my faith in Adventure

There's a new Zelda game coming out in less than a month. And it made me think:
where does this fit into the evolutionary food chain?
What part of our body/mind system grew into desiring to "get" a boxed video game? Why do we dare to transplant ourselves into game-overs and the risky adventure of these man-made alternative realities? Is it a sexual thing, like the lust for the fight? or just hunger pangs we feel?
Oh Zelda, you really have taught me to dream big. I get one little glimpse of your silver new box and I'm believing in Hyrule again.
I mean, maybe there really is a Dark World and a Light World.. maybe we should believe in Ganon and the Triforce. Maybe someday you will save the world.
Think of it this way: Cortez was looking for a mythological city that was only in fantasy books. Some native American religions praise spirit creatures that live in the forests and earth and sky. Whose to say those all don't exist, or that the Trickster didn't create the Earth? I might as well believe in Hyrule, because it's really anybody's game. Including Zelda's.
Mike Ryan said it best,
"find something impossible, then try to achieve it.. but you can never achieve the impossible, only get closer to it"

-migs

sweet night in Pasadena

I just ate two burritos and nachos with beans and salsa. Downed with a diet sunkist, and green guacamole. Maybe a stir of sour cream. Tonight I drove to Pasadena and watched a screening of Father of Invention, with Kevin Spacey and Camilla Belle. I ate popcorn and loved the film. Then I walked for an hour around the downtown of Pasadena, admiring the closed shops and looking in on local bars and restaurants. I eventually snuck into the back of a swanky red and black bar that hosted a live band playing some kickin tunes. I sat at the counter and ordered a PBR, learning soon after that they were only $3 for a twenty-four ouncer. (I think some call that a Tall Boy.) Everything smelled the floral cold gustiness of New York. the band sang with such energy, I was clapping and pounding my feet to the riffing violins and electric guitars. the lead singer a girl with butch-cut hair, skinny like a little boy. It was a solid band, tight music and an unusual flare - only, like most bands I could tell they weren't huge. There was, as always is, a little missing from the vocals. Unless you're Johnny Cash, you got to have range.
But I was grinning and clapping and dancing along. Soon my 24 ounces drained to zero, and i skipped out of the back to look at the glimmering stars. Down the road a ways, I was on the telephone to my lovely Betsy, Candice, singing to her and sounding like an original wanker, strolling through the streets of Pasadena. Getting to my car, I kept chatting, munching chocolate chip peanut butter cookies, and steering my rickety purple beast through the streets to the 210 freeway. Onward I trucked and chatted, a nice distraction from my otherwise radioless drive. (If you didn't already know, I traversed 400 miles of the California state last night sans radio, with nothing but my out-loud thoughts and the occasional buzz of a telephone text message. My Grape Vine trip was the best part, the crystal stars and an upset stomach really set the tone for me to arrive in Los Angeles!)
I ventured from the freeway for a cruise by Bell, where a 7-layer burrito, a "fresco" bean burrito and some fresco nachos supreme eased the effects of 24 ounces of Pabst in my belly.
Now I'm in shorts, sitting in the comfortable pale light of Dan's aunt/cousin's daughter's bedroom. I am going to get my own place soon, even if it is a cheap living room. I don't mind. I just need something of my own, something to call my home. I like to cook, I like to clean, and I'd like to have a home to come home to. It's not that hard to do, and it's something that's been missing. I had some homes, but they came and went in their due times. Now it's my turn to seek out another place to live. I love too many things to be boggled down by unnecessaries like feeling homeless and stressed.

Love the lovers, Love the life L-O-V-E Love

mikie

Back in Claremont

I had an interesting drive last night. I started with an every-10-minute fear that my car was going to blow out a spark plug somewhere between Santa Cruz and Los Angeles, a 400-mile stretch; the fear never left until I pulled into the driveway of Dan Beckner's house in Claremont, Ca. Survived it.
Then somewhere along I got hungry and ate a peanut butter cookie. My stereo didn't work the whole time, so I was left with semi-working headphones - the kind that have too much earwax plugged into one side so you get the choice of left ear or right ear listening.
A few hours after that, I was thinking, out loud, to the closed up windows. Wondering, what kind of show could I really put together? Should it be an episodic movie or TV show? I should probably just write a short script and go from there. It doesn't have to be the be-all end-all, but it does need to do justice to the subject matter.
The I thought about The Beach, a great film for the poor saps in my age-range who may be a little wary of joining up in the working world. There's all this exploring and discovering to do, and yet we're only encouraged to take our penniless pockets and commit to a job we may not necessarily have wanted. All this in our early 20s.
Maybe this show could be for a man who's not married yet, a woman who doesn't have the drive to only work but also to hug trees for the good feeling we sometimes get inside being around them. It's a show for a dudebra who doesn't quite follow his friends all the way, or the girl who tried being a cheerleader but knows there more to life and shyly wishes to try. It's for Amanda and Candice, Daniel or Hillary, Dan Beckner, John and Sarah, Lydia, Trevor, even Jose. A show for Peter, given to us by Fred Grote, by Michael Sanchez, Dan Little, and Richard from the Beach. Basically, it explains that while we're finding ourselves we must take the risk to find ourselves. I never thought I'd wake up one morning and love that I smell some smog. But today, I do. Why? Because I took such a massive risk and attempted the journey south down I-5 to LA. And know what? It worked. The risk, which I have taken once more, has seen fruit.

Anyway, hello lovely Los Angeles