Another Play

A bit of scene setting...before teachers leave my school for the summer they have to clean out their rooms. Like a check out/walk through before you leave.

How I Think The End Of The Year Will Go:

Staff: Hey, I am ready to be checked out.
Me: Yeah, you are! Phrasing, am I right!
Staff: 😁😁😁 You are so funny

How It Really Goes:

Staff: Hey, I am ready to be checked out
Me: Ok, coming! ***Drops the bag of trash and stack of Ipads I am juggling and runs back up 3 flights*** Ok...I'm here.
Staff: Why are you so sweaty? Are you wheezing?
Me: ***Darth Vader noise*** No, I'm good...I'm good!

Kids Bopz Spoken Word

Toddlers in children's literature and shows are such serene creatures. Inherently full of wonder and sincerity. And, indeed, this can be true like the time my daughter encourages her mercurial older brother when he doesn't want to climb the monkey bars. They all say very true and swee things emblematic of being embossed between pages of hardcover stock.

But where is the sheer uncut bananas ridiculous stuff. The blows over a pretend balloon.
"Hey, give me that. What do you have in your hand...wtf....there is nothing here?!"
Daughter: "He wants to take it from me!"
"But there is nothing?!"

The anger at looking out each others windows in the car. "Stop looking out my window! stop it!"

The drill down and plant feet into the ground meltdown.
"What did you say?! Where did you learn to say "suck it!"
Son: NOTHING! WHO CARES?!
Me: Tell me where. No videos. No toys. No nothing until you tell me
Son: 1.5 hours of screaming and crying and "I hate daddy. Mommy is stupid"
Me: OK, where.
Son: pinky malinky!
Me: WTF. The hot dog show on Netflix. Was not my first guess.

Where is the awkward. "Well if you are Christians you can come to my bible study this summer" some random 8 year old in leopard pants and a pink Alaska hate tells us. WTF. You just met 10 minites ago.

Daddy?! Do you know this song "Num num num num num num num num num num num num num!"

A Good Line

I am reading a novel called Little Fires Everywhere which has some extra local traction because it is set in a posh East side suburb here, Shaker Heights. Mind you, I don't live there but I briefly lived elsewhere on that side of town and worked on that side for many years so there is so whimsy to reading about familiar landmarks.

The book is good. It feels both very familiar and intimate while still foreign. This is my life and No, this is not my life. It feels like someone put to page that feeling of "that kind of thing (Tragedies, sensitive family matters, zaniness) is something that happens to other people" when in reality we are ALL other people.

But, I'm not writing a book review. I got the book at a garage sale and remembered it was "local." The lady I bought it from said "I dated someone who great up in Shaker and his mom gave me that. I never read it and don't want to be reminded of that."

I am glad I found it. It has a beatuiful line that gave me pause. A literal moment where I had to put the book down and say "Wow"

It is..

"In the books she read, every stream might be a river god, every tree a dryad in disuse every old woman a powerful fairy every pebble an enchanted. Anything had the potential to transform, and this to her, seemed the true meaning of art"

The line spoke to me. And not as an artist because I don't consider myself one. No, nothing so elevated as that. Instead, it touched upon a long held and deep seeded feeling of the wonder in everyday things.

I sometimes stare at the bottom of my shoes and draw my finger along where thousands of steps have worn away the soles. My wife will ask "What are you doing" and I will mention"I am fascinated by the concept of wear. Things coming apart." At a cousin's wedding as a child I spent the whole time watching wax candles felt and congeal onto the top of a piano. "It is interesting to watch them isn't it," said an uncle. And I can remember the glow of the yellow light in the chilled event center miasma (There were no windows in this space. Everything hummed in a pale yellow) but better remembered is the fat droplets aching over each other into piles of wax.

Much of this has to do with an imagination leaning towards the fantastical. Not creative but in reverie. Not navel gazing but day dreaming. Like Walter Mitty albeit I found that story beyond sleepy in 10th grade English. "I am sorry I made you read that," said that teacher after I met her years later, myself as an adult and she as a retiree.

They are tales of super heroes and fantastic battles. I will meet someone and think "You are so cool! I want you to be my friend" or "You are awful. Go fuck yourself twice" and then its a grand drama. Which I have mentioned in the blog before but it permeates real life. I tell my kids "Today's mission is to...GO TO TARGET" and this is lost on them.

What frustrates me is how fleeting these are. And its why this blog can be so frantic and fragmented. These are just scenes that pop in and out...

I see a yard overgrown with 8 inch dandelions and grass that has been able to flower. I think that air around it is alive with the organic fluff of seeds and pollen wings. Buried in the grass are snakes, tick as pool noodles and lethargic because while it blisters in the sun, the rays have not penetrated this canopy.

A co-workers dyes her hair in wisps of pink and I imagine she shoots fire.

I hold a pebble and I imagine the strata from which it began. How it shifted up and down the layers you see in text books until it bubbled up in a deep water thermal vent. And it tumbled across seas and times being made smooth until it found a quarry where millennia later it was polished and com modified into the the stones in an aquarium.

I go back to the town where my wife and I met and then a time warp opens and I go back to that year. I have all my memories but no one else does and I have to relive those years my body and mind older but time reset. And I wonder if I will do anything different. Will everything else collide the same. The same happens for a bus stop I have not visited in a while. A vendor or person you see only every few years. "Last time I saw you...you were 3 feet tall!" And, do I want to go back to being 3 feet tall.

I touch the old fax in the office closet and I am sucked back to the last time it fired while in the past (or old present) there is but a wisp of dust and co-workers wondering where I went.

The silos on country roads are indeed missile silos, not for grain. There are sad exhausted faces in the openings for the unit ventilators at my office and they speak of happier times. The tools buried under the boxes of unopened materials from my last move increase my stats giving dexterity and intelligence. Each turn of the screwdriver is a move to be closer to 100% completion.

The Jerk

A quick one. That I can't rant on Twitter or accurately express on person.

Part of my job is dealing with facility matters. Fixing things, ordering stuff, moving things from point a to b. In my previous job I worked in logistics and there was planning but also doing. Stack this pallet. Move these boxes. Can you put together this item?

These are predominantly male fields so I deal/hear a lot a casual sexism. The kind of stuff people follow up with "hey, im just saying, im just saying!"

Two things that really irk me

1) The use of the term "females" to refer to women. These aren't bees we are trying to get to find pollen for us. It feels so redutive and cuts across both my moral compass and disdain for reductive words. Never say comfy in front of me.

2) the assumption that I am only doing what my female superior/supervisor wants me to do because a) I am a cuckold wimp and/or b) she must be a raging bitch, right?

Could it be that its becsuse she's my boss? Or shes right? Ya ever think of that, jabronis?

Plesse dont confuse this as fishing for "woke points." I am very aware of my privelege as a straight guy, born in USA, in this time period, and who can code switch to be WASPY. If you read this blog or Twitter then ive said pretty dumb things about yoga pants and the finer points of Baby Got Back. I have a wife and two kids and lots of failed awkward interactions with women.

But I hate the idea that not being a dick is inherently anti male. As if what is masculine is proportional to how awful one is to others, particularly women. That really feels appropo at this time.

Last on work experiences. As somoene who has had to manage folks tangentially (either volunteers or employees who I dont supervise but who could easily torpedo my professional goals) I loathe the philosophy that to manage one must be a dick. This isn't Machiavelli. So when i get rung up by good old boys because "I should tell at my people more. Really yell" I bristle and sometimes yell back at the good old boys. Who are sometimes suprised and other times laugh. "WTF was that?" Note, that one in what was likely my second worst professional ever, I had a colleague cartoon mock me to my face about one of these outbursts. Like I admire the audacity to pantomime me but also...wow.

And I'm not sugar and gum drops. Ask my kids (or my wife) I holler all the time. I was excommunicated once from a church I don't belong to! But when managing folks I see it as team and not a herd of sheep. Even though yes there are tough customers I wish I could mute and rock stars I wish I could clone.

I'm going off. This week I was told three times by 3 different "I'm too nice" and rherr is likely some truth to that but their counter (Just be mean) is too scorched earth.

Top 10 Mecha

This post is long and nerdy. Be warned

Recently on Twitter, I listed my top 10 favorite mechs. This was in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Gundam a well known mecha anime that I particularly love. And mecha meaning media about giant robots. Well, giant mechanical suits that people pilot. A lot of this is Japanese so a lot of it is anime. Which gives me time for a brief segue into a rant about anime. Luckily no one reads this so I won't get blasted off the Internet.

I like certain animes. I don't like it (nor think of it as a genre) in general. Its a medium. That is saying "I LOVE ACTION MOVIES!" and thinking you appreciate Die Hard as much as Agent Cody Banks. Maybe because it is foreign it got pigeonholed into that but it needs to, like any other media, impress me for me to go ga-ga over it.* So just because something is anime I don't think its a reason to go bananas for it. And note I am dirty filthy plebeian anime watcher who likes dubs against subs and learned most of mine from whatever was in syndication on cable. So, yeah, a lot of Toonami stuff and, yes, my first Gundam was Gundam Wing like pretty much any young male with cable and time after school in the late 90s. This list, or my experience, is not comprehensive. Its one guy on a blog no one reads going on and on about giant suits of armor. Why!

BECAUSE THEY ARE BAD ASS!


Number 10

The Power Loader from Aliens.

I am in a minority of liking Alien 3 over Aliens albeit the second one has so many more cool and memorable moments. I'm just a fatalist I guess and wonder what could have been with Alien 3. But, this is about mechs...and this is a mech. No, it is not a weapon of war but I did a brief stint as a tow motor (fork lift outside of Ohio) driver and...Yes, I did imagine batting away little gremlins with the forks. Or just plowing through some blob only to get stuck in its gelatinous molds and escape via a convenient low hanging rope.

The power loader is amazing. Its a Chekov's gun. It's something earned. It shows the versatility that lets Ripley survive in the Alien universe. Its practical effects. Somewhere/sometime someone had to bash some miniatures together and play out what we all do with dolls and actions figures.



This is also the closest thing we ever may get to a mech so keep hoping for your power armor exoskeletons ala Starship Troopers.

Number 9

The Dragon Zord from Mighty Morphing Power Rangers!

Look, Power Rangers is inherently silly. This mish-mosh of Japanese footage with American footage (Sometimes spanning decades. Why does the picture quality drop when we start fighting?), the corny jokes, the colors, the leaping and spandex. This is beyond silly but it made A LOT of money in the go-go 90s and it is still going on. There are dozens of varieties but they all have Zords, giant robots the Rangers use to fight when the villain inevitably decides to "go big" and try to Godzilla the Rangers.

These are all mechs in the truest sense but the coolest is the Dragon Zord belonging to OG Green Ranger. All the the Zords had to combine into the one Mega Zord to really kick ass but this guy could go toe to toe solo. And you needed a knife flute to summon it! A KNIFE FLUTE!



Number 8

Megas XLR

This one really is all about the theme song



Beyond that (why would you need more?) Megas just looks cool what with the cool blue and warm flames and that big bulky frame. It shouldn't work but it does! The head is a bit wimpy but I think that is the joke. Shame this show got shafted especially since it pokes fun at a lot of mecha quirks.

Number 7

The Zeon Gouf Custom from Gundam 08th MS Team

Gundam is 40 years old but not all of it takes place in the same timeline. Many series do and this is known as the Universal Century which in general re-hashes (like six times) a battle between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon. Look...Zeon are space Nazis. Like if Trump really made Space Force a thing then it would be Zeon. And don't give me that "both sides did mean things in the war" crap that Gundam sometimes does (Which I guess has something to do with Japanese feelings about its role as an aggressor in WW2?) Zeon are space Nazis. And they make a heck of a mobile suit. Just like the real Nazis!

So while I love any Gundam series where the good guys mow down all the Zeon Zakus and what not there is something cool about the Gouf Custom and its final battle with the 08th MS Team. Note this series has a wee bit more verisimilitude than others. No one is psychic (New Type in Gundam parlance) and its just pilot vs pilot. It is very visceral and intimate, something you can use to describe Gundam battles where one suit wipes out whole fleets with their SUPER BUSTER CANNON!

This is just a cool scene and it can't be denied albeit I am too goody good to root for the bad guys



Number 6

Nu Gundam from Gundam: Char's Counterattack

The problem with re-hasing the same story every few years (To the point where villains, while not the same person per se, still dress and act like the original version they are supposedly NOT copying. No, not at all) is that you need something to be different. I don't like a lot of the late UC Gundams because like many animes they start to meddle in the abstract and that is just beyond me. Especially since this is a show about giant robots punching each other. But Char's Counterattack is a newer-ish one and boy is Nu Gundam gorgeous. The contrasts on the yellow, white and black and the shoulder flare.

I remember this scene where it just tears through Zeon and it does using all kinds of clever tricks and not some wild super attack. It just looks damn sharp



Number 5

Sandrock Gundam from Gundam Wing

I know this is not the coolest Gundam in Wing, which is arguably the series most casual fans have some exposure too in the US. And I took a lot of heat for liking this suit as a kid. "Its lame. It's gay. The guy who pilots it is gay/too feminine, etc, etc" and I am...1)The guy who piloted it is super rich and has a literal army at his command. Wouldn't that be helpful in a giant intergalactic war? 2)No one was scoring in this series because everyone else was the typical brooding stoic type (Which is fine. I brood a fair bit. Usually at work) and 3) Sandrock has giant curved knives and that stood out where everyone else had some giant light saber. The suit also showed a bit of self awareness at times which happens all the freaking time in other Gundams but here it was neat.

Thank God for other maligned nerds and for whomever made this tribute video to my Sandy Boi





Number 4

Union Flag Custom 2 from Gundam 00

Gundam 00 was the first Gundam series where I could not stand the "heroes." I am way too much of a goody good to ever really go for the bad guys but wow did this series stretch it. The whole Celestial Being crew was way to overpowered and their mission (end all wars by starting a billion of them) felt way too silly even for a show with giant fighting robots.

Thankfully this series has a lot of decent supporting characters even though they are the "bad guys." And these folks are woefully under-gunned so anything that can go toe to toe with the annoying heroes gets a plus from me. In comes in the Union Flag Custom 2 which looks bad ass and in the clip keeps up a good fight even when it...well...goes to pieces. I also dig that that pilot swears he will beat the Gundams in his Flag suit which is akin to saying you want to win the NBA Championship wearing the New Balances your dad wears to mow the lawn.



Number 3

Jehuty from Zone of the Enders

This is from a PS2 game and the only mech here you could technically control. Unless you build your own thing. Zone of Enders feels like a cult game to me and I find it odd it hasn't had some re-issue. I honestly can't remember much of the game play save that some of the end bosses were beyond the wall hard but i remember how to main mech (or frame in its parlance) moves and it moves beautifully. Driving Jehuty around these abandoned space colony cities feels like ballet and I love how the sparks emerge from the "feet" as it sparks along the ground. Sometimes suits in mechs feel like they should not move as fast as they do. Like, for real, look at these things. They are going to move like the Flash? It will make more sense with the next entry but Jehuty feels right with its speed and fluidity. It just looks and feels kinetic, something that should be in shaky camera.

Number 2

Gypsy Danger from Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim is a good movie. C'mon Guillermo Del Toro directed it! Big robot vs monster movies don't get that sort of pedigree. It is a labor of love. And the mechs steal the show (as they should). They have a serious weight to them that comes across the screen. They are all CGI but they "feel" very real and very weighty. So do the monstrous kaiju. Everything seems to snap and creak and groan. Feel alive and tense. Its the Nostromo from Alien albeit in mech form.

Gypsy Danger (What a name btw. Real old school bomber group vibe) deserves the star billing. That old gun slinger look and the intro in the rain. The movie is also full of over the top one liners like "Cancel the apocalpyse" and "Fight the hurricane" that I just find endearing. I also appreciate how this is an original creation/IP that is uniquely from the Americas in what is a field dominated (rightfully so) by Japanese pieces.




Number 1

The Veritech from Robotech

And, yes I call it Robotech not Macross because filthy casual and yada yada

This is all pure nostalgia and a first for me. This was the first mech series I watched. And, no, the animation (also pushing 40) does not hold up but nothing can dissipate 7th grade feelings of watching this. It really takes me back to spending afternoon in my mom's boyfriend's high rise condo (because it was so close to my school) and jamming this sitting on a blanket on a bare floor. And it was awesome.

The transforming was cool. I was just old enough to remember Transformers and this was before the gimmick of Gundam Wing's transforming suit. It could be a sweet jet fighter like Top Gun and then a humanoid robot blasting and punching away! The gun that sat on the bottom of the plane when in play mode pops up and then becomes the gun it can hold when in robot form!

It is so...as the kids say...OG and for that I will always love it.



Thanks for reading and suit up everyone!



*If curious....some animes I do enjoy (that are not obvious from this list): Outlaw Star, Sailor Moon (no I have not seen Stars or the Viz version because see above filthy casual), Digimon, Big O (another mecha), Blue Sub No. 6,  Grave of the Fireflies (Holy smokes is this a sad movie), those Second Renaissance bits from the Animatrix, Pilot Candidate, and SAMURAI PIZZA CATS!

Ay Mami

My mother has only ever made two legitimately sincere comments. As opposed to me where I drivel on in this blog. I show a lot of emotion on my face and cannot make small talk to save a life. And I distinguish sincerity as something inherently true and meaningful. Have I feigned interest? Sure but that is to people I come across on the street or at a conference. "Uh huh? Oh yeah!" But if I know you then I am sincere. Probably stupidly sincere. But this isn't about me its about my mom.

My mom has made two sincere comments in her whole life

"You should panic when I panic"

and

"Wow, that lady has a nice ass!"

I keep the first one as a professional mantra. "Don't worry co-workers, we got this. Its not over until its over." Personally, it ebbs and flows depending on what it is. Finance...yeah lets panic. We get some official sounding letter (not about finances)...no big deal. My mother is a fatalist so while everything will go to shit, don't panic, because its resolvable. "Everything in life has a solution except death," my mother would say. It sounds better in Spanish.

The physical comment was about a co-worker. Yes, this co-worker is good looking. Yes, it made me feel a torrent of awkward and awful.  My mom has never been to any job I've ever had and per chance here she is at a company gathering. And she makes nice in her pidgin English and the first thing she blurts back in the car "Wow, that lady has a nice ass!"

"Christ, mami. What the fuck?!"
"What? She isn't here.
"My wife is in the car with us!"
My wife: "What is your mom saying about someone's butt?"
My mother: Cackles

Maybe it was all a joke but whether intentional or not it felt very real and refreshing. Counter to a lifetime of backhanded compliments and addendum. "This would be good if only...." or "Oh yeah, your father took me Y before you were born"

Oh, mami.

Here I Go Again, Talking About Dreams

I had a nightmare the other night. Not an outright screaming or panic but something eerie and odd. I remember the dialogue albeit it was much more sensory than narrative.

Me: Why did you wrap me in this plastic sheet? My legs you wrapped them in this plastic sheet. Like Saran wrap but very tight.
Wife: What are you talking about?
Me: Last night. I woke up this morning and I had all this plastic wrap on me all shredded up. On the couch and on my legs
Wife: I have no clue
Me: I could feel you snipping at the wrap peeling it away. And every time there was a laser point of light, like a shooting star but in our living room. It glows purple, then pink, neon yellow and pastel green. With each snip
Wife: I think you dreamed this whole thing up.
Me: No, I head it. Its a long snip. If this were a comic book it would read out *SNIIIIIPPPP* and I felt the greasy grimy metal of the bottom of the blade on my leg.
Wife: You made this up.

And then I woke up. I should have realized it was a dream when I was talking to wife casually about wrapping me up in plastic pallet wrap but this isn't Inception.

Call Me Something Sometime

My daughter recently decided she would only be called by her full name. Penelope.

Which reminds me of the time I renamed myself in high school. Because I do not like my real name. And, still to my surprise, people bought it! All through HS and college people called me by my nickname. But once I entered the work force it felt really juvenile to say that. So I used my birth name and now most people call me by it. That's fine.

Some folks still call me by the nickname, my wife mostly, and woah is that weird in mixed company.

People at work will be, can I call you Garik instead?

No, that would be super weird.

Really?

Its like if I called you, baby.

But...your HS friends called you that. Its not a term of affection. I'm confused. You speak in riddles.

Just, please don't. I am 80 degrees of awkward already.

It also reminds me of a job where we had 4 Katy/i/ies. Right out of a Kids in the Hall sketch. Cathy with a C, Kathy with a K.

Ok, these ladies needed some code names.

Just...Katy (or Alpha Katy) because she actually worked there and was first. I think it sounded much more affirmative then Katie with a Y.

Intern Katie...because she was an intern

Kate because sorry we need another variant and they all dont need to be diminutive

Other Katie because she was...the other Katie spelled like that.

They never were all four at once in the same room for fear the universe would implode.