The Sandman

Throughout my whole life, I’ve seen three different examples of what a “Sandman” is supposed to be. First, there was the version we all heard as kids: that creepy dude that sprinkles dust in your eyes so that you’ll fall asleep faster. What he does to you afterwards is anybody’s guess. If you’re a wrestling fan, particularly hardcore wrestling, then The Sandman has a much different meaning to you. He was an antisocial beer drinker who liked to throw his opponents into barbed wire and knock them out with Singapore cane shots to the skull. Again, what this version of The Sandman did to his opponents after they were knocked unconscious, well, that’s up for debate. And then you have a version of The Sandman that comes from the works of Neil Gaiman. I had no idea Neil Gaiman even existed until I got a Sandman graphic novel for my 28^th birthday. The point was further emphasized when I saw Mr. Gaiman on an episode of The Simpsons that made fun of team writing. Speaking of team writing, I’d like to do a blog entry about that someday. Sounds like fun. But you know what? We still have to do something with this Sandman topic. What we have here are three different examples of what a Sandman is supposed to be. That leads me to believe that you can slap the name Sandman on pretty much any character you’ve got and it’ll sell like hotcakes. For instance, if you were writing the script for a manga series about giant robots, you could call the main giant robot The Sandman and he’ll be more badass for it. Maybe he can carry a fiery scythe and a chain gun while having a Mary Jane cigarette between its teeth. Or maybe you’re working on a horror novel and The Sandman can be a creepy ghost that sneaks into the bedrooms of little boys and girls at night. What he does with them is all up to your sick and sadistic imagination, you fucking freak. What if you’re writing a Dungeons & Dragons-style adventure novel and The Sandman was a seven-foot tall black knight with a battleaxe as big as his torso? It could very well happen. Being called a “Sandman” is a very good thing. Take advantage of the moniker as much as you can. Hell, I can be a Sandman myself because I’m probably putting you all to sleep with my mindless banter. If that’s the case, grab a blanket and put on some new age tunes, because it’s going to be a long night!

　

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

Q: What do horror movie monsters and trick-or-treaters have in common?
A: They like to eat airheads.

Ratings and Book Buys

TV producers and authors have one thing in common: they need people to see their work. TV producers need ratings and authors need book buys. The difference between the two occupations is just how far they’re willing to go in order to get attention. In all the books I’ve read over the years, the authors seem to have a humble game plan. Be suspenseful, be mysterious, be on the attack, but don’t over-stimulate. You see this in works such as The Hunger Games, The Cleaner, and pretty much every Carl Hiaasen book on the market. If you’re a TV producer, the rules and limits become slightly more flexible. For example, let’s say you’re a wrestling promoter and you need your audience to be interested in a rivalry that’s going on between two superstars. The two wrestlers have called each other every name in the book and discredited each other’s fighting abilities in every way possible. There’s only one way to draw more attention to this rivalry: get edgy. Such was the game plan in the 2013 feud between WWE superstars CM Punk and The Undertaker. The latter’s manager and father figure Paul Bearer died a few days before the feud began. CM Punk comes out and makes death jokes about Paul Bearer in order to annoy The Undertaker and get him to make a mistake in the ring. Because of the blatant exploitation of death, people are interested in this match and desperately want to see CM Punk get his ass kicked. There’s just one problem: those who were deeply affected by Paul Bearer’s death (his family and friends) are horrified by the insult to his memory. Because of the distasteful way in which Paul Bearer’s death was used, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter will probably give an award to the WWE for Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic. The lesson of the day is, if you’re an author looking to draw people into your story, it’s okay to be edgy and maybe a little offensive, but if you go too far over the edge, there’s no coming back. So please, potential authors, refrain from having a character in your story who’s a serial killer of cute kittens. Refrain from having a storyline where ragtime music is played during a rape scene. Keep said rapist from grinding an axe into the woman’s vagina so that he can “share the pleasure”. These horrifying tropes won’t get people interested in your book, but rather make them turn away in shock. Everything in moderation, people. Everything in moderation.

　

***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Undertaker, I just want to say that I’m sorry for your loss…at Wrestlemania!”

-CM Punk-

"Deafening Silence" by Serj Tankian

I’m not going to lie. “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky was such a beautiful story that it hurt me. The journey that Charlie went through and the love and friendship he found through all the hardships hit me like a Mike Tyson punch to the heart. It hit me so hard that I needed comfort music afterwards. But where in my music collection would I find it? Would it be “Remember Everything” by Five Finger Death Punch? How about “Because of You” by Kelly Clarkson? Or maybe I’m looking for “Kiss” by Korn. None of those would do because they’re too angsty. I didn’t feel angst after reading Stephen Chbosky’s masterpiece. I needed something that was both beautiful and emotional, just like the book. Come on down, Serj Tankian, and bring a copy of “Deafening Silence” with you. Why this song in particular? I’ll explain. I’m sure that after the events of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, Charlie will go on to do great things and he’ll rekindle his love with Sam. In stark contrast, after my own journey through high school and college, all that was left for me was something that Serj Tankian and his wife sang about for the album Harakiri: “Deafening Silence”. Silence from my old friends, silence from my family, silence from complete strangers, and silence from anybody looking for faithful and hardworking employees. But of course, I can’t do what Serj said and “paint you with my tears”, because I haven’t cried since 2007. I’ve been sad lots of times since then, but I’ve never had the urge to just let the tear ducts flow like a monsoon. Charlie, on the other hand, cried many times over the course of Stephen Chbosky’s story. He cried when he was happy, he cried when he was sad, and sometimes he just cried because he was so emotional all the time. To say that I envy Charlie wouldn’t be quite accurate. It’s a little petty to be jealous of a fictional character. Nobody watches The Expendables and becomes jealous of Sylvester Stallone. Those that do end up going to Iraq or Afghanistan to get their heads blown off. While I may have no jealousy toward Charlie or his friends, it doesn’t change the fact that the silence still exists and that it still affects me deeply every day of my life. To commemorate this lack of noise, I’ve got a copy of “Deafening Silence” by Serj Tankian handy on my MP3, on my computer, and on the original CD. If you haven’t heard the song yet, go to You Tube and find it. It’s absolutely gorgeous. In fact, if “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” had been set in the early 2010’s instead of the early 1990’s, I’m sure Serj Tankian’s masterpiece would have been included in the soundtrack.

　

***FACE BOOK POST OF THE DAY***

“You know your life is boring when you have something to do tomorrow and you set your alarm for eleven in the morning.”

-Me-

Chehalis Memoir

Somewhere between 2007 through 2009 when I was holed up at Western Washington University in a cloud of lonely depression, I wrote a piece of creative nonfiction called “Go Bearcats”, where I lament the time I spent in Chehalis because I had lots of friends then. Fast forward to 2011 and I write a piece of creative nonfiction called “The Jennifer Conspiracy”, where I wonder why the hell I would ever miss that rundown place due to the even worse time I had in my freshman year of high school. Forget friendship, because there were a hell of a lot more enemies back in those days. Being alone in my dorm room with nobody to talk to from 2007 to 2009 was better than being verbally abused from 1999 to 2000. It’s just simple logic. I bet you’re expecting me to write an entire book about my experiences in Chehalis and make millions while exploiting my own heartache. Truth is, there isn’t much to tell that hasn’t already been told about the small town of Chehalis. Everybody who’s been there knows how bad the bullying situation is. Everybody who’s gone to Chehalis Middle School in the mid-90’s knows how disgusting the desks are because of all the graffiti on them. Everybody who’s taken a sex ed class from any school the city has knows that abstinence therapy is full of shit. Knowing everything we know about this black hole of a city, it should come as no surprise that people who want to get away from it all venture toward Olympia, the capital city of Washington. If they can’t afford the gas for a whole road trip, they usually go to the Matrix Coffeehouse to see a local band and eat hippie food. Do you know why The Matrix is a good place to escape to (given the 1999 movie of the same name, I tried not to laugh at that last statement as well)? Do you know why many flock to Olympia to get the hell out of Chehalis? Those same people know that Chehalis needs two things in order to improve: more diversity and less religion. White rednecks and brown Mexicans are two separate races that occupy Chehalis (hehe, I said Occupy Chehalis), but it’s not enough to be considered a diverse area. If anybody from another race even peeks from behind the corner, they get bullied. Hell, if you’re not 110% like everybody else in some way, shape, or form, you get picked on by the masses. Contrary to popular belief in Chehalis, God will not help you. Trust me, I’ve tried asking for his help when I was a freshman. Didn’t work. Surprise, surprise, puppy surprise. Too much religious conservatism and not enough diversity of ideas. If you want to know what would be included in a Chehalis memoir (preferably written by someone who is an A+ student somewhere other than there), this would be it. Poverty, racism, bigotry, ignorance, and maybe some inbreeding. If you ever ask me to talk about my memories of Chehalis in person, don’t expect an elaborate answer. What happens there deserves to be buried forever in that solemn graveyard. Who knows? There’s a graveyard on a hillside on the far end of town, maybe you’ll find a good memoir there.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“She said, ‘I can’t take this place. I’m leaving you behind.’ She said, ‘I can’t take this town. I’m leaving you tonight.’”

-Green Day singing “Letter Bomb”-

"Prozac Nation" by Elizabeth Wurtzel

As someone who openly admits to being mentally ill whenever the topic comes up, this is going to sound hypocritical of me when I say it. I get very uncomfortable around people who are chronically sad. Whether it’s somebody crying a lot, threatening self-harm, or unnecessarily insulting themselves, I have to get up and leave the room whenever it happens. I never know what I can say or do that will make the person feel better, so I just walk away from the situation frustrated and angry. For Elizabeth Wurtzel, it took an entire decade for her to understand the gravity of her depression, starting in her pre-teenaged years. She would slice her legs in the bathroom while listening to punk rock, burst into tears and screaming fits at seemingly random times, stay in bed for long periods of time, etc. Throughout Prozac Nation, she tries to figure out what exactly is causing her to feel so miserable all the time. She describes how her parents never got along, how every boyfriend she’s had dumped her in her time of need, how her therapists weren’t connecting with her in the way she wanted, basically, it’s a whole myriad of fucked up experiences. She tries to rationalize her sadness with these things, but it doesn’t alleviate the pressure being put on her fragile mind by her depression. When she attempts suicide and fails, that’s when she finally starts taking Prozac and coming to her senses. She wasn’t just sad all the time; she actually had legitimate atypical depression, which is just as physical as it is psychological. Here’s where the debate begins. Ever since Prozac was on the market, there have been more diagnoses for depression among Generation X members (the book was published in 1994). The problem with this is that the doctors making these diagnoses are confusing moderate sadness with actual crippling depression. The ones who are just sad get the Prozac while the ones who are mentally broken down and on the brink of insanity go unnoticed. If you want to know just how screwed up this conclusion is, Jeffrey Dahmer was at one point on Prozac. He wasn’t depressed, he was just a serial killer. The point of this memoir is that if you’re in need of help of any kind, make sure you’re actually getting the right treatment for whatever ails you. Elizabeth Wurtzel needed a decade to understand this point and she’s better for it. The book drives that point home for a lot of people, including myself. I took my medicine (because I’m legitimately schizophrenic) and I’m a much more focused person than I was in 2002 when I was first mentally ill.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“And now I finally know what it feels like to risk everything and still survive. When you’re standing on the battlefield and all the pain is real, that’s when you realize that you must have done something right, ‘cause you never felt so alive.”

-Papa Roach singing “Leader of the Broken Hearts”-

Books and Cage Fights

In all the time I’ve maintained this blog, it seems as though I’ve spoken more about mixed-martial arts than actual books. Hell, I even have an old post on here where I stand up for Fallon Fox after all the verbal abuse she’s taken. On DeviantART, I have a journal entry where I question the hatred toward the UFC for attempting to bail out Jeremy Stephens after his assault charge so that he can fight on the card. My MMA references on both sites may appear accidental, but they’re by design, for a different reason from the fact that I’m a fan. The way I see it (and as many of you guessed from the first post I made back in 2012), a good book should be like a bonus-worthy cage fight. For those of you who aren’t UFC savvy, I’ll explain the whole bonus jargon to you. Every UFC event has a series of fights and afterwards UFC President Dana White will give out bonus checks to the fighters for Knockout of the Night, Submission of the Night, and Fight of the Night. What do post-fight bonuses have to do with a good book? Usually, the post-fight bonuses will go to fighters who made their fight a fast-paced battle with lots of action and very few breaks. Do you see the operative words there? Face-paced and lots of action. The books don’t necessarily have to be thrillers or mysteries in order to meet this criteria. They just have to be fun to read, in the same way that a bonus-worthy fight is fun to watch. For example, if you pick up any novel by Carl Hiaasen, it’ll be just as exciting to read as Dennis Bermudez vs. Matt Grice was fun to watch. Carl Hiaasen knows when to strike and does so in large volumes, much like the eventual winner of the fight Dennis Bermudez, who won by split decision. On the positive-negative spectrum, the MMA example works the other way as well. If you pick up a copy of Beowulf in its original format (fruity language and all), reading this slow-paced nightmare will be a lot like watching Frank Mir vs. Mirko Cro Cop. If you can’t decipher the poetic language of Beowulf as accurately as the A+ students in my Pre-16^th Century Lit class did, you’ll have no idea what the hell is going on and you’ll probably think there’s not much activity. The Frank Mir vs. Mirko Cro Cop fight back at UFC 119 could be described as the worst performance in both fighters’ careers due to the inactivity. It was so lackluster that even though Frank Mir was the only fighter on the UFC 119 card who recorded a knockout victory (knee), Dana White refused to give him the Knockout of the Night award. So with all of these MMA references floating around, you’re probably wondering why I’m not converting this blog from Garrison’s Library to Garrison’s Octagon. It’s because I’m a bookworm and writer first and a cage fighting aficionado second. I’ll gladly put pen to paper, but I’ll never get in an MMA cage for as long as I live. I’m too out of shape for athletic competition and really, the only way I could win a fight with these monsters is by kicking them in the nuts, gouging them in the eyes, or smashing their clavicles. I hope this blog entry answered those lingering MMA questions.

　

***MIXED-MARTIAL ARTS QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“For those of you who were booing the flyweight fight tonight, do me a favor. Please don’t ever buy another UFC pay-per-view again. I don’t want your money.”

-Dana White-

Evil Character, Nice Guy

My best friend Zero Urrea introduced me to a site called TV Tropes and on this site I learned about the theme of the “Evil Character, Nice Guy”. You know what that means? It means that just because George Carlin joked about the possibility of Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd, doesn’t mean he would actually go out and rape somebody himself. Just because Daniel Bryan emotionally abused AJ Lee in the WWE, doesn’t mean he’s an even worse lover to his real life girlfriend Brie Bella. Just because Derrick Green growls like a monster when he sings Sepultura songs, doesn’t mean he’s a grunting monster in real life. George Carlin, Daniel Bryan, and Derrick Green all have one thing in common: at one point they were considered to be villainous characters, but in real life, they are the friendliest people you’ll ever meet. Before his death in 2008 (rest in peace), George Carlin was a loving family man who had a whirlwind romance with his first and second wives Brenda and Sally respectively. He even had a daughter named Kelly, who to this day celebrates her father’s legacy by promoting his comedy whenever she gets the chance. As far as Daniel Bryan goes, he went through his entire wrestling career praised for being a nice guy in the locker room. In fact, Jim Cornette, Bryan’s former ROH boss, came to his defense when Bryan was first fired from WWE. Mr. Cornette said that Bryan was a “model employee, a pleasure to be around, an all-around nice guy, very respectful to the veterans”, things like that, which are all good reasons to keep somebody as an employee as far as I’m concerned. Derrick Green? Well, he’s part of an unfortunate stereotype that heavy metal fans and singers find themselves in just because they’re associated with aggressive and angry music. These stereotypes include, but are not limited to, being evil, being a devil worshipper, hating the world, being depressed, and cutting themselves. Derrick Green may have monstrous vocals when he sings with Sepultura, but he is far from evil. I’ve never met the guy myself, but I’m putting it on my bucket list. He already has a reputation for being an animal lover, so he gets brownie points for that. So I guess I should get straight to the point when it comes to the message of this blog entry, and that is to never judge somebody by what they do on TV. By the same token, don’t judge an author by the transgressive nature of his stories. Stephen King is a master of gory literature as everybody knows, but he’s never actually committed murder before. Imagine that: you can actually be a gory writer and a nice guy at the same time! Who knew?!

　

***CARTOON QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

-Winnie the Pooh-

Defending Your Work

One of the few things I loved about my college days was taking a class on dramatic writing (as in theater, not necessarily as in tearjerkers). Having said that, it always drove me nuts whenever the teacher, let’s call him Bryan, always insisted that the students not explain their work whenever it’s being critiqued. Don’t get me wrong, Bryan was a well-liked teacher and deservedly so. I just never understood why it was such a sin to explain your own work to people who are confused. Fortunately, I had an English teacher, let’s call him Carlos, who said it was perfectly okay. Going back to Bryan for a moment, his main reasoning for not explaining your own work is because the work should speak for itself and that you won’t always be there to explain things to one person. Seems like a reasonable explanation, but when you’re being critiqued, it’s important for your editor to know what the hell’s going on in your story. That way, the editor can steer you in the right direction of what you want to do rather than impose his own will. For example, if you want to express sadness through colors and you use a lot of red in your set design, you’re going to want to express your need for sad colors to your editor so that he can tell you that blue is a better choice. Of course, this may not be the best example I can think of since everybody knows blue is a sad color and red is an angry color. Even so, I hope everybody understands my position on this. While you won’t have the opportunity to confront every one of your confused readers all the time (at least not without the internet), it’s important that they at least know something about the work that they didn’t know before. Knowing Bryan the way I did, he would probably propose the counterpoint of the audience making their own interpretations so that they can enjoy the work without limits. Maybe I can agree with that point since I do that a lot myself when I add books to this blog. But sooner or later, making a faulty interpretation is going to catch up with you, whether it’s with your grades in school or with a mass discussion with your friends. If you say something potentially foolish, people aren’t always going to be there to break your fall. The other students in a nonfiction class I took one time can attest to that since we were reading This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff and I compared two scruffy gentlemen to the mountain men in Deliverance. Boy, were they pissed…or so I was told. But you know what? It doesn’t matter in the end, because if an author wants to explain himself, he’ll do it anyways, probably through an interview with a newspaper or talk show. So deal with it! No offense, Bryan.

　

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

Q: What’s a Deliverance character’s favorite soda?

A: Mountain Screw.

Judging Books

This past Father’s Day, I went down to Purdy to visit my dad like all good sons do on that particular day. Midway through the visit, he and my brother James wanted to know why I would call a book about pro-wrestling “Hardcore Hate”. Their main justification for disagreeing with the title was that it sounded too much like something a neo-Nazi would buy (probably because the word “hate” is closely related to racism rather than simply not liking your opponent). Of course, James’ alternative title “Barbarian and Doctor” was even worse since he obviously wasn’t even trying. But this conversation brought up a topic that I’m discussing tonight: judging a book by it’s cover or title. You hear people say all the time “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. While that may be an admirable slogan, people do it all the time with books while being encouraged not to do it with people. If you see an overweight teenaged girl walking down the street, don’t judge her body, because she might turn out to be a friendly person. But if you see a book that’s titled “The Dragon Prince” and the cover design shows a gun being pointed at a tiny kitten, that’s when you can start to worry. Come to think of it, there is a book cover that shows a gun being leveled a cute, cuddly kitty. It’s called “How Not to Write a Novel” and that image is supposed to illustrate a point: disgusting promotional tactics will get your manuscript shoved in the rejection box. It all goes back to a point I once made about hooking the reader in rather than making him wait for the hot action on a platter. Let’s take the book “The Sisters Brothers” for instance. For the book cover, somebody might see a moonlit background behind two sinister-looking people. Or if you look closely enough, you’ll see a skull with two hideous eye sockets. That’s fucking creative, people! I don’t know how good the book actually is (I haven‘t read it before), but with a clever cover like that, it’s a good start. You need another example? How about “Quiet” by Susan Cain? It’s a simple gray cover with minimal design, but it’s exactly what the reader wants to see. The book is about introversion and in order to achieve introversion, you need a quiet environment. A cloudy day with low barometric pressure is the perfect catalyst for a brief nap, and thus you have your quiet situation. If you followed that logic successfully, you’ll understand why Susan Cain’s simple book design is actually the best one for drawing readers in. Should we judge a book by its cover? Maybe, maybe not. But if I see a book on Amazon called “The Desert Maiden” and it shows a picture of feet being chopped off with a hacksaw, I’m skipping over it.

　

***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

OLD MAN: Which candy bar has the commercial with swirling chocolate?

GEORGE COSTANZA: They all have swirling chocolate.

OLD MAN: Not Skittles.

-Seinfeld-