Cameron Lewis

1995 Redux

2009-10-19T00:40:00.001-04:00

It's been a tough few months. Stray cat drama, dropping temperatures, and 31 different flavors of angst. Yeah, try not to look so surprised, would you please?

Anyway. In a continuing series I like to call How Can I Put Myself through the Fucking Ringer Today?, I spent this evening listening to music I made almost 15 years ago. I decided that tonight was the night I'd finally do what I've been meaning to do for years now: put my goddamn music online, for free, for better or worse. I mean, it's not like anyone buys CDs anymore, much less ancient and obscure stuff by yours truly. Oh, I'll leave up the "buy physical object" link for now, but the more time passes, the greater difficulty I have pretending there's a point to its continued existence. (On the plus side, it looks like I shall never want for drink coasters.)

So, the entire Ipecac Loop album eX is now available for download. I'd ask that you not use any of the contents in any goddamn car commercials or the like, but let's face it: a), I'll be lucky if anyone even bothers to download it, and b), when did you last hear tale of someone actually respecting a creator's wishes?

So grab it, then drop me a line to let me know what you think. I hope you like even some small part of it.

Misanthropy Through a Cat's Eyes

2009-06-17T00:00:00.004-04:00

This past winter was especially hard on me in just about every conceivable way, but there were at least two nearby entities who had it worse: the two cats who'd taken up residence in a bush in front of my house for the coldest months of the year. In January, as the temperatures in my area dipped below zero in the evening, these guys were huddling together for warmth, unseen in what was presumably the only somewhat safe haven they could find.

I tried to help them in what little ways I could. Any time I tried to go near them they took off like bolts of synchronized lightning, so it's not like I could scoop them up and give them proper room and board. The night I discovered them, it was already too late to try to coax a volunteer shelter crew or the like out to grab them, so I did the only thing of which my sleep-deprived brain could conceive: I built a miniature shelter. This thing was the very definition of jury-rigged. I took the formidable box in which my exercise bike was originally packaged, taped a fourth wall in place with an entry gap on the right, taped the flaps to lend the structure support, and covered the whole shebang in cut-up pieces of a garbage bag to keep out moisture. I inserted a blanket, food, pat of butter, and water, and placed the contraption on my deck, hoping they'd smell the goodies and make themselves at home.

Next day? Damn thing hadn't even been approached. Plenty of pussycat footprints in the heaps of goddamn snow Mother Nature saw fit to cram up my ass on a seemingly daily basis, but none of them anywhere near the little ersatz cardboard home.

Five months later to the day, I'm sitting near the window at the rear of my house with a beer, feeling more than a little bummed out about life in general, and one of my own three furbabies is bitching about something at the window. With this guy, it's usually nothing I can see or smell, but this time I can tell what he's on about without any difficulty. Sitting on my driveway asphalt is a tiny little black furball the size of my hand. While my orange marmalade boy brays unceasingly at it, I watch her just sit and stare at him.

A moment later, out of the tall weeds—against which I simply don't have the energy to wage war in the traditional lame demonstration of suburban futility—springs a striped tabby kitten. As this litter-mate playfully smacks her around with clawless pads, another little dude, nearly identical in coloration, leaps into the fray.

As I'm sitting there watching this unscheduled backyard wrestling match, who do I see appear around a corner maybe a quarter mile in the distance? One of the cats I'd tried to help during the winter. Sure enough, she slowly but surely makes her way directly to my backyard, and all three greet her like a Queen. As they crowd her and emit those adorable little mew sounds we seem genetically programmed to find endearing, her head is buffeted by bony little kitten tails, all flying at full mast with unguarded affection.

Mama Cat doesn't quite flop to the driveway, but she tilts over enough to allow each access to a nipple. These little guys go to town like they're at a Vegas buffet. I try to stifle a giggle, but one of the little ones hears me, and looks directly into my soul from across the grass and pavement. Soon all four are staring at me and my big orange boy, who continues to piss and moan a running feline commentary on the developing situation.

Now, I figure they're gone. They're going to take off like they just heard hell's own vacuum cleaner start sucking. But no: Mama Cat makes a bee-line for me. She climbs the nearby deck, jumps to the top rail, and meows at me from eye level and a scant few feet away.

I tell her out loud "meet me at the side door"—yes, I talk to cats, blow me—and head over to open the big wooden door, leave the screen door closed, and head back. None of them are anywhere to be seen. Shit, I scared them off, I think, and head back to close it again... but there they are, the whole brood, just hanging out. Mama Cat is meowing at me, and as I turn the lock and open the door a crack, she comes right the fuck into my house. No ceremony, no great show of timidity and hand-sniffing, just a "hey, what've you got in this joint" march right up to one of my own none-too-pleased furry charges.

She's not battered and bruised, but she's definitely neglected. Her ribs are very pronounced against her side, and she wolfs down the food I put out for her like she hasn't eaten anything but scavenged takeout in weeks. It occurs to me that this is the same cat I've seen picking at the neighbor's garbage while I huff and puff on the exercise bike. I don't know what kind of milk those kittens are getting out of this rail-thin parent, but it can't exactly be Similac, you know? By the time her and her kittens are done, they've eaten a considerable quantity of cat food, only had a few tense momentary stand-offs with my own miniature predators, and had the courtesy not to leave any "presents" anywhere.

All the "local" (read: within 25 miles) shelters and animal hospitals are closed. What's more, once fed, all four are gung-ho to get back out into the world. (I did briefly see a fifth cat in the backyard at some point. The patriarch of this crew? Probably, I should think.) So I let them go about their business, give Mama Cat one last tickle under the chin, and hope that she knows she's made a friend, and can come by any time.

As though sensing the sentiment, an hour later she swings by again for a quick snack, and curls around my legs like I'm a lost brother. My heart melts.

I read about a study recently which found that the perceived value of a favor decreases in the eyes of the receiver over time, but increases in the eyes of the giver. In other words, someone might tell you you're a "life-saver" one day for pulling his or her ass out of a fire, but a few weeks later they're bound to think it wasn't too big a deal. This is, to my mind, deeply fucked up, and yet undoubtedly demonstrably accurate. I can't tell you the number of times I've gone to back-breaking lengths for my friends in their times of desperate need, only to see them disappear off the face of the fucking Earth when I find myself in dire straits. These are people who would read about this study and declare "oh, I'm not like that," and then prove by word and deed that they're precisely like that.

But my point here isn't to harp on how disgusting the bulk of humanity is, though Christ knows I could rant for several million words on that particular topic. My point is that one of the beautiful things about cats is that they aren't like that at all. Do human beings a generous kindness, and they've forgotten it before their asses leave your sofa. Do a cat a small favor, and you've made a friend for life.

If that makes me a crazy cat person in anyone's eyes, so be it. But I greatly prefer that the company I keep consider honesty and fidelity inviolable virtues instead of optional ornaments to be jettisoned at the first sign of mild inconvenience.

I'll be worrying about this little furry family wandering around in the cool darkness of a summer that can turn wet and violent in a heartbeat; but I also feel better than I have in a while just for having the opportunity to help an itinerant soul who genuinely appreciated the effort.

GemCraft

2009-05-22T20:45:00.000-04:00

Want to lose many, many hours to a tower defense game that'll hold you in helpless thrall? Check out either of the GemCraft games at Armor Games. They've got excellent core mechanics, appealing graphics and audio for Flash efforts, and RPG-lite skill systems that have caused a fair amount of sleep disruption for me over the past couple weeks.

Be warned: expect to invest a pretty ludicrous amount of time if you want to get to the very end of the more recent "GemCraft chapter 0" prequel.

35 Down

2009-03-14T00:00:00.006-04:00

I needed to post something to bump that overwrought mess of pretentious filth down the page a bit. Luckily, it's my birthday, so let that suffice as an excuse to interrupt your regularly scheduled ration of dead air. You know, as a special treat for those of you who give a shit. (Show of hands? Oh, right: nobody.)

Last time I spewed incoherent rubbish in this space, I said something about numerological significance. Well, I've been passing myself off as a functioning human being for a full 35 years now, and while those digits lack the trailing zero that usually denotes a milestone of aging, they nevertheless carry a certain weight. They do for me, at any rate.

I know what you're thinking: "Here comes another loud cloud of hot fart dressed up in laughably florid poeticisms." Well, bite me, because instead I'm going to break out that now omnipresent web content crutch: the bulleted list.

You want to know why I feel ancient in my mid-thirties? Well, you'll have to come by with some booze and a hankering to hear a lot of self-obsessed pissing and moaning. In lieu of an actual goddamn conversation, or a genuinely meaningful explanation, here's a list of stuff that hadn't come about when I was born in 1974.

The Internet
Nixon's resignation
Touch-tone phones
The Walkman
Home computers
The Rubik's Cube
Cable TV, the VCR, the Compact Disc, the DVD, the MP3, e-books, etc.
Simon, which you may recall was originally the size of a goddamn coffee table, and now comes on a key chain
Text adventures
The reunification of Germany
Video game consoles
Cell phones, camcorders, digital cameras, and GPS units

Get this: I went to the library to research school papers. They had something called a "card catalogue."

Normally I'd take this opportunity to go off on a rambling diatribe about how the ability to occasionally string a coherent sentence together is now valued roughly on par with gum disease, but it's my birthday, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

And There Goes the Other One

2009-01-01T00:15:00.005-05:00

With a great howling of arctic winds the door did firmly and with great malice aforethought hit 2008 on the ass on its way out. Suck it, 2008.

Each year I watch the clock tick over and wonder at the power that such an arbitrary division of time can wield over us—as a species, as a culture, and as individuals. Whether the occasion sends you into paroxysms of ecstatic celebration, be they pantomimed or genuine, or leaves you dreading the highs and hells that the coming calendar year has laid out for you as you bob inexorably across the endlessly undulating virgin wilderness of time, its emotional effects leave little doubt of the power that even the simplest of rituals has tucked away behind folds we can't begin to fathom.

What I think many people often forget—myself included—is that we needn't remain slaves to old routines that don't produce the results we're after. Granted, much of the flow of our lives might seem maddeningly out of our direct control, but our own thoughts and deeds shape us in ways that external forces typically can't without great coordination or spectacular coincidence. It may often be (or at least seem to be) profoundly difficult to change the daily rituals that give our individual lives their true (if usually unobserved) textures, but it can be done. I can't claim to be pleased with the pace at which I've made changes in my own life; nevertheless, I am bringing those changes about.

All of which I suppose sounds pretty optimistic, if not outlandishly charitable, given the suffering the universe allows within its borders. Actually, if you know me personally, you might well be inclined to wonder if I'm being facetious. I swear, I'm truly not. I'm not blind, mind you—I know 2009 will inevitably have at least its share of tragedies and disappointments—but as the clock ticks over my chief resolution is to work hard to minimize the negative impact of the defeats, and allow myself to celebrate the victories.

One Filthy Cloven Hoof Out the Door

2008-12-26T22:00:00.010-05:00

2008 is almost done and gone, and I have to say: good goddamn riddance. Go fall down a well, 2008. I made it past that hideous Christmas Day anniversary that's been hanging over my head, you bastard. You're out of ammo, so spare me the theatrical dry-fire routine, would you please?

As for 2009, I'm exploring ideas, and making some important changes. Let's see what happens.

Road Work Ahead

2008-11-30T04:45:00.001-05:00

Two or three times a year I get the random urge to clear out a closet, or crack open a box of artifacts from a distant chapter of my life. This almost always results in a surreal mishmash of conflicting emotions, not least of all because I always somehow manage to unearth things I haven't looked at in decades. Tonight I came across a notebook containing a short and matter-of-fact account of a few weeks of my life when I was 16 or 17, around the time when two major corrective jaw surgeries had their drastic, almost tectonic impact on my life.

By all rights, this thing should've been buried in a long-forgotten box, which would itself be tucked away in some remote corner of the basement, perhaps under other boxes of memorabilia that I can't bear to think about. And yet, there it was, sitting on a shelf in the office closet of a house I've only lived in for a little over three years, right on top of an old binder containing negatives for photographs I took in college. (Included in this collection, it turns out, is the best photograph I've ever taken: a striking black and white image of the second of my two beloved childhood cats.)

I'm hardly the first one to comment on the strange sense of emotional cleansing that can come from sorting through ancient mementos, but that the experience is not unique does not diminish the effect it can have on me. I pick and choose what to keep and what to discard, and I wish I could do the same with the junk that takes up space in my head. I fantasize about reinventing myself so fundamentally that I'd be wholly unrecognizable to anyone who's ever met me. This train of thought is a tricky one to ride, because its natural destination seems to be despair: the realization that who I really am bears very little resemblance to what the outside world sees.

This is something that's always gnawed at me: the immeasurable psychic distance between every living thing, the idea that nobody can ever truly know anyone else. Now, I know I'm pretty far from breaking new philosophical ground here. From Sartre to Robert Anton Wilson to Miller's Crossing, the subjective nature of reality and the psychological pain that accompanies it has been explored and detailed by sharper minds than mine. But I've too often allowed myself to be derailed from this train of thought, from examination of these issues, by the derisive sneers of the insensitive and small-minded. So much of the time, any attempt to discuss these facets of the human experience results in adverse reactions that range from naked hypocritical dismissal (e.g., "you're just being negative," which I've only ever heard from those poor souls who have been cursed with a crippling lack of empathy) to misplaced competitive aggression (e.g., "so what makes you any better," which misses the point so completely as to seem willfully ignorant) to specious platitudinous rubbish (e.g., "people are people").

One of my major problems is that I let myself get hung up on this particular point. I see that no matter how clearly I try to articulate a thought, present an argument, or discuss a topic, the odds are exceptionally good that what I've said will be tortured out of context, twisted out of shape, or treated as evidence that I'm simply bat-shit crazy by at least one person. If I'm honest with myself, I realize that there's really not much difference between one person reacting this way, and everyone reacting this way, in terms of the paralyzing effect it tends to have on me. It's an example of the "all or nothing" perceptual filter trap that I fall into far too frequently. I take great pleasure in even a fleeting opportunity to discuss just about any topic with people who will give and take with thoughtfulness and creativity, and it makes no difference whether we agree or disagree. But often it seems like all it takes to make the whole exercise seem pointless and empty is one mean-spirited or apathetic prick appearing on the scene to scrawl "u r teh st00p1d" on a wall with a crayon.

The truth is that I, and I alone, have allowed that sense of pointlessness, and the rising tide of hopelessness that quickly follows, to stunt my emotional, intellectual, and creative growth for far too long. It's pervaded virtually ever aspect of my life, from relationships with friends and family to my plans for the future. Tonight, however, what's most on my mind is how it affects my writing, because that's what I'd like most to focus on in the months and years ahead.

I can beat myself up for the wasted time. Lord knows I'm an expert at that particular form of self-torture. Tonight, however, as I prepare to go to bed at a ridiculously late hour, I'm trying to put head to pillow with a positive spin on the whole trip. I'm not going to whip up another iteration of that classic glistening web of mindlessly solipsistic "you create your own reality" bullshit and pretend that the ugliness in the world disappears when I close my eyes to it; but I am going to try very hard not to give myself permission to dive head-first into the nearest abyss because of it.

Frankly, I don't know if I'm capable of this particular feat. It reminds me of what Colin Wilson referred to as the "Ultimate Yes" response to every life's looming silent question. The gist is that you recognize that the world is dreadfully imperfect, perhaps even plainly horrific, but decide to stick around and do your best anyway. Sometimes—okay, a lot of the time—this seems to me like sitting through 90 minutes of rotten movie in the hopes that the final half hour will knock my socks off. (It would strain this ham-fisted metaphor to the breaking point to suggest that I wield the power of a Director over my own "film," but I wouldn't claim that my life is a strictly deterministic puppeteer's performance, either.)

I don't quite know yet how I'm going to get my heart and head pointed in the right direction for prolonged periods. But I'm going to try.

Balance

2008-08-21T20:00:00.007-04:00

I know I haven't posted in over two months, but it's been a pretty rough stretch here, and I didn't want this blog to turn into Cameron's Tales of Woe. The most upsetting events revolved around Shady, my beloved Abyssinian, battling two illnesses in sequence. The first was a urinary tract infection, which I caught nice and early, but the antibiotic treatment left her feeling yucky for two weeks. Immediately after that, she had to contend with an ear infection that disturbed her vestibular system to the point where she couldn't sit or walk without falling over. This was treated with another round of antibiotics, and it took her weeks on end to recover her sense of balance. She's still not up to her old standards; one might argue that this is only to be expected from a 14-or-so-year-old cat, but it is nonetheless profoundly upsetting.

On the plus side, I've been getting plenty of freelance work. I visited Ubisoft Montreal for the third time, and became the first person outside the company to get hands-on time with the new Prince of Persia. You can read about that in detail in the September issue of GamePro.

I also got to play and review some highly anticipated games, and though a few were disappointing, some were absolutely fantastic. The highlight of this batch was undoubtedly Jonathan Blow's Xbox Live Arcade masterpiece Braid, which I had the opportunity to review for Official Xbox Magazine. If you haven't played it, do yourself a favor and drop the $15 on it immediately. I can't wait to see what this guy does next.

The opportunities I've been given to play and write about good games might not be enough to bring the psychological balance for the past eight or nine weeks into the black, but they certainly helped me to grit my teeth and make it through all the upset.

Furry Choir

2008-06-04T13:30:00.001-04:00

I'm getting ready to take all three cats to the vet for a single appointment, which will include annual checkups, vaccinations, and lots of pitiful mewling. I love these guys to bits, even when Shady wakes me up at 6am because my eyebrows simply must be licked, or Patrick runs up and down the hall for no apparent reason, but I loathe this particular ritual. The worst part isn't tucking them into cat carriers, though this becomes exponentially more difficult as each anxious furbaby is captured. The worst part is the collection of broken-hearted looks that say I trusted you, you son of a bitch.

Hopefully they'll all come back with clean bills of health, and will forget all about this supposed betrayal when we come back and I make a tuna sandwich.

Sprummer

2008-04-22T00:00:00.004-04:00

The weather around here rocketed from not far north of freezing to eighty in the space of 48 hours, and yet the snow at my back door took another few days to completely melt. Forget spring, summer is here. I spent a few sweaty minutes reinstalling air conditioners in windows today, and it isn't even May.

I've gotten some nice comments from people about the preview of Grand Theft Auto IV I wrote for the May issue of PlayStation: The Official Magazine, including a kind note from one of my old partners in crime from the high school days. I must be doing something right, because it looks like I'll be headed back out on the road for a day or two next week.

Going away should be a little easier to deal with now that I don't have to worry about coming home to a frozen and impassable driveway. I'm going to relish these months of comparatively wonderful weather in all the ways I didn't last year. I'm already nagging one friend in particular about going camping again. Hell, the way I'm feeling, I might just say to hell with it and head out to some remote spot on my own. What's the worst that can happen? (This would be where you can cue the shrieking strings when my bear-mauled carcass is found in three months.)

Probability City

2008-03-28T19:15:00.002-04:00

I just got back from my second trip to New York City in the space of five weeks. I've always considered myself the kind of person who needs considerable periods of solitude to recover from being out and about in the world, and up until these last two visits I'd operated under the assumption that living in Gotham's seemingly constant hustle and bustle would be like planting me in a pressure cooker with no release valve. The thing is, though I did find myself occasionally frustrated with inconsiderate douche bags strolling seven abreast as though the sidewalks of SoHo were their own private dominion, or the miserable attitude of some of the residents—a wannabe hipster jackass of a bartender felt he needed to put a surprising amount of effort into making me feel four inches tall for asking for a glass of water, for instance—I find myself enjoying the city more and more each time I visit it, and consequently wondering what it would be like to live there.

Of course, planting that particular flag in that particular spot is absolutely ri-goddamn-diculously expensive, and I'm not willing to sell my soul for the privilege; but, if I somehow ever find myself with the means to make a go of it, I might yet give it a shot.

34 Down

2008-03-17T23:30:00.001-04:00

I've been lax about posting for a variety of reasons, none of which I'm going to get into right now. The last few weeks have been tumultuous. Some of the events have been positive, like the trip to New York City to play a highly anticipated video game for a magazine. Others have been negative and profoundly upsetting, like the sudden and wholly unexpected death of a friend the evening of March 1st.

There have been too many thoughts vibrating along too many developing threads for me to deliver a pat summarization of them in a single blog entry, and untangling the knotted strands in the hopes of putting them to purposeful use elsewhere is going to take time. I'll say this, though: I'm working hard to make my 35th year on this planet better than the 34 that preceded it.

Theater of Disappointment

2008-02-17T22:30:00.001-05:00

I saw Atonement yesterday, mostly because when we got to the theater it was far too early for No Country for Old Men, and too late for There Will Be Blood. It turns out I didn't quite know what I was in for. I expected a certain amount of angst given what little I knew of the plot, but I wasn't prepared to be anywhere near as affected by it as I was. Though uneven in places, and inconsistent in tone, focus, and pacing, I nevertheless found it to be very moving. "Bring your hankies" is what I'm saying, I guess.

I spent most of today playing through the entirety of an Xbox 360 game I had been looking forward to. I try to keep an especially open mind with games that come my way for review, but I was really rooting for this one to live up to its potential. Unfortunately, it became painfully clear over seven strained hours that the review I'll write tomorrow will be rather light on praise to say the least.

Some writers claim to enjoy writing scathing critiques, but I'm not one of them. Perhaps it's a result of having just been to a movie where a handful of quiet moments turn out to have devastating long-term consequences for everyone involved, but the responsibility that comes with publicly lauding or panning the works of others weighs on me heavier than usual this evening. I would much rather turn players on to an exemplary title they might otherwise miss than dash breathless anticipation on the rocks of harsh criticism. Perhaps I can save readers from forking over cash for rubbish, but guarding an audience against disappointment—assuming I'm accurate with any given assessment, which of course is always open to debate, both reasoned and otherwise—is never as much fun as pointing a crowd in the direction of work they should experience at all costs.

D for Effort

2008-02-06T00:05:00.000-05:00

For all the talk about whether video games are art or not, too many new releases are riddled with the kind of goofs you'd expect from a fourth grade school play, not a piece of entertainment someone's supposed to drop sixty bucks on.

This week I played a game where, in the course of sneaking around, it's probable that you'll hear two guards talking. Trouble is, all these soldiers are voiced by the same person, and in the exact same manner. Given that the performances sound like cold reads with no direction, I have to wonder: weren't any other members of the development team available for ten minutes to record some rubbish dialogue? You know, just so this scene doesn't come off like a particularly bad outtake from Raising Cain?

And don't get me started on all the games where half the soundtrack is of the "hey, my brother's in a band" variety.

I realize I'm up on my high horse, but for crying out in the beer, if you're going to spend years of your life working endless crunch hours to create something, put your entire ass into it, would you please?

As much as I love BioShock, I hope it's just the beginning, the long overdue opening salvo of a new battle to give the gaming audience more credit, to tell more interesting and intelligent stories, to make what are still largely disposable experiences more powerful, resonant, and memorable.

I don't mean to imply that all games should strive for deeper meaning, or that it's a necessary ingredient in all cases. I've just in the last week had the pleasure of playing a fantastic military-themed first-person shooter ahead of its release, and its storytelling, serviced largely by thick-necked grunt stereotypes, is by far its weakest ingredient. Is it a bad game? Quite the opposite. Still, would its ham-fisted political message be better served by a consistent and thoughtful narrative element, elaborated upon by performances tailored to that end? Absolutely.

Wine, Vinegar, and Regret

2008-01-22T19:00:00.000-05:00

Last night was the lowest I've felt in a while.

I've never been much of a wine guy. When folks start blathering about the hints of apricot and birch in their wine's bouquet, and looking down their noses at those of us who tend to see wine as overpriced alcohol with a strange tendency to produce crippling hangovers whether you got yourself properly soused or not, my mind looks for a corner of the ceiling to crawl into and die.

That said, I used to live in Northern California with a woman I'm no longer married to, and occasionally parents or friends would visit and want to hit the vineyards north of San Francisco. We'd endure the inconsiderate idle rich and the frequently obnoxious snobs that cater to them, and come back with a few bottles of surprisingly yummy, if expensive, liquid goodies. The vineyards apparently have a habit of naming at least some of their wines, and at some point I'd left with one called "Eloquence."

Now, roll your eyes if you must, but it wasn't purchased because of my ambitions as a writer, but because the sample I tried was damned tasty. Into the cupboard this 1997 chardonnay went—spare me the "anything but chardonnay" elitist bullshit, thanks—only to be plucked out and moved across the country in 2005, and hidden away in another cupboard upon its arrival in New York.

At some point near the tail end of 2007, I came across this bottle again, and was tempted to drink it. This is the last obvious remnant of a regrettable marriage that isn't packed away in a box in the basement, and I wrestled with it a bit. Should I just drink the damn thing so I could get it out of my life? Or should I attach some symbolic value to its name, and resolve not to open it until I'd sold my first novel? I leaned toward the latter option, and so held onto the bottle, leaving it unopened, resting in its snazzy little black box.

Until last night. It came up in an instant messaging conversation with a friend in the U.K., who suggested that it was most likely vinegar by now. A quick bit of research later, I learn what any wine guru would already know: unless you house these bottles in a cellar, and lie them on their sides so that the cork is always moist, that expensive grape juice turns into something fit only for cooking or salad dressing.

I plucked the wine from its resting place, opened the box, and held the bottle up to the light. What was once more or less free of color was now an amber shade, indicating the whole thing had become, as they say, "corked." Ruined. Yuckified. Not suitable for consumption as a beverage.

The speed with which this upset me was remarkable. The bottle had rotted, just as my marriage had, just as whatever talent I once possessed had, just as my hope for the future had, and so on and so forth. I've gotten better at keeping the little things from throwing me off-course, but for some reason this particular symbolic loss sent me skating off a precipice.

I tore into myself for all the poor decisions I'd made in the past that brought me to this point: forsaking artistic goals in favor of financial security in service to a doomed marriage, letting what little talent I ever had rot on the vine while I sold my soul a piece at a time for the privilege of four-hour daily commutes and an ever-expanding self-hatred, and placing faith and friendship in entirely the wrong people time and time again.

My perspective is a lot better today. I don't regret those past decisions any less, but the pain of them isn't roiling just below the surface, either. I'm learning how to focus on the present, how to keep the past from squeezing my heart until I can't breathe or move. It's not even remotely easy, but I'm getting better at it, and the defenses and resources that were utterly shattered when I divorced, seemingly irrevocably, appear to be returning, even if it is at their own glacial paces. I'm even starting to get a handle on how to accept that rate of recovery.

All of which is a bit bloody personal to be posting on a blog. But if part of recovering from betrayal and disaster is being open to what comes after it, then maybe letting these thoughts out into the open air is a fitting gesture to that end.

Busy January

2008-01-15T21:45:00.000-05:00

January is usually a bit of a lull for me as a freelance writer, but this year is proving to be an exception. While certainly a good thing for my checkbook, this fact makes finding spare moments to work on other pursuits difficult, especially when variable chunks of time disappear into keeping the driveway clear of the white stuff I loved as a kid but have now come to dread.

Hopefully it's just a matter of figuring out how to budget my time a bit better. Much as I enjoy not waking up to a damned alarm clock every morning, I wish I didn't require quite as much sleep to feel like a sane human being. At the very least, the Sandman could do me the courtesy of letting me remember my dreams.

Network

2008-01-13T00:15:00.000-05:00

I don't know how I managed not to see Sidney Lumet's Network years ago, but I rectified that situation tonight. There are certainly aspects of the 1976 film that date it—the lack of omnipresent cell phones and computers is particularly jarring, and infuses an inadvertent "period piece" feel 30+ years later—but the problems we face as an easily distracted technological race aren't among them.

The monologue that marks the end of the second act, delivered brilliantly by Ned Beatty, holds every bit of the meteoric impact I'd heard attributed to it. (And I have to admit, I couldn't resist listening to Snog's "Corporate Slave," which samples this speech to memorable effect, immediately afterward.) As much as those moments in "Valhalla" stand out, however, the remaining dialogue is similarly noteworthy. I'm sure it'd invite a sniff of derision from those who'd mutter that this is not how people speak in the real world, but I'm of the opinion that it works beautifully in Network's deliciously self-referential context.

Hell, I wish the precision and flavor of half-dollar words didn't send so many listeners scurrying for rationalistic judgement. ("I don't know this word, therefore the speaker is a pretentious git," seems to be the underlying thought process.)

I could spout on for the rest of the evening about Network's prescient satire, but that's been done well enough elsewhere that I'll simply say that if you haven't yet seen it, you're missing a true cultural landmark.

Time to Write

2008-01-09T01:15:00.000-05:00

Though I tend to seal myself off from the outside world, and by turns both luxuriate and fester in the cocoon I've created for myself—neglecting to respond to emails from people I care deeply about in anything resembling a timely fashion is symptomatic of this—I've struck a bargain of sorts with my oldest and dearest friend in the world.

He's working on his doctorate at Oxford University. (I'd be lying through my teeth if I claimed that alone didn't make feel out-classed.) As of the new year, we've assigned a rough time when we stop what we're doing and simply write together, five-hour time difference and oceanic distance be damned. This means shutting down email programs, any IM connection I'm not using to converse with him before and after the session, and any other potential distractions.

This is, of course, much easier said than done, but that fact alone is a large part of why it's so important—and proving so effective.

This might sound odd coming from someone who works at home and gets up whenever the hell he feels like most of the time, but most of my recent days have been a bit frantic, juggling constant emails and instant messages while researching, checking facts, gathering assets, performing miscellaneous errands, and oh yeah, actually writing a word or two for heating oil money.

But none of that work even scrapes the dust off 2008's fiction goals. So, as tough as it can be to see the clock ticking toward a daily appointment, it's also vital because it gives me a sharp wedge with which to jam my most beloved aspirations into the day. I'm pretty good at letting my self down, but just as I've never once missed a deadline in my career as a freelance writer, I'll be damned if I'll let a commitment to a friend slide by, lousy correspondence habits notwithstanding. (It sounds trite and simplistic, but there's a lot to be said for finding a way, however labyrinthine or acrobatic, to turn a character weakness into a practical strength.)

The first few days were of the stream-of-consciousness and rant variety; they let a little steam out of the pressure cooker, but provided no raw material that might be spun into a bit of fiction. Today, on the other hand, was different: I dug around briefly in the box of paper scraps, index cards, and envelopes on which I've jotted random thoughts and ideas over the past few years, found one that intrigued me, and ran with it. The result is the first thousand words of fiction I've written this year.

Now mind you, my tendency has always been to come back to a piece of writing after some length of time has passed and snort in disgust at how abysmal it is. I've never been good at giving myself any credit at all for the work I care most about, for reasons that would require a book unto themselves. Overcoming that is a considerable challenge, but, I hope, not an insurmountable one. I'm working on it, in other words. (I know, of course, that I'm by no means unique in this regard. Every writer has an "inner editor" that seems to delight in verbally defecating on every last word of output, even if some are considerably louder than others. In fact, I suspect such writers are luckier than the ones that walk around convinced they're the second coming of Hemingway, since the latter are invariably too busy stroking themselves in public to think about how they might improve.)

So sure, I've got a long way to go. Who knows if any of what I wrote today is even usable. Even if it's not, though, you can be damn sure I made greater progress by writing it than I would have by simply letting the day's tumult carry my dreams out with the tide.

The point is this: there's never, ever going to be enough time to do all the things you want to do, a perfect time to do them, or a perfect environment for fostering your will to try. The trick seems to be to do them anyway, because even if you feel even more stressed out and used up than you did before you burned the time on them, looking back on the day feels a whole lot better if you can see that you took firm control over at least some of it.

My hope is that the more I practice, the more I maintain this commitment to my friend (and to myself), the stronger my discipline will become, until eventually I'll be able not only to take time out for my own goals under even the most stressful of circumstances, but also become completely absorbed by those moments, and take more joy from them in the process.

Three... Extremes

2008-01-06T01:55:00.000-05:00

Ever since I saw Park Chan-wook's Oldboy last year, I've been renting what of his oeuvre I can get my hands on. Though I also particularly enjoyed Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, none so far have affected me in any way comparable.

Tonight I watched Three... Extremes, a collection of three shorts, each directed by a filmmaker from a different country. (I've only just now, in reading a bit further about the project, learned that this is actually a sequel to 2002's Three, which has since been released in the U.S. as Three... Extremes II, presumably due to unimaginative marketing decisions.)

Fruit Chan of Hong Kong delivers "Dumplings," about a woman's pursuit of her own fading youth at tremendous cost, which blends humanistic sympathy and stomach-churning revulsion without resorting to the pushy "here are some lingering close-ups of gore" crap that most American horror directors seems to think is scary. Afterward, South Korea's Park Chan-wook toys superficially with the distance between internal reality and projected image in "Cut," a rather gimmicky and underdeveloped tale of a film director held and manipulated by one of his extras. Though it features some interesting moments of contrived significance, by the end I had little sympathy for any but the most incidental (and predictable) of characters, and I didn't buy the conclusion at all.

The real revelation of the evening, for me, was Japanese auteur Takashi Miike's "Box." The edges at first seem needlessly jagged, like the filmmaker hasn't quite got his act together: disparate images are intercut with harsh boundary beats, and the introduction to the contortionist tent environment smacked of someone trying a bit too hard to emulate David Lynch or his progenitors.

I couldn't have been more wrong. In hindsight, every image seems to belong precisely where it is. Not necessarily for logical reasons, as such, but because the emotional music the entirety yields wouldn't stir the air as well without them. The rough edges actually serve to unsettle the viewer more than the slickest Hollywood production of the same story ever would, and complement the eerie smoothness of the sequence that serves as the film's moving centerpiece.

In toto, "Box" is a devastating, if necessarily incomplete, portrait of aberrant development, both physical and psychological. The characters may not be as damaged as you were initially led to believe, or they could be suffering from even greater unseen wounds you wouldn't want to imagine.

That you could say the same about any one of us just makes it resonate with even greater amplitude.

Take My Money? Please?

2008-01-05T01:10:00.000-05:00

You'd think by now online merchants would have some clue how to run their businesses.

You'd be wrong, though.

My brother gave me a gift certificate to a certain bookseller for Christmas. Tonight I browsed their website, found a couple of books I wanted to spend the card on, and tried to sign into my account.

"No such account."

Okay, no biggie. I haven't used it in a long time, so they probably deleted it for inactivity. I create a new one.

My shopping cart is now empty for some reason.

Okay, no biggie, I remember the names of the books. Here, I'll just sign out of my newly created account and sign back in so the browser remembers the password.

"Incorrect password."

Okay, no biggie. Never mind that I copied and pasted it to ensure it was identical to what I entered on the sign-up form, but fine. Here, I'll just click the "forgot my password" link, enter my email address, and we'll get this straightened out, right?

I have yet to receive the promised email after a lot of waiting and repeated attempts.

This sort of inexplicable stupidity isn't limited to the online realm, either. Over the summer I had trouble with a small piece of siding on my house. No problem: just call someone from the yellow pages, pay out the nose, problem solved, right? I called every single siding repair outfit in the yellow pages, and more than once. Not one actually answered the phone, so I left polite messages explaining that I needed some siding repaired, and to please ring me. Not a single one returned repeated calls.

Please, won't someone relieve me of my hard-earned cash?

"Service economy" my white ass.

Preferred Pursuits

2008-01-02T22:15:00.000-05:00

Despite my best intentions, I got virtually nothing of consequence done today.

It's amazing how much time you can sink into seemingly simple chores. Clear the driveway of its latest helping of snow, slide around town to send mail and buy milk, exercise, shower, drum up a bit of freelance work, make some dinner to satisfy a stomach that remains unimpressed by the yogurt and banana you tossed into it hours earlier, and suddenly it's 10:15pm and you've not contributed one moment of the day to your long-term goals.

It's marginally comforting to couch all that in the second person, but it doesn't retrieve the lost seconds, does it?

On closer inspection, however, perhaps such pedestrian activities do contribute, each in its own opaque way. By exercising, I work toward a body I can be more comfortable in. By drumming up freelance work, I prevent my bank account from running dry in leaner times, freeing my mind to work on more than an ulcer while I wait for work to pick up.

All this could be just wishful thinking, and heaven knows my attitude wasn't as sunny while in the midst of the day's nonsense—I could've easily done without the garbage bag disintegrating for no apparent reason, and thus spreading yogurt lids, banana peels, and less identifiable filth around the kitchen, for instance—but I'm trying to find ways to keep a positive outlook, even if I haven't yet figured out how to devote every last waking moment to my preferred pursuits.

Armchair Alethiology

2008-01-01T00:30:00.000-05:00

In preparing to start the new year with a new blog, one of the things I needed to think about was what I was willing to share with the world in this space. Would I be completely open about every thought and feeling, spilling the beans about every last little dribble of hope and doubt, success and self-pity? Or would I choose to censor myself, sculpting a public, if seldom read, persona to match as closely as possible what I wish to be, rather than what I am?

That got me thinking about my own larger system of values, insofar as I've ever consciously constructed one. I've always placed great value on honesty in other people, but I started to wonder how useful a barometer of friendship or integrity that really is. What do we mean when we say someone is "genuine" or "disingenuous"? Where is the line drawn, if there is one? Surely social niceties like polite laughter at an unfunny quip don't indicate some hidden contempt for truth on the part of the casual role-player... or do they? Is giving someone false hope with a lie better than dashing their remaining speck of it with the truth? For that matter, isn't the best of fiction often admired for revealing hidden truths even as it spins endless fabrications?

I can't claim to know the grand score, but I tend to doubt any system that replaces spectrums with binary oppositions, even if I myself am often guilty of viewing issues in black-and-white polarities at less wary moments.

And so, I find myself reappraising my own behavior and relationships on the occasion of the breach birth of yet another new year. I've always felt a great, if intangible, distance between myself and other people—even the people who are meant to be close to me—and I've always strongly doubted that anyone can ever truly know anyone else well enough to claim the spiritual kinship I crave but have never once truly found. This problem might well be the reason I place such a high value on language, even as I swim in a culture that appears to prize the manipulation of minds and the vacuous acquisition of objects above all else.

It's entirely possible that language simply isn't a strong enough thread to carry the required weight. The same could be said of music, or film, or video games, or masonry, or any other art. But despite this nagging doubt, I'm learning to appreciate my own intuition with more conscious regularity, and am willing to put just a little bit more time and faith into it. I could scarcely start a new blog, let alone a new piece of fiction, if I didn't have some spark left in me, however hidden it might seem at present.

And so, I'll try to accept whatever pitted and potholed road I'll find myself wandering in the new year. I hope 2008 will be at least a little bit better than the last few spools of the calendar, and that when this time next year is carving its notch on my consciousness I'll have something more tangible to show for the hours, days, and months marking its passing.

Freelance Writing

2007-12-31T07:30:00.008-05:00

I make my living as a freelance writer. I'm based in upstate NY, which puts me within driving distance of many game developers in New England and eastern Canada. Editors have sent me on assignment to New York City, Montreal, Niagara Falls, Georgia, North Carolina, and Poland.

I've written features, reviews, previews, and other articles for GamePro, GameSpot, GameSpy, GamesRadar, Maximum PC, Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer, PlayStation: The Official Magazine, and the E3 Show Daily. I've also written information features and advertorial copy for companies like Aureal, Best Buy, Circuit City, and NVIDIA.

I'm currently available for additional work, so don't hesitate to get in touch.

Ipecac Loop: eX

2007-12-31T07:15:00.002-05:00

Buy Cam's CD for $9.99, including shipping to anywhere on the planet, or download it for free. All major credit cards and currencies are accepted via the secure checkout system.

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Contact

2007-12-31T06:30:00.001-05:00

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