THE SINGLE LIFE

Today, I was supposed to go out to coffee with a woman I met last week.

I guess it was to be a first date, although I don't believe in "dating" in the traditional sense. I just like to hang out and get to know someone. Go places and do things. Cook for each other. Walk, talk, maybe dance. 

Meeting someone brings up the whole issue of relationships and the single life. To tell the truth, I love being single. I am completely free, to do whatever I want whenever I want. I don't have to listen to anybody's bullshit. (Pardon my French. But then you speak French, don't you?)

I go to bed when I want, I get up when I want, I take naps when I want. I eat what I want when I want. I spend my days writing and reading and working out. Usually, I work for a living. Often, I spend time with my grandkids. But that's a free involvement. I leave when I want.

It's the ideal life. So why would I want to screw it up by getting involved with a woman? I don't know. Good question. Let me think about it.

I'm sure a lot of women feel the same way. After a certain point in life, relationships seem like more trouble than they are worth.

I'm sure there are advantages to being with someone. But right now, I can't think what they are.

Anyway, she called this morning to cancel. Hmm. Not bad. Another day of freedom. It's hard to beat that.  

As my son said when he was a wise teenager, It takes a damn good woman to beat no woman at all.

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

THE LIFE OF A KULTURE VULTURE

It is weird that some of us devote our whole lives to art. In my case, it's writing -- poetry and fiction and dramatic forms.

But I don't know why.

In my case, I think I saw the respect that teachers gave it in school. You know, Faulkner, Hemingway, Shakespeare. Whole classes were devoted to these dudes.

I started writing, and I thought I could do it, and my teachers encouraged me, and I sent stuff out, and it got published.

At one point, I thought I was writing for future generations. I imagined I would be studied in English literature classes in a hundred years.

"Well, now we come to this amazing 20th century writer, Roger Angle." I could hear it in my head.

I actually thought I could knock James Joyce out of the ring. I wrote a 98-page novella called "Kissing The Mermaids Goodnight," which had no story and no characters, just a voice, like a prose-poem. I thought, hell, James Joyce never did that.

Lord, the things we do when we are young. Well, I was awfully literary and awful full of my own talent. Or so I thought.

I still recall some of the lines: "He ran, I saw that he ran." I think I was writing about myself, watching myself running away from something, perhaps it was life itself.

I know the writers of the past had their own troubles making a living. And I know that some of the greats died broke. Aye, there's the rub.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

HOT PRODUCTS

I don't understand the salivating, the drooling, the excitement people get over new consumer products--new fashions, new technology, new computer toys, new gizmos of any kind. New stuff.

A lot of it isn't that different from the old stuff. Our economy relies on consumer spending. Something like 66% of the GDP (gross domestic product, all the goods and services produced in the USA in one year) involves consumer spending. New cars and TVs and computers and clothes and stuff.

Lots of people get excited over consumer products. The hoople-heads (a term for the masses, from "Deadwood") think they have to have the latest product from BMW or Chanel or Louis Vuitton or Pucci or Gucci or Rolex or Sony or Apple. They have to have a new iPhone or E-phone or BS phone or WTF it is. They don't seem to notice that an iPad is just another computer with a slick user interface.

Talk about status symbols. Why would anyone want a Rolex or a Tag Heuer watch? I don’t get it. Why not just get a foot-long sausage and pack it in your pants?

Do you really give a damn what other people think? Why not just say on a T-shirt, I have lots of money, and I am richer than you, so you can kiss my ass. Or better yet, I own you, kiss my fanny.

Does the country benefit from this worship of wealth, or like Thorstein Veblen said, conspicuous consumption? In this country, we worship money, status, and sex. And of course ourselves. What good has that done us?

Talk about superficial values.

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

THE VALUE OF GENIUS

Why is creativity so lowly paid and little respected in our society?

Why do we have “the starving artist”?

Why are Vincent Van Gogh's paintings worth millions now, a lot more than when he was alive?

I think I know the answer: Because we don't know how to judge art or creativity. We don't know how to value it.

We know how to measure stock values on the NYSE. Prices go up and down in hard currency. We know how to value bread or cheese, jeans or gasoline. We know how much they are worth to us.

But when we see works of genius, we don't have a clue.

Hollywood is full of creativity, yet it values mostly those movies that make the most money. The almighty $ is their yardstick.

In the art world, B.S. reigns supreme. As a friend says, If you can convince the right six or eight people you are a genius, then you are. People will gather around and kiss your fanny.

But that isn't valuing creativity. That's valuing BS. And people do love their BS. More on that in a later post.

Another thought on Van Gogh: His paintings are worth millions not because they are great art, but because they are unique, highly recognizable and highly prestigious objects. To own a Van Gogh, presumably, you have to be rich. And it is because a Van Gogh is a status symbol that it is so highly prized. At least that's what I think.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

(Link:)

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/records/budgets.php

CYBER VIRUS

I just spent the last few days hassling with a computer virus. What a pain in the butt.

If you know any hackers who create these viruses, please tell them for me I'd like to break their fingers, one by one, until they stop.

This virus was like a bad joke, a prank. It changed certain character names in my novel to "I," so that a sentence that might have read "John hated Jeannie" now read "I hated Jeannie." The sentences still made sense, but their meaning was changed.

It was maddening. I am now going through 100 pages of edited work, line by line, sentence by sentence, to double check. And I will have to keep an eye out for these weird changes in the rest of the 650-page typescript.

Yargh. Of course, it could have been worse. At least, the hacker didn't destroy the whole book.

My advice: always have a good, up-to-date antivirus program installed and working. I use Trend Micro (which I must have mis-installed), but Phil, my computer guru, recommends Norton, by Symantec.

Either way, don't go online without one.

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle 

ADMIRABLE THUG

The other night, I watched Part 1 of a two-part docu-drama called "Mesrine," about a famous French criminal.

According to the movie, Jacques Mesrine was a violent, vicious thug. But he was also a natural man, who went without hesitation or scruples for what he wanted, who let no man and no law and no convention stand in his way, and who was quick to land on his feet.

In one scene, he and a buddy get caught burglarizing a house. The unlucky victims, a couple, come walking in. Mesrine quickly impersonates a cop. "We have come from the police department to tell you that your home has been burglarized." 

In a way, it is hilarious and even admirable. But of course Mesrine deserves to get locked up, which happens.

The odd thing about the movie (or at least the first half) is that it has no conventional dramatic structure. No through-line, no central dramatic question. The only question in the back of your mind is, What in hell is he going to do next? 

Being constrained by the bio-pic form, the story is necessarily episodic. But it is fascinating. I can't wait to see Part 2. Do I want to be him? No. I am glad I am not Jacques Mesrine, but he is fun to watch. He goes to jail, but I don't.

-- Roger



(Link:)
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Mesrine-Part-1-Killer-Instinct/70107140

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

THE GREAT MYSTERY

I don't believe in God. I think the whole idea of God is a fabrication by Man. I'm not an atheist but an agnostic.

I believe in the great mystery, that we are surrounded by the unknown and the unknowable. We don't know where we came from, where we are going, or why we are here.  

Did we exist before we were born, or not? Does our soul come into being when we are born? Or when we are conceived? When our parents make love? When they decided to have a child? We have no clue.

Do we even have a soul, separate from our body? We don't know that either. Certainly we have an animating spirit that moves us, but we don't know what that is.

Does our soul go to heaven when we die? Hell, we don't know. We can't know.

Why do so many ignoramuses prattle on about God and what God knows and what God wants? I am not sure. Power, I think. It gives them a certain amount of power over others to pretend to know what they can't know.

Reminds me of a quote from the great lawyer Clarence Darrow:
“I do not consider it an insult but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means.”

Apparently people were appalled that Darrow was an agnostic. I'm proud to be in his company.

I do not fear the great mystery. There is no point in being afraid of what you can't understand and can't see or describe or hear or remember. No point at all.

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle