Psychological Literature

Not every schizophrenic patient is going to grow up to be the next Henry Lucas. Even fewer autistic people are going to be the next Richard Ramirez. And yet, the stereotypes of mentally ill people are running rampant in the movies we watch, the books we read, the videogames we play, God knows what else. It doesn’t just begin and end with people confusing schizophrenia for Multiple Personality Disorder. Even I did that back in the day before I became the person I am now. I’m talking about stories on internet news sites that say a mentally ill person was shot by police whilst holding nothing but a cell phone. And then there’s another story where a mentally ill person refuses to drop a knife while staring out in the distance. And then there’s another story where cops shoot a suicidal depressed person. These mental illness stereotypes aren’t just ignorant. They’re changing the way we look at public policy and criminal law. It has somehow become okay to shoot a mentally ill person simply because they’re automatically classified as evil serial killers or sociopaths. What does any of this have to do with literature? I’m glad you asked. I always appreciate it when a published book manages to portray a mental illness with honesty instead of ignorant fear. There’s a recently released memoir on Amazon called “January First” by Michael Schofield that chronicles his struggle to raise a daughter with childhood schizophrenia. Yes, she has become violent and argumentative. But is any of it malicious? Hell no. Something’s happening to her brain that she has no control over. The aggressive voices in her head scream violent orders at her until she actually does them. And then the voices want more, and then the voices want more, and then the voices want more. Speaking as a schizophrenic who’s had it since my late teens, this is what an accurate portrayal of what the mental illness is like. It’s relentless torture using sounds and imagery that only exist within the patient’s world. It has nothing to do with being a serial killer or a rapist. While it’s true that there are some serial killers and rapists who were classified as mentally ill, it doesn’t say the same thing about the rest of the disabled population. We need more books that portray this sentiment accurately. And for God’s sake, not every PTSD sufferer is going to grow up to fill an entire town full of holes like Rambo did in “First Blood”. Yes, we’ll reach out to those who can help us, but only if those people recognize us as pain-wracked sufferers instead of vicious monsters.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“How can you just be yourself when you don’t know who you are? Stop saying, ‘I know how you feel.’ How can anyone know how someone else feels?”

-Dialogue from “Song of Myself” by Nightwish-

"Nowhere To Run" by CJ Box

After reading “Nowhere to Run”, you have to wonder to yourself which one is worse: hearing dueling banjos in the middle of the forest or hearing something played on a pink iPod that was stolen off of a random woman’s belongings? If you answered the latter, you were probably quivering in your snakeskin boots at the presence of Camish and Caleb Grim. And why wouldn’t you? They’ve been slashing tents, butchering elk, and vandalizing property all over the park that Joe Pickett has to investigate. Not only do the two brothers appear to be the ones who did it, but they’re not going down without a fight. And when they fight, they use the most vicious tactics a hunting bow and bone-crunching traps can provide. Good luck, Mr. Government Man, I mean, Mr. Pickett! As long as we’re wishing good luck to a guy that’s been referred to as a “government man” (much to his chagrin), I believe it’s time to fill you in on what CJ Box appears to be about. In terms of political acumen, it would seem that Mr. Box is a mirror image of Carl Hiaasen. And why wouldn’t the former be? He lives in Wyoming and walks around in a cowboy hat all day long. It’s not a huge secret that Wyoming is a hotbed for conservative politics. A lot of those politics show through in CJ Box’s writing, particularly as it relates to much later in the book where government corruption runs rampant. The woman that Joe Pickett is looking for up in these mountains was said to have been a diehard Ayn Rand fan. The Grim brothers weren’t much different when asked about their political stances. As a hardcore liberal and even more hardcore socialist, I should be upset that one of my favorite books has this kind of agenda attached to it. The truth is, I’m not. I’m not shocked that a cowboy from Wyoming thinks differently from me. My only advice to readers of his books is to enjoy them for their quick pace, intelligent writing style, and three-dimensional characters all across the board. I even dare say that I could learn something from Mr. Box as it relates to my own writing. Then again, whenever I compare myself to someone else, I usually end up hating what I’ve written down. Short moments of low self-esteem are a small price to pay for learning how to write from one of the best in the business: CJ Box.

　

***CONCERT QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“So as everyone here knows, Mr. Randy Blythe is free and well. We’re going to do this next song for him. Because no one gets left behind!”

-Ivan Moody from Five Finger Death Punch-

Love Stories

Being lonely sucks. Being in a dysfunctional relationship sucks. Breaking up sucks. And yet despite all of these aspects of relationships sucking, we continue to seek love in the strangest places. For me, I look for them in the stories I soak in whether they’re from books, movies, or songs. But when I choose a romantic medium to hold near and dear to my heart, I don’t want it to be cheesier than a Domino’s Pizza. Step down and shake it off, Harlequin, you don’t belong here. I hate to say this, but Fifty Shades of Grey and The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty don’t belong here either despite having their own posts on this blog. To my way of thinking, stories where two star-crossed lovers run in each other’s arms and fuck passionately in a perfect agreement is fake romance. I can’t relate to anything that’s perfect because I am not a perfect person. On the contrary, I’m a shy recluse who wants a relationship with a woman, but can’t ask for one because of my social barriers. Those are the stories I want to involve myself with: the shy guy or shy girl being wooed by someone who sees through their social awkwardness. Pretty much every movie I’ve seen at the art theater in Tacoma called The Grand Cinema has this premise from Safety Not Guaranteed to Mud to The Silver Linings Playbook to my absolute favorite so far, Obselidia. The latter of these four movies really yanked at my heart strings. In case you’re not familiar with this independent masterpiece, it’s about a lonely librarian named George who thinks love is obsolete since babies can be made artificially and sex is disposable. And then he meets a cinema projectionist named Sophie, who shows him that loving each other is what makes the world work. Sounds like a perfect premise, right? Not so fast, pacho. By the movie’s end, George visits Sophie’s house to deliver flowers and there’s a male voice in the background that says, “Who is it, sweetie?” Needless to say, George was heartbroken. I’d even dare say that he cried relentlessly over this turn of events. Mere moments after walking out of that movie theater with my parents, I got in the car and started listening to a cover of “Careless Whisper” by Seether on my MP3 player. When you combine Obselidia with Seether, your heartstrings will not only be tugged at, but it’ll be done with the force of a tow truck. Want some other combinations? How about The Sessions and Toto? A Late Quartet and The Moody Blues? The possibilities are endless when it comes to looking for ways to break your own heart. Even Harry Potter has elements of realistic romance, which is more than anybody can say about the Twilight series, as long as we’re continuing the war between those two canons. Hehe! War and cannons. I swear that was an accident. The point I’m trying to make is that if you’re looking for cheese, go to an Italian restaurant and order a pizza. If you want real romance that actually inspires and saddens at the same time, look for media that doesn’t have a Mary-Sue identity. To close this out with a bang, even Five Finger Death Punch is capable of realistic romance with the song “Walk Away”. Suck on that, Harlequin! Actually, don’t do that, it’ll just turn into a cheesy sex scene if you do.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I feel so unsure as I take your hand and lead you to the dance floor. As the music dies, something in your eyes calls to mind the silver screen and all its sad goodbyes. I’m never gonna dance again, ‘cause guilty feet have got no rhythm. Though it’s easy to pretend, I know you’re not a fool. I should have known better than the cheat a friend and waste the chance that I’ve been given. So I’m never gonna dance again the way I danced with you.”

-Seether singing “Careless Whisper” by Wham!-

Anime Roots

Whenever my niece Reina watches anime on TV, I always make it a point to poke my head in the room and say something along these lines in a high-pitched girl voice: “Yuki yuki suki! Teriyaki fried chicken! Let’s kill the monsters! Yay!” The first time I mocked her shows in this way, she marched up to me and yelled, “Don’t make fun of my show!” before giving me one of her patented tickle attacks on the armpits and belly. Little does Reina know that there was a point in my life where I enjoyed anime just as much as she did. Whenever someone asked me what anime shows I watched, I said, “Just the ones they show on Cartoon Network”. And boy, did Cartoon Network have a huge rolodex of anime back in the late 90’s and mid 2000’s. My very first anime show was a gem from the 90’s called Robotech. I kept falling head over heels in love with Lisa Hayes and Dana Sterling. I never wanted to admit being in love with anybody since I feared gold-diggers back then, but Lisa Hayes and Dana Sterling are both cartoon characters, so I’m pretty much safe. But not all of the anime shows in those days were lovey-dovey kissy-kissy escapades. Most of them were action-packed thrill rides like Dragon Ball Z and Gundam Wing. Just once I would have loved to see Heero Yuy (whilst piloting a giant robot named Wing Zero) battle it out with Vegeta in a knockdown, drag-’em-out blood brawl. Only in nerdy fan fiction would that ever happen. A few years after the emergence of TV-Y7 anime shows, we had something called Adult Swim (before it degenerated into mindless filth). Cowboy Bebop was the premiere anime to come from that programming block. Spike Spiegel was a calm and collected badass and Fay Valentine was a gorgeous bombshell: what else could you want from a show about intergalactic bounty hunting with a jazz soundtrack? Since Cowboy Bebop had tons of success on Adult Swim, we began seeing more anime shows in the TV-14 category such as Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Samurai Champloo, and Inuyasha. Rule number one: don’t watch Ghost in the Shell with a schizophrenic brain; you won’t understand a damn part of the plotline. Rule number two: combining a music genre with an action genre will always yield positive results; Samurai Champloo combined hip-hop with, you guessed it, samurai action. Rule number three: give the ASPCA a call every time Kigome uses the sit command on Inuyasha; because Inuyasha has dog ears, that counts as animal cruelty. I guess you want to know if all this gushing over anime is going to go anywhere. It is. I once read a quote on Writer’s Circle that advised aspiring authors to soak in as much media as they could so that they could have inspiration for their books. I spent my entire teenaged life doing just that with anime shows and videogames. While I don’t partake in either of those two mediums much anymore, I am getting things done with my writing in a way that wasn’t possible with limited skills in my teenaged years. Despite how grateful I am to Japanese anime for the inspiration it gave me, I’m still going to haunt Reina every chance I get with the “Yuki yuki suki” quote…whether she’s watching anime or a god-awful show on Disney or Nickelodeon.

　

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

Q: What does Dan Schneider drive to work every day?

A: Toe truck.

Mysterious Writing

Quick question before I begin: does anybody here know what a “whale road” is? When I first heard this term in college, I never once imagined that it could be interpreted as an ocean that Beowulf swam through just for fun. I actually thought it was a dirt road littered with fresh whale corpses that stunk up the place worse than a limburger factory in the middle of a cow pasture. You know what else confused me? “Romeo, Romeo, where art thou Romeo?” “I’m over here, you dumb bitch!” Yes, that’s an actual joke I used in Foe vs. Blade’s medieval fantasy story called Down. These two examples don’t even scratch the surface of what I like to call “mysterious writing”. It’s not to be confused with the mystery genre, which is a legitimate business considering that my first favorite book was a crime thriller called “The Cleaner” by Brett Battles. When I say “mysterious writing”, I mean writing that uses weird descriptors that take way too long to sink in. Shakespeare was the worst offender when it came to mysterious writing. Somewhere in his works is a description where he talks about a wreath being pulled down a metal pole that’s somehow supposed to represent a woman being a slut. Actually, a pole going into a wreath can be construed as sexual, but I don’t think that’s what Shakespeare was going for. In all of his infinite wisdom, he decided that it had to be deeper than a mere Freudian complex. Kids, take this as a lesson not to engage in deep writing unless you actually know what the fuck you’re talking about. Being deep is not the problem; being arrogant and confusing is. I don’t care how many Pulitzer Prizes you win as a result of using awkward descriptions. If you use awkward descriptions, chances are good you suck at writing. But of course, it’s hard to convince somebody of that when they’re making millions of dollars from royalties and living in houses with golden swimming pools in the back. In case you think I’m being mysterious by saying that, I actually mean swimming pools made from melted gold. The lesson you can take away from this blog entry comes in the form of a four-letter acronym known as KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Nobody’s going to think you’re boring if you use a simple writing style. In fact, they may thank you for it in the long run. But if you’re going to be complex, then at least make it accessible to anybody who happens to live in the 21^st Century. I’m not saying you have to LOL at your BFF. In fact, you should never do that under any circumstances!

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

"Cold turkey’s getting stale. Tonight I’m eating crow."

-Green Day singing "Hitchin' a Ride"-

Heroes and Influences

I’d like to think that there’s a huge difference between liking somebody and making somebody your own personal hero. When you like someone, you merely enjoy their aesthetically pleasing presence. When someone is your hero, you change your behavior to emulate that person. Today’s blog entry is about the latter of those two archetypes: heroes and influences. These are a few of my own personal heroes:

Susan Cain. I’ve talked about her extensively when I reviewed “Quiet”. She’s highly introverted and has no problem sticking up for other introverts in a world that doesn’t want to shut the fuck up. I’m an introvert myself, so I enjoy it when Susan Cain speaks on my behalf. Thanks, Ms. Cain. You’re awesome. And pretty too!

Pink Floyd. When I was a kid going to middle school and high school in the conservative hotbed known as Chehalis, Washington, I cherished it every time Roger Waters stuck his mouth against the mike and said, “We don’t need no education!” Come to think of it, I can still hear his voice calling out to me even after I’ve graduated from the extroverted hellhole that was college.

Daniel Bryan. Whenever I watch him on WWE TV, I always make it a point to leap to my feet as the match is going on. This past Monday night, he did something that I never thought I’d see him do: he beat three guys in one sitting in a gauntlet match. He submitted Jack Swagger, pinned Antonio Cesaro, and got Ryback disqualified (it seems hollow, but it’s still a victory over a third wrestler). There may be hope for this technical wizard after all.

Brett Battles. Even after going to college in 2009, I never really considered myself an avid bookworm, which was ironic knowing that my major was in creative writing. Instead of being a mediocre writer for the rest of my career, I picked up a book by Brett Battles called “The Cleaner” and the rest is history. I have a book blog and I’m a better writer because of that first step.

George Carlin. Not only did this guy make me laugh my ass off every time I watched him, but he spoke the truth while he did it. He was an anti-conformist who had no respect for authority whether it was from government, corporations, religion, the police, or any other power that enjoys beating people over the head with a club and telling them what to believe. When he died in 2008, I fell into a depression. That’s how much this guy meant to me.

This may not be the entire list, but it’s all I can think of at the moment. I’m open to listening to your list of heroes and influences as well. We’ve got ears, say cheers! Come to think of it, Mickey Mouse can be my hero as well!

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“If you think a fetus is more important than a woman, try getting a fetus to wash the shit stains out of your underwear for no pay and no pension.”

-George Carlin-

"Quiet" by Susan Cain

From the very moment I started reading this book, Susan Cain became my instant hero. Like her, I too am introverted and always appreciate it when somebody recognizes it instead of dismisses it for weirdness. Introverts are not weird people. Enjoying peaceful moments to yourself doesn’t make you antisocial or awkward. It simply means that the world is too noisy for you and you prefer to be alone so that you can actually get things done. Extroverts, you don’t need to worry about a thing, because Susan Cain is not striking against you in this book. She’s not suggesting that introverts are better people than extroverts. She’s suggesting that there should be a balance between them and that these differences need to be accommodated for, whether it’s in the workplace or in a college classroom. I wish someone like Susan Cain spoke to my teachers in college about this subject. In pretty much every class I attended, the students were graded on class participation. One of my theater teachers was one of the worst offenders when it came to singling out introverts since class participation accounted for 30% of the overall grade. You can imagine what emotional pain I was in by the time the class was over after having exhausted every resource in my brain just to make academic small talk. Because of the fact that western world schools force their students to speak up, I may never attend another college class again for the rest of my life. My privacy and solitude mean that much to me. But seeing as how teachers aren’t going to readily change their minds, then I have a suggestion for them that Susan Cain would wholeheartedly agree with. In lieu of class participation, the shy students should be able to post their thoughts on an internet message board. With that kind of wall between the introvert and the rest of the class, solitude and privacy are maintained due to the fact that internet conversations aren’t physically imposing. I’ll even settle for a one-on-one conversation with my teacher over Skype. The point that this book is trying to make is that if someone wants to be left alone or be cerebral, don’t take it personally when he shuts you out. It’s never personal. We’re not misanthropes or antisocial. We’re just peace lovers. Thank you, Susan Cain, for standing up for the quiet types like me and many others out there who are being blocked out by the American noise.

　

***CLASSROOM DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

ME: It’s actually easier to suspend your disbelief with nonfiction than it is with fiction.

LEE: You think?

-Nonfiction Seminar at WWU-