt: they’re just blunt on one end. They’re not even very sharp.
Don’t stand too far from the target on your first go. It’s hard to throw a knife at all, much less throw it a good distance.
Don’t flick your wrist at the target. Keep your wrist straight. Bring your forearm back, then release the blade just before your arm reaches zero degrees.
Don’t throw it too hard. The weight of the knife will stick it into the target.
And for devil’s sake, don’t throw a knife at someone to hurt them. If you miss, you’ve just thrown away your knife.

knife-throwing

My best inning for the afternoon was two hits out of eight throws. I would have given up sooner, but there’s a particularly satisfying thunk that a thrown knife makes when buried into a stump. Especially when compared to the flat KLAY-AY-ANG a knife makes when it bounces off the target in a random direction. Roll d6 for scatter; take 1d4+2 damage.

The most important thing about knife-throwing (as Sylvia brought up later) is to be cool about it. Joe’s a cool guy: he works in film; he approaches his passions with intensity but is otherwise laid back; he’s got a good sense of humor, etc. If he does something out of the norm, it becomes an interesting experience. “Knife-throwing, huh? Sure, I’ll give it a try.” Whereas if a stringy-haired guy in a patchy Army jacket sat next to you on the bus, reeking of Old Crow, and started talking about how good he is at throwing knives? You’d start wondering how much damage your purse could do if swung.

So if you’re wondering how to make your fringe hobby more appealing – like D&D or macramé or libertarianism – get a shave and a haircut.

May

said it ain’t where you’re from; it’s where you’re at

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

Weddings are wasted on the young. I don’t mean the really young, like J.J’s toddler, who would sprint across the dance floor to give someone a high-five then hide behind his mother’s skirts. But anyone between the ages of seven and seventeen has no business being at a wedding. Unless it’s their own and they’re in a state that tolerates that sort of thing. But the real joy of a wedding comes not from the ceremony or even the rituals following it. It comes from those long hours at the reception, sitting in small circles with a friend at your side and a drink in your hand, saying, Hey, remember when? It’s reflecting on the deep history you have with the married couple, and then realizing with a sigh that all of it is prologue.

Fortunately, I didn’t see any kids between seven and seventeen at Will and Gina’s wedding this past weekend. Gina and Will always meshed in such a way that you had a hard time remembering when they weren’t a couple. The goofy humor, the quiet energy. But, with effort, I was able to remember Will before he met Gina, and those few months before Gina started openly dating Will. That was eight and a half years ago. And yet, seeing them at the front of that church last Saturday, I still recognized the excited look in their eyes. Wow. We made it.

The ceremony, a Catholic mass, spent as much time on Jesus as it did on the happy couple. The DJ’s playlist was probably the same as any other wedding he’ll do this summer. And everyone knows what order the reception rituals come in: introducing the couple, toasts, first dances, cutting the cake, etc. It’s not the ritual that makes the wedding special. You can get the wedding day just right and still end it in bitterness a few years later. Or you can twiddle your thumbs during a grotesque homily^*, fumble with the lighting of special candles, and still come out all right. It’s not about the uniform; it’s about who’s on your team with you.

will-and-gina

_________
* I don’t use the word “grotesque” lightly. The priest told an inspiring fable about a soldier who was sentenced to death by a court-martial. Told that the sentence would be carried out when the curfew bell rang, the soldier’s wife tied herself to the bell clapper so that no one would hear the signal. When her “cut and bloodied” body was found inside the bell, the sentencing officer solemnly intoned, “Curfew will not be rung today.” I hope the photographer caught the dawning look of horror that washed over the congregation; my digital camera has a pretty small lens.

Jan

my girl wants to party all the time, party all the time

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 10:16 am

I had some time off in the last week of December. Checking my calendar, I realized that I had a lot of social nights scheduled. Moreso than usual for me, even on a day off. So I decided to push it and go out drinking as many consecutive nights as I could.

How’d I do?

Sunday: Dinner and Christmas gifts with Fraley, Melissa, Hawver and Dea. We tried out The Local in Newton – decent plates of tasty food, but I don’t know that they put that much gastro in the gastropub.

Monday: Yelp Elite event at Teatro. After a few drinks to unwind and some catching up with Serpico, Kim and Sarah, I circulated and socialized. I made several new friends out of the evening, got a caricature drawn and took a shiny Yelp lunchbox home. I followed the Elites to the “afterparty” at a bar in the Theater District Alley and got progressively looser, though not ridiculous. I hope.

Tuesday: After jiu-jitsu, I drove into the city to meet Meghan O’ and friends for birthday cocktails at Drink. After kvetching over A Song of Ice and Fire plot developments with the birthday girl, I spent a while chatting up Michelle McN. and Ben S. I only had the one drink, since I was driving several folks home.

Wednesday: Met Rebecca M. for drinks at Flat Top Johnny’s in Kendall Square. We intended to play pool, but ended up shooting the shit for over an hour instead. Ducked into the Blue Room downstairs so we could hear ourselves talk. Good cocktails and good duck ravioli. I ended up at Asgard, like I do, and had maybe one more drink.

Thursday: New Year’s.

Friday: Saw Lisa F. off on one of her last visits to Boston (… sniff). Then I caught the train into Allston and rocked it out at 90s Night at Common Ground.

Six consecutive nights of drinking and staying out late. In an unrelated story, next week I caught a cold.

Here’s the scary part, though: I could see myself living like this.

For years I’ve operated under this assumption that I can’t go out too often, or I’ll get weird and crusty. I base this off of times that I’ve gone to bars or parties, felt out of place, and gone home disappointed. But now I wonder if those nights were nights I should have stayed in, or if it were the result of getting my hopes too high. “This is the party that’s going to make my week!”, I would think. “It’s gonna be off the hook!” And then I’d get there and the party would remain nestled comfortably on its hook, everybody nodding politely and drinking quietly.

But if I set my expectations lower – just get there and have drinks – I do fine.

And even if six nights a week are excessive, it wouldn’t be hard to go out boozing three or four nights a week. Even for someone as antisocial, cranky and stubborn as I am. Facebook, e-mail and text messaging have made gathering a posse – or finding a posse mid-hunt and riding up alongside them – easier than ever. All I’d need to do is give up writing, cut back on jiu-jitsu, and maybe put this directing thing on hold for a bit.

How hard could that be?

Apr

and love, you can't give it away

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:00 am

Thank you to everyone who made it out for one of my three birthday events in the past week. I deliberately picked times and places that would draw a crowd already – Asgard on Wednesday, Common Ground on Friday, Phoenix Landing on Saturday – to make it easy for people to show up. Also, because I have lots of good memories associated with these places, and would never mind having more.

I drive myself pretty hard on the things I find important – fitness, writing, finances, this weblog. But I picked this past week to indulge. I still worked out, but I ate greasy food I’d normally avoid. I still wrote, but I didn’t force myself to stare at an empty page if the words weren’t coming. I still got up early, but I sat around reading (or watching The Shield) in my pajamas rather than hurrying into the shower. Birthdays are as good a period as any to let the routine slide.

It felt good, of course. I can see why some people want to do it all the time. But idleness like that only works in contrast. I can only let the bills pile up and the novel grow dusty for so long before I start itching to make changes to the world again.

Sometimes I wonder what I’d do if I came into a mythical amount of money – the illusory hot stock tip, the briefcase of money at the train station, the winning lottery ticket. I couldn’t see myself living a life of mindless luxury. At least not for more than a year. Probably travel the globe and weblog about it. Learn some exotic and expensive skill (sailing, hang gliding, wine growing, etc). The hands itch for, as Sterling Hayden put it, “some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment.”

So: the consumption cycle ends. The production cycle begins anew. Enough cake. Back to work.

Mar

so we'll walk down the shoreline one last time together

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:38 am

Too many of my friends have sent family to the hospital in this past week. And only some of them have come back. So take advantage of this rare moment of unguarded sentiment from me and believe the following:

I Like All Of You. Really. If you think I don’t like you, nine times out of ten that’s just me being reserved, or lost in my own thoughts, or distracted whenever I see you. But really, I like you just fine. I ration out my enthusiasm in careful doses (whether I need to or not), so don’t feel bad if you don’t get a share. Give me time; you’ll see it.
I Like Hanging Out With You. If it involves drinking and dancing, or drinking and laughing, or drinking and talking about affairs of import, or a small but non-imaginary number of things done sober, I want in. I might not know I do, but I do. I’m like a camel with social contact – I can coast for days on a good night out or an entertaining lunch with friends, until I wake up one morning and find myself starving for extroversion again. And you? You’re fun people. So shoot me an e-mail or a .txt, if I can’t get over myself and do the same to you first.
I’m Not Upset. When I get lost in thought, my face tends to fall into this reserved, inward look that makes people think I’m mourning something. I’m not. But I don’t mind you asking. Because, one time in twenty, I actually will be. And it wouldn’t occur to me to say anything if you didn’t ask.
I’ll Miss You. I still have no idea how to handle myself at funerals. Doesn’t matter how well I knew you.

Anyhow, that’s all I’ve got for now. Monday the mask goes back up, and it’s one-paragraph movie reviews and sarcastic news commentary again.

Mar

'cause I've got one hand in my pocket

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:00 am

After my haircut on Saturday, I got a hot chocolate with Dr. Grace at the Starbucks on Boylston St downtown¹. We pounced on a table near the window and people watched. “It’s such a gorgeous day out,” she observed.

“It’s supposed to snow on Sunday,” I told her.

“I heard that, but it’s turning to rain later.”

“And it’s going to snow all day Monday into Tuesday, too.”

“See,” she said, half-frowning. “This is why we only hang out once every three months.”

“Not because we’re busy?”

“No.”

# # #

I took my broken iPod to the Apple Store on Boylston St while I was there. The Genius behind the counter regretfully told me that they couldn’t do much with the 4th generation models. “If you trade it in to be recycled,” he offered, “we’ll give you 10% off a new one.”

That’s a pretty exceptional deal, considering the 4th gen is good for nothing but scrap. I may take them up on it if eBay can’t beat that price².

Browsing through the store on Saturday morning, I remained pretty convinced that the Classic would be the one for me. 120 GB of capacity would keep me in music for years to come. Then my iBook spazzed out on Sunday – freezing up, the display dissolving in a slow rainbow of colors. Considering this iBook is over 5 years old at this point, and that it was one of the models prone to logic board failure, I feel it’s served a good term.

But now I need a portable web browser in addition to a portable music player. I could buy a Classic for $224 (after the recycling discount) and get a cheap laptop in a few months, hoping that nothing happens to my desktop Mac in the interim³. Or I could shell out $269 for a 16GB iPod Touch that’ll also check e-mail, function as a GPS and browse the web. I have just shy of 16GB worth of songs currently, but I don’t need to take all of them with me.

¹ Because there’s only the one on Boylston St.
² From a reliable dealer; I’m not paying $200 for a box full of marbles.
³ Which isn’t at all likely, except that I’ve just commented on it.