The Hair Crisis

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Who would have guessed that the biggest decision of my adult life would come down to my hair?  Ha!  I mean, I guess I could have seen it coming but not really--no, not really at all.  You see, my friends, I am faced with the decision of a lifetime: I have scheduled an appointment with the barber tomorrow at 2:30PM and I have to tell him whether I want t redo my vintage eurotrash mohawk/mullet (with lines on the sides) or if I want to scrap it all and go with an all-new adult professional haircut.

As laughable as this “crisis” is--this decision actually really does symbolize a very significant decision in my new non-student adult life.  You see, for the last 6 or so years, my hair has played a very large role in my identity.  I’m Wyatt Baker, I have crazy hair that screams my name from a mile away.  I’ve had everything from mohawks to mullets to skin bald to blue dreadlocks and everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) in between.  Yes, for brief moments in time I have had normal, professional-looking haircuts but these moments were only ever transition periods from one dramatic haircut to the next.  But this time if I choose to get a professional haircut it will be for the express purpose of getting a professional haircut--it will not be a means to an end, it will be an end itself and  that would be historic for me (if I choose to go with the professional cut, that is).

Essentially this decision is me deciding if I can getaway with my adolescent/college era extreme expressive-ism for another few months or if this really is the time for me to take my first step into the dark unknown--the adult world.  This will not be just like any other decision I make.  I’m pretty sure that once I take the plunge into the adult world there will be no turning back.  The era of “Wyatt’s Hair” will be over and a new era will begin.

So as embarrassing as it is to admit this, the decision regarding this haircut has effectively made my world come to a screeching halt.  It’s perhaps one of the biggest decisions that I will ever make: Will I choose to continue my free-loving, no-strings-attached adolescent/college lifestyle (which might I add is a lot of fun) or will I choose to end that phase of my life and consciously make the decision to begin my new adult life?  Am I ready to give up my unique image that I’ve worked so hard to cultivate over the years (an image that I have grown around and come to rely on)?  Am I ready to be judged not by my appearance but by my merit and ability?  Do I have what it takes?  I don’t know.  Am I ready to take this plunge or should I make the most of my current situation of total autonomy?  The decision is mine to make.  What will it be?

Below is a photo gallery of my various hairstyles over the years (from about 2005 to 2011) to commemorate this phase of my life and make this decision that much more dramatic and difficult.

The Science of Apathy

For the longest time I had a lot of trouble understanding apathy and even more understanding apathetic people.  I have always been a very vivacious type of person and  I always assumed that apathetic people were just lazy, like they just had some kind of inherent thumotic inferiority--lacking passion or libido or something.  But after coming to terms with my own recent apathy, I view this condition in a completely new light.

I now deduce from firsthand experience that apathy is not a lack of passion at all--in fact it is far from it--apathy is the (usually subconscious) surrender of oneself to ones immediate circumstances.  Though the manifestation of apathy is usually subconscious, it is nonetheless, rational.  It is typically a natural response to exhaustion--utter physical and emotional exhaustion which results from a seemingly endless uphill battle to find ones niche--a place where your passions matter, where they are not only appreciated but are useful/needed as well.  

When someone is unable to find a place where their passions are truly valued emotionally or monetarily (sometimes those two are one in the same), the option that seems to be the most efficient use of time and effort is to drop those passions and embrace the impulse of letting circumstance dictate your life.  It’s situations such as these that cause people to embrace quick fixes and things of immediate gratification and abandon long-term goals.  This is essentially what has happened to me this past year.  I went from someone who is so full of passion that it oozed out of my ears to someone who struggles to get out of bed each morning.  I went from someone who showered every morning and afterward picked out the outward artistic expression of my thumos in a perfectly manicured outfit every morning to someone who smells because I almost never shower and dresses like a homeless person.

But after having a lot of time to take a step (or two or three or four) back and reflect on my life, I think I can pinpoint precisely what the cause of this regression is: the feeling or perception of unvalued passion.  The devotion of two years of my life to student leadership where I was resented by those I led, the unappreciated efforts to rebuild my family, and the constant rejection by prospective employers because my gifts don’t fit a specialized job description.  The accumulation of unvalued passions in my life eventually led me to a place where it felt as if I had no control over my potential success.  

My subconscious reaction, therefore, has been to redirect my passion toward situations where there is a guaranteed or guaranteed potential outcome of success such as immediate gratification via arts & entertainment, internet surfing, and the occasional partying.  These are all activities that I can customize--where I feel in control of my potential success.  If things begin to not go successfully, I can just turn it off or switch the channel or take another shot of tequila--easy fix.

The irony of it all (which I am fully aware of) is that in order to “gain control” over my life, I have essentially forfeited control of my life to someone or something else--I am now at the mercy of my circumstances, less in control of my future than I have ever been yet somehow I still feel as though I am the most powerful I have ever been even though I know I am the weakest I have ever been.  Oh the sacrifices people make in order to push buttons rather than think, in order to have the ability to turn it all off.  But it’s not control, it’s slavery--yet it feels so right.

I know now that I will never judge homeless or unemployed people the same way ever again after my experiences this past year.  Mostly they are people who feel completely powerless who have taken what they see as the most effective path to taking control of their lives: taking on the small things in life that can’t or don’t fight back.  After all why go out and face potential rejection when you can win all day at home on the internet, on the TV, or with a bottle of Jack?  Am I right?

Well there’s the “Science of Apathy”, it wasn’t as scientific as I had hoped but it’ll suffice.  Anyways, if you’ll please excuse me, I need to go take my daily dose of Soma.

The Last Stop Cop Shop

Ever miss your stop on the train because you slept right through it? Either from too much work or too many drinks you find yourself waking up in Coney Island? You might even notice a few things whenever it happens. An MTA worker sweeping out debris or maybe a homeless person or two sound asleep. Whether you're above or below there's usually some other grounds to notice. What might otherwise be called "The Last Stop Cop Shop."

Often times there's one or two designated officers who patrol the platform in order to protect NYC but, from what exactly? Suspicious packages that managed to make it to the end of the line? Beggars that are renewing their energy in hopes of soliciting more money from people at each stop in the opposite direction? Whatever "criminals" we're being protected from it often seems that they're more often chosen than they're actually discovered. It appears that one of the most common train violations is on account of those dreadful social misfits who occupy more than one seat at 3 o'clock in the morning. How dare these subway criminals pass out on a train in a city just as notorious for it's party lifestyle as it is for it's work. Can you imagine such careless neglect from people? Where is everyone else going to sit at 3 o'clock in the morning?

How many times have you ever noticed a homeless person sleeping over more than one seat? Whenever they're discovered by the police most times they're at least given a wakeful nudge or at most scolded. Yet whenever a white or blue collar has carelessly fallen into the same violation a prompt summons is in order. In the event that such a person is without proper identification at the time (such is the case with many of the homeless) than the law seeks justice with handcuffs and handlebars. God forbid such a person had work the next day, hard to imagine that a jail pass is as good as a hospital one.

From which point such mischievous criminals are handcuffed, processed, (emphasis on the following word) wait, and see the judge where the whole ordeal won't take anymore than a meek 12 hours to a subtly less meek 2 days (depending on where they're processed). As grieving as the whole mess may sound it should at least be relieving to know that according to the law, justice has been achieved.

So altogether, a working class violator is eligible for 2 days of food, a bed, and possible job termination for taking up two seats. Yet an unemployed homeless man gets a nudge. Why? Well this is a city where spiting is illegal and smoking in public parks and benches is about to become illegal. NYC justice doesn't seem too quick about wasting it's time with such questions.

The Midtown Community Court coaches a quality of life class that attempts to cure the community from social infections like double seat occupancy. When I asked one of the coaches about what else the city planned on doing to address the vice of such belligerent seat criminals I was assured that they were not criminals, that according to the law they were mere violators. When I asked a coach why such violators were then treated like such criminals it provoked a curious expression that wanted to know what was meant. Such an expression inspired a question of my own curiosity. "Is there some sort of special edition pair handcuffs that officers use to escort violators off to jail with?"

Comparative Film Review: Precious vs. Happiness: The Fine Line Between "Well-Done" and "Poorly-Done" Disturbing Films

Recently I watched the 2009 award-winning film Precious on Netflix for a mid-week thought-provoking movie.  It definitely fulfilled it’s purpose in provoking lots of thoughts but not the kind that I was expecting.  I had been warned that it was a disturbing film and that it carried a lot of heavy content.  This was not an exaggeration at all.  I was not prepared for this kind of disturbing, however.    

(SPOILER ALERT: if you don’t want the film Precious ruined for you, don’t read this review.  However, because I value Happiness so much, I would never dream of spoiling that film so rest assured that you can read on without fear that I am ruining it for you). The film Precious is a Geoffrey S. Fletcher adaptation of the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire.  It is about an obese, illiterate, impoverished African-American teenage mom named Claireece Precious Jones who grows up in Harlem in the 1980s and the struggles and trials that she has to overcome in order to build a normal life.  The film starts out by immediately diving into the abusive home situation that Precious was born into and has lived in for 16 years and how this has drastically affected her ability to learn at an already low-performance, inner-city public school.  As the film progresses the viewer learns even more about just how twisted and abusive Precious’ home life is.  She is 16 years old and already a mother of a 2 year old toddler and she is now pregnant again--both times by her own abusive father.

While this film is indeed very disturbing content-wise from the get-go, what I found to be far more disturbing (and even unsettling) was the execution and the presentation of the content.  Instead of letting the disturbing content organically expose itself or be appropriately woven into the plot of the story, it was shoved in the viewer’s face and even showcased.  In fact, the way that Precious‘ deeply disturbing circumstances are presented is so over-the-top that it’s almost comical (disturbingly so).  It’s as if you can almost hear Bob Barker or some other cheesy game show host announcer saying: “And now ladies and gentlemen, we have Precious Jones up for the 2009 Victim of the Year Award!  Not only is she fat and black and dark-skinned and ugly but she is also completely illiterate/stupid and a mother of two children, fathered by her own father whom she has been raped by since infancy...isn’t that just TERRIBLE?!...Oh my! And just when you thought she couldn’t have it any worse...she has AIDS too! Oh my! Ding ding ding! Ladies and Gentlemen we have a winner!!! Congratulations Precious Jones you win the 2009 Victim of the Year Award! Woooo hooooo!!!”

By the end of the film, I was not only disgusted by the content and the presentation of the film but I was actually offended as well.  I’m not even black but I honestly found this film to be very race-biased.  Every black character in the film was either a wicked and evil child-molesting animal or a hopeless and miserable victim and all of the “good guys” in the film were either white or very light-skinned, well-educated, non-ebonics-speaking blacks who did not live in black neighborhoods.  This film honestly did not portray a single positive attribute among normal, medium to dark-skinned, inner-city black folks and it did not give them much of a hopeful message either other than: if you’re life sucks, leave home and find some charitable white people or black people who are similar to white people to help transform your life for you.

As much as I deplored this film, however, I am glad that I watched it because it forced me to think about what it is that makes a disturbing film well-done and what is it that makes a disturbing film poorly-done.  It is a fine line that determines the quality of a disturbing film but this line definitely exists.  In oder to help define this line, let’s look at a highly disturbing film that I consider very well-done--one of my all-time favorites, the 1998-dark comedy directed by Todd Solondz, Happiness.

Happiness is one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen.  It looks at the interconnected lives of three sisters, their families, and those around them--all seemingly very typical, everyday American people--and uncovers a slew of very dark and twisted issues pertaining to emotional and sexual abuse that lurk beneath the surface.  However, instead of trying to earnestly address every issue that is brought up, like Precious attempts to do, it merely makes light of them and laughs at them.  Disturbing?  Definitely.  Effective?  Definitely.  

In Happiness, there are numerous occasions where the viewer doesn’t know whether he is supposed to laugh, cry, scream or all three at the same time. In doing so, the director makes such a disturbing impact upon the audience that they can’t help but think about the film for weeks afterward, questioning every preconceived notion that they’ve ever had about the perfect all-American family.  Precious, on the other hand, does nothing but reinforce and strengthen already-existing negative pathologies.  It does nothing to break outside the box or force the audience to think, it just exaggerates every negative conception of black Americans that the audience already had.  Kind of like, “Oh yea, I guess it really is that bad...that’s sad,” and then go back to their everyday lives even less motivated to help out the poor and oppressed because they now think their efforts will be completely ineffective.  

Similar to Precious, the intensity and the quantity of the disturbing elements found in Happiness is way-over-the-top and way too much to take in at once.  It’s so much that it feels forced and unnatural, even manipulative.  But the difference here between Precious and Happiness is that Happiness is a comedy and Precious definitely is not.  As disturbing as it may sound, I actually think that that Precious would have been so much more effective if it was produced, similarly, as a really dark and morbidly twisted comedy.  This would have allowed the director to draw the audience’s attention to Precious’ horrific circumstances but in a way that was digestible and more appropriate with the over-the-top presentation.  

As the film was, it took on way too much content and it took itself way too seriously.  It could have been a decent film if it focused in on one aspect of her disturbing upbringing, say the incest or the illiteracy and dissected it, but when you just keep on accumulating the tragedies, it cheapens them and doesn’t allow the audience to digest them properly.  There is just too much.  The film could’ve been nine hours long and it still would not have been able to effectively address all of the issues brought up.  Precious should be used as case study number one why attempting to take on all the content of a very deep book and condensing it into one 110-minute film never works.

In the end, Precious failed miserably at capturing my empathy or even my sympathy for the life of Claireece Precious Jones.  After watching it, I only had sympathy for Geoffrey S. Fletcher who, it appears, is completely incapable of turning a beautiful, heart-wrenching story about a teenage girl who overcomes the unimaginable and beyond to build a life for herself, into a halfway decent film.  I have never understood artists’ collective aversion to the cliche more vividly than after I watched this film.  The inability of the director to break away from obvious cliches is not only painful but it is lazy. What Fletcher produced was a mockery of the original story and it would have been more effective if the tone of the movie was a mockery as well.     

  

Intro: Old Man

My taste is very simple. Much like Winston Churchill, I simply enjoy the best. I like my coffee black, my milk whole, my meat red, my tobacco full, and my whiskey strong. As far as women; well, I like those too. Altogether I’m a fairly easy man to accommodate. My chief difficulty however, is in people.

I’m from Texas. Home of the brave, land of the free…range. That never really occurred to me until I moved here to Manhattan. Home of the money slave, land of the free…cage. Back home it wasn’t uncommon to pass by a few fields on the way to a friend’s house. Over here the only fields you pass are small block of land that haven’t been constructed on yet which is usually offset by a construction notice of the next exciting city rectangle to come. I was born and raised in a community where my neighbors were always beside me and now I live in work in a city where my neighbors are above and below me.

I’ve never worked harder than I have here in Manhattan. I’ve also never felt more insignificant and worthless than I have here which is rather odd just because, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Funny how that works. As many years as I’ve been here now there’s something so enchanting, so charming about this city I still can’t put my finger on. I’ve seen some and even had to do some pretty sneaky things to get by here in the city which makes me feel like such a snake at times. It’s hard to feel that bad about it though, as much as I’d like to. Imagine how bad a sneaky reptile would feel at the mercy of its snake charming circumstances. Socrates once implored the importance of what it is to know thyself. As much as I’ve grown to know who I am I’ve learned some hard lessons in what it is to love and respect myself. During the process I’ve also learned what it is that I don’t like, even deplore about myself. Whenever I see these deplorable qualities of mine in characterized in others it really stirs me up. All of which brings me back to my original point; people I don’t like.

We live in a culture that conditions us to do things that radically oppose each other. In one hand we’re to conform to a glamorous world of materialism and then we somehow manage to promote a rather excessive degree of individualism. This new breed of animated individualism has inadvertently created a sort of god like mentality in many of us. “I’m ME!” is the new banner we’re raising over our children and enforcing in our culture and the result is becoming more and more outrageous. It’s not hard to notice anymore how we’ve abandoned glorified virtues like commitment, parental respect, modestly dressed women, and even abstinence (YEAH I said it) in order to make room for our elephant individualism. Yet even in a culture of abandoned virtue and prescribed ego it all fits well in the consumption glove.

Be who you want to be! Not that any respectable culture should have ever discouraged such regards but it’s easy to see how that’s changed in today’s age where we’ve gone from telling young men they could be astronauts on posters when they’re at school to telling them they can be girls on TV when they get home. Do what you like! Do what makes you feel good! Our culture of individualism has become so god like now it’s no wonder people are so damn sensitive these days. Heaven forbid people’s feelings are inconvenienced by opposing thought or disagreed with on ethical grounds. I guess it’s pretty easy to step on Zeus’s toes when Mt. Olympus is crowded with so damn many of them. How did this happen? I wish it was just one persons fault. It’d be a lot less exhausting than being pissed off at everyone.

Another qualm I have with this culture is probably the same I’ve had with most cultures throughout the history of time. Everyone wants to live a thousand years but no one wants to get old. I’ve already embraced as much. I’m one of the oldest man you’ll ever meet in such a young body. To this day I’m still not too sure what the kids are referring to with that funky street word of theirs, ‘block.’ But whatever it is I’m pretty sure I’ve been around it a few times. I’ve got more experience than a ship wrecked captain and more stories to tell about them than a well seasoned sailor. There’s such a thing as many but for someone my age it’s more like a thing of too many. That’s partly why I think my soul is so wrinkled.

But unlike most of us! Hell! Even unlike myself, I’m looking forward to the old man within emerging to his fullest form. To curse Harry Potter kids and speak without consequence, which is my precise intention with this writing medium. If I have as much to look forward to I mine as well start now. I’m reminded of what that good ole boy Marcus Aurelius once said about it. You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man for a long time.

Intro: The Graduate

This was originally supposed to be my “About Me” but thank God they put a 1,200-character limit on those things, so instead, here is my introductory post.

I am the incarnate soul of Benjamin Braddock, living in the second decade of the 21st century.  I am a charismatic, intelligent, and good looking (blah, blah, blah) young college graduate who had his life all perfectly ordered until the diploma landed in his hand.  It was at that moment that I realized that my whole life I had been drawing a blueprint for a life that was not my own.  I was unleashed into a world with too many choices and not enough discipline, too many hormones and not enough restraint, too many questions and not enough answers.


Driven to near insanity by all of this confusion, I embarked on a 90-day, 18,000-mile roadtrip across North America (to get rid of all of the confusion of course...HA!).  On this journey I succeeded at blowing my life savings (on gasoline and camping supplies), meeting my own Mrs. Robinson (she was Québécoise, go figure), witnessing the beauty of nature like I’d never imagined, reconnecting with my family roots in Alaska, experiencing the birth of my nephew in Vancouver, accumulating a lifetime supply of life lessons, and propelling my life into complete ambiguity.  Somehow I found myself back in New York City, exactly where I started, except even more confused with even fewer answers than when I started (gee, who could've seen that coming?!).

So today I reside in Chelsea, Manhattan with my Bachelor of Arts in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics hanging on the wall of my overpriced apartment, enslaved by my self-induced ambiguity.  I am way too inexperienced in anything practical and way too experienced in everything universal and hypothetical to be of any use to any prospective entry-level job.  I could probably rule the country pretty well if given the chance, but ask me to be a barista at Starbucks and you have a disaster on your hands.  

I spend most of my days planning out my hypothetical rise to wealth and fame, while lacking the actual discipline or stability required to implement any of my plans.  I tried rejecting the world of “doing” and embracing the world of “being” in accordance with a nostalgic view of 1960s Existentialism, only to realize that in New York City, that’s what makes you homeless.  In this city nobody really gives a fuck who you are, they just care about what you can do for them.

Alas, I find myself in the wrong place at the wrong time--in the City of Action, suspended in a State of Inaction.  What’s a hopeless, bleeding heart Philosopher King-trainee to do?  Give up everything he’s worked for, throw in the towel, and move back to Cincinnati?  Sell out, shut up, and join the rest of New York in pursuing a career that I hate?  Or maybe I should just barely get by (you know, make enough money to almost cover my bills then embarrassingly ask my hardworking, disciplined, Protestant-work-ethicked parents for a bailout to cover my last $200 of rent and utilities), work part-time at Starbucks with way too much time to philosophize, hypothesize, watch the entire series of Nip/Tuck, and set up a blog all the while changing the world one day at a time?  DUH...I chose the third option.  Welcome to the life of Wyatt Baker.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.