Metaphysical Furniture

This is the second in a series of recollections of the year 1985, when I transitioned from high school to college. Photo from the Mattel website I have a confession to make. Prom didn't excite me in high school. Oh, it was a fun night for the most part. I went four straight years (three in high school, once as a college freshman). All four dates were friends. No romantic entanglements. Dressing up was fun. My sophomore year I wore a top hat, which I kept until I graduated. I used to wear it and do impersonations of Dudley Moore from the movie Arthur .  My senior prom was a lovely affair. I went with a girl whose boyfriend was serving in the military and couldn't attend. We joined two other couples at dinner. Then came pictures at her house. Then pictures at my house. There was a third house of pictures, too. By this point, I was starting to feel overwhelmed. Were we ever going to get to the dance? Prom always felt like one of those things where everything around the event took ...

Few movies have stayed with me the way Ryan Coogler's Sinners has. Its power, beauty, and message have all lingered in my mind since seeing it over two weeks ago.  Sinners is a genre-defying blend of supernatural horror, historical drama, and cultural commentary, set against the backdrop of 1930s Mississippi.  It explores  themes of racial oppression, cultural resilience, and the redemptive power of music. The story follows twin brothers, Smoke and Stack (both portrayed by Michael B. Jordan in a marvelous performance), who return to their hometown to open a juke joint, only to confront a vampiric evil that threatens their community. Now, this sounds like the setup for a really fun vampire flick and Coogler delivers a bloody, violent final showdown that all vamp pictures need. What we get, though, is so much more than that. One sequence stands out. Smoke and Stack have opened the juke joint, a crowd of black people has arrived to dance to live blues. Coogler uses this mo...

  NOTE: I'd like to start a recurring series of posts about certain television episodes. The best, the most memorable, those that have stayed with me over the years. Since this is the first post in this series, it seems appropriate to start with a pilot episode. Chico and the Man has the distinction of being the first American television series set exclusively in a Mexican-American neighborhood. Ed Brown is the curmudgeonly owner of a run-down garage in the East L.A. neighborhood in which he has lived his entire life. He doesn't like the changes taking place. Particularly bothersome to Ed is the evolving culture surrounding him. His neighbors are no longer only white like him. East L.A. is now predominantly Mexican-American. He hates it. He fears it. This is a quality Ed shares with the iconic character of Archie Bunker, another white male who lets his fear and bigotry overrun him. Yet, somehow, we sense the sadness underneath and, perhaps even a softness. Enter Chico Rodriguez...

  One of the workshops I teach in my day job centers on having the conversations that matter because ignoring them is disservice to your relationships. This means having the tough conversations about the uncomfortable things in our lives and work. These conversations can happen in life's small moments with people we trust. The key is opening our minds and hearts to what those around us have to offer. I thought a lot about this idea in Shinking , Apple TV's dramadey about a grieving psychologist, Jimmy (Jason Segel), who decides to tell his patients exactly what he thinks about their situation. For example, he tells a woman that her husband is an emotionally abusive narcissist and she'd be better off without him. His colleagues are wary of this approach, especially his curmudgeon mentor, Paul (Harrison Ford). Paul tells Jimmy this needs to stop, that he is involving himself too much in his patients' lives. Paul particularly hates that Jimmy has allowed a patient to move ...

40 years ago this week I had no plan. No vision. No destiny. My high school graduation loomed on the horizon, mere weeks away. Four years of classes, books, and avoiding homework would end abruptly. Nothing left to do but ponder what the hell came next. Except I didn't ponder that at all, choosing instead to retreat into an existential funk likely induced from having seen The Breakfast Club for the third time. Friends were heading off to college and writing the next chapter of their life. Meanwhile, I still hadn't even begun an outline of my next chapter. It was a blank page. This wasn't surprising to me considering I spent my high school days avoiding homework until the absolute last second. Winging it. Improvising. Living in the moment and responding to it. My life was an embodiment of  "yes, and..." This felt right since I was a drama kid. An actor. I also fancied myself an aspiring writer. If I could attach a dream to my future at that age, it would be one whe...

 Last June, I opened up a brand new Moleskine journal I had bought for myself on vacation and wrote this: Approximately five months later, I wrote this in that same Moleskine journal: One of my true regrets in my life is not having kept a regular journal. Oh, I have volumes of notebooks filled with scribbles but those are mostly devoted to story ideas and lists. Much of the space in those notebooks is devoted to rough drafts of scenes for a novel or script in drafting. There is value in that, of course, but it isn't what I would call true journaling. I've read several articles and blog posts about the benefits of journaling. Some common themes in those readings include better mental and emotional health, reduced overthinking and brooding, expanding creative thought, and developing a mindset of gratitude.  I'm terrible at that kind of journaling. The worst. I've tried but always get bogged down in my own desire to be brilliant. Whenever I sit down to write anything - an...

  NOTE: Periodically on this new blog, I will repost some of my favorites from the old one, Upstream of Consciousness. I hesitate to call them 'greatest hits' because that assumes some level of popularity that this never achieved. Instead, I'll simply call them The Old Ones.  The first of The Old Ones is inspired by yesterday's Ted Lasso post . In it, I referenced that I, at the time of writing, I had yet to watch 'Breaking Bad.' This brought some good-natured ribbing from friends and family. This post is inspired by that relentless peer pressure to just watch the damn show already. 'Peer Pressure' was originally posted on June 19, 2014. I'm happy to report that I eventually did binge 'Breaking Bad' and 'Better Call Saul' (which I preferred). ****** PEER: Hey, man. You ever smoke filter-less Camels? ME: Yes, once. I didn't like it. PEER: You should try it again, man. It's awesome. ME: No, thank you. PEER: That's cool. Car...