About five years ago I stopped by the doctor’s office to get a tetanus booster. While on the table the nurse noted I was a smoker and scribbled off a prescription for Chantix, which at that time was new to the market and promised to quench my craving for lung darts.  I filled the prescription, popped a pill, and eight hours later found I had little time to think about cigarettes because I was too busy getting insane. Lathered in rage, mind reeling, pulse racing, I manhandled the kitchen appliances and yelled at the dog.  I briefly considered walking the halls of my apartment building and punching the first person I saw but instead went back to roughing up the rice cooker. After molesting that dainty Japanese motherfucker to within an inch of its warranty I called my friend Nadia, who is a superb spectator when one is chasing down their marbles. She offered: “Dude, it’s the Chantix; some rock star in Texas died taking that shit.” A quick Google search revealed that the keyboardist from Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians had, in fact, been shot dead by his neighbor after taking Chantix and maniacally attacking the neighbor’s front door. In the end I never took a second pill, believing the Marlboros offered better odds. 

This memory came to mind after reading Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic. Whitaker, a science reporter for The Boston Globe, performs a deep dive on the history of psychotropic pharmaceuticals – antidepressants, antipsychotics, and benzodiazepines – and the medical studies that barely supported their market approval.  He makes a strong case that long-term usage of the drugs (greater than eighteen months) results in permanent brain damage, the only treatment for which is higher doses of the same drug that caused the harm.  This poo sandwich becomes a poo picnic when one considers that 30 million men, women, and children are currently popping antidepressants in these United States. 

Briefly, Whitaker describes how the brain has mechanisms called serotonin receptors regulating its chemical balance, much like a traffic light at a busy intersection. If it detects too much serotonin it will send a signal to produce less, while too little telegraphs a need for more. Pharmaceuticals act like a cop who comes into the intersection, overrides the light, and directs the brain to leave open the serotonin spigots. As a result, a depressed or anxious person will feel better, start bathing regularly, and perhaps begin again experimenting with sexual positions. The problem, however, is what happens to the original traffic lights, those receptors now under the jackboot of Officer Feelgood: they eventually disappear, permanently. Thus when the drug is removed the brain can’t properly balance its chemical load and too little serotonin is produced. Your subsequent alternatives then become a lifetime of mild depression or to get back on the dope, consistently “upping your meds” to keep pace with the chemical lobotomy you're washing down every morning. 

There is much more to this book, and if you take antidepressants or regular benzodiazepines (like Xanax or Valium) it is very much worth the read. More importantly, if you’re a parent considering a psycho-cocktail for little Timmy or Sally I’d strongly recommend the two chapters involving the substantial lack of long-term studies involving children  - you may just think twice before you scramble that junior skillet.

 

There is some irony in viscerally not liking Malcolm Gladwell. The author of The Tipping Point and Blink has made much hay of our first, immediate impressions either being correct or so heavily weighted in our consideration that rightness becomes a moot point, like mistakenly convicting a pedophile of manslaughter. So it's startling, really, the level of cognitive dissonance I hold for these books and their author: The paperback covers are calm and reassuring, an eggshell ivory with an earthy texture. The writing seems an exercise in congeniality, an anecdotal sociology lecture conducted by a sweater-clad liberal arts professor; somewhere, hot cocoa is brewing. Malcolm Gladwell the person, however, strikes me as a smug little man forever refreshing the iPad app tabulating his standing among New York literati. I imagine him a first-responder were the nation to collectively forget he was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2005. I hate his hair, his $80,000 speaking fee, and the antique foreign car (that I assume) he drives around like the doyenne of douchebags. 

Now I've started a paragraph on an entirely different subject, although by the end of this post you'll realize the topics are connected. I do this with some frequency in my own writing; Gladwell does it all the time. In What the Dog Saw he pairs such topics as pit bulls and racial profiling, Picasso and Cezanne, the Challenger explosion and the Vineyard plane crash of JFK Jr., as well as World War Two aeriel bombing juxtaposed with mammography. Since this book is a collection of his New Yorker articles I don't mind the A-B rhyme scheme, as it's a pleasant segue to consider the Dogan tribe of Mali while otherwise engaged in a history of the birth control pill. I wish other authors would do this in the same way I'd like life to come with a soundtrack - such features would improve the conscious user experience. So Gladwell's circuitous narratives offer few clues as to why I want to punch him in the face. 

In the end I grudgingly recommend this nicely priced paperback because Gladwell, while annoying looking, is an interesting person. Reading this collection of articles will likely make you a more interesting person. When I get around to absorbing Blink perhaps I'll understand why I can love the sound but hate the instrument. 

 

When I was ten or eleven I began attending Camp Dudley, a YMCA sleep away program on the shores of Lake Champlain in upstate New York. For eight weeks during the summers I'd interact with other boys from across the US and a half a dozen other countries, a fairly eye-opening experience for a kid from the midwest. In 1984 I met another camper named Steve who became my first introduction to determination: Every morning before reveille Steve would get up and run ten or twelve miles, rain or shine. On top of this insanity he would severely limit his sugar intake, meaning it took a month for this twelve year old to consume a care package of homemade birthday cookies. A few days a week I'd wake up early and sit on the pine benches below the Arts and Crafts hut, watching Steve as he did his stretches in preparation for the run. When he'd sprint into the woods I'd marvel at his disciplined routine, and how easy this made it to steal those motherfucking cookies. 

One hundred days ago I quit smoking, straight up cold turkey with a side of the shakes. In the next hundred I plan to exercise for at least 30 minutes a day and hypervenilate through 100 situps. At which point I expect abs I can play in a jug band. 

Late last year I was driving up to Vail with my hot and hilarious friend Rachel Yarbrough. At different points during the trip my phone dropped a half dozen calls, which I responded to like a domestic violence victim: I promised myself it would be better next time and then told my doctor I ran into a door. After watching this go on for about an hour Rachel commented, "You know what's so annoying about my phone? All the damn reception it gets everywhere." 

Now Rachel, who lives in Denver and enjoys the company of tall, lanky guys with Barak Obama screensavers, carries a phone I suspect she found in a box of Apple Jacks. But it makes a connection, just like you might with her if you leave your contact info in the comments section of this blog.

I have now switched over to Verizon and this is my review: Within the state of Colorado, the Verizon iPhone gets fantastic reception. This includes that stretch of 36 coming over the hill into Boulder, the I-70 corridor up to Vail, and the soundproof room in my basement. I can check my email on the chairlift and voicemails are displayed within the same week I've received them. Verizon and Apple have created the Jesus phone, and I am a disciple. 

In 2003 a man of about my age purchased the house across the street and broke ground on what was clearly a life renovation: A second floor was added to the ranch home, a black BMW soon nuzzled the curb, and three or four mornings a week a breasty young lady would exit the house and flounce to her car, where I imagine the glovebox contained fresh underwear and an associate's degree in communications. Here was a thirty year old living large in a quaint Boulder neighborhood, a contrarian lifestyle choice of which I'd previously been the market maker. There was thus a disturbance in the force and I promptly decided to investigate. 

Upon inviting myself into his house I quickly learned two things: First, this guy was spending money like he subscribed to the Mayan calendar. Everywhere I turned was a ridiculous installation of dollars, from a leather floor in his dressing room to the Brazilian wood paneling in the library. I half expected to find a collection of diamond-encrusted diamonds submerged in a glimmering pool of dolphin tears. The second thing I discerned was that this guy was simply a dipshit, a person with ignorance ingeniously counterbalanced by arrogance. He was the type of man who paid to have his name listed in Who's Who in America, the rube who receives Robb Report without embarrassment or irony. Somewhere in his future lurked a commissioned portrait of himself. 

"So what is it that you do, neighbor?", I asked while inspecting curtains likely loomed with the locks of orphaned albinos. "I recently started a mortgage brokerage," he replied. It's at this moment the egg timer began counting down to the Great Recession.  

With The Big Short, Michael Lewis has achieved something considerable by explaining the genesis of our current fiscal crisis in a narrative that is both enormously readable and utterly illuminating. Yet my strong recommendation comes not for what the book offers in hindsight but instead for its hints of the horizon. We, as a species, will always want what's best for our children just as we'll always strive to get something for nothing. Bubbles will repeat themselves in our economy like Aerosmith ballads in a gentleman's club, and when the douchbags are deluged in dollars the end is nigh. Or at least a substantial correction. 

If you're intrigued but not sure you want to commit to a book on the subject, here is Lewis' account of the Greek bond crisis recently written for Vanity Fair. 

My valet will tell you I'm a simple man of simple pleasures. But I digress. 

Postmodernism was a term used to describe an architectural style of the mid-twentieth century until it was purloined by aging academics distressed that Marxist theory was no longer attracting sexually-amoral acolytes. During the late eighties and early nineties this mishmash of mediocre minds applied the term to a philosophy they'd developed which pronounced everything you believed in - everything everyone believed in - to be spurious and built on sand. The postmodernist idea was designed as an intellectual syphilis, infecting every subject it roofied and raped with leaky pustules of political purulence. It attacked not only the conclusions of centuries of collective thought but the methodological scaffolding upon which Knowledge is constructed. It was an anarchist dressed in the robes of a skeptic, a bomb thrower masquerading as a bricklayer. 

Daniel Handler, the author behind the children's Lemony Snicket series as well as Adverbs, is not responsible for postmodernism. But I still didn't like his book. 

In second grade I was in love with a girl named Julia Thomas. I would make her construction paper Valentines and try to kiss her on the playground since sexting hadn't yet become a courtship ritual. Part and parcel of my crush was a recurring dream where I'd save Julia from a bear attack. In the dream the dialogue went something like this:

Teacher: Children! Everyone get inside! A bear has escaped from the zoo!

Little Chris: But Julia is still out there!

Teacher: Concerned Dire Frantic Exclamation Point!

Little Chris: I'm sorry, Mrs. Smith, I have no choice: I love her. [exuent] 

What still amuses me about this dream is that I actually fought the bear. I would find Julia hiding in some bushes but the grizzly was quickly upon us. I'd push Julia in the direction of the schoolhouse moments before the bear wrestled me to the ground, pinned my hands and gnashed ravenously at my face.Yet somehow I hatched a distraction, escaped the death grip and tore ass into the road, where the sheriff and the army were waiting and killed the beast with guns.

I must of had this dream a few dozen times before I moved away a year later, and each morning-after I'd show up at school and stare quixotically at the eight year old Julia. Little did she know that behind my black eyes and bowl cut I was thinking, "I just saved you from a bear, sweetheart." This really took the sting out of her not talking to me. 

 

Periodically I'll see a film or show that deserves reflection, for better or for worse. So I thought I'd trim the bird to its gizzard and offer my opinions in a single sentence.

Animal Kingdom: Aussie flick less than the sum of its nominated part; dark with a side of dark. (DVD)

Toy Story 3: High quality but tired; time to hang up the stirrups, Woody. (DVD)

The King's Speech: Acting tour de de de de de force enunciates a forgettable footnote; HB Carter a titan among giants as QE1. (cinema)

Please Give: Another Manhattan movie with giddy gadflies and neurotic noobs; take a pass if you live west of 12th Avenue. (DVD)

Life can be stultifying when confronted with too much choice. There is a burden to abundance - a denseness - that douses the senses and dulls imagination. Suicide bombers are tempted with seventy-two virgins in heaven but these massacres are relatively rare. Were the number of young yummies trimmed to six or eight we'd likely have a serious problem on our hands. Throw in a jet ski and we're truly fucked. Six to eight also happens to be the ideal number of players for a poker game. 

In Texas Hold'm a player is dealt two cards face down. These are known as pocket cards, and the pairings will oftentimes have nicknames. Two aces (AA) are called Bullets or Batteries, while a J4 is known as a Flat Tire (what's a jack four?). Typically the crowd favorite is the San Francisco Busboy, or a queen with a trey (Q3). I'm partial to the ace-king, or Anna Kournikova: it looks good but never wins. 

When playing amongst friends, winning at poker is as easy as figuring out who would make a pass at the babysitter. Most players are under-confident or otherwise risk-averse, and they will no sooner bluff a draw than try to titillate the tot-watcher. This means if they're betting it's likely on behalf of a handsome hand. But the thrill seeker will bet when he's bored, so watch for sequential big raises and bet into the bluff. Don't let him grab ass the pot if he's just hanging with Jack Bauer (a 2-4).

Photo Credit: Matt Gist

 

 

When I was seven or eight years old I appeared as an extra in Ordinary People, a film that went on to win Best Picture in 1980. You’re welcome, Bob Redford.  

For half a day’s work I was paid the princely sum of $5, cash borne on the barrelhead and peeled from a stack of the crispest currency I’d ever seen. The actual filming is a hazy recollection of takes but I’ll never forget the Teamster doling out fivers from his fat fist. I was so proud of myself I waved the bill out the car window all the way home, putting the North Shore on notice that CV was now liquid.  It was about two miles from our house when a rogue gust of wind – like a cyclone, only roguier – pried open my money mitt and stole the Tinseltown treasure. 

On that day I lost my innocence. Since then I’ve watched the world through the gimlet eyes of a carnie ride operator, grasping to stay one step ahead of life’s long con. Sigh. 

A great movie you haven’t seen is Roger Dodger, starring Campbell Scott and Mark Zuckerberg. This film is also about innocence and a young man finding his way by first losing it. 

 

Periodically I will see a film or show that deserves reflection, for better or for worse. So I thought I'd trim the bird to its gizzard and offer my opinions in a single sentence.

Man on Wire: Three minutes of twin tower high-wire footage with an hour and a half devoted to exploring how a clowder of stoners and strangers pulled it off; the latter is what's truly remarkable. (DVD) 

Next to Normal: Best theater about mental illness since Equus; schizophrenic hallucinations can be a real motherfucker.  (Play)

True Grit: Coen characters seem like centuries-old tectonic plates, grinding each other to fine powder; eliminating spoken contractions is auto-tuning dialogue for awesomeness.  (Cinema)

 

 

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland contains one very funny chapter and one interesting thought. The rest of the book reads like a memoir chronicling comedian Patton Oswalt's hero's journey to Headliner, overcoming such obstacles as his ignorant childhood co-workers, the ignorant drug-addicted club owners who hired him, the ignorant comedy customers of Canada, and the ignorant people he's now surrounded by in LA. I was so beleaguered with observations of other people's idiocy by the last page I felt married.   

Here's the arresting idea: "Maybe that makes my generation unique - the one that remembers before MTV and after...and then before the Internet and after. The generation I see solidifying now? They were born connected - plopped out into the late nineties, into the land of Everything That Ever Was Is Available From Now On. ... We had isolation and then access. Drought and then deluge. Three channels and then fifty. CBs and then chatrooms." [Oswalt's italicization]

From a financial perspective our grandparents shouldered through the great depression and learned thrift while the baby boomers arrived in the land of NINJA loans and granite countertops and learned entitlement. Oswalt points out that we're now making a similar pivot with information and entertainment. Our kids will not remember the car ride to the travel agent or the video store, they will never experience the burden comingled with the benefit of completing an acquisition that isn't downloaded on demand. They were born in the 39th year of the Exodus and have no idea how efficient they have it, how wonderful the goddamn bread tastes when it's not baked in the desert sand. Now it's just bread. 

So get the fuck off my lawn. 

As a junior in high school I had a friend named Will Holden who was my inverse: blond, laid back, and musically gifted. The only thing we really had in common was a craving to smoke mountains of cigarettes, but even there we were crossways; Will was a Camel Light man while I went for the lung-crystallizing, semen-sterilizing Marlboros. One afternoon - while happily puffing away- he asked if I wanted to roll down to a Providence club to catch a new band he liked called Blues Traveler. It was 1990, before the internet and iTunes, and But Anyway had probably been played by a single college station during the one graveyard shift not crammed with REM and Grateful Dead bootlegs. 

To me this memory captures the epitome of cool hunting and why it will always be out of my reach: It's not the knowing but the delivery. 

I was seventeen years old with a hard-ass Dad who was creatively suspicious of me. One time a baseball landed on the hood of my car; Dad said it looked like I was fighting someone and threw’m onto my windshield, with alcohol a probable accessory. So driving to another state to see a band in a club was a non-starter, as were any one of these ideas taken alone. But for Will such fluidity seemed a lifestyle, like Dylan McKay washing away a Brenda breakup with a beachside Mexican bender. And after Blues Traveler became hugely popular Will never mentioned he’d heard of them first, whereas I’d still be reminding you. All people can be a cool hunters, but not all hunters are cool. 

This is the illy Francis Francis Y1 espresso machine. It uses pods to make fantastic espresso with a touch of a button and costs $125. When you buy one and you love it I would advise never ever mentioning this to me. 

 

I took receipt of this book in the most fabulous way: Half buried in the snow outside my front door upon returning from vacation, mailing envelope waterlogged and destroyed but for the address label that read "Chris Vencent". Inside the cover, a cocktail napkin crushed inward with cheerful holiday message: CV - Enjoy. Or not. Ho Ho Ho. 

My first assignment from the Low Maintenance Mistress Book Club. 

The least discerning of secret societies, the LMMBC is postmodern in the sense that nobody knows what it means but everyone enjoys saying the words. There are no meetings, dues, or cabana rentals; just stick a book you've enjoyed in the mail with the now sine qua non cocktail napkin and await many happy returns. It is a pyramid scheme of literacy. 

Regarding Egan, this narrator-hopping collection of chapters jumping back and forth over fifty years is dynamic if slightly uneven. I was captivated by the Alpha and the Omega, the stories of the kleptomaniac girl with the tub in her kitchen and the grim vision of the future to which we already seem committed, as if the safety bar has locked but the ride isn't yet moving. I was also delighted by the details of introducing myself to someone with promises of duping detectives. I will read more of her work.

Now I must go find a napkin.