hindering the entire organization

I watched Source Code when it released and didn't think anything much about it after walking out of the theater. I enjoyed it for the most part, schmaltzy ending aside. Tonight the roommate and I watched it and I realized that I had some major problems with the screenplay. For what it was it was a mostly acceptable way of presenting the story, but in doing so it created some real annoyance with the main character, which shouldn't be present in something as straight-forward as the story is.

So Jakey G plays a helicopter pilot recruited to take part in a cutting edge experiment in "time reassignment". His consciousness is placed in the body of a Chicago commuter with 8 minutes to live before a bomb detonates killing everyone aboard the train. In those 8 minutes lived over and over Groundhog Day-style, his mission is to find the bomber and prevent a future dirty bomb attack on Chicago. He is told over and over that he can do nothing to save the people on the train, that his mission is to identify the perpetrator and save 2 million people in the future.

Jakey G, despite being a Army pilot used to following orders, instead spends most of the movie kissing his seatmate, accosting a innocent dude on a cell phone, punching another guy in the face and acquiring a gun that has no real relevance to his mission. And asking questions. He doesn't get why he's there, how he was chosen, and if his dad knows where he is. Again 2 million people's lives are at stake, but most important is talking to his dad.

Eventually he gets it together and finds the culprit and after getting his avatar (and seatmate) killed a couple times, he stops him and turns him over to authorities. But that other hour of the movie where he has too many questions is my main problem with the movie. Upon a second viewing I just couldn't suspend my disbelief any longer and it took me right out of the movie.

I think the problem is the screenwriting. While a decent script as far as story, relatability and action goes, the imparting of information to the audience was blunt and inelegant. I'm sure there was a way to tell the audience about Source code without jakey G whining about how he didn't know WHAT WAS GOING ON! and HOW CONFUSED HE WAS! Off the top of my head I have no solutions, but there was a real failure to convey exposition without hating the main character and thinking, "Why wouldn't he just follow his orders?" "Why is his dad so necessary to him doing his job?" "why wouldn't saving 2 million people not propel him into action?" Either less information should have been provided to him, or a different way of answering the questions we are asking through Jakey G should have been devised.

In the end Source Code isn't a bad movie, but upon second viewing my enjoyment was curtailed by its crude exposition and its creation of the whiniest pilot ever.

I have never heard such talk of God's plan and His glory until this last month in Iowa. I doubt I heard this much about God at CHURCH CAMP. And it's all in the paper Op-Ed pages. It feels like I live in a giant cult compound.

So the latest uproar is not about the movie Cedar Rapids, which opens today in TWO Iowa theaters... both in Cedar Rapids, a movie that depicts meth use and prostitution in association with Iowa's 2nd largest city. No, its about WRESTLING. Because more people follow that then are on the internet or care about movies. Two female wrestlers qualified for the State tournament. The opponent of one said he would not wrestle a girl because of his religious convictions. It became the biggest story in the world. The sports columnist got a front page above the fold article.

So what it boils down to is a 17-ish kid has too much principle to wrestle a girl because his religion doesn't allow it. This is not Sandy Koufax on Yom Kippur, this is a kid who knows nothing outside his home and church who believes that wrestling is a "combat sport" and that boys and girls shouldn't come into that kind of contact.

If you parse his statement it is actually saying girls should not be allowed to wrestle, without saying it. It isn't about inappropriate sexual contact, according to him, it's about hurting the girl. Well the girl is there voluntarily, she signed the waiver, she put in the work. And she's wrestled over thirty matches at that weight class without getting hurt, its pretty bombastic to think that you'd be the one to injure her.

There's no scriptural basis for his belief said his father, a PASTOR. It's on the principle of loving the women he's related to. And protecting them... by not wrestling against a girl he ISN'T related to... I guess. If a pastor can't come up with a religious argument, how should I?

Ok, the kid has principles against wrestling a girl for whatever reason. Only he doesn't, no 17 year-old has principle worthy of the word, unless they have gone through enough life experience to earn it. Until then its a closely held idea, sure. It's the way you think about things. But it isn't BASED on anything. Ironically, going through this might create some principles, but before now? He's a home-schooled kid who gets his information from his family and his church. That isn't principle, that is indoctrination. When I was 17 I thought gays were evil to the point that the only day I did not wear jeans was National Coming Out day because I didn't want to be seen as supportive. I didn't KNOW any gay people, but I knew they were bad because church told me so. Church also told me there was a wonderful plan for my life if I followed God's word. So I did for like ALL my adolescence and young adulthood. I had no real girlfriends, I got no real world experience, and I got messed up with Leah. The only thing church gave me was $70 a month for helping set up chairs before service.

You know what the real world does? It tests your principles by bringing you into contact with people who think and act differently. Unless you actually walk amongst those people, at school, at work (kid works at the church), in social situations; you aren't going to ever be tested on what you believe.

You know what changed my mind about gays? When one of my friends came out of the closet... for about 3 months. But him talking to me, explaining how he felt humanized the issue.

So God doesn't want the kid to win State then? Why else would he have put a girl in his way? I'm sure the kid will think of it as a test and be proud of himself for standing up. But let's see where that attitude gets him. See how he feels down the road when he looks back at that 35-4 year when he could have made history. See how his life turns out.

And it might be great, he might win state next year when he DOESN'T have to wrestle a girl. He might meet a nice girl in church and treat her like property (valuable property, but property nonetheless) and have babies and raise them the VERY same way. And it will be another generation of Iowans who don't know what the hell the world is about because they are kept from it by their family and their faith.

In other news, two dudes wrestled the other girl, beat her and moved on. There was NO story about that.

And what about the girl, she believes enough in her convictions to go into a, many times, hostile arena and wrestle because she believes in herself. She isn't going to get a scholarship from it. She's going to learn life lessons about standing up for what you believe in. But at least she believes in something good, equality in sports. And he believes? Girls are icky? Girls are weak, fragile flowers? Maybe they shouldn't vote either.

The girl's father was incredibly gracious about it. I'm not even involved and I'm angry.

I guess the good thing is now he knows how it feels to sacrifice for what you believe. Faith is only faithful when it has been tested. I lost my faith because believing wasn't making me a better person, it wasn't rewarding in any sense. I credit him with taking a stand, but the stand he's taking? Is kind of ridiculous. It's about how he personally believes about boy-girl relations, it isn't about equality or persecution or tolerance. It's about the exact opposite, about NOT believing in equality. THAT'S why I'm against the whole thing.

Fucking Iowa.

This is the attitude that I most hate about this library and I will never miss it here as long as I remember THIS is what the patrons were like.

OG, Orbit, and Greg were chatting with me at the desk last night when an old woman walks up and asks, "Are children just allowed to chatter in the library?" I told her yes, until it bothered someone and then she could tell us and we would correct it. She stormed off I guess not liking that answer and we were all like, "Yeah, children should not be allowed to talk... ever!" And kind of dismissed it.

Today I was walking in and there was one dog leaving the library and another one coming in. I have never gotten ONE complaint about dogs in the library. DOGS in the LIBRARY! But if there are children here, and they are talking? Outrage. THAT is why Monroe sucks and always will. THAT is why we should not be a Teen Zone. THAT is what I have been telling people for 2 years now. Leadership has never seen or acknowledged that pervasive attitude that the library is no place for kids, and even though I've been saying it, no one listens to me.

The other sad part about Monroe, if not the library, is that there's this kid Greg who's always thought about things really deeply and come up with theories on education and politics. Only there's no one around here that will talk with him about it. All the other kids are so concerned with the present and their next hit and their next score and where they're sleeping tonight that Greg's theories don't have any relevance to them. So mostly they ignore him. And Greg is the sort of kid that NEEDS to go away to college and live in a dorm and have deep discussions about the meaning of life and find other kids that GET him. And he's not going to find that as easily at Community College or on the streets of Monroe. Last year he was telling me about the Oludavi Effect, this year he seems to have mostly given up on thinking about things and is running around town all night with underage girls.

So there's at least two things I won't miss.

I should not be surprised, but I am a little taken aback by this. There is a paper keeping track of all the holiday weekends we have to work to make sure it is as fair as possible. I was looking at it today, for probably the first time, and thought, "FIVE? That seems a little low for the past 3+ years." So I looked closer and yeah, I don't know what the exact critieria is, but I'm pretty sure it is wrong.

SO I've worked at LEAST 2 Super Bowls (which yeah, is NOT a holiday but is on the sheet). I did not get credit for either apparently. This is also galling because until recently I was the ONLY guy on staff. I worked last Christmas Eve and didn't get credit for that. I'm working this day after Christmas but it hasn't been attributed yet.

Veteran's Day and New Years Eve have never been attributed to anyone, but I'm not sure I've worked either. Father's Day has not since 2006. I know I didn't work it THIS year, but before that I'm hazy. Still I've worked more than FIVE.

I'm not feeling well and have nothing to do, but I will make it to the end of the month without calling in. Or eating lunch.

My parents gave me my old stories written for and about the Elm Street Gang when I was home. I was reluctant to do anything with them because only one is passably readable and the others pretty much embarass me. But they insisted I take them since they had paid $50 to recover them.

I broke down and reread a couple of them since I've been back and I think my instincts about their quality were spot on. There are flashes of genuine humor, but much of it is lazy or stolen from other sources, or just not funny.

But I KNEW that. What I didn't realize was how different that person who was authoring them was. Sure everyone is exaggerated, to the point of unrecongibility in some cases. (I can see why Alesha and Jenessa never really cared that much about the stories, it isn't that they weren't portrayed well, it's that I didn't do a good job of portaying them.) But it's pretty clear who is writing the stories. Someone excited to be doing it, eager to share sketches of his neighborhood and friends and humor. It's amatuerish in most cases, but it is joyful in tone. You almost have to read with a smile on your face, not because the stories are necessarily funny (though they have moments), but because somehow the fun of writing them comes through. It is only with the last two, a story about a talking racoon head and cultists and the culmination of the Bat saga with dead neighbors and what passes for a suspenseful chase (though it is towards the town's all-purpose contingency plan, a incredibly large tennis racket) that a more gritty take pervades the story. I always wondered why that racoon head story felt different since it does have its share of funny moments(or supposedly funny, a lot of the humor rests on eels which I find surprisingly humorous... and common in those stories). But it's just plain darker. Unlike the last Bat story, I don't think it's very good because of that conflict between dark and funny. I don't have a copy in front of me, but I don't think the Bat story has much humor at all (tennis racket aside). I think it not only shows who is writing it, but it also becomes almost good because of that. And it was written after college in a transitional time full of insecurity and purposelessness.

That isn't to say some stories aren't funny, but it is the stories I DON'T have copies of that stick in my head. Gang vs Squirrels, Gang saves Prom, parts of the Gang visits Cornell. Probably they're better in my mind because I remember the good parts (Lori creates a time machine, Toad-shaped nuclear device, and "Hello my name is Squanto" nametag) and leave out the terrible awkward writing that gets you there. My favorite line is from a story I'm not sure I ever finished, I know it languished for a long time because I didn't know what to do with it (and that says something because some endings as written are just...unfortunate). Lori is complaining about people at Subway asking if the tuna is dolphin safe. It is, but the Seafood and Crab is 75% dolphin. That still makes me smile. But the humor is mostly straight ahead and not subtle, and like in the racoon head story contradictory to what the rest of the story is saying (that one was about a serial killer wearing a beekeeper's mask, but started on the premise that you often see one shoe on the highway, what happens if you take it?).

So as I was walking to the car I thought about a grown up Elm Street gang story... and also about Dungeons and Dragons playing a part and us convincing protesters that it was good that we used to play after we slay a dragon... or something, it wasn't well thought out. The part that I objected to was that I am certainly NOT that person anymore. The person that wrote those stories was excited to get up in the morning, filled with promise and optimism, and found everyday things funny. Now I'm bitter and angry and sad and mostly just hate interactions with people. I'm sort of curious what THAT Elm Street Gang would look like (but would be so sad and horrible that no one but me would read it). But I also went out with perhaps the best start-to-finish story (Katie, Jenessa, and Lori vs leprechauns) with inarguably the best ending. I don't want to cheapen that... which admittedly isn't an important consideration or even probably possible. That post-apocaylptic adulthood Elm Street story would be actually interesting to others though.

I'm not entirely sure I can write funny at this point. Leprechauns was written before Jen. All my attempts at fiction since then have been totally serious. I'd LIKE to write funny, but I don't channel it well. I can still BE funny, but I don't summon that, it's inherent.

What I do know is that the joy of writing for an audience is gone, and that might be one of the main obstacles standing in my way. When I wrote those stories I didn't care if they were thematically the same or awful writing as long as they made my neighbors laugh. I'd often jsut drop them off at the neighbor's house and go on my way, but what I really liked was sitting and watching them read, discovering what they found funny. Now I write with an eye towards who is going to be judging me, how am I going to be compared to the authors which have influenced me, if their style is bleeding through. Which might make for BETTER stuff, but then again I've never finished anything with that in the back of my head.

I think what sums it up is that I wrote a 25-30 page story about NSYNC, schoolteachers, aliens, the Red Teletubby, and Woodsy the Owl. Then went back and footnoted it for a girl I talked to once. I put some TIME into that one. I wrote about what was important to my audience, and then wrote MORE to impress a girl. I can't even fathom of doing that now. All I want to write about now is how much I hate libraries in general and this one in particular.

Legs hurt so much. I was kandistomping at 2 AM, which hasn't happened at a rave forever. I didn't exactly have fun per se, but I'm glad I went. Hyperfunk and Wheelz were great, headliner was surprisingly awesome, and Cricket wasn't terrible. In pain I hung around for Bouncy who played The Outfield remix so that was good. Left at 3 sharp because I could barely stand.

Next week is Hard Dance Nation which I'm definitely going to and then MAYBE Don't Panic in October.

I was driving howm at 3 through Seattle and I really enjoy that trip from 1st Ave to Mill Creek. But as much as it reminds me of good times (as does Bouncy's Bubble Bobble) it isn't what I want from life. I have to figure out what that is and find it.

I feel better I think since I doubled my meds. Maybe up for writing or something similar. Right now I'm still playing Mass Effect, but I have a feeling that once I put in my notice I'll be more driven to try again.

So I've been thinking about taking the ferry from Bellingham to Alaska because I've never been to Alaska and it seems like a cool thing to say I've done. Like seeing the Get Up Kids in concert (it may actually be as boring as seeing the Get Up Kids in concert). Only I wanted to go in September and then totally forgot about it.

So now it's October and getting colder and I still want to go. It's like 36 hours to Ketchikan, but there is no way to get to anywhere FROM Ketchikan so I think I'm gonna have to go to Juneau and fly back. It's like 60 hours to Juneau and while I could catch up with a lot of reading in 60 hours, I think I could get a LOT of writing done. Without distractions and 2 1/2 days to just hang out I think I could be very productive.

So I asked for the time off and I'm hoping it gets approved.

I'm sure I'd rather just hang out at home and play Xbox too, but I have to figure out if I'm going to write or just say I'm going to write when I get more time or less depressed. It makes a kind of expensive vacation for a place without beaches or gambling, but if I can figure out this writing thing it will be worth it.

If nothing else I could totally write about a ferry ride that goes bad. THAT would be a movie I'd want to see.

Like a year ago there was a rumor going around that one of the library kids was dead. Turned out not to be true. We found out like 3 days later which is a weird time frame to determine if someone was actually not alive or not.

I guess yesterday a different library kid went in for surgery and never came out. None of this bullshit "I think he's dead but maybe not" stuff. Like actually pronounced by doctors and everything.

Again it wasn't a kid I knew overly well. He kind of hung around on the outskirts of the library scene. But he was always super nice to me and everyone else he knew. Always smiling and welcoming and never into any drama or the petty grudges library kids seem to incite. A wise older soul and I will definitely miss him. He was one of the good ones.

The pseudo-death of the other kid was surprising (if the circumstances weren't) and abrupt, but the real thing was a brutal kick in the stomach for me and I'm really concerned for what the kids are feeling. It's gonna be rough.

The one bright spot is that 2 of my kids came in this morning to tell me and make sure I was ok. I asked the same thing of them. They said they were going to walk around town making sure everyone was dealing with it and be back later where we could make an announcement at teen programming today.

I've never been able to deal with death very well. So this sucks might be the best I can do. But this really sucks. I'll miss you Day-vo.

There was a time in my job where we were the best (or second best) library at attracting teens. Then Mukilteo got in the act and started doing 11 programs a month and attracted three hundreds of kids and I stopped looking as awesome. We're now third and in striking distance of second. I told the Roommate that if I can get all my kids out of rehab or jail we'd be ready to make a push for second place.

Today I didn't really feel like going into work and I certainly don't feel like being here without the succor of ice cream, but I didn't actively hate the idea. Also a bunch of my kids came in to talk to me and Lil Jonny Urine loved Looking for Alaska as is doing some kind of project on John Green because of me.

So I made a difference. Also some girl asked where I got my eyebow pierced and I told her to look up the teen who did it. I also told her it hurt and bled alot though, so I'm not sure if she will.

The dude who comes in to sleep and look at pr0n (in reverse order, because all the porning tuckers him out) told me that one of the kids in the teen area had their shoes off. It was all I could do not to look at him and say, "Really? YOU'RE complaining about behavior issues in the library? Go back to sleep, porny!"

No closer to going to Barcelona, seeing the Setup, being on the Amazing Race, or much of anything else. I went to Canada yesterday though. And tomorrow I get to go to Everett library for book discussions. And I get to talk about the teen project on Thursday. So yay for field trips.

Amazing Race was bad. I got up early to go to Muckleshoot with the Prospect and when we got there we found out: we had not bought DVDs to transfer our audition video onto, we needed pictures and proof of passport which we did not have, we were in a long line, and basically had wasted the previous and upcoming 3 hours. So we went home and I went to sleep. It was kinda sad for me but really sad for the roommate who was really looking forward to something to look forward to.

I also went to Snoqualmie, met the guitar hero, won 60 bucks at poker, and had a really good time with a CSG. I'm glad she bullied me into going. Love the casino, love making fun of Amish Seizure and Tear-Stained Elevator Shoes even more. I still think Double Shot of Ska-lua is an ok band name though.

I guess there are people I can go to Barcelona with, but I'm still not in contact with them. Looks like it should still happen though.

Just gotta get through 4 more hours and I'll be happier.