Relationship Frankenstein; or The Modern Brometheus

The man she knows and loves was formed, collecting parts here and there from the dissecting rooms and slaughterhouses of relationships past.

It was on an arid night in November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of my skin care routine around me, that I might infuse some glow and warmth into the lifeless, weathered face that looked back at me from the mirror. I had already applied the hyaluronic acid as a base layer. The gooey, slippery substance was sinking deep into my epidermis, where it would work its magic to reduce fine lines and wrinkles. I was just about to reach for my retinol solution when my girlfriend appeared in the arch of the doorway.

“I love that you have a skin care routine,” she said, as she beamed at me with a love I didn’t deserve. “It really says a lot about you that you take the time to take care of yourself.”

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? I smiled at my girlfriend, though inside I wanted to run away. I ached to dash into my bedquarters and smash the mirrors to rid myself of the curse of looking upon a man I no longer recognized. She loved these things about me: my skin care routine, my sense of style, the fact that I can properly use the term “male gaze,” yet she knows not these qualities I possess through no endeavors of my own.

The man she knows and loves was formed, collecting parts here and there from the dissecting rooms and slaughterhouses of relationships past. They were fused together, in an act defiant of God and Nature, until a new man emerged. A man that I fear has been cursed to roam the earth without a soul.

It was on the night of our first date that she began to fall in love with this man. I learned this much later, and when I asked her why I so immediately took her charm, she told me it was because I was “such a good listener” and “was so interested in her,” unlike many others. It was only through many failed first dates with varied women that I learned that “sharing stories about myself that your story reminded me about” does not count as “interest” and that asking follow-up questions or even a simple “that’s cool, tell me more about that” can go much further in the way of making your date feel seen.

Upon her first visit to my apartment (of which I will refrain from sharing any torrid details), she marvelled at my mattress and that it sat atop a proper bedframe. It was only recently that my slumber had achieved such loft, after another such visit ended abruptly when my guest took leave with the parting wisdom of  “miss me with that mattress on the floor mess, I don’t have time for men who don’t take pride in their home.” It had never before occurred to me that sleeping so low to the ground was a matter of pride. But the bedperch did wonders not only for my image, but also for my aging back.

“I appreciate that you dress in earthy colors that harmonize with the warm undertones of your skin.”

“You have so many towels, and by that I mean you have more than one towel.”

“I did a deep dive on your socials and didn’t find a single problematic post.”

Little did she know that one day I took search to the social archives for *my_user_name* plus any slur or pejorative term I could think of and scrubbed the record clean of any past offenses. She believes “pejorative” is a word I’ve known for years and not something I recently learned after being scolded that I needed to become a  “better straight white male ally.”

These qualities that this man possesses that she so loves are not rightfully earned through his own care and self-work. The man wonders if she is the right partner for him, or if she would just be really good friends with all of his exes. The man wonders if he is a man at all, or simply the combined efforts of all the women who ever cared enough to try to change him.

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A way-too-far deep dive into my favorite lyric in the song 'You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch"

Because if I can't do something like this on my own blog what am I even here for?

“You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” is the greatest diss track ever put down on wax. Move over, “The Bridge is Over”, forget “Hit ‘Em Up”, don’t even think about bringing up “Not Like Us.” They all pale in comparison to the GOAT takedown by Thurl Ravenscroft.1 Every line is another dart. Every couplet is a knock-out blow. Every stanza opens with a straightforward declaration and ends in a flourishing crescendo, making you say, “stop it, he’s had enough!” And he does it all in a family-friendly, G-rated way that Tupac could never.2

My favorite line in the beatdown-disguised-as-a-song3 comes in the sixth and final verse, and it stands out to the ear as a flowing composition of consonants and vowels that dance in the ear (and on the tongue, because make no mistake about it, we are singing along with ol’ Thurl in our deepest register) like nothing that has come before it. The line is something that could not exist in the first stanza of the song, because the listener wouldn’t be able to pay attention to anything that came next. We’d fall into a rewind loop of playing it over and over and never get to hear about all the other ways Mr. Grinch is an unpleasant ass. We’d never know about the termites in his smile or the fact that his heart is simultaneously both a dead tomato splotched with moldy purple spots and full of unwashed socks. The line is something that needs to be built toward and prepared for by everything that comes before it.4

Famously, J.R.R. Tolkien (and many others) has spoken about the pleasant, beautiful sound of the phrase “cellar door.” The way the words fit together creates a musical flow that is pleasing to hear and say. In a 1955 lecture, Tolkien said, of the phrase:

“Most English-speaking people ... will admit that cellar door is ‘beautiful’, especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. Well then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is pleasure in the contemplation of the association of form and sense are abundant.”

My version of cellar door is the line “You’re a crooked jerky jockey, and you drive a crooked hoss, Mister Grinch.” Read that again. Not in your head, read it out loud. Don’t sing it5, just speak it. Slow down. Say it again. Now close your eyes and repeat it. Fall into a trance, repeating it until you’re floating on a raft in the ocean, peaceful and serene, riding the waves of the “ooks” “erks” and “ocks” until all your mangled-up, tangled-up knots have evaporated into thin air and disappeared from your previously stress-filled body.

Doesn’t that feel great?

Just like “cellar door,” the phrase needs to be dissociated from its sense in order to appreciate its beauty. Its sense is that Mr. Grinch is a dishonest, foolish, irregular rider of horses and that the horse he rides upon also shares those same disreputable qualities. The man is so toxic that he infects the beasts around him (save for his beautiful-souled dog Max, although he is complicit in the sins of his father) with his vile, obnoxious stink.6 But the words themself are pure poetry. Ravenscroft is Shakespeare, frolicking through a field of contempt, floating in the clouds, and ascending to join the gods of language to drink ambrosia and look down at the earth, made more beautiful because of his lyrical creation.

If Thurl can mix metaphors, then so can I.

I can feel it in my toes as the song approaches this line. When we learn that the singer is nauseated by Mr. Grinch with a “nauseous super naus,” I know the only thing that will calm the storm brewing inside our collective upset bellies is to sing the next line with our full hearts. And I do, each and every time. I am Pavarotti, Domingo, and Carreras combined, belting with my entire soul, shaking the walls of my home (or, frequently, the windows of the car) with a vibrato my high school choir teacher would call “alarming” and “far too much.”

When I come back down, I barely have time to catch my breath before joining in to sing along with the daily special from the twisted mind of our tortured-genius word-chef: three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich. With arsenic sauce, of course. Sounds delicious. Not to eat, but to hear.

Actually, can I get that sauce on the side, please? This song has provided me with all the sauce that I’ll need for quite a while.7

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1

What a fucking name, am I right? Who named this dude, Thomas Pynchon?

2

He probably could, but let me cook for a minute, okay?

3

And possibly my favorite lyric in any song ever I’m not even kidding for comedic effect.

4

Both in the song and, obviously, in this essay. Yes, this in an “essay” and not a “goof-around.”

5

I know you sang it.

6

…stank…stunk.

7

Also, there’s arsenic in that sauce! No, thank you!

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Letterboxd advice for Hollywood hopefuls

Are you afraid that sharing your honest movie opinions publicly could hurt your "career"? Do these things to bulletproof your Letterboxd account and your future in the entertainment industry.

This is why we go to the movies!

Letterboxd is the hot social app for film lovers to log, review, rate, and discover movies. But what if you want to have a career in that very same movie industry? Having an opinion and working in the entertainment industry mix like having integrity and working in the entertainment industry - they don’t! If you ever want to work in *this* town again, you need to make sure you don’t put your foot in your mouth. You should only put your foot in the mouth of people who have a job to give you who are also foot freaks. Follow this advice to keep your own mouth foot-free, and your future full of Hollywood possibilities.

• Describe every film you log as “very watchable” because it is, factually, able to be watched

• Give everything a five-star rating. If called on your complete lack of actual opinions, say, “if you think about it, it’s really a miracle that any project makes it all the way from a small kernel of an idea to a finished film, and miracles deserve five stars.”

• Don’t be tempted to say anything negative about old movies, even if all the people involved in making them are dead. Those dead people have children and grandchildren who are all in Hollywood positions of power.

• Remember - the powerful can get just as mad if you haven’t seen their film than they do if you have an opinion about it. Add every single movie ever made onto a special watchlist so they know that even if you haven’t seen it yet, you’re planning on getting around to it at some point soon, you promise. You’re just waiting for the right time when you’re in the mood for an obvious masterpiece

• Bait others into negativity with questions. Ask things like “what are your opinions on the rat at the end of The Departed?” or “do you think MGM did the right thing getting Judy Garland hooked on pills?” and then sit back and watch. Never give your own opinion on their opinions. Simply reply with “interesting” or “you’re making me think.” You just turned your competition into their own worst enemies.

• Make a little joke about the movie in your review, but nothing about the cast or crew or plot or script or acting or design or anything else that could hurt anybody who made the movie’s feelings. For example, if you’re watching Jurassic Park, you could write “wish someone would spit in my face and eat me” or something like that - it doesn’t imply that you liked or disliked the movie, it only implies that you are a horny little freak

• Make “snark” your whole brand. Lean into it. Never stop pointing out flaws. Become exhausting to your friends and anyone who has the misfortune of being around you. Say things like “what can I do, I’m honest to a fault!” and smirk like an asshole. Then you can apply this affected voice to movies with no real consequence, or even turn that into a podcast called “Every Movie Sucks” and make bank from it.

• Make all of your reviews “better than [insert name of previously lauded movie from a totally disgraced, never-in-a-million-years-to-return actor/director/writer/all of the above]” just to be safe you should stay away from criminals and creeps and maybe pick somebody who is no longer financially bankable to Hollywood or even better choose a woman who has aged (over 40 is good, but 50-plus is lockdown safe) to be absolutely positively sure they don’t actually have a comeback

• Make a burner account that can never ever be traced back to you for your real opinions, and fire away. Don’t ever tell anyone it’s you. Become an anonymous Letterboxd superstar. Drop fake breadcrumbs that imply the account might belong to a Hollywood insider. Get the people talking. Parlay that into a paywalled website with even more in-depth takedowns. Make up crazy shit. Ruin people’s lives. Transcend the need for gatekeepers. Become ungovernable.

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I don't care if I'm in a time loop, I still have to do my morning pages

Twenty minutes, every day, no matter what.

“As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected.” Except for me, because nothing ever changes, because today is Tuesday, March 8th, again for the thousandth time. Ten-thousandth time? Honestly, I don’t know for sure. I’ve lost count.

And still, I wake to the sound of my alarm at 5:30 AM, even if I turned it off the night before, or let my phone battery die, or threw my phone off a cliff into the abyss. There it is on my nightstand, playing my tongue-in-cheek selection of The Arcade Fire’s Wake Up to wake me up, and I obey - because it’s hard for me to fall back asleep once I’m up. So I might as well open this once again fresh notebook, and dump out my brain for three pages of stream-of-consciousness zen onto the crisp, white, blank sheets of perfect paper that represent the pure and infinite possibilities that allude me once again.

It’s not a bad way to start my day. It puts me in the right headspace and clears out any weird thoughts or insecurities, even though I should be free of them because I know every single thing that’s going to happen today down to the very second. There are no surprises left. Except for what I write down here in this notebook. And even that, I’m not entirely sure, is completely new. I can’t be certain how many times I’ve accidentally written down the exact same thoughts during my brain dump. I never get the chance to go back and read them, and even if I could, you’re not supposed to do that all the time. It’s not the point of The Artist’s Way. It’d probably be a bummer to find out I wrote this exact same thing in my pages eight thousand or so odd days ago. Have I not evolved in that time? I could write these pages in French now, but does it count as change if I write the exact same words in a different vocabulary?

If I’m going to be honest, I’m starting to doubt The Way (that’s what I call it now). In one part, it tells us “when we move out of faith into the act of creation, the universe is able to advance.” Well, I’ve been doing these pages every day, I’ve been creating just for the sake of creation, and not a damn thing has advanced, universally speaking. I’m finding joy in the process itself, which I have to, because at the end of the day, anything I’ve done is lost forever to whatever cruel universe has been robbing me of tomorrow.

On the other hand, that actually brings me back to The Way, because in some ways (lowercase w), I am the truest artist there is. I know that sounds high-falutin, but nobody will ever read this (not even me). While others aren’t certain what tomorrow will bring, I can’t be certain there will be a tomorrow at all. Revisions can only take place from what’s left in my mind. My work can only evolve as far as my memory will allow. But still, I’d feel pretty bad if I came out of this without a fully fleshed-out screenplay up in there. I’m still kicking myself for not taking advantage of the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Maybe I’m hanging on to The Pages as a crutch. Because it’s all I know. Maybe I’m like that guy I know, who, sometime in his teens, realized that he never drank coffee before and decided that he would never drink coffee just so he could say he never drank coffee ever once in his whole life. What’s the point of that? At best, he tells somebody that fact, and they say, “Oh,” or possibly, “Neat,” or maybe even, “Why?” And then he has to tell the whole story, which is that he realized it as a teen and then just made a decision, and then we’re just kind of back to “Oh.” At worst, he breaks the streak, and it causes him to spiral and question everything about who he is at his core. Or maybe he doesn’t take it that seriously. But he has to. Or he would just have a fucking cup of coffee. Maybe I’m like that, but with writing The Pages. Maybe I’m just doing it because I decided that I would do it. Maybe that’s why anybody does anything.

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A short list of things I could have done instead of watching The Brutalist three times

Six Hundred and Forty Five Minutes of my Life

1. Learned what Brutalist architecture actually is.

2. Watched Anora 4.64 times.

3. Listened to The Brutalist score 7.86 times (BAH-NA-NAAAAA-NA).

4. Driven from my home in Los Angeles to San Franciso, had lunch, and then turned around and driven back home.

5. Gone for a walk of approximately 37.625 miles.

6. Slept for so long that I woke up mad about how much I slept.

7. Drawn all the pictures by hand the movie got in trouble for using AI to make.

8. 1.5 days of good, old fashioned, American work (just between us, I prefer the movie.)

9. Flown to the east coast, driven to central Pennsylvania, and spent several hours visiting my family (no comment on preference.)

10. Completed the Minnesota New Security Guard Training program (for fun?)

11. Completed California’s 12-hour course for first-time “wet-reckless” DUI offenders.

12. Finally stop laughing after hearing the phrase “wet-reckless” for the first time.

13. Ask every living family member every single question I could possibly think of in an attempt to know where I come from.

14. Made this a longer list of things I could have done with the time I spent watching The Brutalist three times. But that would create a paradox now, wouldn’t it?

A journal of my thoughts when trying to decide what to watch

Just use the watchlist, that’s what it’s there for.

Past You did Future You (who is now Present You) a huge favor by going through each streaming service and curating your watchlist with things You (All-Time) would like to watch. It is now there for You to choose from.

Yeah, but there’s a reason why I didn’t watch those things then, and those reasons are probably still a reason why I don’t want to watch them now. Maybe it’s not the right vibe. Or maybe some of the things I’m waiting to watch with somebody else. Some of them I’m not sure if somebody else wants to watch or not. Some of them are too long, or are meant for a time when I can pay close attention, and I’m not sure if now is a time where I can pay close attention (it’s been a long day, I’m wiped).

There should be multiple watchlist categories that you can label for different watching occasions. That way, you can pull the right watchlist up at the right time. Somebody get me in touch with one of the streamers. This is a million dollar idea. It’s at least a few thousand dollar idea. Is this just what Letterboxd is?

What mood am I even in now? Nothing too long, or that I have to pay close attention to, that’s for sure. Do I want to watch a dumb comedy? How dumb are we talking here? Will that just make me mad? If I watch a dumb comedy will I just go into a rage-spiral because this movie got made and how is this any better than the last script I wrote that was “so funny we had to meet with you” but “not something we can buy right now”? Or maybe that will inspire me. Maybe watching something dumb and “bad” will get me working on the new script I’ve been lazy about. Maybe it will make me push through and finish it instead of just putting it off. Should I just write now? If I don’t know what I want to watch, maybe that’s a sign I should write. But I’m wiped. It’s been a long day.

I’ve been scrolling this whole time. I spaced and I haven’t even paid attention to what I’ve been passing by. I gotta go back.

What about an app that’s just fake movie posters for fake movies that don’t exist and you just scroll through it. You could write little fake descriptions of the movies and everything. Little movie synopsis parodies. I could treat it like a writing exercise. Write as many loglines for stupid movies as I can think of as fast as I can think of them and then Photoshop a fake poster for them. I bet there will be some good ideas that sneak in. Forcing yourself to come up with as many bad ideas as possible is always a way to come up with at least a couple good ideas. I bet people would just this app, too. Just look at funny movie poster parodies and descriptions without the stress of having to ever choose anything to actually watch.

Did I just describe picking something to watch on TV as stressful? What is wrong with me?

I should switch to another service. I’ve been scrolling here too long. Peacock maybe? I never look at Peacock, maybe hidden treasures are waiting for me on Peacock. Oh shit, I don’t have Peacock? I thought I had Peacock. Did I have somebody else’s Peacock login? Why did they get rid of Peacock, don’t they know that hidden treasures are waiting for them on Peacock?

What time is it? Nine PM. Is it too late to start a movie? Probably. I could go to bed and wake up early and try to write tomorrow morning. That’s probably a better use of my time and energy. If I write first thing in the morning I won’t have the excuse of being wiped. But I will feel like I’m shirking other responsibilities. I know myself. I’ll tell myself it’ll “be better” if I answer a few emails first and then get to writing. Then, before I know it, I’ve had a long day and I’m wiped again.

Oooh, I’ve been wanting to watch this for a while. But not now, I gotta be in a different mood. I’ll add it to the watchlist.

What if everyone who read this shared it? And then everyone who got it shared to them shared it again? What if?