Category: off topic

checked out

So it’s been, what, 3 weeks since I started taking new head meds?  Something like that.  I have definitely noticed a change; the mood swings are almost totally gone, and if I feel blue every once in a while it’s not an all-consuming despair.  I’m also a bit more fatigued, which I suppose goes hat-in-hand with being mellow.  I might be a bit more numb, possibly.  Like: when the whole Hoboken train accident happened last week – an accident that I apparently missed being in the middle of by about 10 minutes – I felt a bit more detached and far less anxious than I expected myself to be.  And even though my commute now involves having to go back to dealing with the pit of despair known as Penn Station again, I’m at least able to look at the bright side of it – my wife and I get to sit next to each other on the train, which is something we’ve never been able to do in the 16 years we’ve been together.

The flip side to all this is that, as I noted above, I feel somewhat more numb about almost everything.  I bring this up here because, well, this is a blog that’s primarily about videogames and how I play them, and to be perfectly honest with you I’ve been finding myself somewhat checked out.  I had some weird issues last week where my controllers weren’t pairing with my consoles – this is a thing that’s happened before with my PS4, but this was the first time it happened to my Xbox One, and it’s certainly never happened for both consoles at the same exact time – and I found that I didn’t particularly care, one way or the other, because I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything.  The only console game I’m playing with any sort of gusto is Forza Horizon 3 – which is a game that is specifically designed to be played however you want to play it, and right now I’m content to simply cruise around, take in the sights, do some silly non-race stuff, unlock a few new cars, and then log off.

My rental copy of XCOM 2 arrived last week -a game that I’d been looking forward to for months – and I’m finding myself more or less totally disinterested in it.  I finished the tutorial, but haven’t been able to get more than 15 minutes into the very first proper mission without finding myself putting the controller down and looking at my phone, or going upstairs to get a snack.  I don’t know if it’s simply that the game is intimidating, or that I’m bad at it, or if it’s the head meds that have turned off the part of my brain that is receptive to the itch that XCOM was supposed to scratch – but whatever the reason, I’m just not feeling it.

Similarly, the wife and I have been watching Luke Cage, and even though we’re only 5 episodes in, we’re starting to run out of steam with it.  We want to love the show, and certainly there’s a lot to love about it (the music, the casting, the idea), but there’s certain aspects of it that seem weird to us.  More specifically, the writing seems all over the place.  Why is Luke such a negging dick to Misty Williams?  Why does everyone seem to deliver their lines in such a stilted, totally unnatural way?  These are little things that take us out of the show, and we’re finding ourselves falling a bit out of its rhythm.

Anyway, this is all a long way of saying that I’m feeling a bit removed from the sorts of things I normally talk about on here, and if I’m silent in the coming weeks, that’s probably why.  It’s entirely possible that one of the big fall game releases will come along that shakes me back into a feeling of urgency, and when that happens I’m sure I’ll be back here in a big way.  But for right now, I’m enjoying a bit of silence, and I hope that’s OK with you guys.

The Week In Review: Stranger Things Indeed

1. My buddy Sara returns serve with more Uncharted 4 correspondence over at Videodame.  I hope to volley back later next week.

2. I’m busting outta the ‘burbs and will be at the NYVCC summer shindig at Barcade this coming Monday, July 25.  If you’re in town, come on by!

3. I’ve been wanting to write about Stranger Things all week, but knew I should wait until I finished the season; my wife and I started on Sunday after the kid went to bed and pushed through 2 episodes per night, and so we finished it on Wednesday evening.  I woke up later that night at 3am and had one of those middle-of-the-night timeless intervals trying to figure out what I wanted to say about it.  Now it’s Friday and I’m still floating out to sea, somewhat.  (There’s a reason for that, though.*)

If you don’t know what Stranger Things is, here’s my very abbreviated elevator pitch: imagine Steven Spielberg directing a Stephen King novel, with a John Carpenter soundtrack, in 1983.

This essay from Paste goes into a bit more detail, especially in terms of what exactly it’s stealing from; here’s a TL:DR excerpt:

If you were a child of the ‘80s and ‘90s, chances are you’ve seen Stranger Things before. An eight-part sci-fi spectacle and shiny new Netflix original from filmmaking brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, Stranger Things is spooky supernatural entertainment unashamedly in the 1980s popcorn mould. It won’t be a problem for today’s kids less familiar with that period in film, but for those that recognize the influences—anyone who’s been paying attention to pop culture over the last 30 years, probably—there’s nothing surprising about Stranger Things. In fact, there’s barely an original idea across its six-and-a-half hours. Instead, it constantly recalls old stories.

There’s an argument to be made that this is in fact Stranger Things’ ‘original’ concept: arranging shopworn ideas in a new and interesting way. Collaging is considered an art, and it no doubt takes talent to make a worthwhile season of television almost entirely out of borrowed parts. Which isn’t to say Stranger Things is like some scrappy mish-mash; like Quentin Tarantino, the Duffers only cadge ideas from the best, but are more importantly talented enough as storytellers to use those ideas in effective ways.

I don’t know if I would count it among the greatest seasons of capital-T Television I’ve ever seen, but it was incredibly fun, and I guess the thing I appreciated the most is how, while it’s obviously borrowing heavily from a lot of 1980s tropes, it’s also incorporating a lot of today’s story-telling methods.  Let’s be honest – if you go back and revisit a classic 80s movie that you haven’t seen in a number of years, a lot of them haven’t aged particularly well; they are better in your memory of them than how they actually are.

A few key examples of this:  the first Tim Burton Batman movie, from 1989.  I saw this movie in the theater as a kid and LOVED it, but hadn’t watched it again until a few years ago.  And for all its stylistic Tim Burton-ness, there’s just a whole bunch of nonsense that 14-year-old me just didn’t notice at the time.  There’s a scene in the back half of the movie where Jack Nicholson’s Joker pays Kim Basinger’s Vicki Vale a menacing visit.  But there’s literally no reason for him to show up there.  The scene doesn’t accomplish anything.  It’s a fabricated excuse to give Jack and Kim a scene together, and when you watch this with the benefit of watching 20+ years of movies in the interim, suddenly it sticks out.

Or, alternately, Big Trouble in Little China, which I loved to death back in the day.  It’s still fun, and it’s visually interesting, but the movie itself barely hangs together.

Anyway, back to Stranger Things.  Here is a bullet-pointed collection of thoughts, which I am currently too distracted to properly formulate into an actual essay.  (See the above-referenced footnote below.)  It’s hard to be specific without getting into what are technically spoilers, but I should also note that this isn’t the sort of show where you’re being knocked over by plot twists; there’s a tremendous amount of forward momentum here and so anything spoiler-y is less about a BIG REVEAL and more about a moment of character development.  Still, be warned.

  • This story could certainly have been told in a 2-hour movie.  But by stretching it out to 8 episodes, we’re able to have these characters actually talk to each other.  And, in what feels like a genuine first, we’re having characters have conversations where they actually say all the things I wish that characters would say.  I don’t know if that’s a testament to the writing, or the acting, or if it’s simply that I am the target audience for this show and so I related to every single goddamned pixel on my television screen.  But, like – it’s great to be able to follow Winona Ryder into what for all intents and purposes looks like a psychotic break, and to have her fully acknowledge to anyone who asks that yes, she is very much aware that she knows what she looks like, but for us to know that she isn’t.
  • How great is the casting?  This is some of the best work Winona Ryder’s done in her whole career – and while casting her is no accident, she knocked it out of the park.  The kids are great: the girl who plays Eleven looks an awful lot like young Wil Wheaton, wouldn’t you say?  And of course the older brother looks a lot like young River Phoenix.
  • OH GOD THE MUSIC.  Obviously one of the things that makes this show so great is how it mixes lots of 80s things together, but especially how it takes a Spielberg-ian look at childhood in the 80s but eschews the John Williams orchestra and instead goes for the John Carpenter minimal-synthesizer thing.  I only wish they could’ve gone a little bit further and added some David Lynch/Twin Peaks weirdness, though I suppose having this story take place in an unusually strange town might’ve been pushing it a bit too much.
  • As noted above, I am the target demo for this show – a child of the 80s, thoroughly steeped in 80s movies and music and clothes and Trapper Keepers and D&D (well, in my case, piano lessons), and so I of course related to both the junior-high AV Club kids and the high school hormonal teenagers.  (And on behalf of all the teenaged girls I knew when I was a teenager:  I’m so, so, so sorry.)  But I am also currently a 40-year-old parent, and I also thoroughly related to the adults on the show, especially with regards to how those parents care about their children.  Like the scene between Nancy and her mother where the mother knows what just happened to Nancy and her boyfriend and desperately wants to reach out to her daughter because she’s been there and wants to be cool about it, and how heartbreaking it is for her to have the door shut in her face.  Or the deep sorrow that Chief Hopper carries around with him in losing his very young daughter; I don’t know what that feels like first-hand and I hope I never do, but I can certainly imagine what it would like to lose my son, and jesus I have to move on because I can’t finish this sentence.  Point being, I related to everyone, in intensely different ways.
  • BIGGEST SPOILER, SINCE IT’S ABOUT THE LAST TWO EPISODES:  In the last two episodes, how great was it to have all the good guys, who’d previously been in their own groups, finally come together?  And to also appear in completely different pairings than they’d been in for the rest of the season?  It’s so nice when people don’t have to keep secrets from each other.  The sense of relief the little kids must’ve felt when not only did Chief Hopper rescue them from the bus, but that he believes them.

I loved the show; you should watch it.

* This week’s been a shitshow – work has been busy, and the RNC is a waking nightmare, but on the lighter side of things I’ve also been pleasantly obsessing over music, which carries its own set of distractions.  I know I’ve talked numerous times about how impressed I am at whatever algorithmic alchemy Spotify manages to achieve for the weekly Discovery playlist; the hit-to-miss ratio is more than acceptable, especially considering that the songs that qualify as “hits” more often than not end up becoming profoundly affecting.  Part of the reason why I couldn’t write anything yesterday is because I spent, like, 5 hours just listening to the bridge in Moses Sumney’s “Everlasting Sigh”.

Civil War! Radiohead!

Here’s hoping you all had as lovely a weekend as I did.

First thing’s first:  normally I’m very late to the party when it comes to seeing big blockbuster movies in a timely fashion.  I spent 20 years dealing with the insanity of seeing big movies on opening weekend in NYC, a process that, among other things, entailed getting to the theater at least 90 minutes before showtime to ensure getting even a halfway decent seat, and this eventually wore on my nerves.  So between that and our weird reluctance to hire a babysitter, my wife and I don’t often get to go to the movies together, and certainly not for big big movies like Captain America: Civil War.  (Or, for that matter, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  My wife and I both saw it separately, and it wasn’t until the movie had been out for several weeks that we were able to see it together.)

But somehow we were able to see it yesterday.

I don’t know how valuable my opinion is when it comes to evaluating Marvel movies.  I’m not a comic book guy, and so my primary exposure to anything involving superheroes is through film – and film will always be different than the source material.  My wife, on the other hand, is a Marvel girl through-and-through, and she devoured the Civil War run when it was in print – indeed, I think the primary reason she was excited about the idea of an Avengers movie in the first place is that it might eventually lead to a film of the Civil War.

My understanding is that the film’s Civil War and the comic book run couldn’t be more different, even if they had a number of common similarities.  Obviously, the comic wasn’t constrained by all the various legal issues that have split up the various Marvel franchises among rival film studios – my wife is an X-Men fan, and so their absence in this Captain America film is rather strongly felt.  The comic was also, if I understand it correctly, spread out over a long-ish period of time; the movie, on the other hand, appears to take place within a 72-hour period, and the one big superhero battle is rather self-contained, all things considered.  It’s more of a grudge match than a capital-W War, like when a fight breaks out between teammates on the bench during a baseball game.

But this is all besides the point; I didn’t read the comics, so it makes no sense for me to look at it from that perspective.  As far as the films themselves, I’ve enjoyed the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for the most part; some films work better than others, to be sure, but all the heroes are well cast and the films possess a buoyant energy – far more so than the DC films.*

Anyway:  of all the MCU films, this Civil War film is almost certainly the best one.  For an ensemble action movie – with an absolutely gigantic ensemble – it’s remarkable how well-paced it is, how every character gets enough space to have their requisite emotional beats, and especially how both Captain America and Iron Man have compelling and valid points of view.

And the action sequences are similarly remarkably well-framed.  Unlike other recent action movies I could name, you can always tell what’s going on, who’s punching who, and there’s none of the motion sickness that seems to be part and parcel with these sorts of set pieces.  There’s one chase sequence in particular involving Winter Soldier, Black Panther and Captain America that is absolutely fantastic, specifically because the stuntwork is excellent and is shot in such a way that you can actually see what the hell is going on.  (The shot of Winter Soldier grabbing the motorcycle is arguably the most exciting shot in the entirety of the MCU thus far.)

It’s been noted by better critics than me that if this movie has one downside, it’s that the villain isn’t particularly memorable, and also that the movie makes up for this by not really needing a villain in the first place.  The Cap’n and Iron Man have been getting under each other’s skin for several films by now, and this film’s conflict is less about current ideological differences and more about, as Tony Stark says, simply “wanting to punch you in your perfect teeth.”

I want to say more, but I don’t want to spoil anything; I just hope I get another chance to see it on the big screen before too long.

*  *  *

The other big cultural event of the weekend: the new Radiohead album, “A Moon Shaped Pool”, was released on Sunday.  I didn’t get a chance to listen to it until late last night, and even then I was being an idiot and struggling with the admittedly ridiculous decision as to how I should get it – iTunes? Amazon mp3? or hope for it to appear on Spotify before too long?

I’ll need a few dozen more listens before I can write about it with any authority, of course.  But even just on first glance it’s clear that this is a gorgeous album, with haunting melodies and Jonny Greenwood’s otherworldly string arrangements doing freakish things to my brain.  The thing about Radiohead albums – for me, at any rate – is that the production is always interesting, even on their lesser tunes, and on this album there are some rather startling and intimate sounds; the ones that got me in particular are how you can hear the piano’s hammers strike each string, as if the microphone was placed an inch away from the piano’s heart.  (I’m reminded of a Flaming Lips lyric – each press of a piano key is like “the softest bullet ever shot”).

It’s perhaps not the grand return to form I might’ve hoped for after the rather limp King of Limbs – I can’t help but wish there were a few more uptempo songs, though I feel certain that “Ful Stop” will absolutely destroy in a live setting – but this is definitely an improvement.  It’s hard to know what I expect from a Radiohead album anymore; the 1-2 knockout punches of OK Computer and Kid A will probably cloud everyone’s judgement on that score, not just mine.  But in terms of pure sonic beauty, this one’s a keeper.

*  *  *

Nothing to report on the games front; my digital copy of Uncharted 4 is already pre-loaded and that’s pretty much where I’ll be for the foreseeable future.

As for books – I finished re-reading Justin Cronin’s The Passage and am about halfway through my re-read of The Twelve, all so that I can get caught up for The City of Mirrors, which comes out in 2 weeks.  Those books are still great!

* I still wish that Edgar Wright had been allowed to make the Ant-Man film that he wanted to make; I bet it would’ve been spectacular.  But I suspect that his directorial vision would’ve been too idiosyncratic with the rest of the MCU; the final film feels constrained and reigned in, and it’s not nearly as joyous and charming as it wants to be.

 

discouragement

[CAUTION:  PERSONAL STUFF.  I don’t keep a personal blog anymore; if I did, I’d write this stuff there, as opposed to here.  (I’ve also forgotten my Livejournal password.)  I am feeling inclined to write anyway, so, deal with it.]

I am unwell today.  I think I got gluten’d from my office cafeteria breakfast, and so the morning has been… unpleasant.

Sometimes I hear stories about people who take medication for depression or anxiety, and they start feeling better and decide to stop taking their meds because they think they don’t need them anymore, and then everything falls apart; I am not one of those people.  I’m on anxiety medication and it’s improved my quality of life a thousand times over and I do not plan to stop taking it unless there’s a really good reason not to.  Similarly, it’s days like today where I realize that no matter how much progress I’ve made in terms of my GI illnesses – and I’ve made a lot of progress – there is absolutely no wiggle room for mistakes; if I eat something I’m not supposed to, I pay for it.

(This is also a “fuck you” to people who go out of their way to make fun of people who are gluten-free.  Let me assure you, this is not a choice.)

I am also feeling a bit pessimistic about a timely resolution to the impending NJ Transit strike, despite one of the lead quotes from this article (which directly flies in the face of last night’s developments).  My office also won’t let me work from home, so I’ll be forced to take vacation time, even though my inability to get into work isn’t my fault.

My rental copy of The Division finally arrived yesterday, and so I’d been hoping to offer up some early impressions today; alas, the game required a 3GB patch and for whatever reason my PS4 was refusing to download it in a timely fashion.  That said, if the above-referenced transit strike ends up happening and I’m stuck at home, well… I’ll be able to do a much more thorough write-up, at the very least.

What else, what else, what else.  I don’t know.  I’m in a weird headspace today; feeling discouraged and pessimistic, in addition to everything else.  I wish I could go into greater detail here, but this isn’t the best place for it.

 

Gut Impressions: Star Wars TFA

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I am kinda procrastinating at the moment (also a little tipsy, but hey) so here are my quick, hopefully non-spoilery Star Wars Thoughts (and some necessary personal context as a prelude):

  1.  For starters, I’m pretty sure that this was the first time I’ve ever gone to the movies by myself.  That’s weird, right?  I just turned 40, and yet this was my first solo movie experience.  Also: it was a Sunday, 10:00am showing, and the theater was basically empty.  I’m so used to watching movies in NYC where you have to be at the theater at least an hour before showtime in order to get a halfway good seat, but here in the burbs I was the first one at the theater by at least 30 minutes.
  2. I’m not a huge Star Wars nerd, at least not to the extent that my wife and our friends are.  Star Wars was certainly a big part of my childhood’s vocabulary, and the Bespin Freeze Chamber was one of my all-time favorite toys, but I was never, like, obsessed with it, and the prequels left an awful, awful taste in my mouth.  My impatience at seeing this new movie was more about knowing that everyone I know had already seen it , and I was missing out on an important cultural event.  And I did want to watch it before the whole movie got spoiled for me.  Speaking of which…
  3. …I did have at least 2 very significant plot points spoiled for me before watching the film, but as it turned out it wasn’t a big deal; both things were telegraphed pretty early on, and I’m not sure either of them were ever intended to be a head-spinning plot twist.
  4. I do understand George Lucas’s reluctance to embracing the new movie, but I also think he’s a fucking asshole for his selling of the franchise to “white slavers”.  It’s not like he didn’t get paid BILLIONS OF DOLLARS for it.  And let’s be honest, here:  the Lucas prequels are borderline unwatchable at this point.  J.J. Abrams had a near-impossible task at making Star Wars meaningful to people again, and he knocked it out of the goddamned park.
  5. The movie is still too fresh in my mind for me to feel like I can be objective enough to “review” it.  Was it the best movie I’ve ever seen?  Not by a long shot.  But did I giggle and ooh and aah and have a goofy smile on my face and did I feel like an 8-year-old kid all over the goddamned place for the entirety of the film’s running time?  Goddamned right I did.  The casting is perfect – I love Rey and Finn to pieces, and I loved seeing the old gang together again, and I legitimately got chills at the final scene.  The cinematography is fucking epic.  The score is fantastic.  J.J. is maybe the only director alive who could pull this particular task off, and – again – he killed it.
  6. It’s OK that it’s basically a re-make of Episode 4; Episode 4 was an origin story about mythic figures, and it makes sense for this new trilogy to touch on familiar feelings, even if it has the potential to go in wildly different directions.  I don’t know if I trust Disney to allow it to go too far out, but Star Wars isn’t necessarily meant to be avant-garde. I do feel that this movie was made with confidence, and that the creative team felt good about the product they were putting out, and if nothing else the box office more than bears that out, and maybe some of these side stories can be a little more daring and risk-taking as a result.
  7. That said, I do worry about Star Wars overdosing – a new trilogy plus all the side-story stuff might get exhausting.  I’m starting to feel that way about the Avengers movies, at any rate.  BUT:  we’re gonna be taking the kid to some of these movies at some point, and I’ll be happy enough to be his guide for those experiences.
  8. It is weird to see a new Star Wars movie as a parent!  I watched this movie all by myself in the theater – 3D, non-IMAX, which to me is the best way to see it (if only because IMAX gives me vertigo) – and all I could think about was watching it with Henry and wondering how he’s going to react to it; anticipating his excitement; preparing for his hiding his eyes in my arms during tense moments (as I did with my father for Temple of Doom).
  9. I said I won’t get spoilery, and I won’t.  But there is a spoiler-y theory floating around that I really like, which I’ll hide behind a link – I really like this idea, and I hope it’s true.
  10. Bottom line:  I can’t wait for Episode 8.  I can’t wait to see this movie again.

The Last Weekend of my 30s

1. I had an epiphany the other day.  I’ve been reading “The Monster at the end of this Book” to my son for the last week or so – he loves it, and I love reading it to him.  It’s the sort of book that I can’t help but act out; I immediately hear it in my brain in Grover’s voice, for one thing, and certain words are drawn in such a way that I instinctively react to them as I say them out loud.

The epiphany part of this is that, as I continue to read this book every night, and re-live my own childhood as I read it to my son, I’ve realized that the book’s emphasis on conversational rhythm has had a profound effect on my own writing style.  I know I’m prone to excessive hyperbole, but I’m also prone to italics and digression and I have a very informal writing style; I try to write as if I were talking, or at least as if I were transcribing my thoughts in the way that I think about them.  (I hope that makes sense.)  There are plenty of books that I’ve read in my life that I’ve unconsciously absorbed into my writing style, but I’m not sure that any of them ever had the same sort of influence that this one did.  I mean, look at those pages!

2. The wife and I finished Jessica Jones last night; wow wow wow, is all I can say.  I don’t really watch that much TV these days, but I’d heard too much good stuff about JJ to ignore it, and my wife is as big a Marvel fan as anybody, so it seemed like a no-brainer for us to watch it together, and I’m so glad we did.  At the pivotal moment of the finale, I literally jumped off the couch, did a touchdown dance, and high-fived my wife.  There’s so much to be said for the show’s unconventional casting, and feminist point-of-view, and this and that and the other – which is a terrific achievement in and of itself, and better critics than I can explain why; at the end of the day, it’s a rich world with (mostly) well-drawn and well-acted characters, and David Tennant is possibly the best villain in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Very excited for the forthcoming Luke Cage show, and in the meantime I’ll probably have to go back and watch Daredevil now.

3. I was going to do a “first few hours” post about Just Cause 3, but I honestly don’t even know where to begin with it.  Yes, wing-gliding is amazing, and once you get the hang of the traversal system there’s really nothing quite like it.  And yeah, shit blows up real good.  But it’s abundantly clear that it’s not a finished game, and it’s lacking some sorely-needed optimizations; loading times are atrocious – hell, even the in-game map doesn’t load all that well, frames drop all the goddamned time which greatly diminish the impact of all those awesome explosions, and I often have no idea what I’m supposed to do next.  But there’s also a weird tone issue, where I can’t tell if the game is meant to be super-ridiculous and over-the-top (Saints Row), over-the-top but also maybe a bit grounded in some subtle geo-political observational satire (Crackdown), or just a playground where it doesn’t really matter what you’re doing or why you’re doing it (fucking around in GTA).  It’s clearly ridiculous, but it also feels like it’s lacking purpose beyond simply blowing shit up.  Which makes the experience feel a bit more shallow than I’d like.  I’m not saying I need this game to mean anything; I’m just observing that without any real narrative motivation, I’m finding it hard to stay interested in it.

4.  I’m not necessarily ready to give up on Fallout 4 just yet, but I haven’t played in a couple days and I haven’t found myself missing it.  I’m going to get to Diamond City, which appears to be the first real “hub”, and if the game opens up in a pleasing way, then I might find myself drawn in.  Otherwise, I’ll have a PS4 Pip-Boy Edition for sale, if anybody’s interested.

5.  I’m going to be 40 tomorrow.  I’m not as freaked out by that as I thought I might be; I think turning 30 was a bigger deal, if only because I distinctly remember waking up on my 30th birthday and having my entire body ache for no particular reason.  Frankly, I’m in better health now than I was back then; my hair is grayer, of course, but I’ve gotten a lot of my various physical and mental health issues dealt with and as such I’m able to enjoy myself, my family and my life a lot better than I’d been able to.  So it’s all good.

Prep To Move

If all goes according to plan, we close on our house this coming Friday, and we move the following Saturday, August 1.

I left for work this morning and as I walked down the street I started becoming hyper-aware of my surroundings – the view of the Hudson from the top of my hill, the sketchy hourly-rate hotels that are inexplicably littered along my street, the greasy-bacon-and-eggs smell from the diner on the corner, the stifling heat of my subway stop – and couldn’t help but observe to myself that I’m only making this specific walk 3 more times after today.

I’ve been doing this same thing for the last few days – I can count on one hand the number of my remaining trips to the laundromat, the grocery store, the coffee shop.  We can only eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant a few more times before the trip becomes impractical (it’s a great place, but we’re not driving 45 minutes through Staten Island traffic for it).

I’ve also been feeling a lot less melancholic than I’d anticipated, regarding this move.  An old work colleague had posted something – “17 Quotes Every New Yorker Should Live By” – and after reading it I found myself inexplicably feeling somewhat hostile.  Quite a few of them required a response:

4. “The city is uncomfortable and inconvenient; but New Yorkers temperamentally do not crave comfort and convenience—if they did they would live elsewhere.” —E. B. White

That’s true, and that’s partially why I’m moving.  I’m ready for a different tempo.

8. “Every true New Yorker believes with all his heart that when a New Yorker is tired of New York, he is tired of life.” —Robert Moses

Oh fuck you.  I’m still working here; I’m just sleeping in a town where motorcycle gangs and 16-wheelers aren’t drag-racing outside my 2-year-old’s window every night.

9. “If you want to become a real New Yorker, there’s only one rule: You have to believe New York is, has been, and always will be the greatest city on earth. The center of the universe.” —Ellen R. Shapiro

I still do believe this with all my heart.  I just don’t have to live here to know it.

16. “When you leave New York, you ain’t going anywhere.” —Jimmy Breslin

Again – fuck you.  I’m gonna be a 30-minute train ride to Penn Station.

All that aside, I can’t help but wonder – am I losing part of my identity if I’m no longer a full-time New Yorker?  I was born here, I went to college here and I’ve been a full-time resident since 1996; does all that go away once I become… *gulp*… a resident of… *gasp*… NEW JERSEY?

I am suddenly aware that my long-standing email address – not to mention my gamertag across each and every gaming service – JervoNYC – will no longer be 100% accurate.  There’s a part of me that wonders if I should change it.

*     *     *

Posting’s going to be light for the next few weeks.  For starters, I’m not really playing that much right now besides replaying Tomb Raider on Xbox One, for some reason*; I’d also rented the new EA Golf Game but it hasn’t yet shown up, and given its poor reviews, I’m not really all that committed to playing it even if I happen to receive it.

After the closing, I won’t be back at work until August 10.  I’ll have internet access pretty much the whole way through (minus one brief hiccup immediately following the move), and I’m sure I’ll need to decompress at some point after the unpacking, but I’m probably not going to be doing any posting here beyond a simple “I am here and my internet works”.

* That reason is simply that the definitive edition is currently on sale for < $10.  I’ve already beaten it twice, on both PC and PS4, and I’m not really sure what prompted me to buy it again beyond that it’s a fun game and it was cheap and I hadn’t used my Xbox in a while, and maybe I’m more addicted to Achievements than I care to admit.

On Self-Imposed Exile

Yeah, I know, I’m not writing much these days.  I try to keep writing here as much as I can, but some days it’s harder than others.  Some days it’s crazy busy; some days my brain simply isn’t working; and some days – like today – I find myself in this weird, stupid brain trap where I want to write while also, at the same time, feeling very much like shutting up and never writing again.

This happens to me every once in a while, and I deal with it in different ways each time.  Some times I fight it head-on, hoping that I’ll work my way out of whatever the issue is simply by the process of writing, regardless of whether or not I hit the “Publish” button; sometimes I hide behind a Tumblr-reblog spree; and other times I simply give in and withdraw completely.  No posts anywhere – not on Twitter, nor Tumblr, nor Facebook, nor here.  I vanish.  I hide.  Oh, I keep reading; whenever I announce that I’m taking a break from social media, more often than not what I’m actually saying is that I’m going to lurk.  And even then, there’s varying degrees of lurking.

Today is a day where I’ve been so busy that I simply haven’t been paying attention to the internet; and when I’ve had a few moments of relative peace, I’ve chosen to only look occasionally.

The trouble with writing is that it’s hard to call yourself a writer if you’re not giving anybody anything to read.

The trouble with composing is that it’s hard to call yourself a musician if you’re not giving anybody anything to listen to.

The trouble with being a good friend is that it’s hard to call yourself a good friend if you’re consciously withdrawing from other people.

It’s very easy to invalidate yourself; it can be very difficult to successfully reclaim yourself after you’ve walked away from what you tried to build.

I’m writing this because I’m in this weird stupid head space where I’ve been living for the better part of 2 weeks and it’s annoying and stupid and childish, and it’s my fault that I’ve chosen to put myself in this head space, and I very much want to get out of it.  There are exciting things happening in my life that I’m genuinely excited about – like tomorrow’s home inspection of what will hopefully (fingers crossed) be our new home, later this summer.  Like the album that I’m still working on (even though I’ve been sidetracked and distracted by this whole home-buying process).  Like my son, who is amazing, and who makes my heart smile even during my darkest hours.

But I keep sliding back into this self-imposed exile, this recursive loop of withdrawing, and it’s endlessly frustrating.

Anyway – I’m here, and I’m trying to get back into the swing of things, and I’m sorry if my recent silence has caused you any undue concern.  Here’s hoping that tomorrow’s inspection goes amazing, and that on Friday I’ll be ready to talk about E3 and The Witcher 3 and You Must Build a Boat and other such things.

Limbo / Endings and Beginnings

I have so many things I need to talk about, and (of course) I have no idea where to begin.  The following image series is more or less what I’ve been doing here for the last few weeks.
(source)

1.  One of the many reasons why I’ve been silent here of late is that there’s a BIG BIG THING that is still not 100% finished yet, and I don’t want to jinx it by spilling the beans, but at this point we’re getting pretty close to knowing for sure if this is going to happen or not, and so (since my wife says it’s OK) here’s the news:  It looks like we’re moving out of the city and into the ‘burbs.  We put an offer on a perfect (for us) house in Maplewood, New Jersey; they accepted our offer; we’re already out of attorney review; we’re getting the house inspected tomorrow (while we also examine potential day care solutions); the mortgage application has been filed; the tentative closing date is June 19.  THIS IS HAPPENING SO VERY FAST.

As you might imagine, this has more or less completely taken over my life.  My wife and I aren’t sleeping; we fret about monthly expenses, we worry about day care, we have absolutely no idea what the morning commute is going to look like (before we get on the train, that is; once we’re on the train it’s easy-peasy).  I suddenly have to get a NJ driver’s license and get the car re-registered and inspected and the dogs need to get re-registered and licensed and we need homeowner’s insurance and new car insurance and we have to find a pediatrician and we also know maybe 2 people who live in the town and and and

It’s super-exciting because the house is amazing and the town itself is amazing and we can’t wait to move in, but it’s also terrifying because HOLY SHIT IT’S A HOUSE AND WHAT IF A TREE FALLS ON THE HOUSE AND HOW MUCH WILL A REPUTABLE PLUMBER COST AND HOW WILL WE PAY FOR ANYTHING IF ANYTHING BREAKS.

2.  One of the other reasons why I’ve been silent here – and I’ve probably said this before, during similar lulls – is that it’s hard for me to talk about games when I’m not actively playing anything.  It’s true that I’ve picked up a few things here and there over the last few weeks but nothing’s held my interest; to the extent I’m playing anything at all (besides a few excellent time-wasters on my iPhone), I’ve been wrapping up old side quests in Dragon Age Inquisition since that’s at least something that I’ve already spend a considerable amount of time with.  Most of my evenings of late have been spent with both the consoles and the gaming PC turned off, though, and I haven’t felt much of a pull to get back

But if I’m being honest here, I’ve been starting to wonder how much longer I’m going to talk about games at all.

I’m starting to feel disconnected from gaming.  I’ve talked about this before, I know, but it’s different this time.  I know that I’m distracted right now, what with the house and the album and my kid and everything else, but even the eye-popping advance reviews for The Witcher 3 aren’t necessarily getting me as excited as I might’ve been only a few years ago – and if The Witcher 3 isn’t gonna do it, I honestly have no idea what would.

I had an interesting conversation with David Wolinsky yesterday over twitter.  He’d written a rather breath-taking piece for Unwinnable (which you should read right now) and I felt compelled to thank him, and then I saw his pinned tweet:

I responded that I think I might be in the middle of that specific transition, and it bothered me a little bit.  I’ve been playing games since I was 5 or 6 years old, and with the exception of my college years, I’ve been a dedicated gamer the whole time.  Within the last few years, though, I’ve been feeling myself slowly slip away from it – not just from games themselves, but from reading Twitter, from engaging with the community, from writing about games on other sites, even from delivering soliloquies such as this on this very site, where I’m free from editorial oversight and advertising pressure.  I’m feeling alienated from the culture.  Most AAA games simply aren’t made for 39-year-olds, and that’s a weird thing to wrap my head around.

I’ll end this with something I’ve quoted here before but which bears repeating in light of this feeling of alienation and disengagement – the last 3 paragraphs of Tom Bissell’s Grantland piece about GTA V, which says this so much better than I ever could:

…I have a full Xbox Live friends list, 100 people strong, and last night 25 percent of them were playing GTA V — something I’ve never seen before. The texts and messages started flying: So, what do you think? How far are you? Very few of my friends had good words to say about GTA V, even as the game’s Metacritic score holds firm at a mind-boggling 97. Then I got a text message from a game-dev friend who happens to be one of the smartest, most aesthetically sophisticated people I’ve ever met in games. He wasn’t enjoying the game, and he seemed puzzled by that. We texted for a while. Then he sent this: “I guess I’m mourning the admittance that I’m no longer the target audience of my own work.”

One of GTA V‘s characters admits at the end of the game, “I’m getting too old for this nonsense.” And you know what? I felt the same thing numerous times while playing GTA V, even though I continue to admire the hell out of much of what it accomplishes. So if I sound ambivalent, Niko, I think it’s because I’m part of a generation of gamers who just realized we’re no longer the intended audience of modern gaming’s most iconic franchise. Three steps past that realization, of course, is anticipation of one’s private, desperate hurtle into galactic heat death. I’m left wondering when I, or any of us, express a wish for GTA to grow up, what are we actually saying? What would it even mean for something like GTA to “grow up”? Our most satirically daring, adult-themed game is also our most defiantly puerile game. Maybe the biggest sin of the GTA games is the cheerful, spiteful way they rub our faces in what video games make us willing to do, in what video games are.

Playing GTA used to feel like sneaking out behind school for a quick, illicit smoke. The smoke still tastes good, Niko; the nicotine still nicely javelins into your system. But when you look up, you have to wonder what you’re actually doing here. Everyone is so young, way younger than you, with the notable exception of the guy handing out the cigarettes, and he’s smiling like he just made a billion dollars.

RPM 2015

So I have officially signed up for the 2015 RPM Challenge, which is something I’ve signed up for several times in the past, and which I’ve never actually finished.  (For those not in the know, the RPM Challenge is the musician’s equivalent of NaNoWriMo – you have the month of February to write 10 songs or 35 minutes of music.)  I’ve gotten quite a few demos and sketches and interesting things out of my previous attempts, but I’ve never actually finished anything.

This is partly because I inevitably run into technical problems that derail the whole thing, but mostly because I tend to pat myself on the back after coming up with something cool-ish, and then I slack off and fail to stay motivated.  (See, for example, the fact that I haven’t done any recording since coming up with that loop from last week.)

What’s different about this year?  A few things come to mind:

1.  First and foremost, I’d already decided to make a new album well before I remembered that the RPM Challenge is a thing, so I’m already raring to go.

2.  I’m going to do my best to limit my technological problems before they get started.  To wit: in years past, I’d sign up for this thing and then decide to buy a new bit of software, and then I’d spend most of the month learning how to use it instead of actually using it.  (In this particular case, there’s a part of me that really wants to buy the latest editions of both Reason and Logic, but that’d be setting me back almost $500 before I even record a single note.)  I do need to buy a new external hard drive, but that’s it as far as purchases are concerned; the hard drive is (a) necessary and (b) does not require me to learn anything.

3.  The last time I tried to do this in any serious capacity was in 2011.  I don’t know what happened in 2012, and in Feb 2013 we were getting kicked out of our apartment while my wife was 7 months pregnant – saying that “the timing was bad” is putting it very, very mildly.  Ironically enough, I did end up putting out Untrue Songs in May of 2013, which I did mostly because at that point my son was already born, and I’d started getting some sleep on a quasi-regular basis, and I felt like I needed to give him some sort of document of who I was, and what I’d done.  None of the stuff on that album was technically “new”, even if nobody besides me had ever heard it; it was basically just the best stuff I’d recorded over the last 6-8 years.  (Actually, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure that at least 2 or 3 of the songs on Untrue were originally intended for my previous attempts at RPM Challenges.)

4.  I’m not sure if I’m going to be writing any lyrics for this thing (especially since recording vocals in my apartment is a very difficult thing to do with a toddler), but I do very much have some things I want to say, or convey, and that sort of thing carries a lot of weight.  When I’d signed up for NaNo last year, I did it because I wanted to do it, but I wasn’t at all prepared for it.  For this year’s challenge, it’s not only about me finally having creative momentum; it’s about having creative intention and direction, which are things I’ve not had in quite some time.  It would seem that I need to get some things off my chest, and this might be the best way to go it.

5.  It’s too early to talk about this yet, but when this thing gets finished (not if, but when), something interesting might be happening with it.  I’ll keep that cryptic for the time being.

Every time I’ve done this in the past, I hem and haw about documenting it; the RPM site has a blog function, and of course I have this blog and my Soundcloud page, and it’s always tempting to document the process (even if I know that nobody cares except me); but inevitably, once I post a demo or two, those demos become “finished products” and then I stop working on them.  So maybe I’ll post some vague progress reports here or on Twitter, but it’s probably just for the best if I keep my head down and stay focused and not get sidetracked by feedback (or the lack thereof).