Getting started

It is Friday morning and I am in the New Voters Project office, firing a laser gun at a piece of paper.

I don’t think they like me here. I get cold looks as I wander through the dirty office, just checking things out, seeing what’s going on. They sense the tourist in me, and they feel my lethargy poisoning their dedication and strength of will. Their humorless attitude does not appreciate my wandering about, and their strides become brisker to compensate for my devastating failure. My identity and even my very right to be in the office were called into question by a suspicious beast as I forged the jackal pit of the door-to-door canvasers, and frankly I could see a hint of reluctance in the eyes of the person I had already met, whom I subsequently brought in to validate the legitimacy of my presence.

Eliot shakes his head at me and says “sit down” while selecting some papers from a pile in the middle of the floor. “Don’t fuck things up.”

“I don’t know why I keep fucking it up,” I reply. Eliot rips the laser gun out of my hand and shows me once again how to scan the barcodes on the pages and the reference code sheet in order to enter them into a database. Eliot knows me, and tried to anticipate and prevent this kind of trouble by assigning me to what he said was “mindless work,” but I have nevertheless let both him and myself down by registering what I figure to be around a 30% success rate with this thing. “That’s too close,” Eliot says, and I move the gun away from the page. “No, not THAT far.”

I tilt the gun sideways and fire three times at the barcode on the page, jerking my arm back and forth, feeling the imaginary shockwaves. This causes an error and makes me reset the program, but I do it again anyway.

“Hey, can I have one of those t-shirts?” one girl asks another girl who is seated in a chair adjacent to mine, unpacking them out of a box. She looks up and the natural smile fades from her face.

“Oh. Uh, well, well, we…”

“…oh, are they…”

“—yeah, they’re uh, they’re for—”

“Oh, that’s okay. No, that’s fine.” I feel an icy chill in the air.

“Do you want a poster?” the t-shirt baron offers.

“That’s okay,” with a wounded smile. She turns and walks away.

I drove in last night under the full moon. It happened as I had envisioned for the last two weeks, and even more than I had hoped, it was restorative, being out on the desert highway at night, in the middle of nowhere, looking at the outlines of the mountains in the distance. I felt my self (two words) coming back. It felt good. It felt fantastic, really, and I knew, at least, that for once I wasn’t experiencing a kind of disconnect with the knowledge of what I really wanted. It seems all too often that I’ll be after something or other, and then if I get it, well, what a surprise, it’s not satisfactory at all—in fact what I really wanted was the opposite thing. But this time I got it right. Wonderful. I arrived in Las Vegas and picked up Eliot five minutes before his birthday ended, and after having a drink with his coworkers we headed to our hotel, the Tropicana, where we spent an hour and a half getting to our room and where I finally drifted off into a turbulent sleep.

Things aren’t going so well on the laser gun front. I keep getting taken to an error page on the computer to which the gun’s connected and losing my place on the barcode sheets. I envision the final printout of my work, a travesty of thrice-repeated names and jumbled entries, and give up and get up and go get Eliot for help, which I’ve done too many times already. “How do you keep getting to this page?” Eliot asks, confused, curious and a little frightened.

“It’s not my fault.”

“No,” says the girl beside me into her cell phone. “No. No.” I wait through a pause. “No, I’m not going to Texas, not even for you. No. There’s nothing in Texas for me. I can’t go to Texas.” She is overweight and pasty, and she sounds convinced, almost haughty, but I wonder if I don’t detect a bit of uncertainty in her voice. “Yeah, that’s great,” she says with a smile, changing her tone completely. “Nah…..word, kid?” she asks the phone without even a hint of irony. And then switching back: “fine fine, no, don’t try to plan your life around me, just because I’m your best friend and I love you and you love me…” I turn back to my computer. She finishes her conversation with a sigh. She turns and announces to our empty room—and I, alone in the corner, stare straight ahead and pretend like I think she’s talking to someone I haven’t yet realized doesn’t exist: “You know what I could really go for right now? I could really go for some ABBA…”

* * *

The sun is setting and all of us here at the phone bank are getting tired and delirious from trying to get one hundred strangers to definitively commit to attending two rallies this weekend. What exactly these rallies are, no one has told me—it hardly seems important at this point, especially when held up against the common notion around the disgusting office that the guaranteed attendance of a hundred young kids we cold-called will lead to the attainment of a vague and anonymous but lofty and long-pursued goal. We sit with lists and call people who live on streets named Midnight Ride Dr. and Pinnochio Ave. and Wonderful Day Rd. and Cowboy Fiddle Ct. “Okay, Jose, so we’ll see you at eleven, okay?” Eliot tells his phone, his free hand pressed against his temple. Eliot and his friend Jesse have entered into a momentary contest, calling people from the same list and racing for telephonic connection, and this confirms my previously held belief that these people aren’t just after an altruistic general victory, as their aura might suggest, but are in a small way hungering to deal a crushing defeat to someone. But I’m glad to see that; hell, I know that feeling, and as far as I’m concerned it’s far preferable to the austere attitude that prevailed around the office. It seems like people are lightening up: I’m now an accepted presence in the office, and I’ve even been offered a smile or two—and thank god, because frankly that attitude was engendering some spiteful ideas in my own head, and I was already dreading having to explain to Eliot why I had to cut his phone lines and break his laser guns into tiny shards in order to teach the ugly people with whom he had regrettably associated himself a much deserved lesson.

Lo and behold, the hundredth person commits to attend the rallies, and suddenly the core group, reduced in number to six or seven now, bursts into applause and laughter, music plays from a computer (something someone has been waiting for with his finger on the button) and a fierce jubilation sweeps through the room as the folks can relax for a moment and enjoy a rare tangible result of their efforts, before a hush falls over the room and the smiles fade away and the final objectives of the whole deal creep back out of the shadows, and the talk once again turns to what has to be done next. I myself was responsible for one hundred and forty-five phone calls, but did not draw a commitment from a single person—nor did I have the opportunity to try out the angle I felt would be most persuasive: that people in need or want of sexual contact could not afford NOT to attend these rallies, at which dozens upon dozens of worked up 18-24 year-olds would be stomping purposefully around, endorphins flowing, looking for, whether they acknowledged it or not, an immediate physical outlet for their freshly stoked seething purpose-laden passion.

Eliot and I get back to the office from dinner, it is dark, and the sleep deprivation and insane tempo of this whole thing has apparently affected these people’s memories, because they’re sending me back to work with the laser gun, even after this morning’s debacle, which ended with my fleeing the office with my tail between my legs and being forced to watch television in the hotel room for an hour or two. I start to work, and suddenly, as though their disregard for my earlier failure had endowed me with power and cunning, I become a master with the laser gun. I tack the reference code sheet up on the wall so I can shoot it head-on face to face with the appropriate aggression, and I scan packet after packet of voter registration forms with the swiftness of an assassin and the grace of a gigantic mythical swan. I let go of the gun and it is coated in sweat from my palm—victory sweat, triumph sweat. I’d consider licking it off the gun if someone was around to pay attention to me.

Now, the deal I made with Eliot was, I would put in a good six hours a day for the Cause, but here I am, at hour number eight, and still going strong. This isn’t like me….why don’t I want to leave? Why aren’t I desperate to run away?

A moment of conversation overheard in the office:

F1. Why aren’t you smiling?

F2. “Why?”

F1. Yeah, why aren’t you smiling…?

(PAUSE)

F2. Well, because I’m going through a really shitty time in my life.

F1. Oh.

F2. Yeah, that’s why.

F1. I’m sorry.

F2. You should be.

It’s nice to be in a situation where I’m not the touchy one. And now I’m thinking about leaving after all. Well, these extra two hours are still a victory. A step in the right direction.

<>
I move from one room in the office to another, then another, and am confirmed in my previous impression that the mood has lightened, that spirits have risen. In fact, as I wrote that sentence I was sprayed with canned string. Hell, maybe before I know it these people who seemed so dour and exhausted just this morning will be engaged in nefarious sexual exploits and screaming their voices horse with orgiastic glee. At the moment, though, everyone is simply sitting around, scanning pages, listening to music, conversing quietly. They seem to be content—their brows are relaxed, their heads at rest upon their necks. They sit easy.

It’s a moment of calm in the midst of the storm.

Tonight in Tomorrow

It is night, and I am at home. This is the first time I've written here at night. Without the buzz of the office around me. Without the flourescents peering down on me, without the noise of the working world and without the daytime keeping check on the imagination.

Tomorrow I will work one more day, and then get on the train and take it to the Universal City station where my packed car will be parked, and I'll get in the car and drive toward the 134 on-ramp.

This isn't all as simple as I've made it out to be. I know, I know, that I've attempted to imbue everything so far with a sense of complexity and depth, but really the way I've put everything so far, all the language could be exchanged for a sentence or two, that the natural restlessness of my youth and a hyperactive sense of the dramatic has made me dislike work and yearn for travel--surprise, surprise. I tried to give it a whole bunch of layers, but I wasn't fooled, and I doubt you were either. But there IS more too it than that.

I portend to embark upon a search for truth of some sort, or at least a truthful destination, but I get the feeling that a search for truth becomes a lie itself, existing only to perpetuate the kind of self-gratifcation the acknowledgment of its existence allows, and really in the end you're not searching for anything because you find yourself perfectly content with the idea that you're searching. But with this in mind, what the hell AM I supposed to do with myself? What noble and respectable avenue is out there for me to stride along with my chest puffed out? Hmmmm? Does it involve coming to the realization that I'm in fact satisfied where I am now?--but I'm NOT satisfied. I'm happy, don't get me wrong, I'm happy and optimistic, but there's more to satisfaction than that, isn't there? So if I'm not accepting and I'm not searching, well, what's goin' on then?

But can I believe this either? Tonight there was a lunar eclipse, the moon falling into and out of the Earth's shadow. It doesn't go anywhere, sure, but it becomes veiled, and can disappear, or turn a different color, and that's got a lot to do with something I've been convinced of this whole time: that you may not always be where you think you are. Take a moment and look around you, and what're you seeing? Am I seeing an apartment, furnishings, a tree out the window? Or is this just the shadow covering up something else--a room of inactivity, a reason to remain lonely and isolated, a life I thought I wanted but maybe now am not so sure about, and on and on like this--is that what I'm seeing? And if it is, then what's just beyond THAT? What's the next layer? How deep can I look, exactly....? And how much am I seeing what I want to see?

Look, I'm not trying to overdo this philosophical thing. But I sit down and try to think about something practical, and this is what comes out. And you know what?, that happens in part because it feels good. It feels good because it always leads to my talking about my own weaknesses, and that feels good to me for some reason, I enjoy the hell out of it, even though under normal circumstances I'd never admit to that, I'd say I just like being honest with myself. But honesty turns into reflection which turns into false modesty, which turns into self-deprecation, all faster than you can rush to beat a dead horse, and shit, I'm not immune to it. The fact is, I'm not so helpless, I'm not so alone, I have a family, I have friends, I've got ability and I've got a place for me in life just WAITING, which can comfort you like an electric blanket and frighten you like an electric fence all at the same time, and I get confused but deep down underneath all the musings and the sophistry I know it's all true. But what I can't get rid of is a kind of emptiness that springs on me when I least expect it, and what I can't get rid of is fear.

I'm going to Las Vegas for the purpose of travel and I'm going there for this political shit, but I'm gonna' be there for something else too: Halloween. One holiday I respect. And it's not for the dressing up and the parties, although I enjoy that too. It's for the fact that it serves as yearly reminder that there's something out there, and within us, that we don't understand, and that we don't control, something that we can sense and maybe even feel a little bit and that if we're lucky we can catch a fleeting glimpse of in our periphery if we turn our heads fast enough. And that's something I feel and sense all the time.

And there's another thing waiting for me in Las Vegas. A ghost or two. Or three. I've seen a good handful of people I cared about buried there over the last six years, and when I've been back since then I've put it out my mind, got drunk and played games, and tried to remember it as a city of anything other than death. But that's what it is for me, and that's what it always will be, and I'm not going to turn my head away from it this time, I'm not, because as cryptic and elusive as I may be about this topic, going on about "ghosts" and confrontation, I'm not going to elaborate any more because it's still painful, it still stings, and I want nothing more than to go that city and fight this pain that hasn't gone away and won't go away, at least look it in the eye because I've been too afraid to do it before. And then maybe I'll no longer start crying once in a while for no reason whatsoever when I sit alone in my apartment. Maybe I won't have to wear a face of sadness anymore when a moment overtakes me in a way I can't explain. Maybe I can go to Las Vegas this Halloween and see a ghost--because I know they're there. I've felt their breath too many times to ignore it--although that's all I've ever done. Maybe I can stare into their empty eye sockets and feel what I've never felt before and maybe THAT'S what I'm really searching for, and when I have it I won't have to talk about this bullshit and I can drift off into a dreamless sleep....I don't know how to go about it, but I think I'll know when I get there. They'll come looking for me--they always do. And if they don't, I'll walk the streets till I find them. I think I'll know where to look. I've been a kind of ghost myself before.

And tomorrow, when I wake up, I'll know I've felt like this, just as I've always known, and go about my day. Or maybe I'm going about it right now. Maybe it is tomorrow, and when I tried to write it last night for some strange reason my eyelids became heavy and wouldn't let me see, inside or out.

The Virtuous Horse Rides the Gold Mountain

My life has changed. I now have a ticking clock. And in six days--October 28--I'll leave work, get in my car and head straight for the Nevada border. I'm a changed man.
I'm excited, all right, I don't need to tell you that, surely you must sense it, sense the fact that things were becoming a little stagnant for me, and now, just KNOWING that some sort of CHANGE is in the works for the near future has brought my spirits up. Because doing something you don't like for a short period of time is one thing. Doing the SAME THINGS, about which you're pretty indifferent, for an indefinite period of time, with no escape looming in the distance, does things to my mind that I don't even want to contemplate, and sure, a comment like that may shed some light on the true level of my maturity, but I don't care...so what, I've got no attention span, and I'm never satisfied with what's in front of me, and I get the feeling sometimes that I'm a little spoiled, and like I said, I can't sit still...worse crimes have been committed. Worse traits have found their way into personalities. Sometimes, even into mine.

So now I feel great, because I know I'm DOING something. And one of the first steps of this something is, I'm taking to my car again. My car, which has sat neglected in my garage--because I take public transportation.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Los Angeles, I'll say that it's notorious for being an automobile city. Because the geography of the place is so spread out, a comprehensive and inclusive public transportation system has been out of the question, and what is available, aside from the buses, are just one subway and three light-rail lines that each cut through the city from one point to another. If you happen to live along one of the routes, great. If not, chances are you don't even know that a Los Angeles train system exists. I live along a route. The subway.

So yes, I take the subway from my apartment to downtown every day and back, I live close to the station and I can walk, don't even need to drive myself to a park-and-ride or take the bus to the station. Lucky me. It's great, because I save time and gas money and am actually playing a part (?) in "reducing the gridlock and dependence on gasoline." This is very nice indeed. But there's something else. People will talk about the social isolation of a million commuters, each sitting alone in their vehicles, shut off from the outside world, going to and from work everyday inside a bubble wth no connection to everyone around them. They talk about the lonliness of it all. And to that I say, well yes, that's true--but as far as I'm concerned the lonliness of driving by yourself in a car doesn't hold a candle to the lonliness of riding the train. When you're in the car, you're alone, yes, but you've got your space that's familiar and comfortable, your possessions, your music, your food and water and anything else you may feel like keeping in there. You can crawl into the back and sleep. You can talk out loud to yourself. You own the space. You may be alone, but you own it. On a train, you own jack shit. You may be around other people, sure, but let me tell you, that's not the same thing as companionship, and let me tell you that I have never seen a group of people less interested to talk to each other, to make eye contact or even to go so far out of the way as to acknowledge each others' existences as I see on that train every day. There's a singular kind of dread that flashes across a train passenger's eyes the moment he or she sees someone making for the empty seat next to them that is incomparable to anything I've experience before--and I find myself wondering, does it flash across my eyes too? After a while you begin to see the same faces, too, and while you'd think that that might eventually lead to something, if nothing more than a smile and a mutual acknowledgment of each others' indentities, instead it forces people out of their way onto different train cars, out of different exits, onto new schedules for the sole purpose of evading the familiar, so no one has to risk the prospect of looking another human being in the face and letting them know that there's something other than a tired, weary and eternally distant commuter behind his own eyes. Shit, there's that person again, better hang back, get on this other car or hide behind this support pillar so we don't have to risk anything. And that's the worst part, that in the end you make an effort to BE nothing, to BE nobody--who, me? Oh, I'm nobody, just goin' to work like everyone else. What do I do again? What exactly was my name?--so that maybe when the train comes you can just jump on and crawl into a hole in the back and disappear in a puff of smoke. And if that's not lonliness, I'm not sure what is. And I'll continue to ride the train, because it just makes more sense, but hey, now when I do get to drive around in my car, I feel like I'm at fuckin' Disneyland.

While at work, out of boredom, I went to a dating website to get the free personality profile I saw advertised. I've never had a personality profile of myself written before--at least not one I got to read--and I was good and ready for it. I signed on with the username "virtuous-horse", because the few things I tried first were already taken and that was what came to mind. The "Virtuous Horse," my friend Gabe the philosophy student once told me, was something David Hume used to illustrate the concept of a Complex Idea (although I'm half-convinced that Gabe invented this himself after a long night of taking pills and staring at his computer screen), and since I sure am the image of extreme complexity myself, well, how fitting. Ha. The virtuous horse rides the gold mountain, Gabe told me with the utmost seriousness. Sure, I thought. So on this dating website, after I filled out a VERY long questionaire, I got a few pages of delicious insight into my very own soul fed back to me in microseconds. Some particularly fascinating excerpts:

--"You have a strong feeling of optimism, considered favorably by most people around you. Your perception is that the bottle is half-full rather than half-empty." Oh, absolutely. You've gotten this impression by now, right? I mean, I know we don't know each other that well and all, but I can never hide my overwhelming optimism that well. Tell me, tell me: when did you first know?

--"You may act on impulse. If someone or something catches your eye, you may act without first checking things out." Fair enough. I've said this, I like change. I'm restless and mercurial. But I at least thought I made an effort to check things out.

--"You have to be with people. This extends into the need to gain popularity, achieve social recognition and influence those people around you." Total bullshit. This statement is false, and it's validity can not at all be argued by introducing the fact that I'm writing this thing to an imaginary audience who doesn't exist and probably probably never will exist.

--"One of your great strengths is your ability to communicate and talk readily. Since all strengths may be overused at times, you may sometimes talk too much. " Me, Andy Hyman, talk too much? ME??? Don't be ridiculous.

--"You are a natural communicator. You love to talk, offer jokes and make sure that everyone is having a good time. This trait is especially evident at functions and outings." As a matter of fact, I love to attend, and am frequently invited to, functions and outings--often mysteriously.

--I seek "as much travel as possible: short trips, long trips and excursions." Mmm-hmm.

--I desire "support of your ideas and dreams." I'm not sure why, but this is the one comment I really feel insulted by--like I just failed a career placement test or something.

--"You are skilled at finding "win-win" solutions when conflicts arise." Or maybe I'm just skilled enough at forming my own notions of what a "win-win solution" is that I can justify most of my pathetic and wormy reatreats from life's little challenges, and still feel good about myself besides.

--"You are usually enthusiastic about activities and planning." It's pointless to elaborate, but this is very wrong.

--And of course my favorite: "You tend to enjoy life and share that enjoyment with others." You see that, people? There's a reason I'm writing this, just as there's a reason you're reading this, and it's not for the precious little pearls of sardonic wisdom I was convinced (or at least seriously hoping) I'm bestowing on you. No, you want to consume my enjoyment of life, just as I want to give it to you, like one monkey eating the parasites off another's scalp. You want to understand the key to my happiness and fulfilment and adopt it as a guide to your own enjoyment. You want to bask in my radiant glow. THAT'S why people can't keep away from me, why they smile the moment my eyes gaze into theirs, why they sweat with frantic glee the second melodious language begins to pour forth from my powerful and intimidating mouth. That's why you can't take your eyes off the page. Shit...I knew I was going to like you. I knew we were gonna' get along well. Now I know it's all thanks to me. Hey, will you hold my hand for a moment? Ascending this pedestal isn't as easy as it looks...

So now I know myself SO much better, and have dually abandoned the notion that a person can be many contradictory things at once--to which I was previously so committed. And I can take this all with me as I begin to prepare for my journey, to join my friend Eliot in Las Vegas and live through and absorb six days of madness that will hopefully change the world. Or at least change me. Because regardless of what the personality profile may say, regardless of what I believe, and what I think I know, there are some things about myself that could use a little improving. No, don't try to contradict me, I'm very flattered but I like to be honest with myself. I want it this way. Moses Josh wants it this way. But at least I know I'm going to do something here. Or maybe fail miserably while trying. But either way, I'll get to see--and maybe that's what I'm looking forward to more than anything. Just a glimpse. The virtuous horse rides the gold mountain. I am the virtuous horse. And I will ride the gold mountain, all the way to....what?

Yesterday I saw an old man pushing another old man down the street in a wheelchair. After a short distance they stopped, the man in the wheelchair got up, and they switched places.

Let This Moment Be No Exception

I have problems sitting still. It's no secret; anyone could glance over at me at work, and in the years before this in school, to see the cartoon frustration squiggles eminating from my shoulders and the peak of my skull. I'm a motion kind a' guy. I pace when I talk. I gesture when I'm on the telephone.
I was getting at this in my last entry--this, in a way, is the physical manifestation of the fact that I have this urge to pack up the car and start driving. But what I didn't clarify was that I have a history with this. Four years ago, as a college freshman, three friends and I drove from my home in Los Angeles back to school in central Ohio at the end of our first spring break. Before then, this whole notion of road-trips was something with which I was of course familiar--it's all over the place, fuck, ESPECIALLY in a place like Los Angeles that sits watching over the end of historic Route 66, where bookstores sell copies of ON THE ROAD by the boxful to discontent adolescents (although through some fluke I managed never to read it) and even Britney Spears gets to make a road-trip movie. Where the vast emptiness of the Old West still lingers in the collective desire to chase down the sinking sun, where the sky's so big it feels like you could disappear under it forever, without a trace, where national parks and forests comprise entire states (whose populations are dwarfed by those of sprawling Eastern suburbs), where places still have names like Truth or Consequences and Death Valley and Zzyzx and Big Sky and Tombstone, where folks like Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson and Robert Pirsig defined the philisophical climate of their times by bearing down upon the empty pavement and the only death fit for rebels like James Dean and Richard Farina and a million anonymous others lay inside the confines of a fiery wreck. Oh yes, before my friends and I embarked on my trip in the spring of 2000, I had a pretty good idea of what it was going to be like. But I hadn't felt it yet. And let me tell you, feeling it makes all the difference. It was like crack. I couldn't get enough, and my teeth started falling out.
It got to the point where I was driving back and forth across the country every chance I could, any vacation from school that would allow me enough time, which led to twelve trips in all over the next three years--not a lot by the standards of many, but enough to allow me to establish a slight familiarity with the experience of being on the road, and some of the places I'd encounter here and there along my way. My graduation concluded with one final all-out journey, taking two weeks and leading us on a new route through the northern United States, zigzaging through Montana, Wyoming and Idaho to the Pacific northwest and down the coast to good old Los Angeles. It was a great and moving experience, and my compainons (four in all) and I had adventures and felt things. But it didn't last forever. It's been over a year, like I mentioned last time; and I want more. I need more.
And in this lies some of the restlesness that I've been talking about. All the boo-hoo bitching and moaning about my job of last time is in part a product of it, of course, because really, so I work five days a week, big fuckin' deal, I have an easy job and of COURSE I or anyone else could handle it with his or her eyes closed--it's no travesty, like I may have made it out to be (and herein you'll discover a particular talent of mine--making anything seem more or less tragic, even, as the case may often be, if only to myself), but instead a reflex, almost, an involuntary reaction resulting from these romantic images of freedom on the road with which I've been bombarded for as long as I can remember, coupled with the fact that I've really experienced it a little bit and it was actually everything it's cracked up to be and more. And of course it doesn't help that I can look east from my apartment and see the San Gabriel mountains extending dramatically off into the horizon....
And this can all have the effect of making me discard any rational thought, let alone any practical commitments I've made, to achieve this kind of motion, just as I arrogantly vowed to do at the end of my last entry. And let this moment be no exception: for I've found a way out. In nine days I will be permitted a six-day reprieve from the tedium of the office, and will race frantically and purposefully to Las Vegas, Nevada to participate in, and of course observe (and perhaps even document) a frantic effort to drive the youth of the city to the polls on election day and in doing so oust George W. Bush from the presidency.
This is a new thing for me, this political stuff. In the past, politics couldn't have intested me less (which is not to say I didn't CARE about them, just that I wasn't by nature INTERESTED). But an opportunity has presented itself, championed by my old high school friend Eliot Abel (who is now a full-fledged politico with U.S. PIRG and also, as it happens to be, the son of my employers--and subsequently a locksmith, of sorts). Eliot is himself traveling to Vegas to campaign for a couple weeks and insisted not only to myself but to his parents as well that I join him for the last six days leading up to the election. Well. Let no one say I shirked this great responsibility. Let no one say I shrunk in the face of adversity. This could be a historic moment for this country, and CERTAINLY let no one say I turned my back on history, no, not me, not Andy Hyman. Hell, I'm wearing my Historical Footprint Shoes anyway.
And somewhere, in the background, I can here Moses Josh begin to chuckle.

Cut Out

I'm not cut out for a lot of things.
I've often felt this, had a vague inkling that I fall on the short side of some kind of General Suitability Index, if such a thing were to exist (and more than a few of us are convinced that it does). But sitting here at work, at the desk that recently had the misfortune of becoming MY desk, I know this now more than ever. And I tell you this, because it's time you got to know me a little bit. So know that I'm not cut out for this.
But it wasn't always this way. I've had my moments, sure, just like everyone else. Hey, I wasn't sure I was cut out for high school. I faltered for a while, took my time gaining my balance and waded precariously through numerous attempts to learn how to comport myself, how to act toward others, how to deal with all the new shit that was rushing in between my ever-expanding blinders to complicate what had once been an almost painfully simple existence. But I found my way through it, I got my footing, and ended high school in comfort, even more, in a kind of new wealth of emotional prosperity the likes of which would have been inconceivable to me in the thick and soupy depression I had known a few years prior. I came out all right.
Then college. Man, was I cut out for college. The four years blew by in a frenzy of all things collegiate, the society, the pleasure, and yes, even the academics, and I found my place and I got an even stronger grip on human interaction and I made friends and lovers and felt great, and had a great time, made my OWN great time, all of a sudden at the top of a game I had only ever heard of before, let alone participated in, and I LEARNED, i felt, really LEARNED something, and boy did they have to tear me the hell away from that place--if you look closely you can still see my claw marks on what they called "the delicate fabric of this liberal arts institution". It wasn't the real world, wasn't even close, and I knew that, but so what? That's a small price to pay for the elation that comes with knowing what to do with yourself.
I wrote some plays, directed some plays and some films and felt cut out for THAT. I had searched vainly through my childhood for an inborn talent that I was sure existed, trying one thing after another for signs of natural ability, only to be disappointed time and again, and then to walk away altogether in search of something new. When this whole writing and directing thing came along I went into it prepared to engage myself to no avail in another passing fad, but it turned out that I wasn't so bad at it, and hey, I wasn't great, but I actually ENJOYED it--something I had always forgotten to take into account while trying new activities--and demonstrated enough basic ability with the whole thing to actually warrant a little bit of practice, and a lttle bit of pursuit.
When I graduated college and came home a little over year ago, I was sure I wasn't cut out for life in L.A.--didn't want it, thank you very much, because I've CHANGED, and I KNOW MYSELF well enough to know that I can't write there, that I don't BELONG here.... What I WAS cut out for, I was sure, was the isolation and sobriety my writing needed, which could most conveniently be found, I declared without even a hint of doubt, somewhere in the deserts of the American Southwest. And sure enough, after a few listless weeks I packed up my car and headed with a couple of friends for Flagstaff, Arizona to look for an apartment for a few days, only to return and take up lodging there a few weeks later. I thought it would be great, and that I'd be cut out for it. Apparently I was also cut out for my own kind of romanticism.
And I was cut out for Arizona--for a month or two. But the days grew longer, my idleness grew suffocating, my loneliness grew overwhelming, and without another word, just before my initial three-month Flagstaff trial period was over, I packed up my car and fled back to the social and economic safety of Los Angeles, where my friends and family, kind enough not to rub in--maybe even to see--my defeat on the idealistic playing fields of the desert, welcomed my return with touching enthusiasm and warmth.
Maybe I was cut out for Los Angeles after all. After a few more months of living at home, though, I was as cut out to continue living in my parents' residence as I was to afford my own apartment--but again my family took pity on me and provided me with the financial help required to move into my own place. It was a lovely gesture, and they were happy to do it, they could see that it was the right thing. And it was the right thing. And there I sat for nearly eight months, happy once again, but now no longer cut out to write, direct, or do much of anything--for what emotional gap had I left to fill...? I had my space, my human interaction, my time to myself to read and watch movies and otherwise enrich my consciousness--what the hell would I need to write for? I was happy as a clam. And I realized that I had only begun writing--and in fact had written with the most fervor--at times of sadness, of difficulty, for the act of writing itself had consoled and comforted me. But as great as everything was going, what more comfort did I really need....?
When this started to dawn on me and the money became more scarce, only one option presented itself--a job. Take up some time, give myself a schedule, something to occupy my days and drive me, and earn a little income besides. After some searching, I was provided with employment--8:30 to 5:30 five days a week with an hour for lunch, my first full-time job--at an office belonging to the parents of a friend. And now I've been here four weeks, at this desk, and there's one thing I'm certain of--I'm not cut out to work.
Jesus Christ I'm not cut out to work. I'm not cut out to focus all day, to manage the minutiae of the office that trickles down to my lowly receptionist desk, CERTAINLY not cut out to sit in one spot for hours. I'm not cut out to ride the train back and forth everyday at rush hour, to be one of the faceless millions, to dress in a style people keep calling "business casual". I'm not cut out to respond to social invitations (which were at one time so scarcely extended to me, and so now, even though there hasn't been any drought of them for years, are particularly meaningful and almost painful to turn down) with a defeated "no, I can't, sorry, I have to work." I'm not cut out to get up early every day, to have the efficiency of the office and the efficacy of others' work riding on my own shoulders, I'm not cut out to know that I won't have a day off until Thanksgiving, and then not another one until Christmas, and then not another one until President's day or something, my GOD, I didn't think I'd ever be counting the minor holidays like Pete Rose counted the point spread, scanning the pages of the calendar, blocking out the precious few free weekday moments of the year already designated as such to run insignificant every day errands, "oh, great, Martin Luther King Day," I sickeningly catch myself thinking, "fanTAStic, I'll finally have a moment to get my teeth cleaned and renew my driver's license," ahhhhhhhhhhh. This can't really be me. This is nothing like the me I know. I guess I'm just not cut out for this.
I know what you're thinking--"come ON, shut up and go to work already, everybody does it"--and you're right to. Whine whine whine, so much sometimes I disgust myself--that's ALWAYS been something I've been cut out for. And I repeat your statement to myself on a momentary basis, which is how frequently I feel the urge to quit rising in my stomach, "shut up and just take it, be an adult." All right. I'll be an adult. I'll be an adult and a receptionist. And a writer. How hard could that be?
Before he became a playwright, the great Peter Shaffer decided, after a series of failed jobs, that he was "unemployable", and so took to writing; and I wish I had never read this anecdote because knowing that he made that decision and still went on to his eventual artistic triumph and financial success, and in the theatre world, no less, makes it a lot harder for me to come back to this office every day. But I still do it--because I just don't want to give up. The money isn't such a big deal. I'll survive, one way or the other, and I can't get rid of these semi-ridiculous notions that keep whirring around in my head about "money-rich" vs. "time-rich," and all that. And I'm not one for expensive tastes anyway (all right, maybe a few). I just really don't want to be a quitter.
But if for some reason they'd be willing to fire me...
And most of all, it's hard, because I still carry with me the dream that I lived the last eight months during my unemployed freedom, and of which I never really took advantage, of being able to wake up in the morning and decide the moment's right and get in my car and drive off into the desert, into the mountains, to the ocean, wherever my fancy will direct me, to adventure myself for a few days. Why do I have this unrelenting burning NEED to drive into the unknown?, with nothing but a bunch of cash and credit cards and a file full of insurance policies and a cell-phone and reserve cell-phone and a CLEARLY BEACONED RETREAT ROUTE HOME to protect me from the great open sky? Who knows? But although I'm sticking around this office for the time being, and trying to one way or another write my way out of it and into the world of the coddled and the adored, I'll always want to keep driving, I feel--because I'm cut out for that. More than a lot of other things. And though I may be trapped by, I'm gonna' find a way to hit the road before long...

something fishy

There's something fishy about this. But let me explain:
Journals aren't something new, of course, we all know this, and neither is the idea of writing a journal with the lofty hopes that someone might read it, love it, canonize you as a bearer of honesty and legitimate, unabashed self-reflection. Shit, James Boswell and Thomas de Quincey did it, hundreds of years ago, and it worked for them (even with de Quincey injesting a kille dose of opium every day), and I'm sure they weren't the first. I'd even be willing to bet that the idea predates the invention of surnames.
But I think the notion of writing a published journal has also found a new home in a dark corner of the much larger concept of The American Dream. The whole rags-to-riches thing has alot to do with hard work, and enterprise, sure, but I know I wouldn't be the first person to have cross his mind the thought that maybe, if I just record my shitty everyday experiences AS THEY'RE HAPPENING, a little bit at a time, hoards of people will come along and marvel at my insights and throw praise and money at me, and applaud my minor dramas ("oh my GOD," they'll say, "can you believe he ACTUALLY ran out of gas, and walked a whole three-quarters of a mile to a gas station, only to walk back again??? He's SO amazing....what a hero!"), and then I'll majestically rise above my own insignificance, and THEN, I won't even have to have shitty everyday experiences anymore. I'll be exhalted. They'll hand me briefcases of money for a half-hour motivational speech. EVERYBODY WILL WANT TO HEAR WHAT I HAVE TO SAY...
Of course there's always been an obstacle: the publishing world. That's right, admission isn't free into this whole thing, someone with some authority is going to have to decide that you have something worthwhile to say, and the means with which to say it, and this person might not be able to tie his own shoelaces without repeating to himself some sort of rhyme, but he worked his own angle of the American Dream well enough and is sitting behind a desk clanking his kinetic energy balls looking at you with a single bloodshot eye and telling you that he doesn't think your stuff would really be appreciated by the reading public.
And there's another obstacle: your own patience. Because hey, it may seem like a great idea at first, but if you write about your own life long enough, you may just find out how boring it really is. And then, next thing you know, you're attending seminars at airport hotels.
But then comes the internet to save us from these things. Write what you want, post it yourself, people read it if they want to, stop when they want to--and you can stop too, if you just can't take it. And maybe, just maybe, someone'll read it, and find there's actually something there--and then won't it be great to know that it wasn't all for nothing after all?
So here I am, with my feet on the starting blocks, and MAN, let me tell you, are you gonna' LOVE what I have to say....oh, readers, it'll bring us all so much closer, it'll enlighten you while you read it just as I have been enlightened through the act of writing it--just like that journal I kept on my trip to Europe that I didn't show anybody...or maybe there'll just be a little something to make it stand out as something a little different. Either way, I'm convinced that I'll be the next donkey to really catch the literary carrot that keeps dangling a few inches from my snout. Jim Bouton did it, and all HE had to do was play major league baseball for a decade. I went to college, work in an office and have done a little traveling, which is pretty much the same thing.
But like I said, there's something fishy. And that is, that I may be talking to a void, or I may be talking to someone I don't know, out there in the world, OR I may be talking to someone I know very well, or all three. And my honesty, my pure, unbridled honesty, is compromised by the fact that what I say could very well come back to bite me in the ass, and quick. So I better watch it...but I'm still gonna' make an effort. I'm still gonna' make an effort to make this real, and honest, and more than anything worth reading, although I can't yet really conceive of a reason to make it so. I figure I'll just kinda' wing it. Wish me luck.
So here it is, the Moses Josh Galactic Symphony, a grandiose and ridiculous name for something that I hope will be small, personal and down-to-earth. Maybe I just should've called it the Journal of Andy Hyman. Or maybe just the surely spine-tingling "Thoughts". Oh well. The damage is done. And who is Moses Josh? Well, if we make it through this, maybe I'll tell you; although it's really not all that exciting. Until next time....