The Road - Book Becomes Movie

I read the book "The Road" months ago and I was very thrilled to find that now a film is out based on the book. The Road was written Cormac McCarthy, I don't know much about the film as I haven't seen it yet of course. Plan to see it this weekend if its in the theaters. The book was depressing and felt intensely real. At the time, I was always playing a video game, Fallout 3, which you may or may not have heard of or played but it sort of fit in with the general theme of a post apocalyptic world and people attempting to survive in it. The Road is less about what happened and more focused on the two central characters of a father and son. I won't give away any of the novel, but I recommend you read the novel before seeing the movie.

Romance of the Uber Journal

If you go to epica.com you will see a wide of products, mostly leather journals and albums. You'll also see the worlds thickest journal. A monstrous 1000 pages (combined) and 3 inches thick, touted as an inexhaustible supply of paper to write whatever on. Well this has captivated me for about a bloody 2 years now. The cost of what I've come to call the "Uber Journal" is $275.00 plus tax and shipping and handling, a good $300.00 smackers. Yeah, that's pretty steep for a journal. But some people pay that for meals. You have to consider priorities. If you're a wealthy lord or lady (in this economy?) then it should be nothing. It matters if you are obsessed with writing in books with the vague notion that someone in a 100 years will read it someday, then you may as well satisfy your obsession.

To the credit of the person who does purchase the Uber Journal, Epica products are expertly made by people who bind work with leather and bind books for a living. These people know what they are doing and they do it extremely well. So you will purchase a product that you can rest assured will last a century or two. If you want something to just write in that can last just as long, get a moleskine. They are great for lugging around and can take a lot of abuse.

Mysterious Lady On Morning Metro Who Also Works In The Same Office Building

On weekday mornings, I catch the Metro to downtown Washington, DC. If you are familar with the Metropolitan Washington, DC area you basically know something about the Metro Subway System. I catch the greenline starting from Greenbelt, MD every morning along with thousands of other commuters. Its a matter of ritual. I usually get off at the Navy Yard stop, and walk a block or two to the office building where my office is, if I don't feel inclined to walk across the street to Starbucks and get a latte'.

Now, just last year, I've noticed a young woman who I've labelled the "Mysterious Lady" this is her more recent title. Before it was "Frenchie", "the Algerian" and "the Morocan". I have no idea what her name is. I know her by her large eyes and crop hairstyle as pictured here. I found an example of her exact hairstyle in wikipedia with the picture of late actress Louise Brooks. I must say that she looks a lot better than Brooks. She is so beautiful, that she's intimidating, and I have now asked her what her name is. There isn't a chance in hell she'll read this post or even blog but there's always hope in divine intervention.

So, being a bachelor of the neurotic and hopeless variety, I have looked her over many times, trying to notice if she's wearing a ring. Now this isn't always an indicator that she's either available or not, and to be sure a beautiful rarely sleeps alone. I measure myself against more confident and sure men (or women if she's so inclined), and I come up short. Hell, stranger things have happened as far as romance is concerned, but my chances are probably average. While at work and walking the stairs for exercise, I have run into her at times, said hello and that was that. I am sure she notices me from the subway, and how can someone not notice her?

Well, the Mysterious Lady will remain a mystery until I gather some nerve and ask her just what her name is. Things rarely happen by chance.

Been A While Since I've Posted

Its been awhile since I've posted anything. Currently its Christmas Eve and soon it will be the New Year. Happy Holidays to all and everyone. I have to make a committment here to keep up with the posts. Consider this a New Year Resolution. Thing is, I've been busy starting up graduate school and other projects. Not an excuse but, it's been a little hectic. A post can take 5 to 10 minutes at the most. Well, that's an idea at least.

Passed by the House of Eugene O'Neil

As a contractor, I've been on travel frequently and in my line of work I've had to travel to New England often to attend meetings or conduct audits at various facilities. I travel to New London, Connecticut in area of Groton. On one of my travels I got lost looking for a site and happened to pass by this landmark pictured here and found out that it was a place where playwrite Eugene O'Neil once lived and spent a significant amount of time. You may have seen a production of or read The Iceman Cometh or Long Day's Journey Into Night as two of his most famous plays. I'm due to travel to New London next week. It's a place that has a lot of history that's worth exploring if you ever get the chance.

Dated Entries And Numbered Entries

When writing in your personal journal you may consider a format for an entry. A date is commonly used to identify the day on which the events described happened. Some people actually include the time with the date and even indicate the weather outside. Yet there are those who place a date at the start of the journal only and the subsequent entries are numbered.

What I've done is similar to the picture shown here. I typically number my entries. I wanted to be unconventional not that it's original but the thing with dated entries is that there are times when you miss days. With a dated entry format, I felt committed to keeping a daily log, and even with my hypergraphia there are days when I don't feel like writing about the remains of the day. Most entries in a dated journal that's updated daily are of mundane events that are pretty routine. With the numbered entry system, you can skip days, months even years and come back to the journal when you feel like it. It's better for people who keep multiple log books or notebooks. I have a notebook for work and several for different creative themes. Which ever works for you is fine.

On Writing And Drinking

Generally, I would say that some of my favorite writers have had drinking problems, Charles Bukowski being chief among them with Jack Kerouac being a close second. William Faulkner was said to have had a drinking problem as well as Oscar Wilde (absinthe was his bane). But there are plenty of well known famous writers who weren't alcoholics. I am thinking right this moment of Chester Himes, he wrote Cotton Comes To Harlem (which was made into one of my favorite movies that sort of follows the novel), Fyodor Dostoevsky the "Mad Russian" who wrote two of my all time favorite books Crime And Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, well he had a gambling problem and he suffered from hypergraphia. The point being you shouldn't develop a taste for alcohol just because someone famous couldn't help themselves when it came to the sauce. Brilliant people tend to be very eccentric and abnormal, there are plenty of exceptions and of course you can be pretty average and still be an exceptional this or that. I have found that addiction in particular drinking, doesn't necessarily aid you in your craft. If you lack a talent for it, alcohol isn't going to help to bring it out, Bukowski himself said as much. Charles Bukowski, the "Poet Laureate of Skid Row" would often reference drinking in many if not all of his works. Check out his bio on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski

Anyway, his best work in my opinion was Post Office, he was a poet and a novelist and coming off trying to read Jack Kerouac's other works outside of On The Road, he brought me back to the basics of what it truly to be "beat", the Beat Movement was basically contrived nonsense compared to the experiences of Bukowski, at least I got that feeling reading my first Bukowski novel Ham On Rye. There are those who would say that his work is vulgar and unrefined but there is not only beauty in the simplicity of language but if you can convey a sublime thought in common everyday language, you can not only reach more people, you have more than demonstrated your acumen as a writer. Certainly there has no writer like Bukowski, just as there won't be another Dostoevsky, Himes, Richard Wright or any other influential writer. So don't be an imitator. I say this having tried and failed at it. I am not so much a writer as I am a diarist. I basically write for my own benefit and I also have hypergraphia. Drinking isn't going to help you. There are famous writers who had drinking problems or if you're cynical like myself you can say that there were famous alcoholics with writing problems. What's more important is that you write because you enjoy it and that you find your own muse.

River City Confidental - Episode 2 Deputy Ungar's Booze Problem

The following is exert from the working journal of Michael Bullock, former night janitor for The River City Leger:

Deputy Ungar is known drunkard but he keeps it professional, his job I mean, not his drinking. If you're a professional drinker then I'd surely like to know whose paying your bills and how is it you can form a coherent thought without assistance.

I went to school with Ungar and he was someone you never bothered with but avoided at all cost. So it's not surprising that the River City Sheriff's Office employed him. He has a personality that that weighs in on a perp (or anyone for that matter) like a heavy load. Deputy Ungar doesn't have to get loud or start ranting and raving. He gives you that look he gave fellas in school, a blaring eye and a psychotic sneer. And you comply and you do whatever he says.

So it sorta comes as a surprise that the big burly Ungar can't hold his liquor a man of his size ought too. He goes off duty and heads down to Jacks on Cedar St. and has him some Jack. And Jack Daniels isn't something a sane man would drink enormous amounts of without chaser and then presume to be of good sound mind to tell a few locals what they can do on their way to hell. Yes Ungar is what we in the drinking profession call a violent drunk and folks know enough to humor him, sorta calm him down, but he made a spectacle of himself the other night and it didn't end well. Deputy Ungar is on paid administrative leave and 4 dudes one being Jack Harper owner of Jacks are had a trip to Francis Memorial Emergency Room.

Journals From Aspinal of London

Well, I received my two Frieze Journals from Aspinal of London yesterday. These journals utilize amalfi paper, presumably from Amalfi a town in the province of Salerno, Italy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalfi

Great town, probably won't be traveling there anytime soon due to the ravages of this bad US economy, but they make some damn fine paper. I started yet another informal writing project. The amalfi paper works well with most pens with the exception of MICRON pens. Works extremely well with the Pilot Precise V5 pens with the needle point marks. I work at an office where Precise V5 pens are purchased by the case by the supply department and given out like candy. They are perfect on amalfi paper. You can purchase amalfi paper journals from any online store that caters to journalphiles, but be warned, they tend to be pricey. Currently Aspinal of London has a sale on amalfi paper journals: aspinaloflondon.com or epica.com.

On Keeping Journals

Now keeping a journal is more personal and intimate than keeping a blog usually or so I've heard. In either case you have to keep in mind that it will eventually be read by someone other than yourself. So you may want to keep that in mind. Many people who have disclosed information on blogs concerning their jobs or the people they work with have been fired after someone from the office read the blog. The internet is an open sewer, but sometimes you find gold, sometimes you find killer crocs, so be wise about what you write, someone will eventually read it. Journals shouldn't be left out in the open unless you have no sense of shame or embarrassment over what you have written in them. I generally place all my paper journals in a steamer trunk with a lock. I have some vain hope that once I've kicked the bucket so to speak some enterprising relative will or descendant would want to know what Anthony Stevens was thinking when he was up and walking around. In my experience I've known a lot of people who kept journals in the form of a simple spiral notebook, to more elaborate and expensive journals. It's really up to you what kind of journal or notebook you want to write in.

Moleskine notebooks are a relatively informal and cheap journals that are sold in nearly every book and art supply store. There are various kinds of moleskines for both writing and drawing. Moleskines are currently popular amongst informal diarists since there is a long history of famous people such as Ernest Hemingway, Bruce Chatwin, Pablo Picasso and Oscar Wilde who have used moleskines in previous versions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moleskine). I continue to use them myself because I really like the quality of the paper and that's a big thing with me. The paper must have a faint buttery cream color and ink even from a cheap roller ball pen makes wonderful impressions on it. And of course they are inexpensive, a large moleskine will probably run you about $17 to $18 dollars. There are similar notebooks to moleskines which I have not yet tried out the Piccadilly notebooks to assess the quality but I plan to do so. The Piccadilly notebooks are even cheaper (http://piccadillyinc.com/products_notebooks.php). If you don't mind the girlish website, you can order them online or you can find them at a Borders bookstore. Unlike molekines you readily find anywhere, the Piccadilly notebooks are sold exclusively at Borders.

One luxury journal which I've had my eye on for nearly two years is a leather journal sold by Epica.com (http://epica.com/The-Worlds-Thickest-Italian-Leather-Journal-p-10.html), reputedly the world's thickest journal with over 1,000 pages. If you follow the link you'll see the outrageous price tag for such a beautiful book and though I've spent hard earned money on other things that could be considered extravagant, a journal is a bit much. Epica sells some very nice journals but their prices are outside the ranges of most people currently with this economy right not. They sell the world's largest journal for $2000 dollars. The journal is about the size of a small child. Good place to shop if you have the money to seriously devote to this hobby.

Currently I'm waiting on an order put in with Aspinal of London(http://www.aspinaloflondon.com/) for two large hard back journals with amalfi paper. Now I've been ordering luxury journals from Aspinal of London for years, starting around the year 2000 when I was still in the US Navy stationed in Beaufort, South Carolina. Aspinal of London doesn't when it comes to making quality products that are pricey but affordable. I have yet to experience writing on amalfi paper which is made in some Italian seaside town of the same name. I shall have them in a week.

Whatever journal you decide to use or if you want to only blog, keeping a journal is a good way of organizing your thoughts, releaving stress and keeping track of events. Again keep in mind that someone other than yourself will read it one day.

Bottle Wine Vs. Box Wine

As far as wine is concerned what matters is what you like to drink. I am not an expert on wine by any stretch of the imagination, but there's no point having a glass of premier wine that doesn't appeal to your taste. Most box wines tend to be cheaper than bottle wines, generally wine by the bulk or sold 2 to 6 liters at a time is cheap but considering the economy right now, cheap wine is has grown in popularity. Just because it's cheap doesn't mean it's low quality. And if you like drinking a particular wine, who cares if it's cheap or not?

Low end box wines have an historic reputation of being the wine of choice among college students and "winos" due to it's quick inebriation. Though in my experience I've found that bottle wines and box wines are no different in this case. If you are accustomed to drinking wine in general, you already have some level of tolerance. The only difference that you'll readily notice is taste. There are white wines such as White Zinfandel and red whites such as Shiraz. Red wines are supposedly better for you but if you're drinking wine to improve your heart health than you are probably wasting both your time and money. There are certainly better things for your heart you could be drinking besides alcoholic beverages. I drink wine to relax.

There are various box wine brands out there to choose from, Franzia, Inglenook and Almaden, just to name a few. Almaden I've found is generally very potent wine and I've been drinking wine for the last 4 years and Almaden is pretty strong. Anyway, whatever you drink enjoy it. There's plenty of good wine out there that you don't have to pay a small fortune for.

River City Confidental - Episode 1

The following is exert from the working journal of Michael Bullock, former night janitor for The River City Leger:

The bodies of the four missing campers were found in a cabin in the woods up around Touca Lake. Not sure if they were staying there originally and met with some misadventure or the proverbial Jason Voorhies type. Deputy Ungar was tight lipped about it as if he was gonna tell me anything anyway. They were out of towners so they were probably hiking up near the lake to get to Arcadia Falls. Well, I imagine there's an investigation by our local Sheriff Department which means that it will take months and they'll miss the obvious.

Audie Ramos has published yet another book on local River City lore. This time it deals directly with the Bunny Man. A local legend involving a real life serial killer from the 1930's who reputedly killed 37 people (only convicted of 23) around Hester Park, which now is the unofficial Red Light District. Before Clyde Owens fried in the electric chair, he swore he'd return, bunny suit and all. There's been ghostly sightings of him every since and there are those who swear that he never died. Well he either died or there's some 122 year old man running around with an axe. Maybe some sick bastard as taken up his mantle. Who knows? Ramos has written numerous books on similar subjects.

Confirmation of Sotomayer

This is an historic day to be remembered. The first Hispanic American has been confirmed as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. We are moving forward as nation in which racial differences truly won't matter. As much as we hear news to the contrary and even experience racism on an individual level. We are still moving forward. Sonia Sotomayor's bio can be read on wikipedia at the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor

Congratulations Sonia!

Current Events Wednesday

Found out this morning that former supermodel Naomi Sims passed away due to breast cancer. The name was familiar, Naomi that is but I was thinking Naomi Campbell but that's another supermodel. Naomi Sims, from the Internet snippets I have been reading, she was the inspiration behind the "Black is Beautiful" movement in the 70's. Here below is a link to the wikipedia bio:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Sims

Former President Clinton was able to secure the release of the two journalist, Euna Lee and Laura Ling who were imprisoned there on trumped up charges and sentenced to 12 years hard labor which in North Korea would've have pretty much have been a death sentence. Not sure why they were in the general area of the border between China and North Korea and the circumstances of their capture. Have to read up some more on it.

Now there's the big news about the shooting in Pittsburgh at an LA Fitness Center. The shooter was George Sodini, 48. He killed 4 people and injured a great many others. Very disturbed and sick individual obviously. I can't imagine the terror of being somewhere, say a grocery store and someone whose had a bad day or a bad life decides to go on a shooting spree. Unfortunately incidents like this seem to happen more often these days. We always ask the same "why" questions to no end. We always think we can analyze some textbook case of the next Travis Bickle. We always pick some guy who doesn't follow the standard life pattern. As popular as the film Taxi Driver is, we as a society still can't understand how to people develop into a Travis Bickle. Instead we have news commentators who have little to no knowledge of psychology or mental health disorders, providing their assessments which unfortunately are taken as gospel.

I don't think there's really any way to prevent this from happening again. Someone who is determined to hurt other people in a similar fashion will find a way to do it. It's terrible way to deal with any mental issues. I do believe that Sodini had some significant mental health issues, I mean obviously, but I think it was more than his presumed social problems. There are millions of people who have social anxiety disorder, manic depression etc, but only a small few of these people actually become violent towards other people. If Sodini was really lonely, he could've visited chat rooms and made some friends online, or he could've gotten a pet. If it was sex he desperately wanted he could've utilized an escort service or "took care of himself" so to speak. Anything could've been better than killing innocent people. So I think his problems were more deep seated than any superficial "needs". A person who is deeply disturbed doesn't really think about sex or having a social network. The anti-social behavior may have been a symptom but I've known people who were very social, regular social butterflies, but they were for lack of a better term nutcases.

Washington Post And Web Posting

There is an addiction one gets to webposts commentaries. There is the website for the Washington Post a local people here in the Metropolitan Washington D.C area. Like most people I don't actually subscribe to receive a physical newspaper. Instead I'm registered on the newpaper's website which so far is absolutely free.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

On the Washington Post website, registered access grants you full view of articles you would normally read in the actual paper and then some. For nearly every article there is comments section in which people can post comments to article presumely after the entire article has been read. Here's the interesting and quite frankly disturbing part of this. The commentaries posted on articles related to crime or murder related incidents particularly taking place in Washington, DC and Prince Georges County, Maryland are typically racist. Not subtly racist, but racist to the point of almost being laughable. Usually if you attend to names posted (not the actual names of the posters of course) you see the same people posting the same kinds of comments.

For crime reports and like you go to the METRO Section under news. The articles usually deal with shootings, court cases and the stuff of crime show documentaries like The First 48 on cable channels like A&E. Sometimes the racial backgrounds of the suspects and the victims are mentioned in descriptions but usually they are not mentioned. Usually the commentators post what they assume are the perpetrator's racial backgrounds and more often than not the assumptions are that the perps are either African American or Hispanic American. What I find very interesting is that for a recent article on shooting taking place in Oxon Hill, Maryland, there was initally no mention of the racial of either the perps or the victims. However, the initial posts were indicating directly that the people involved were African American. This is so common with the WP commentaries on crime articles that it gets kind of sickening. It certainly defies the idea the "post racial" society we're supposed to be living in now, never that whole debacle over the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. which had everyone on both sides of the issue claiming either racism or "reverse racism".

I have to praise the Washington Post staff who monitor the posted commentaries and they are very aware of any breeches of their web posting policy. The either completely close the commentary section of an article or they directly remove a particular post. For the aforementioned article on the Oxon Hill Shooting, I noticed this evening that all the posts were removed. There are presently zero comments on that article. One thing about racism is that its a disease that infects everyone on some level. You find yourself being either very defensive about it or there are certain people for which you personally feel that your irrational beliefs, stereotypes are somehow justified. In either case it's a sad case for humanity in general. Posting rebuttables to the racist post is very pointless. Most of it is simply troll activity and somebody wants to get a flame war started. It's sometimes hard to remove yourself from them and not get personally involved. People want attention in this case. They want a reaction.

NPR Article On Richard Walters

The story of Richard Leroy Walters was mentioned in an article I found on npr.org here's the actual link for the article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111091624

I found his story compelling in the sense that here was a homeless guy who had an estate estimated to be $4 million dollars and he basically lived like a hobo. He died 2 years ago and donated a substantial amount of money to NPR. He never married, nor did he have any children. Yet who is to say he didn't live as he wished to live or that he was happy. I don't see Walter's as having a sad or misfortune life.

There are people for whatever choose to live off the grid so to speak, or without the trappings of a cluttered material life. Not everyone wants to find a special someone or eat the roast beef on Sundays with wife, kid(s) and dog. For some such a life really holds no substance or meaning. I know it maybe hard for many of us to understand how someone like Walters could live as he did, but far too many of us assume that marriage and kids equals happiness and a meaningful life. This is not necessarily so. A meaningful life is living according to your own terms, not living for someone else's concept of happiness. As far as kids are concerned, well too many irresponsible people are having kids which invariably society ends up paying for anyway. It's not a venture that people ought to go into without thinking, yet most people do.

There are very few people like Richard Walters presently in this world and if the article on npr.org can attest, he was certainly a very unique and special person. I wonder how many people with similar backgrounds are passed by on the street without any consideration to their humanity? That part is sad.