Sleep Sunshine; hard at work at the Ragdale House

By: Sleep Sunshine
Judging by the box office (and one should, never ever ever, judge by the box office), Lisa Cholodenko‘s alt. family drama, The Kids Are All Right, is irrelevant in the face of Inception‘s nearly 143 million dollar box office accumulation.  In four weeks of release (one more than Inception), the movie has only generated 5 million dollars.

Luckily, there isn’t a popularity/quality correlation.

For in terms of quality, The Kids Are All Right is unquantifiable.

High Art (1998)

Laurel Canyon (2002)

Unlike Ms. Cholodenko’s more risque films, High Art (1998) and the ravingly reviewed Laurel Canyon (2002), Kids is standard family drama, focusing on the difficulties of marriage and raising children.

Well, it is a family drama; except for the facts…

• the featured married couple is a pair of lesbians,
• and the conflict surrounds their two children contacting and building a relationship with their sperm donor.

Yet, the portrayal of an American family that many Americans would still consider alternative, unconventional or even down-right immoral in such an unapologetic, seamless fashion allows viewers a rare behind-the-scenes vantage into the growth and development in the ideal of the institution of family itself.

Mainly, that gay marriages, like straight marriages, are really, really hard.

Bening and Moore as Nic and Jules

The title couple of Nic and Jules, played wonderfully by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, find themselves in a valley point in their marriage, where after being married-to someone for such a long time, as Jules says, “You no longer see them.”

The couple is “opposites-attract” personified.  Bening captures Nic’s Type-A personality expertly, as well as it’s detrimental affect on both her wife and their two kids–Joni, eighteen, and Laser, fifteen.  Moore embodies Jules’s bohemian aura in such a way you know the couple is in for a crash, though you’re not sure exactly where it’ll come from.

Laser and Joni meet the Sperm Donor (Paul)

The primary conflict involves Laser’s desire to find his “father” (as Nic points out, several times, “what, you mean the Sperm Donor?”) and how through Joni and Laser wrestling with their developing identities aided by interaction with their “father” (Paul, played by Mark Ruffalo) forces their “moms” to grapple with their own identities, as mothers, wives, and lesbians.

Equally, Paul finds himself on unfamiliar ground.  A successful Los Angles restauranteur and co-op farmer, Paul is startled to discover a decision he’d made at nineteen to donate sperm (because “it seemed less painful than blood”) had ramifications he’d never considered.  So when he meets his two “children,” they change him and his life in a way he’d never imagined.

This would be the only area of weakness I discovered in the movie, having to do not with the expert directing of Ms. Cholodenko nor of the realistic portrayals of all actors involved, but solely due to the limited scope capable in an hour and a half film.  The movie could have been shot from Paul’s point of view and found ample fodder for intellectual digestion.

But the story Ms. Cholodenko and desired to tell was of Nic and Jules, and to her credit she never wavers from this.  Though I felt a bit cheated at the end that Paul’s character arc wasn’t equally developed, I was reminded of the fact that it was Nic and Jules’s movie and found myself at the end of an hour and forty-four minutes, equally satisfied and hungry.

For the skill and daftness Ms. Cholodenko crafts her story arc is both expert and creative.  For example, the scene encapsulating the climax of the movie (specifics, of which, I will not give-away here) is prepped, paced, and executed tone-perfect and in-tune with character, you, as the audience, literally forget you’re watching a movie and believe you’re peeking into the window of a neighbor’s house during a family dinner.

Except Nic and Jules aren’t most of our neighbors.  At least not in 2010, in most communities in the country, and this makes The Kids Are All Right even that much more gripping and interesting.  The audience is thrust into a foreign world, so seamlessly and painlessly, that story’s “unconventional” idiosyncrasies (ie–Nic and Jules are lesbians, Paul is a Sperm Donor, Joni and Laser were conceived from artificial insemination) disappear and all you’re left with is a mirror to examine the inherent difficulties of your marriage and relationship to your kids and how life and interpersonal relationships in life are really, really hard.

Because in the end what a great movie does is convince you that the characters on the screen could really live somewhere in Los Angeles (in this case) and could really be going through and dealing with the presented conflicts.  In the end, through specific characters living specific lives, great movies convince us, again and again, of this simple fact:

We’re all just people.

Don’t let the box office numbers convince you otherwise; The Kids Are All Right is very relevant.

–SS

Today, I have something special for you.  A video.  Of me.  Reading.  My. Poetry.

Thursday, May 20th 2010, Story Studio Chicago hosted a “Writers Read Showcase” at 42 Degrees N. Latitude in Chicago.  I read my poem, “I Am Lane.”  Here it is, in all its twisted, blurry glory.  Thanks for watching.

Thanks for reading.

MJG
If y’all want to get to know me a bit better, check me out on FACEBOOK, follow me on Twitter, or at my personal blog.

Jamie Tworkowski has focused on love and faith and showing kids they aren’t alone in the world, through his TWLOHA website and Myspace page, and now at speeches at schools and community centers.  In the high school world, he’s viewed as a messiah/rock star, some combination of a Jonas Brother and Jesus.

What struck me in this article, though, was a line of dialogue he used at the end: “I want things to be epic.  And everyday life isn’t epic.”

Jamie’s a bit younger than I am, but this line cut me to the core (and almost made me fall off the pot), because I claim to be a writer and this surfer turned teen-angst guru found the words to express how I feel about my life and my expectations for life.  I, of course, being the 30-something, would never use the word epic to describe my dilemma, me being so not cool it’s rather embarrassing, but the way Jamie boiled down his mental struggle everyday was precisely how I feel.

I want things to be epic (colossal, monumental, tremendous) but everyday is not epic.  In fact, every week is not epic, most months are not epic, looking back I’ve lived years that weren’t epic.  So what do you when your expectation for life is on an epic level?  And, where in the hell did we learn to expect this from life?

I see life as a runner on a treadmill.  Life is in decent shape, looks to run a couple times a week, and is handling Level 5 quite well.  Then we turn up the Level to 6 and Life continues along, pumping it’s arms, puffing a bit, but still steady.  Then we turn the dial to 27 and Life looks at us like we are crazy before spinning off the rolling exercise machine.

Everyday I wake up with a feeling that something special can happen.  I think this is probably a common mindset for humanity throughout time.  I’m assuming cavemen woke up with thoughts of downing a wooly mammoth that afternoon.  Humans are strivers, always have been, always will be, our imaginations stretch the possibility, turn the level of that life treadmill up a notch or two, but my generation grew up on television, with movies, and I’ll admit to the fact that I grew up understanding relationships (because I didn’t have a strong example at home) through Dylan and Kelly on 90210.  I knew that 90210 was a television show, wasn’t real, but still, I wanted to be Dylan McKay.  I wanted to be with Kelly.  And maybe at some point the lines of reality and fantasy might have gotten crossed to where I expected that type of passion, that type of intensity in my relationships.  My relationship expectations grew to epic proportions.  And real life events can live up to those expectations, can they; no, Life spins off the treadmill trying to keep up.

I find myself constantly disappointed, and I never really knew why until I read that quote by Jamie Tworkowski, ironically, the leader of a movement focusing on reaching out to teens contemplating suicide, doing drugs, drinking, possible struggling with the disparity between fantastical expectations for the world and themselves and the reality, factors that Jamie Tworkowski himself struggles with, and I do too.

Maybe the linchpin of all this disappointment stems with the desire for today to live up to epic expectations and the impossibility of the real world to keep up with our imaginations.

Who the hell knows.

My brother left today to go back to San Diego, where he lives, about as far away from us as he can be, and I understand why he lives there, understand this intimately as it was a desire for me to be as far away from my family as I possible could be.  I don’t think that growing up in my family was anywhere as horrible as some stories I’ve heard about kids being locked in cages and girls being raped by their fathers and dealing with alcoholic/drug-addicted mothers, but I will say that all four of us (my siblings and I) have developed into individuals who seem in some way incapable of dealing with a lot of things the world has for us.  In our own ways we are deficient, and all kind of hopeless in fixing the internal issues that impede us.

I don’t know where this came from.  I just know that I have a difficult time processing and dealing with emotions of any nature, whether happiness or sadness, and find it foreign that others can seamlessly absorb a stimulus, have a physiologic response, and move onto the next event.  It’s like my body doesn’t know how to react, how to bring the correct chemicals in my brain together, to produce an apparent reaction, so I appear numb to the whole process.

And I feel numb.  My brother has just backed down the driveway in my mother’s car, on his way to O’Hare airport to go back to San Diego, not to return until God-knows-when, and I know I should feel sad about this, know that emotion is in there somewhere, but I can’t bring it to the service, can’t let it release, whether I want to cry or pound my fist against the wall or go to sleep for fifteen hours or go to the gym and run until I can’t stand.

I feel an incredible nothingness.  And I don’t believe that’s normal.

There’s been some really painful things that have happened in my life since I came back to Chicago this summer and I have no clue what to do with the emotions I feel over them.  They seem to be sitting in my chest or floating around in my head, as though waiting to be called to the forefront and dealt with, in whatever way such feelings are dealt with by normal people, but I don’t know how to do this, so they drift around and latch onto other feelings and emotions and grow and feed off of whatever they feed off of until I really can’t ignore or repress them anymore.  But even then, I’m not sure how to slay these particular dragons, and have found through practice that drinking a lot or running five miles on the treadmill at the gym or listening to Nirvana at ear-splitting decimals or watching porn or messaging on Facebook or packing my bags and moving to Costa Rica doesn’t help.

So, here, now, in the new way I’ve come up with to deal with my sour emotions, I’ll start small and hope it helps.

Good bye brother.  I’ll miss you.

I was having a conversation the other day with my mother, of all people, and we were talking about the influence of gangster rap music on impressionable youth, of all topics, and my thought on the subject was that I didn’t have a problem with gangster rap itself (even though the music tends to be quite uninventive and the rhyme something a fourth grader could come up with…okay, maybe I do have a problem with rap itself) but had an issue with it’s credibility.  For instance, Snoop Dogg rapped (and made millions of dollars) about The Life, how he was jumped into gang life and he’d shoot dudes and bang a mess of girls and drank forties and smoked all the pot he wanted, yet Snoop wasn’t a gangster, was in fact married with kids and yes he smoked some dope but he was clear-headed enough, motivated enough, to navigate the complex, difficult music industry and get paid.  So, my issue with rap music (besides the music and the lyrics) is it’s a farce, analogous to professional wrestling being a sport.

This is not a new concept, I realize.  In the 80′s the “rock star” lifestyle was romanticized as well.  Rockers used the concept of excess to draw crowds to their shows, sell tapes, and paraphernalia.

My problem with this is similar to my issue with Facebook, I guess.  All of these things allow you to see a life that you do not have, that you’ll never have, that you may have dreamed about ever since you were a kid.  How can you be happy with where you are when the alternative is thrust in your face?

Maybe some people can disappear into these worlds and seamlessly transition back into their meager existence without much heartache.  Maybe others don’t look at their lives as meager in comparison, they are fine with where they are and what they’re doing.  But this thought process is foreign to me.  By nature, I’m a striver, and I see these glorified worlds and it’s hard for me not to get sucked into the possibility, or rather possibility-lost.  People say life is limitless, but I think we place limits on our lives everyday, and as the years go by more and more chains are added to our arms and legs until eventually we’re not able to move anymore.

Last Sunday I went to an interview at The Art Institute of Chicago with probably my favorite writer Jonathan Lethem, and as I sat in the crowd amongst a thousand admirers staring up at the man who’s written seven books that have received more than their share of critical and public attention, I knew, in my guts, that I wanted to be this man, that that is where I want to be, up on a stage with an interviewer asking my questions about my work and my visions for it, on NPR with Diane Rhehm, signing books at every local Barnes and Nobles.

Reading an article in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine yesterday afternoon about “Precious”, the new movie by Lee Daniels, led to a discussion by Daniels and the interviewer about Daniel’s life.  How he lives in New York, has two kids, and has a bibliography of movies (“Monsters Ball”, “Shadowboxer”, “The Woodsman”, “Precious”) under his belt that would make any filmmaker proud.  Reading this, allowed a light to penetrate me to a place in my body where dreams had gone to die, like one of those junk lots and all the dead cars are all in rows with their innards picked apart by scavengers.

My dream junkyard.

The ill feelings culminated this morning, when I clicked through the pictures of one of my Facebook friends living a bohemian life in one of the world’s greatest cities, I couldn’t stop myself from reflecting that energy back at myself and evaluating where I am and the life I’m living and comparing that to the life I used to lay in the grass under my folk’s elm tree in the backyard and dream about, and realizing how far away I am from any life I wanted.

But we are constantly inundated with other people’s success stories, other peoples dream lives, glorified and romanticized in our music and art, which makes it pretty difficult to be happy in our own lives when they seem so mundane in comparison.

Eh, I guess I can wallow with the best of ‘em.

And keep towing expired dreams to my dream junkyard.

Let me set the record straight.  I had a great weekend with a great friend of mine.  We drank excellent scotch, ate some delicious food, saw a jazz band play, and went to Butch McGuires in Chicago and made fascinating conversation.  You know, sometimes, Life can really surprise you, and that, my friends, is what makes it worth living.  The chance, the wager, that today, or tomorrow will provide an opportunity for something magical.  And I met some amazing people last night.  A specific person who touched me in a way that forced me to realize there are some amazingly good and kind and decent people out there.  That humans, for all of our failures and inadequacies, can really be good to one another.  It’s a spirited realization.  And to the woman that brought me to this, thank you.

The connections humans can make through communication and chemicals is really an extraordinary phenomenon.  I’m not a great person.  I strive to be, but I can be just as big an a-hole as any number of people out there.  But I desire to do better.  I want to be good.  I want to work at that.

And for the record, the chance encounter last evening wasn’t physical, there was no exchanging of fluids.  It simply was a riveting conversation with a beautiful person.  And it will not amount to more than that, but the memory of that hour will remain with me.  It will serve as a beacon, as a reminder, when I witness some of the depraved things one human can do to another, that there is good in the world.  That there is a reason to be thankful for life.

Last night, I felt the ghost of my long-deceased Uncle hovering around Butch McGuire’s, (a bar that he managed in the 70′s).  I’m the most grounded, least spirit-believing person I know, but I swear I felt my Uncle Richard watching over me, guiding me toward my enlightenment.  I wish I had the chance to meet you Uncle Richard, but since you passed before I was born, I’ve always felt I missed out on having you in my life.  But last night I felt your spirit, and I witnessed the embodiment of your big heart and your love in someone else.  I want to let you know, Uncle Richard, I felt and heard you.  And I love you.  I want to thank you, both of you, for putting this great big smile on my face.

So, I haven’t been on here in a while.  I know this because I tried to log in several times then had to have the site send me my login and password to my email address then realized that the email attached to this account is in fact my OLD email address so I had to do five tries on login and password with my OLD email address, unsuccessfully, and have the password and login sent to my OLD OLD email address, which I knew I had no clue in remembering the login for that dinosaur post.  Shockingly, I knew that login and password…the name of the girl I lost my virginity to and what she called out when she climaxed.  WICKED PEACHES.

I’m drunk…duh.  Had a brush up with Knob Creek this evening courtesy of my new favorite bartender at Rosie O’Boyles.  Check her out Tuesday nights from 3-11.  She’s gentle, gentlemen.

What the hell are we doing here?  Anyone want to gesture a guess?  Any right wing nazi accusers want to register a guess?  See, ma’am, that’s just mean.  And ironic.  A hoe chasing a hoe chasing a hoe.  FYI.  You are going to die too.  Probably painfully, like most of us.

I know, news flash.  We are all going to die.  So, my question, to Touchdown Jesus, is why are we here?  What are we doing here?  I just want to beat my own face in with a blunt instrument because I can’t wrap my brain around what is the purpose for us being here?  Is it entertainment?  Is God up there sitting on his couch with a bucket full of popcorn (extra butter, extra salt, cause God don’t have to worry ’bout no fatty acids) and a 40-Ounce of Beast (cause God ain’t got no liver) laughing his ass off, watching us fight each other (sorry, HAD to do it again, cause that lady is hellafunny) and cry and scramble around in His maze looking for a bite of cheese; knowing all the damn time…THERE AIN’T NO CHEESE.  Matrix line, anyone.  Maxtrix, please.  Neo?

My name isn’t Neo, it’s Keanu: Dialogue

Thank you, Surfer Boy.  It all makes sense now.

See, we live, we die.  It’s as simple as that.  Those of us who live longer get the wonderful experience of watching those of us we love die, which in some way will define our lives for a short time.  Because the times when we feel the most alive are when we are experiencing love and experiencing death.  The rest, in-between, is non-reactive.

So, is that the big purpose?  Are we really living to accumulate loves, then die, to most impact those we love, thus shaping and changing their lives?  Cause I can’t comprehend a more complex vision.  At some point, our entire world will die, and those of us (or them, because one would hope that the ones alive right now will not get the opportunity to experience the death of our world) around at that time will feel such a sense of euphoria, such a feeling of orgasm of death…well, the rest of us will never feel those tingles on the tips of our fingers.

That’s why we are living?  To experience death.  That’s it?  Sweet.

OMG!!!!!!!!

Eureka!!!!!!!

I figured it out!!!!!

I love Eureka moments!

And, sign me the hell up.  Oh, that’s right.  I’m already here.  Cool.  Talk about being in the right place at the right M-Fing time.  Small pleasures.

So,

kill me then, already, kill me, cause I’m tired of waiting.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  Take me.  TAke me.  Taje me.  Take me.  Take me TAke me take me take me take me tamt me take me tame me tame me take me tahe me mtake me tame me take me mtame me taje me at ake me takem ektamtatemacme metamtematematem tamek mteametemat tematemtetmeam

I talk a lot about choices and decisions in my blog, mainly because I struggle a lot in both areas.  I’m an extremely analytical person, who is prone to spending long hours poring over the details of a decision, stretching out potential ramifications years into the future (if I choose to do this, then my kids will attend private school, and Jakob will get into Harvard while Melanie “Melly” will have a nervous breakdown and end up in a psych ward), which can paralyze the decision-process and leave me standing still.

In the last month a lot of decisions have been made.  I am remaining near my family and friends in Chicago, rather than returning to Arizona where I lived for the past three years.  I am postponing my next attempt to gain entrance into Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop to forage into the family business (Leagues Now Forming!).  How will these decisions affect my life?  I don’t know.  I guess I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve already noticed some not-so-subtle changes in the short term.  For one thing, I’ve discovered what my writing friends with kids and Big Boy Jobs meant when they said, “I don’t have time to write.”  I never understood that until this morning when I woke up at my usual time of six A.M. and felt, well, EXHAUSTED, to say the least.  After spending all day yesterday with friends and family, and being at the bowling center until midnight, I woke up at my usual time of writing vigor…bone-tired.  

This concerns me.  Productivity had always been one of my strengths (I don’t consider myself a writing prodigy, but dammit, I’ll outwork the competition) I’d have days where I’d churn out twenty pages.  I’d go weeks without missing one day of writing.  My goals were 2,000 words a day, and most days, almost always, I’d reach that goal.  But today…today my goal is to write even one page.  I’m trying to focus my mind and I forget where I’m at on my new novel, or which short story I’ve been trying to finish.  This is uncharted territory for me.

And my biggest fear this morning as I sip my coffee and write this blog and listen to my dad telling my dog Roger that it’s okay to bark at dogs walking by on the street outside our house but it’s not okay to bark at passing cars is that the decisions I’ve made in the last month will break my wishbone.  Which is to say, the decisions I’ve made to help my family and allow me to achieve some of the other goals I have in my life (marriage, house, kids–I think Melly will turn out just fine) will ultimately kill all the writing wishes I’ve incubated since fifth grade.  I still feel like I’ve made the “right” decision, and maybe this is a bit of buyer’s remorse which will dissipate once I fall into step with my new routine and find nooks and crannies in time to get my writing done everyday, but as always, with everything I do, and everything I am, the fear is present.

But maybe, for me, that’s how it will always be.

Yet, look here, I’ve managed 527 words and it’s not yet ten o’clock.  Maybe my wishbone is intact after-all.

Now, I’m not going to disparage the only ladies in my life.  Truth be told I found their pre-coffee ritual analogous to three dope fiends waiting in the hallway for their dealer the OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!!!!!  But, I can remember the days where an extra large Dunkin Donuts coffee (cream and sugar), and maybe a Red Bull, was not enough to enamor my body to a Monday Work Day.  I remember the days when I’d spend Sunday’s half-comatose on the couch in front of the TV eying the clock progress, dreading the point when I knew I had to go to sleep, and the next second my alarm would roust me for my Monday morning.  Monday’s would seem to last for a month, Tuesday’s were a little better, Wednesday’s I was halfway home, Thursday’s were spent tamping anticipation, and Friday’s (if I didn’t have to work Saturday mornings) were an eight hour build up to a five o’clock orgasm.  The air on Saturday morning tasted as good as a fine aged cheese.

I know my mother and my sisters love their jobs.  I know that when I worked full-time for someone else, I did not.  I remember hating ever single second of my first three careers.  And for those of you who know me, and as an indoctrination to the world of me for those who do not, I am unable to hide my emotions.  What you see is what you get.  So, I can’t help but take solace in that I’m awake at six AM on Monday morning and as I am typing this blog I feel happy to be alive.  I’m sitting on my veranda: watching a garbage truck tipping over a dumpster across the street, a school bus zoom passed with kids hanging out the windows, ladies file by the house on morning walks of dogs and selves, listening to NPR, smelling the crisp, damp morning air; and I’ve realized that finally, after years and years of wandering the desert of the uncertain, I have found a watering hole that suits me.

Now, is my bank account suffering, oh hell yeah.  But, I’ve found discovering what I love to do is more important than money.  In these tough economic times, when you hear about people losing their jobs and unable to find new ones, you can be bogged down with the plentiful amount of sad stories: of families losing houses, losing hope in marriages, declaring bankruptcy, people forced onto the streets, etc.  This morning I read a story in The New York Times, which may have prompted my mood, about a family who has lost a lot but discovered a lot about themselves, and this article inspired me to appreciate things in my life I do have, and people in my life I do love, which includes the three ladies huddled around the coffee maker.

In this moment, I’m happy.  Out of life, I think that’s really all we can ask.

But of course, happiness is fleeting.

So, check back with me on Tuesday…