MonkeyFight

Count to One Hundred

I’m clearly not the only one engaged in the MonkeyFight.  I recently read the essay, The Joy of Quiet, by Pico Iyer. The title says it all. It’s about the ever-shrinking peace and quiet in most people’s lives and the rising effort to reclaim some of that space. He writes that the future of travel lies in “black-hole resorts,” which charge high prices for rooms without internet access. 

"In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug." 

When I’m sitting at my computer losing the MonkeyFight to digital distractions, I’m no better than a rat hitting a lever for a dopamine pellet. I don’t know if rats like dopamine but I sure as hell do. My distractions aren’t even interesting or idiosyncratic. Faced with the endless universe of information at my fingertips, I check my goddamn email and the NY Times website and I numbly scan Facebook, reading status updates from people who have no business being in the front of my mind. (Sure if I had to I could  still conjure certain pairs of Jordache certain girls wore from 8^th-12th grade, but it doesn’t mean I want daily updates on their kids and the weather in their city of residence.)

In the essay, Iyer mentions the internet-blocking software, Freedom, which is an app I use when I’m desperate to unplug and focus on my work. When I get on Freedom I actually have a somatic response; I literally breathe easier and am immediately more able to focus on my work. I’m not much for advertising here, but Freedom definitely gets the MonkeyFight seal of approval.

I wonder where we’ll be ten and twenty years from now with regard to peace and quiet.  Will it get harder to unplug from information and advertising or will the marketplace provide us with enough options to balance things out? Iyer mentions "internet rescue camps" in China and South Korea for internet addicts. The Boy doesn’t live in China or South Korea but I know he’ll be as vulnerable as anyone to the sacred screen. He already reacts to my laptop with the fervor of a malnourished zombie at a fat farm.  Denying him access to it is the one thing that is sure to make him cry. I’ve actually seen him handle physical pain with more grace and stoicism than when I shut my computer.

So who cares? What’s being lost – if anything – by the expanding web of distraction? After all, people have struggled with the monkeys for centuries.  Is the hand-wringing about digital overdosing any different from the days when old farts recoiled at Elvis' pelvis? This is a debate I run into with friends occasionally when I’m the recoiling old fart at the table. I like how Iyer addresses the complexity of the issue by quoting someone from a very long time ago.

"Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries,” the French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in the 17th century, “and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.” He also famously remarked that all of man’s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

I can feel annoyingly redundant in my fascination with distraction but I do know that when I've burned time in a mindless online haze I feel bad, and when I'm free from ports and phones and cables I tend to feel lighter and happier.   So I'm gonna err on the side of lightness. 

In case you're looking for a way to keep score in the MonkeyFight, I’ve devised a system. Simply shut your eyes and try to silently count to one hundred without stopping. The number you reach is your score. I haven’t figured out the grading curve but let’s just say I rarely make it to 50 and occasionally get lost between 10 and 20.

Let me know how you do sitting quietly in a room.

 

Parenting Tip #182 - Dancing

As I've mentioned, The Boy showed an early interest in music. For example, when he was about 9 months old I took him into a sushi joint for lunch. While we were eating, some sort of Japanese techno song came on. The Boy started moving his shoulders to the beat, keeping his face deadpan just like I taught him, as illustrated below.

His funky moves inspired two pretty young Japanese waitresses to come over and dance with him. In other words, two pretty young Japanese girls were dancing in front of me while I ate my sashimi platter. And I was doing nothing illegal or immoral. It was broad daylight for christ's sake. I'm not saying the kid's a chick magnet but I am saying women are drawn to him as if he produced a magnetic field and they were ferromagnetic material. When the techno song ended, a ballad came through the speakers. The Boy appropriately stopped dancing in his seat. Next thing I knew, one of the waitresses replayed the previous song to get him dancing again. And so they returned to our table for another round. It was a good day.

I don't want to be one of those parents who ignores my child's raw potential just because I ignored my own raw potential. But I know I can only take him so far. It would be foolish of me to think I could bring him as far as he's capable of going. I mean, I'm an excellent dancer. I can't tell you how many times I've nearly thrown my back out while doing splits at weddings and random trade conventions I slipped into. But like most parents I hope The Boy can surpass my accomplishments. 

The Boy is forteen months old now and the time has come for me to find him a success coach. I can think of no better choice than the late James Brown, my own source of inspiration for the art of the dance. And thanks to the wonders of the world wide web, his Funky Chicken and his Mashed Potatoes are only a click away. While I wouldnt turn to James to instruct The Boy in the finer points of conflict resolution with one's spouse, I can trust him to teach The Boy how to move to music so he won't be cursed to a life of dancing with his arms awkwardly stuck by his sides. 

 

I think we'll be going out for sushi again soon. 

Qaddafi's (Magic) Number is Up

Every few days I put The Boy in front of my laptop and show him a few minutes of Sesame Street or old school School House Rock while I cut his nails.  Each time he's mesmerized. This has been the extent of his media consumption so far but it’s been enough to make him ravenously excited when he sees me open my laptop.

The Boy is not a very fast crawler in general. In fact, he seems oddly deliberate and aware of his body when he moves - kind of like a Great Dane (which is why they make such good apartment dogs). Anyway, apparently he saves his fastest crawling for the moments he spots my open laptop. And he never sounds more desperate in these moments either. If I’m at the table trying to work (ie Google: roasted carrots) I’ll soon find him whining at my feet with his arms desperately stretched upward.  He’s really not that kid so it’s particularly disturbing to see him transform in these moments.  I'm not gonna say he acts like a crack head but I'm not not gonna say it either. Come by some time and open my laptop and see what you think.

Anyway tonight was particularly disturbing. I was reading this article on the death of Qaddafi. The writer argued that dictators get the deaths they deserve: "...if a tyrant is executed while crying for mercy in the dust, then that, too, is a reflection of the nature of a fallen regime and the reaction of an oppressed people." I couldn't help but think there was truth to that since Saddam was found in a hole in the ground and Qaddafi was pulled from a storm drain bloodied and begging for his life. Anyway, the article convinced me to watch the video of his capture. It’s a frenzied, bloody affair.  I won’t link it here. It’s easy enough to find.

It's shot on a cell phone I think. The sun is shining brightly as you see close ups of arms and legs and you can hear machine gun fire and shouting and Qaddafi’s dazed, bloodied face occasionally enters the frame. It was sickening but I was glad I was watching it since I sometimes feel like the world is changing while I’m changing diapers. It made it more real for me.

But then The Boy appeared in the doorway like a curious puppy. He saw me at the laptop and his eyes widened. On the screen in front of me, Qaddafi’s bloody face appeared for a moment and then a flash of sunlight. The Boy scurried over and pulled himself up by the bed, whining and whimpering for a session of School House Rock while men shouted and dragged Qaddafi toward his fate. I shut the computer and The Wife took The Boy away for his bedtime rituals. 

After he was gone, I  breathed a little easier.  And then, I couldn’t help it - I opened the laptop back up and watched one of his favorites.

 

 

Writing Horror

My most recent screenplay contains some horror elements. There is a fair amount of blood and mayhem in it. The experience taught me a lot. For example, when writing in the horror genre you have to make sure the reader knows your intent.

Instead of writing: John looks out the window. Moonlight washes across his face. 

You should write: John looks out the window. Moonlight washes across his face. It's eerie.

The project was especially satisfying because I was able  to incorporate some of my experiences as a new parent, something dear to my hear.

Here's the trailer for the film. It's called 'Baby Laugh Alot On your Grave'.

  

Parenting Tip #316: Lullabies

Some close friends of mine gave birth to a baby girl a couple of weeks ago. They're getting a lot of advice from all the perfect parents out there so I thought I'd add my two cents on a lesser known parenting challenge: lullabies. 

It's essential for new parents to consult with each other before comitting to the lullaby they'll use to sing the baby to sleep.  You’ll be hearing this song at all hours of the day and night so choose carefully. Not that you have to choose one song but chances are you'll have a ‘Go- To Song’ that dominates your lullaby canon.

This advice comes from my own painful experience. The Wife inexplicably chose Michael Row Your Boat Ashore as her Go-To Song. I’ve been hearing her earnestly croon, ‘Halleluiah’ since The Boy was a month old. I’ve got nothing against African-American spirituals; I occasionally pull out Old Man River myself, but I’d hardly call it my Go-To. Me, I’m split between You Are my Sunshine and Cheeseburger in Paradise. 

But there’s something about Michael Row Your Boat that’s particularly troubling. For one, we’re not exactly a religious household so it can be a bit disorienting to hear The Wife sing a song so steeped in religious rhetoric. But she also insists on singing it in the vernacular to pay homage to the slaves who are reported to have first sung the song during the Civil War. Some nights I’ll be sitting down in front of another episode of So You Think You Can Kill a Guy and I’ll hear her in the other room:

Michael row de boat ashore, Hallelujah!

See my mudder on de rock gwine home.

On de rock goin’ home in Jesus' name.

The final straw is the song’s tempo. It’s nigh on ghostly. Some nights it takes The Wife a full five seconds to finish singing the word Hallleluuuuuuuuuuuuuiah.  I've started to suspect The Boy fakes falling asleep just to make the song stop. 

I've tactfully asked her to consider diversifying her set list and to her credit she's tried. Just last night I heard her singing her Go-To karaoke song: "Ground control, to Major Tom..." from David Bowie's Space Oddity. The tempo is just as spooky and the song ends with an astronaut floating helplessly in space, but I'm grateful for the change. 

Adding a new member to the family will bring many more joint decisions. This is just one more to consider.  I suggest you each put together a song list and jointly choose according to each other’s musical tastes, vocal range, and ability to carry a tune. And after all that, if you still see a murderous gleam in your partner's eye as you sing your precious baby to sleep with the thousandth rendition of Rock-a-bye-Baby, I recommend you hum a few bars.  

 

 
 
 
 

 

 

 

Notes From the Festival

I've been attending the Tribeca Film Festival this week with The Ignorant Bliss of Sun and Moon, the short I wrote and produced with director and friend John Hyams. It's been a great experience so far and I still have two more screenings. They do an amazing job of getting people out to the screenings - even for the short films. We've been playing to sold out shows so far.

Some other highlights: We had some audio trouble with our tape but the tech people at the festival handled it really well, so only one screening was painful. Stolichnaya is a festival sponsor so my organs are in a nice vodka marinade. I've seen Elton John perform. I've seen DeNiro mumble through a few words at a podium and give his signature eye-brow raise.

My friend Jason LaMotte won the Special Jury Prize for his short film The Terms. It's an excellent film adapted from a short story by Mike McCormack.  We're discussing turning it into a feature. When Dennis Leary announced the prize he said, "This film is about a father who's going to shoot his son in the head...and it's a comedy." Then he said, "I'm Irish. I thought it was a documentary." Check out the trailer here: http://www.thetermsmovie.com/

I met Jason last year at the Palm Springs Film Festival and we quickly hit it off partly because we had a shared creative sensibility and partly because we both had our first babies due within a week of each other. His was bornin late August and The Boy was born in early September.  I've only been to three festivals but each one has resulted in great things. At Aspen Shortsfest I met Adam Collis who eventually bought one of my scripts, and my friend Matthew Bonifacio who I'm collaborating with now on Brickhead. At Palm Springs I met Jason and also Sharon B., the woman who programs the shorts for Tribeca. If I hadn't met her I have no idea if The Ignorant Bliss would have made it into the fest because they receive nearly 3,000 submissions so it's easy to get lost. And now at Tribeca Film Festival I've been able to hang with Jason some more and I've met several New York filmmakers and producers who I will follow up with over the coming weeks. So the take away: do stuff and show stuff and talk to people. Then do it for about ten years and see how it's going. Then keep going. 

More later.

The Monkey Fight is On

I’ve been meaning to change oinkbird to monkeyfight for months. I’m sure you know what that’s like. When I imagined doing it I saw a coordinated effort involving graphic designers, branding consultants, and loads of fresh code written by people in foreign lands. But fuck it.  I gotta start somewhere. So I’m just changing the name. Bang. Just like that. I certainly don’t want to be half assed about it but it’s never going to get done if I don’t do it in pieces.  So I’ll start here and gradually it will become what is inside my head, which is monkeys.

About 15 years ago, I was introduced to the image of monkeys in my head by a woman who taught yoga in New Orleans. (This is the same woman who put me in a position that made me feel as if my back was breathing but that’s another story.) She said during class one day, “Try to calm the monkeys in your mind.” And suddenly all the monkeys in my head got a little worried: “Oh shit. She spilled it. He’s onto us.” It was one of those moments that resonate in a way that make you pay attention enough that you might actually learn something new. I didn’t. I mean, it caught my attention but I didn’t do much about it:  "Oh right." I thought. "Sometimes I’m generally distracted and unclear about what I’m supposed to do with my life so perhaps I should- hey look at that piece of string.” Monkeys love string.

I did mange to hold onto a thought though; not exactly beware of the monkeys, but be Aware of the monkeys. Point is – I think it’s gotten exponentially more difficult to focus on things of importance with the speed and density of distractions these days. High speed monkeys. I mean, I check my email thirty five times a day. I look at my phone over a hundred times in a day. And honestly, how did we used to spend the minutes we now spend on Face@#!ck? Literally, what did we do in the days when 'status update' and 'feed' were boring technical words? Don’t get me wrong – for all I know people were choking kittens before and now they’re harmlessly looking at pictures of people they wanted to have sex with when they were 17.

The Boy is over seven months old – 231 days to be exact. He’s got two teeth on the bottom of his mouth and two coming in on the top. He’s found some syllables: “da-da” and “ga-ga” - both timeless classics. He’s not crawling yet but he can sit like a champ. I played catch with him this week; he would throw a little tiny ball and I would throw it back in his lap and he would pick it up and throw it again. It didn't exactly go in my direction but it seemed a little early in life for coaching. This went on for about five minutes and I could have done it a lot longer if he’d let me. Yesterday I took him into Manhattan – just the two of us - to pick up my filmmaker swag bag from the Tribeca Film Festival. Naturally the chicks swarmed him (ie me). I fed him a bottle, he fell asleep, and then I requested a meeting with Sony Pictures Classics. He ate his first noodle last night – whole wheat elbow macaroni.

Every parent says it goes fast. They even say it in the same way, shaking their head with a sort of breathless disbelief, “It goes fast.” My hope is that monkeyfight can slow things down a bit and help me stay connected to the things that matter most to me. That's the fight. And make no mistake, I love me some monkeys - I just don’t want them running the asylum that is my head. And besides, monkeys can play catch with the best of ‘em once they’re tamed. So if we play our cards right we might even be able to field a team in the end.
     



       

The Boy’s Irish Side

St. Patrick’s Day is an appropriate time to reflect on The Boy’s Irish side.  After all, right now people all over the city are getting drunk and bragging about being Irish. Some are even in traditional Irish dress: green foam hats, shamrock necklaces, and vomit-speckled shoes.

I only hear people brag about being Irish when they’re talking about drinking or actually drinking. It’s a sucker’s move. The drink has crushed a lot of great Irish (among others) and it’s only romantic from a distance.  Don’t get me wrong – I’ve embraced the drink plenty. In our youth, my brothers and I worked out a neat little routine called tequila chugging. And at one time my drink of choice was a funnel of Jack Daniels. I eventually evolved to a rocks glass - but please - no rocks. I’m no stranger to the drink but it’s silly and demeaning to attach it to your Irishness.

 When The Boy’s old enough, instead of introducing him to shamrocks and whiskey and green beer I’ll make sure he knows about a couple of Redmonds. There are a lot of them in my family.  I’ll make sure he knows that his great grandfather, my mother’s father, Redmond Burke, came over from County Kerry on the Lusitania after foregoing his scheduled passage on the Titanic because his suit wasn’t ready. Grandpa, I hope you tipped that tailor. And I’ll make sure The Boy knows that this Redmond enlisted in the Navy in 1918 and then worked for the NYPD and provided opportunities to his children that he never would have had back on the farm.

And I’ll tell The Boy about my Uncle Redmond who passed away last year.  His Veteran’s Day funeral inspired my post about the endless, ignored war in Afghanistan. In the days around his passing I learned that Uncle Redmond enlisted in the Navy before he even finished high school to fight in WWII. At the funeral home I heard about a letter he’d written in which he described an encounter with Kamikaze pilots at sea. The closest I’ve come to facing a Kamikaze pilot is when my dogs charge me when I’ve been away from home too long. Like his father, Uncle Redmond went on to the NYPD, working there for 39 years while rising to the rank of Captain. He worked in the infamous Bronx precinct nicknamed Fort Apache. I suppose staring down the Kamikaze pilots was good training for his time on the Force.

While I didn’t spend much time with these Redmonds I’ve always carried a lot of respect for them and for that entire side of my family - my mother’s side - my Irish half. It won’t be hard to inform The Boy about his Irish side. For one, the family’s been steadily working on the genealogy so we’ll have the who’s and where’s of it all.  And the topic is bound to come up when he's old enough to start asking about his name:  Enrico Lucas Redmond Gullo.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

P.S. I’m drunk.

I Want to Live in an Obama Speech

I want to live in an Obama speech. He knocks 'em out of the park. Don't get me wrong - he’s terrible at baseball; his opening day pitch was only a little better than his attempt at bowling, but when it comes to orating, the guy hits home runs.  And he’s too skinny to be on ‘roids, so he’s got to be legit.

They say talk is cheap but with him it’s cheap and it’s good. True bang for your buck - even if you don’t like his politics (and if you don’t - come on, who would you rather put in the White House? I mean honestly, who would you rather have in the White House than Barack Obama? If you have no answer then I suggest you hunker down and help him dig us out of this freakin’ hole).

Needless to say, I thought his memorial address in Tuscon was impressive. Although, am I the only one who found the smiling and clapping a little creepy? I suppose people needed a certain amount of that, not to mention that when 14,000 people get together to listen to Barry string words together they're gonna clap, but still, I found it utterly surreal at one point when he said:

We are grateful for the men who tackled the gunman as he stopped to reload. We are grateful for a petite 61 year-old, Patricia Maisch, who wrestled away the killer's ammunition...

It sounded like a logline from TV Guide. And then everybody cheered and clapped and he smiled and clapped along as if someone had just scored a Bingo.

Anyway, the address was terrific. He spoke of healing and humility and empathy, he quoted Scripture, he said "life partner" along with husband and wife - a little something for everybody. His words about death were poignant and familiar to my own experience. Whenever I’ve been close to death I marvel at how the world slows down, the same world that moments before seemed to be moving so impossibly fast. When someone dies, suddenly nothing else is very important.

After all, that's what most of us do when we lose somebody in our family - especially if the loss is unexpected. We're shaken out of our routines. We're forced to look inward. We reflect on the past: Did we spend enough time with an aging parent, we wonder. Did we express our gratitude for all the sacrifices that they made for us? Did we tell a spouse just how desperately we loved them, not just once in a while but every single day?

Barack would’ve been proud of me yesterday morning. I realized I was heading out the door in a foul mood so I turned around to spread some sugar around the apartment – to The Wife, both dogs, and The Boy –just in case I got killed by a snowplow before I could make it back home. I didn't exactly tell The Wife I desperately loved her, but it was an improvement on the grunt I'd given her moments earlier. 

Obama also spoke to The Big Idea as I like to call it, an idea that courses through every religion and every school yard; the idea that we should treat people well, treat people as we would want to be treated, an idea that I believe is embedded in our DNA despite all the contradictory evidence.

We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another, that's entirely up to us...We recognize our own mortality, and we are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this Earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame - but rather, how well we have loved - and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better.

 Maybe I'm biased but I like having a writer in the White House. I think words matter so I'm glad our president is articulate and capable of nuanced thought. And that is not a dig at our last president. It would be inappropriate to take a cheap shot like that while the country's rhetorical seas are changing for the better. Nor is it a dig at Sarah Palin, who I'm sure has been surprised by the amount of heat she's been catching for using the term 'blood libel'.  What people have to understand is that she uses that term more casually than most history books and dictionaries.  It's just a term she uses around the house like, "Jeez, Bristol, replace the batteries. Don't make a blood libel out of it." It's not her fault. I mean it. She makes words up. We can all stop listening to her.

I recommend reading the text of Obama's address. (And for that matter, have you read his race speech lately?!  It truly makes me feel both hopey and changey.)  With all the short form writing that occurs in blogs, tweets, and text messages, his speeches are an opportunity to read well-crafted, inspired pieces of writing that are longer than 140 characters.  I'll end with just six here, one for each of those slain in Arizona: R.I.P.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE IGNORANT BLISS

It looks like Jamie Stewart, the guy who did Man in a Blizzard, is having his day and then some.  His story's a good reminder to artists to stay active and do the work despite the challenging speculative nature of it all.  Here's a guy who went out with his camera in the middle of the blizzard when nobody was telling him to or paying him to do it and it's proving to be his big break.

When I wrote of Stewart's film I mentioned that both my recent walk in the blizzard and his film made me feel all warm and human inside. So I thought I'd use this opportunity to post the short film I made with John Hyams which premiered at Palm Springs International Shortfest this year. It's called The Ignorant Bliss of Sun and Moon.  For me, it's always been a film about the human experience - or less pretentiously said - all the ups and downs and confusion of it all. The title refers to the occasional moments of bliss that catch us off guard and stir us in one way or another, make us feel small but in a good way - or make us feel small and big at the same time.

As a new parent, I occasionally wonder how I might talk to The Boy about topics such as these - topics revolving around inspiration and consciousness and his place in the universe.  Maybe I'll start by getting some life-sized toys in the house so he doesn't think he towers over elephants and lions. I mean, is he going to forever think he can put a hippopotmus in his mouth?  Isn't this preceisely why there are so many deadly hippo attacks in the wild?  Babies who play with tiny toy hippos must grow up to be clueless tourists in Africa who attempt to hug the adorable and murderous animals.

In any case, The Ignorant Bliss of Sun and Moon is in some ways about a guy struggling with his place in the universe.  Like a lot of people (i.e. me) he's a bit confused and overwhelmed by it all so he cycles between bouts of self-destruction and momentary bliss.  So if you've got six minutes to spare...