Tardy/Unprepared

What do you bet all the other Internet images beat this one up every day before lunch?

At my middle school, and, hey, maybe yours too, they gave out little pink slips as punishments for minor infractions. If you were late getting to a class, you got a ‘tardy’ slip. If you showed up to class without essential school supplies, you’d get an ‘unprepared.’

Back then I prided myself on never having received a tardy; my perfect record for ‘unprepareds’ was spoiled late in 8th grade by a bitchy Spanish teacher who got tired of my habit of coming to class without a pencil. It was traumatizing.

I’m sharing this completely uninteresting tidbit for two reasons:

1) So that you can how pathetic I used to be, and thus appreciate all the progress I’ve made in spite of still being scared of spiders and unable to drink milk.
2) You might be able to understand why my blogs have been showing up late more often these past few weeks.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, when I started this blog as a freshman it was consistency, not necessarily quality, that was going to be my gimmick: The blog would always be updated on time, but whether it was any good or not had a lot to do with how long I’d spent working on it before the deadline came down on me and I shoved it, wet and trembling, out onto the Internet to be seen by all.

Like me in middle school, you could count on the blog showing up on time, but how much effort and preparation had gone into making it good was anyone’s guess. Unlike me in middle school, my early blogs were not fat.

Keeping up with the somewhat strict schedule I’d set for myself was pretty easy my freshman year of college, when I’d made the curious decision to not drink alcohol. As a freshman, virtually every worthwhile social outlet ends with at least one person throwing up Cuervo in a garbage can, which ensured that I spent a lot of time cooling my heels in the dorms looking for something to do while everybody else was out giving or receiving herpes.

With that much time on my hands on a nightly basis, writing 2000 words a week was hardly difficult. I looked down my nose at other people whose blogs faltered and fell apart when they couldn’t stick to a realistic update schedule. Later I would figure out that these people weren’t update their blogs because they were busy meeting people, having fun and occasionally disgusting life experiences while I sat in my tomblike dorm and tried to think up jokes about the contraception posters in my hall.

So you could say that I started out being so meticulous about my update schedule because I had nothing better to do. Only you’d be wrong, because I did have something better to do – engage in alcohol fueled hijinx at the one time in life when it’s socially acceptable to do so.

I did not make out with strangers. I did not run anywhere while naked and/or blindfolded. I did not release any barnyard animals in the dean’s office. My biggest mistake as a freshman was not going out and making more mistakes, and I regret my lack of regrets wholeheartedly.

Now I’m a senior – a bitter, jaded, alcohol consuming senior, taking a 100 level geology class in hopes of coasting into a bachelor’s degree. Three months from now I’m going to be writing my Dad a check for The Mystery Wagon and driving it to Los Angeles, filled with all of my worldly possessions while listening to a road trip playlist that has ‘November Rain’ on it like five times.

It’ll be a new city, a new lifestyle, and a crop of new friends that I’ll have to painstakingly cultivate, just like I did in college. So please do forgive me if I want to take a little more time to appreciate my current city, lifestyle, and friends before they become the old ones – even if I’m appreciating them on the nights when I should be writing dick jokes and run-on sentences for the Internet.

Last night, for example, I only had about an hour of uninterrupted blog writing time before my friend’s 21st birthday, which virtually all of my other friends were going to be at. I was racing against the clock, trying to throw together some shitty update about working in the checkout room, when I just threw up my hands, left the blog where it was, and went off and had an amazing time at some of Eugene’s more colorful bars.*

*On a related note, the downtown hobos are way more feisty than the campus hobos.

What I’m realizing is that I’d rather be tardy than unprepared. I’ve reached a point where life gets in the way of my blog more and more often, and when that happens I’d rather have something good and late to show for it, rather than something terrible I threw together to fulfill an arbitrary deadline I set for myself when I was 18.

My shift into college started with a lot of lonely nights sitting in my dorm, listening to blasting hip hop music and good natured belching from all around and wistfully remembering my safe and familiar high school days.

I’ve got every reason to assume Los Angeles will be the same way at first, and on those nights that I’m barricaded in my tenement apartment listening to drug dealers having cockfights in the hallway, I don’t want to look back on my last three months of college and remember myself walking out of parties saying, “Sorry folks – I’ve got to go write a blog.”

Truman Capps will leave the definition of ‘cockfights’ up to you.

The Office

I've never seen this graphic used in the real world to represent an office. I feel like an office is sort of self explanatory to begin with, and doesn't necessarily need a graphic denoting what it is.

I once saw a picture of two sets of footprints on a beach at sunset, along with a quote about how one set of tracks is this guy walking along the beach and the second set is God walking along beside him, forever, presumably even when he’s not on a beach. I think the quote was from the Bible, or maybe a country song. And now that I think of it, there may not have been a sunset, either. I’m pretty sure there was a picture, though.

Look, this was a rocky start, but I figured I should say something about religion since it’s Easter. So, you’re welcome.

The point is, The Office, not God, has been my second set of footprints since I was a junior in high school. Through good times and bad, on various TVs and computers, in all kinds of different frames of mind and places in my life, I’ve been sitting around watching The Office on Thursdays for five years now.

As someone who almost habitually falls in love with great shows that get cancelled (Firefly, Arrested Development, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, The Tick, Mystery Science Theater 3000…) it was great to see a show I liked getting some actual love from the network for a change. Before The Office, I had come to think that whenever network executives found out I liked a show, they picked up the red telephone and put a stop to it right away.

“Hi there, Judd Apatow? It’s NBC. We’re cancelling Freaks and Geeks. Well, Truman Capps likes it. Yeah, the one with the hair. Because if he likes it, then clearly the people who buy Axe Shower Gel and Cadillac Escalades don’t like it, and then we have an ad revenue problem. No hard feelings.”

I’ve been following the staff at Dunder Mifflin Scranton for so long that it’s like I actually know them. I’ve been familiar with the finer details of Dwight’s personal life longer than I’ve known most of my friends in college.

In my head, that sounded impressive, but now that I see it on the page it makes me look pathetic.

But it’s true – I remember when Ryan was just a put-upon temp and not this ex-con hipster archetype. I remember when Darryl was just The Black Guy In The Warehouse. I remember a time when there was no Nard-Dog. More than any other program, it’s The Office that has shown me the power of television to build a strong connection with viewers by putting the same characters in their homes, week upon week, for years, because it did that to me.

So know how much this show means to me when I say that The Office sucks now. It’s like I’m saying that one of my closest friends sucks.*

*Well, a friend who only visits me for half an hour every week eight months out of the year and tries to sell me car insurance and fast food at regular intervals during his visit. So, all in all, a pretty sucky friend.

The past six or seven episodes have shown a distinct drop in quality, and this season has been sub-par at best already. We’ve seen Michael getting lost in the city in spite of the fact that he’s got a camera crew with him, Michael’s movie, Threat Level Midnight, which played out as an extended ‘Michael is stupid’ joke, and Michael’s proposal to Holly, in which he marshals an office full of people who either barely tolerate or outright hate him into an elaborate proposal involving a few hundred candles.

And then, on Thursday, the entire office sings a modified version of That Song From Rent to Michael as a going away present. That was when I turned it off – I don’t watch Glee, goddamn it, and it’s not okay for Glee to come looking for me on my turf.

But singing isn’t the problem here – it’s the nauseatingly sweet sentimentality of the whole thing. It just feels like at some point the writers’ mission stopped being ‘Make people laugh’ and became ‘Give teenage girls lots of material so they can make YouTube The Office compilation fan videos set to John Legend songs.’

It’s not like there’s something wrong with a thing being heartwarming or sweet, but if there’s one thing that I always liked about The Office, it was its ability to be really low key and understated. Scenes or entire episodes climaxed with a sigh or an enigmatic look, and now we’ve got a room full of people singing showtunes. It’s not The Office I remember. It’s changed, and we all know how I feel about that:

One of my friends argues that The Office is evolving and I should just suck it up and deal with it, but I think the word ‘evolving’ gives the show too much credit. Evolution suggests things getting better with time, but The Office is getting worse – less groundbreaking, less funny, more safe. It’s gradually turning back into a monkey. I expect a major story arc about shit throwing in season 8.

Now, of course, this is all just my opinion – as though I even needed to say that. Maybe The Office racks up more ad revenue when the characters have become cartoonishly broad and the whole thing plays out like a Kay Jewelers ad, in which case I’m sure all the writers are all driving solid gold Batmobiles at this point. I just miss the show that made me want to be a TV scriptwriter in the first place.*

*You see that? See how that line was kind of thought provoking and slightly sentimental, but didn’t beat you over the head with nostalgia? That’s what I want to see more of. Then you finish with a joke, like in this next paragraph.

This is the problem with appropriating a television show as a part of your life: A TV show is written by a large, slowly changing group of people, at least some of whom are bound to have a different creative vision than your own. Organized religion is far less complicated.

Truman Capps will continue to watch and complain about The Office until the bitter end.

Epic Meal Time

The new Canadian stereotype has arrived.

If you’re a young man in the 21st century, your personality and lifestyle place you somewhere along a scale between two extremes: Hipster, and bro. Hipsters, on the far left of the scale, are all about being artistically inclined nonconformists who like obscure things from the 80s, while bros, on the far right, live life on a diet of SportsCenter, Family Guy, and testosterone, all while wearing an unending parade of wide brimmed baseball caps.

Everybody fits somewhere on the scale. For my love of Doogie Howser, MD and my collection of ironic T-shirts (which, for the record, I’m trying to gravitate away from) I’m somewhat to the left of center, but not that much, being as I enjoy violent video games, actively follow college football, and vehemently hate soccer. My roommates all land, to varying degrees, on the bro side of the scale. It takes some guesswork, but everyone has a place. I’ve provided a scale with some reference points:

I see people from both extremes come into work in roughly equal numbers, and they each do what they can to stink up the checkout room in their own unique way – the hipsters with cigarette fumes from the American Spirit they smoked between classes, the bros with the cologne that they seem to excrete naturally from their pores.

It’s tough to say which subculture I’m less fond of, because I’ve got my fair share of problems with both. Fundamentalist Hipsters want to show the world that they reject the mainstream to the detriment of their personal hygiene and nose cartilage; Fundamentalist Bros want to show the world that they embody the mainstream to the point that they strut around thumping their polo-shirted chests and howling at the top of their lungs as soon as they begin to consume alcohol. If that’s how they actually want to behave, well, I suppose they have every right to, but then I have every right to find their respective lifestyles obnoxious.

What got me started thinking about this was the Internet series Epic Meal Time, which, as you can see from my scale, is about the broest thing that has ever existed. A twisted cooking show in which a bunch of beefy Canadians enthusiastically make catastrophically unhealthy yet delicious meals, Epic Meal Time wholeheartedly champions stereotypical masculine values like eating meat and yelling.

The show has been a guilty pleasure of mine because I like cooking, and also meat. I’ve put up with the broed out masculinity because at first, in the early Epic Meal Times, it was almost satirical – a bunch of guys running around Saskatchewan essentially making edible mud pies out of whatever junk food they can find, amped up with profanity and hip hop lingo just for the hell of it.

As Epic Meal Time has grown in popularity and the bros’ life expectancies have shortened, the entertainment industry has been quick to cash in on their success – they’re currently in talks for a TV show on one of three channels and are professionally represented by a talent agency.*

*Hey, want to know what else I learned from Wikipedia? The main host, Harley, is a substitute high school teacher. He’s either far more professional off camera or Canada has much lower standards for substitute teachers than America (where, at least in Oregon, the bulk of them seem to be chain smoking divorcees and/or conspiracy theorists).

Now that they’ve got funding and a gigantic fanbase, their videos have started to go a bit over the top – keep in mind, the status quo here is a guy eating chili made with 4Loko using a wooden paddle as a spoon.

Recent episodes have shown off the inflation of the bros’ egos, portraying them as mythical, godlike kitchen warriors traveling Eastern Canada in a quest to make all food extreme. There’s been an ‘origins’ episode in which they visited one of the bros’ hometowns, a college tour episode where they arrive at a college to help a bunch of nerdy kids become awesome through cooking, and an ethnic themed episode where they walk into an Indian restaurant with a gun and start making insane meals using Indian food.

Somehow, when I see a burly drunk white guy pointing a gun at a minority’s face, my first thought isn’t, ‘Hey, fun cooking show!’

This all culminated in the most recent episode: An eight minute long extravaganza in which the bros create a dozen or so macaroni dishes, several of them paying tribute to past Epic Meal Time videos, which they then serve to an equal number of nubile Epic Meal Time groupies, who promptly eat it with their hands as shown in a minute long orgiastic montage, replete with closeups and orgasmic fourth wall breaks from the girls.

It made me uncomfortable, and before you even think it, let me assure you that it had nothing at all to do with the objectification of women in the video. Women have every right to publicly debase themselves to men if they so choose, even in Canada, and I have no problem with that whatsoever.*

*That being said, is women covering their faces in macaroni supposed to be sexy? Because I like macaroni and I really like beautiful women, but the combination of the two isn’t doing it for me.

Rather, it made me uncomfortable because I felt like I was supposed to be enjoying this. Now that Epic Meal Time has been commoditized, this sort of thing must be what sells. It’s become less about a bunch of guys cooking crazy stuff and more about a bunch of bros being bros, and if I wanted to see that I’d just go to school, or work, or the supermarket, or a party, or California.

I guess what I’m saying is that Epic Meal Time was way better before they sold out and went too mainstream, alienating everybody in their original fanbase, like me. It was way better back when it was just some obscure Internet series you’d probably never heard of.

Wait.

Ah, shit.

Truman Capps will be pleasantly surprised if he isn't inundated with responses from people saying, 'Hey, I like Deerhoof!'

Night Of The Hobo

I'm pretty sure it was just a regular hobo, but a man can dream, can't he?

One night last week I woke up at around 4:30 AM to the sound of someone on our doorstep alternating between hammering his fists against the front door and pounding the doorbell as quickly as possible. Listening to this, I decided that the best course of action for me would be to stay in bed – if it were one of my roommates, drunk and locked out, he could just as easily call me and then I’d go let him in. If it wasn’t one of my roommates, then I figured that the locked door would do its job just as well whether I was standing there watching or not.

My roommate Cameron, on the other hand, felt differently, and after a moment or two of the assault on our door I heard him thumping down the hall to see who it was.

“I’m home, by the way!” I shouted from my bed, quite courageously. “That’s not me at the door!”

I heard Cameron’s feet stop in our living room as he looked through the window set in the top of our door, then turn around and hustle back down the hall.

“Eli!” He shouted. “There’s somebody at the door, and it isn’t one of us!”

When you’re an upper middle class white kid living in the suburbs, this is about as exciting as your life is ever doing to get – a person you don’t know ringing your doorbell late at night. The danger, if there ever was any (and I highly doubt that there was) ended as soon as our late night visitor looked through the window and saw a fat man wearing a pair of yellow boxer shorts.

Of course, in the heat of the moment, it didn’t seem like that at all. As far as we were concerned, this was World War III. Cameron shut off the lights to make it harder for people outside to see in, and Eli came out of his room holding two golf drivers, one of which he gave to Cameron.

“Hey guys,” I said, bravely stepping out of my room, phone in hand. “You think I should call the police?”

They looked at one another, and Cameron nodded gravely. “Yeah. Do that.”

I scurried to the computer and looked up the Eugene Police Department’s non-emergency number – because even in the midst of the action, I couldn’t convince myself that ‘Three guys who are scared because somebody knocked on their door at an unusual hour” stacked up very well against traditional emergencies like “My baby is choking” or “Someone is murdering me.”

I was excited to call the police, because for whatever reason, calling the authorities has always been a fantasy of mine. Maybe it’s some deep seated childhood desire to make my preschool teacher happy – ever since she taught us how to call emergency services when something bad happens, I’ve been itching for an emergency where I can demonstrate what I learned. It’s the most achievable form of heroism you can engage in – it doesn’t require strength or bravery, but rather that you A) Possess a phone and B) Know how to use it.

I’ll even catch myself daydreaming about it in class sometimes – in my mind, I see myself witnessing a crime, calling the police, and then them showing up and foiling the culprit. Again, all I’ve done in my idealized scenario is make a phone call and then keep a safe distance. As you can see, even in my idle fantasies I still set my sights pretty low. Realistic goals, after all.

Policeman: Alright, we got the guy. Who was it that called 911?
Truman: It was me.
Policeman: I’d like to shake your hand. That was arguably the finest 911 call I’ve ever heard in all of my 19 years on the force.
Truman: Just doing my civic duty, officer.
Policeman: I really liked the part where you told the operator your address. You did a really good job with that. Here’s five dollars.
Truman: I can’t accept that. The knowledge that I’m a responsible member of the community is all the reward I need.

The phone rang once, and then operator picked up.

“Eugene Police and Fire.”

“Hi.” I said, watching my roommates stealthily creep toward the front door, golf clubs at the ready. “I’m in a police type situation. I don’t need firemen. Just police. Unless you want to send firemen. It probably wouldn’t hurt.”

“Sir, what is your address?”

Oh, God, I’m fucking it up already. I gave her my address and then started explaining what had been going on. “Somebody just started hammering on our door and ringing our doorbell. Someone who doesn’t live here.”

As I filled the operator in on the rest of the details Cameron and Eli eased the front door open and scrambled outside, drivers held high, two chunky dudes in flip flops and boxers ready to take on whatever the world could throw at them.

“Are there any guns in the house?” The operator asked.

“No. But my roommates have golf clubs.”

“Alright. We’re sending police units now. Tell your roommates that if the police come to your door, they’ll need to put their golf clubs down.”

“Okay, but really, I think they’re more of a danger to themselves right now.”

She wrapped up the conversation pretty quickly, and next thing I knew Cameron and Eli were shambling back into the house. I proudly informed them that the authorities were on the way, thanks to me. They kept watch by the window while I went back into my room to put on pants, my reasoning being that if a bunch of public servants were going to come out and arrest the guy who woke us up, the least I could do was be wearing pants when I thanked them.

Not long after, we watched through the windows as a couple police cruisers swept through the neighborhood, eventually stopping a few blocks away, their red and blue lights flashing against the weeds and puddles of our street. After about half an hour they left, one of the cruisers stopping in front of our house. We opened the front door, none the worse for wear after its attack, and eagerly crowded into the doorway as a police officer walked up the driveway.

“Yeah, we got him.” The cop said before we could even ask anything. “He was just running around through people’s yards. He said he hadn’t taken any drugs, but I’m not so sure about that. He’s on the way to the hospital now.”

He didn’t mention anything about my phone call. I let it slide, reminding myself that I hadn’t necessarily brought my A-game. Next time I’ll be more concise with my information, and maybe speak slower.

We thanked him and he left, and that was the end of the evening’s excitement. Now, my roommates are convinced that we need a gun to ward off anybody else who would dare wake us up in the middle of the night. I, on the other hand, just make a point of always having my phone by the bed.

Truman Capps imagines that children in third world countries dream of a day when their biggest excitement is a stranger knocking on their door and then running away.

Twitter

I can only hope that we one day regard Twitter with the same scorn we reserve for this product...

I’ve always been opposed to Twitter, not just because I don’t have a use for it, but because I feel like it’s almost the duty of the chronically unhip to relentlessly mock it. No, I don’t use Twitter. I also didn’t buy tickets to Sasqatch. Your fedora looks stupid.

Why do we need the ability to tell the world what we’re doing and thinking at all times? Man was not meant to have that sort of power, primarily because most of the things that we do in the course of our day aren’t particularly noteworthy or interesting. In seven days I can usually cobble enough experiences and poop jokes to make two blog updates, and that’s with no guarantees about quality. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I have one worthwhile idea in an hour, and usually it’s just a lame pun that requires an extensive set up to make any sense.*

*So I’m starting an Elton John themed restaurant. You know what I’m calling my signature pasta dish? Penne and the Jets.

Twitter almost expects you to broadcast all of your thoughts to the entire world as soon as you have them. Speaking as someone who’s prone to snap judgments and hyperbolic statements, that would be an absolute disaster for me. Honestly, I think it would be a disaster for a lot of people to have the ability to post their every careless statement for the whole world to see without having the time to come home and mull over whether it’s a good idea or not.

Of course, it hasn’t started raining blood since Twitter launched, so maybe I’m just looking for a deeper philosophical reason to hate Twitter so I don’t look like the stubborn luddite that I actually am. After all, I said a lot of careless and stupid things in my weekly opinion column back when I worked at the Emerald. I guess you can stick your foot in your mouth through virtually any form of media – the key to not doing it, maybe, is to not make public statements ever.*

*Or carefully reason through everything you say before you say it, but seriously, who has the time for that?

I think the real clue to why I’ve been abstaining from Twitter is this blog itself: When I started writing about 400 words ago, I was intending to talk about how I’ve decided to go with the flow and get a Twitter account. Look how long it took me to get around to the main point of what I was going to say. 1892 characters, or 13 and a half Twitter posts. I’m not a man of few words, and outside of the strictest biological definition I’m not really much of a man, either.

Twitter is all over the journalism school – hashtags and @ signs and douched up advertising and PR majors strutting around talking about how they want to get social media internships so that they build a company’s web presence or some shit like that. A lot of these people have told me that I need a Twitter page.

“You need to get on Twitter, Truman.” They’ll say, with the same urgency as they would if I’d been shot in a gunfight during a casino heist gone wrong. “You need to get to a hospital, Truman.”

Much of their argument is that Twitter is invaluable as a networking tool for someone going into the entertainment industry – a means to get your name out there as much as possible, so that large numbers of people are familiar with you, your personality, and your body for work so that if they’re looking for the right man for a given job, they’ll know it’s you without even having to look.

Again, I tend to assume that the more people know of my personality, the less likely they are to want to spend more time around me in a personal or professional capacity, so I don’t really know how Twitter could help me there unless I created an elaborate alter ego whose Twitter posts were all about how much he loved getting up early, volunteering, and praying.

But yesterday I went to work creating a Twitter account,* both because I’m a slave to peer pressure and because someone who smelled simply terrible came into the checkout room and stank the whole place up in a way that I felt needed to be shared with the Internet.

*Again, that is – many of you may have started following my ‘@trumanc’ Twitter account that I started freshman year after hearing about Twitter for the first time in J201. I decided to start a new account - @trumancapps – because the sooner I registered my full name on there, the less likely some racist was to register for it instead and start posting about which minorities @trumancapps hated the most (he probably wouldn’t even get all the right ones).

But I got stalled early on when Twitter wanted me to pick the first ten people I would be following. The first was easy – Conan O’Brien – and after that Edward James Olmos seemed like a logical choice, but then I hesitated. Who else on Twitter did I want to receive constant, trivial updates from? Not really anyone, as it turned out.

Understand that I live in a house full of people who update me on their bowel movements and sexual escapades (or lack thereof) on a daily or hourly basis, whether I want to know or not (I usually don’t). Signing up for Twitter, I realized, would be like living in a small house with everyone I was following – sharing their deliberations on whether Brooklyn Decker is actually all that hot and hearing Family Guy seeping through thin walls at any time, day or night.

So I left off on the creation of my Twitter account after following my fourth celebrity, George Takei. By all means, follow me on Twitter at @trumancapps, but I can’t guarantee you’ll ever see anything there. If you want to know something stupid and pointless about what I’m thinking, either come to this blog or ask me in person. I’m sure I’ll be happy to tell you.

Truman Capps has clearly begun to chafe under his own self imposed deadline.

Adrenaline Film Project

Wow, sweet graphic, guys. Did you only have three days to design it? KABOOM.

This just in: Making a movie in three days is fucking hard. The Filmmaking Gods* don’t give you a free pass when they hear that your deadline is 72 hours away from when you find out what film you’re going to be making – they dole out just as many technical issues and actor scheduling conflicts as on any other film, but they cram them into a much shorter time period, at the expense of the one or two fleeting enjoyable moments that occur in the production of any film.

*I’m an atheist whenever I’m not making a movie, but I’ll be the first to say that there are no atheists on film shoots. So much stuff goes wrong in the process of shooting a movie, regardless of length, subject matter, or shooting location, that the only answer is that there’s some higher power who really hates movies and really doesn’t want you to make yours.

I shouldn’t be complaining – nobody put a gun to my head to do the Adrenaline Film Project. Rather, my Asian friend Neilson asked if I wanted to do it, and I said yes, and then we pulled in my Asian friend Ryan from high school who also likes movies. The ethnic makeup of our group became even more significant when we found out that the theme of this year’s project was ‘Chinese Enlightenment’, and the prop that had to appear in every movie was a Chinese lantern. I figured that was our ace in the hole. Real, live, Asian filmmakers, and a dorky Anglo along for the ride. We were bound to at least get a concession prize.

I felt like we had a good shot in this contest – none of us were necessarily highly experienced, but we figured that a three-day time limit would level the playing field. No matter how good of a filmmaker you are – and let me take this opportunity to tell you that I am friends with and was competing against some really fucking good filmmakers - you can’t create a visual and emotional tour-de-force in three days, right?

Well, as it turns out, you can. I know this to be true because at last night’s premiere I saw half a dozen or so movies with a level of polish and production value that I wouldn’t have been able to achieve in three months, let alone three days. Choreographed fight scenes. Green screen special effects. Zombie song and dance numbers. By comparison, Writers, a dialog driven show about two guys who sit around indoors being assholes, just about killed me, and we had 10 weeks to make it.

Adrenaline Film Project? Mo’ like Truman Feeling Inadequate Film Project.*

*The grand jury prize would go to anybody with video footage of me at my senior prom.

Our movie wasn’t bad; it just looked like it’d been made in three days. We didn’t own our own equipment so we had to check out a second tier HD camcorder from the journalism school, we weren’t able to dress our location to make it visually interesting, and in the editing room we barely had time to string together our footage and edit the boom mic out of every shot, much less put in fancy titles or engage in this mysterious thing called ‘color correction.’

A big difference between me and my talented videographer friends seems to be that they ‘color correct’ their films. I’ve heard them mention it and, curious, have tried to figure out online exactly what color correction is, but I may as well have been Googling ‘HOW TO DO ALCHEMY?’ All I know is that color correction is the process by which your film goes from looking ordinary to looking beautiful – like She’s All That, but in FinalCut Pro.

Truman Capps, King of the Analogies!

I mean, if color correction is so important, why doesn’t the camera just do it for you? Given how much they’re charging for a good HD camera these days, I don’t want to have to mess with the footage later to make it look good. That’s the camera’s job. I mean, for $5000, I’m sort of pissed that I even have to edit anything – I just want a DVD of my finished product to pop out of the camera like a Polaroid.

What I’m coming to terms with is the fact that I’m not going to be as good at this stuff as other people are. Yes, of course, nothing is impossible and I’m sure I could attain that level of mastery with the investment of lots of time and money into study of the craft and the purchase of good equipment, but the fact is that I’m not interested enough to do that.

I was going to say ‘…the fact is that I don’t care’ in the last paragraph, but that would make it seem like I’m disinterested in making movies that look good, which is not the case. I want very badly to be able to, in three days, crap out a masterpiece without breaking a sweat. I want to be able to write a great script and then turn it into a great movie the way Wes Anderson and occasionally Quentin Tarantino do.

But as much as I want that, I just don’t have the passion to invest myself wholeheartedly in the act of learning how to do all the technical stuff that makes cinematic beauty possible. It’s taken me 22 years to get as good as I am at writing now, and I’ve still got a long way to go. I don’t have the energy to start at the bottom of another ladder and claw my way up, especially when I’ve got friends who are already at the top of it and willing to do the dirty work for me.

“Everybody’s got one special thing,” as they say in Boogie Nights, a movie that was both masterfully written and masterfully directed by college dropout Paul Thomas Anderson. The line rings true, I think. Last night, I saw a lot of films made by people whose ‘special thing’, so to speak, was filmmaking. They’re going to go far.

But I’ve got my own special thing: My hair was way by far the best out of all the festival participants, and the fact that I went away empty handed at the end of the evening is more a reflection of the fact that there was no ‘Best Hair’ award than of any inadequacy on my part. I also write occasionally.

Truman Capps was fortunate to have a dynamite cast for his movie, among them a Chinese exchange student who he convinced to use the word ‘honky’ on camera.

Some Shit Brent Wrote

Wow, remember when I used to update regularly and on time?

I'm participating in the Adrenaline Film Festival, wherein I have 72 hours to write, shoot, and edit a five minute short film with my group. That's what we've been doing today, and that's what we'll be doing until Saturday, instead of sleeping or writing this blog.

Fortunately, Brent Jones, who neglected to do his part and update while I was in DC, was kind enough to send in his update a day or so late, which I held onto out of spite up until I needed it. So now, for your reading pleasure, some shit Brent wrote:

What does it mean to be an American?

While I'm not completely sure, I can tell you what I did last night as an anecdotal example.

Author's Note, #0: I consider being late part of being American.

Like most of us who got out of high school, in the literal sense of leaving and not returning to the building, AND in the figurative sense of seeing past weed as a cool social taboo, the desire to program one's personality for the sole purpose of getting BJ's, and not letting 'school spirit' dictate the color water you drink (Yes, at the remarkable institution yours truly and his truly [Truman] the school color of orange made it's way into the pipes, into the water, and into our dying livers), the wanderlust of travel dictates where we will go to expand our minds, our hearts, and our knowledge of foreign and exotic reefers and blowjobs. This led to the tale of my spring break in San Francisco, a girl named Betty, almost dying, and a hangover that won't go away.

*Author's Note, #1: I attend a University in Salem, Oregon, the location of my alma mater (latin for "nourishing mother, and now you can't say you didn't learn something, ya nappy ho) and my hometown, meaning I didn't move for shit, and as such the rest of this tale will make increasingly more sense, corruption of innocence to come!

*Author's Note, #2: In keeping with the times, recognizing that there are those among us who cannot receive blowjobs, either due to not being lucky enough to have their baby-maker on the outside or having had an even more unlucky accident involving meat grinders/dogs, feel free to substitute "fellatio" or "a gentle massage to make you forget your worldly woes" in exchange for nob-nibbles.

All of this started at a rogue-ish diner chain that sticks its signs up and down the I-5 advertising STEAK DINNERS (FOR MEN), reinforcing the notion by slapping a burly black bear upon the establishment, making it The Black Bear Diner. For those who don't know the visage, think of Denny's, but with more steak, less class (if possible), and a sign reverent to those grandfathers blasting down I-5 to the fishing hole with a wad of chew slouched in each cheek who don't yet need viagra. Always looking for a new way to prove ourselves, my cohorts and I figure stomaching The Black Bear Diner will be a feat of manliness unrivaled, or slightly better than a third gas station Hostess™ run.

*Author's Note, #3: As was kindly mentioned by his royal-ness T. Capps esq., I'm an English major (who doesn't read or know grammar) and I would like to take a moment to talk about the film plot-arcs of Q. Tarantino mofo., who utilizes a technique of tension building by having two people with swords or three super models with a fast car do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for 2-30 minutes at a time. This builds a subconscious tension in the mind of the viewer as the "something has to give" vibe makes you cringe despite the smooth dialog and obvious foot fetish shots. This means, dear reader, that you should be at the height of tension at the moment, felt between the The BBD and my Nissan full of bros. Even this interlude is a mere ploy to drag out and milk that tension-tit.

We sidle on in and there is honest-to-the-G'man-himself hatrack in the foyer. No? Not impressed? Well at that moment I was getting pretty damn tired of wearing this hat that I willingly put on that I could have left in the car, so I was so stoked there was a location to put it so that I could A. have it stolen by gun-toting granpas, or B. forget it. When I threw my bonny cap up there with the rest of the fools, I couldn't help but notice a bonnet upon the pole that was some bizarre mix of cowboy and punk rock, with a miniature bucking bull pin and at least 4 bands called "The *insertobscuredomesticappliancehere*s" that I h'ain't never heard of. Thinking no more of it, I was seated, though quickly moved to the bar as it was bro #2's turn to drive, meaning it was gin & tonic time fore this weary traveler.

And that's when I saw her.

*Author's Note, #4: Cheesy, I know. But seriously, you know there are times when the truth is stranger than fiction? While being aware of that worn sentiment's cheesiness as well, the author would like to remind the fair reader of it's belligerent truth, as well as begin the reason why Sunday's update was ill-timed, to those who actually care [Truman].

*Author's Note, #5: Did you know Truman "The Man Himself" Capps used to go by Scott? Ya, I know right bro! Exactly.

Bent over the bar and trying to take a $5 hanging out the bartender's left butt-pocket, something I'm guessing she had already tried, was a girl/woman of probably 23 or 24 who's hair beckoned to the sun, who's bosom boasted the fullest of fruit, and who's legs were kinda too short for her torso, but hey 2/3 ain't bad (right Meatloaf? Gosh, I wish we were too old for the reference…). When the bartender not-so-playfully slapped her hand away, assumably again, she turned back around and I had--in that window of time--teleported four seats down, set my water I brought over from the table (for no reason, other than DESTINY) right next to a predicted landing spot for her elbow, and I threw on a quick makeshift-cool look to my face, like I had been there 20 minutes already. For those faster than Cali's highway traffic, you now know who the punk cowboy hat belongs to. Almost as planned, she succeeded not in grazing the glass with her elbow, as to get a turn of her attention in my direction, she managed to slam that thing and burst it on the railing of the bar, dousing to retirement home escapees in what they thought was alcohol, though was actually iced water.
Skipping the ensuing scene, the result was minor chaos, the annoyed-turned-furious barman throwing punk cowboy out on her tush, and her apologizing only the way a drunk person can, and insisting she'd make it up to me.
Now, my bros, they're the bro-iest. They knew what was going on and for all intents and purposes, I was a stranger to them until having said otherwise. Chortling over their overcooked boot leather, one gave a playful wave as a slight grin snuck out across my otherwise 'alarmed' face as I watched the Texas misprint make for the doors.
After the moment, not letting too much time lapse, I headed over to the hatrack and took the punk cowboy hat.
Once in the parking lot, my gameplan had mostly stopped, as even Bobby Fischer couldn't have planned this many moves ahead (he's the chess player that, if living,who could beat Wilson the cocky robot that took down our other favorite nerd, Ken Jennings). Drawing from the impromptu barrel of 'oh no bro, it's fine's and 'ah naw bra it's cool's we stammered about out there for around 5 minutes, and I forgot what was being said back and forth in the moment, but it ended in a drunk hug (boobs!) and an unexpected invitation. I asked "Where are you going?" and she said the name of a place that at the time I only hoped was in California when responded with "Me too!" and after exclaiming how close it was, she apologized again for the gin & tonic (still actually water).

"Yeah, that's just so mean a' me, sorry so much."
"Oh, you know, these things happen, but I wish I had had a camera, that old lady's getting a faceful of gin probably sent her hear beating faster than since… a long time ago!"
"Haha stupid bitch what was she doing, sitting where I wanted to throw your glass!"
"Haha!"
"Haha."
". . ."
". . ."
"I'm Betty!"
"Ah… I'm… Brent!" (<--chance to use the fakename Sebastian Winters blown)
"Yeah, you know, I just really wish I could make it up to you."
"Nah, no worries, there will always be another gin and tonic. I mean, stuff's not exactly a rarity and you know how it is."
"And I was only halfway through my long island, what a dick that guy is! DICK!" The finger displayed can be easily assumed by this blog's savvy readership, as well as the none-too-pleasedness of The BBD's patrons who were thanking their cross'd stars their daughter was nothing like this.
"Yep, what a dick alright. …Anyways, glad I could bring you back your hat and all, I should probably get back and--"
"--wait what? Going? Now? Where?"
"Well, uh, into the place I'm not kicked out of I guess… though it's not like I was doing much there myself I guess (HINTHINTHINT)."
"Oh come on! I ain't done drinking yet (around 4:30pm), and I bet neither are you, now like I said, the place we're going (<--notice that) isn't that far and I bet there's a buncha gin there."

Blessed be heaven's stars which shine their might from the sky
Blessed be all below under the watchful shepherd's eye
In glory reign let your heart be akin to those, kind and good
In glory reign fill your life with goodwill and brotherhood

*Author's Note, #6: I understand getting in the motor vehicle of someone intending to take to the highway who just forgot their hat in a bar and got kicked-thefuck-out isn't the smartest move a man (or woman, or gender-ruined-by-dog person) can make. In retrospect, it was funny she didn't mention anything about my car, which I was about 50/50 on taking and leaving d'em bros to fend for themselves at The BBD. However, this was a time for emotion and becoming swept up in the moment--which I might not have been saying were I dead, but hey--free gin.

Think back to the last time you had 4 cups of coffee w/ sugar in a row, downing one after another (or three sips of four loko). Now try to remember, if you can, what it does to your brain. The closest thing to a feeling that I can pair to the effect is like being able to feel individual brain cells popping, like snapping bubble wrap. Keep in mind, dear reader, I had only 1/3 a glass of water to drink. About now this cell-popping was all of what my brain was doing, barely thinking of conversations as we blabbed on, me giving the appropriate response to her on-beat questions, as the bigger concerns such as staying in one lane and trying to decide the best method of bailing out (curl into a ball, or the superman?) preoccupied the majority of my mind's RAM. Not once, but twice and emergency jerk of the wheel kept us from giving a graze to a semi, and encouragement for brake usage kept us from kissing a few bumpers. I blathered at length about the masculine-est things I think about from my time spent in Japan, acting like I wasn't slightly terrified, inbetween her regaling me with details of her 3 weeks horseriding/backpack trip (http://www.ridingtours.com/horseback_riding_destinations/California.cfm, as she told me, with an emphasis on "viticulture" meaning you ride on horses to wineries and avoid the DUIs by being on HORSES which is BADASS). I couldn't resist the thoughts that I was caught up in some kind of government plot, that I was going to wake up in the matrix or be dead within the hour. This is not the sort of thing that happens to your average bro. But what do I know, while I may be a know-nothing college kid not yet versed in how the older half lives--she was obviously a little older, and maybe this is what older people just did. I wouldn't have believed half the shit I did in college if you told me in my orange, lead-water-filled Salem high school, so this could be growing up, this could be a symbolic move from young adulthood to adulthood-adulthood. Of course, this was all absolute bullshit to convince myself this wasn't going to end in my death.
When we turned off the 505 and on towards Madison, apparently a place that matters, I had resigned myself to death and resolved that as long as it was her cute face and big boobs that would take me there, s'all good bro.
Now, a true gentleman doesn't kiss and tell, but when we rolled into Rose's Island western(ish) bar, we totally made out across the console.
I was furiously texting my bros who requested updates like giddy little girls awaiting the newest Avril Lavigne single, giving them the scoop and making sure back up was a possibility in the worst/best case scenario of the matrix subplot coming true. But hey man, go with it, roll with it, and slam that gin & tonic she stuck under your nose faster than she can toss back vodka crans. Something about drinking almost seemed to sober her up and we talked like people instead of co-sonspirators in something. I guess after having made out (like a lot, despite the gear shift sticking too close for comfort in my thigh) it cemented that we didn't need to impress each other. We could be reasonable, so long as I could throw my arm over her shoulder more than what was necessary and she could keep her hand on my thigh.
Turns out she was a dealer at a casino not faraway, which adds to her badassed-ness of the previously mentioned classy drunken horseback riding she had finished, but she was going to work tomorrow to steal money from bored suckers she wouldn't see a penny of, outside of meager wages (apparently not enough for her own horse, having not gotten over the I-wanna-pony phase of growing up) and I told her of my life intentions of going to Japan, waiting to hear back from JET. I was just as impressed by her having made living in the foothills of North California sound not terrible at all as she was with my international eye towards heading overseas. She had her fun gallivanting through nature and heading down to San Fran to throw her pretty self into sweaty moshpits, and I was doing this which was fun enough. As the conversation extended we drank slower, and unsurprisingly, I think we found out that we both just thought the other was crazy and went with it, and now we were coming to the realization we were both like way normal. But, you know, it was okay, and I was fine with it, though conspiracy theory would have been cooler, this was kind of the thing that should happen at least once.
A surefire let down, for you and me both dear reader, her having to work tomorrow meant no sleepovers, though she did pay for my bar tab and we did make out again in the parking lot. She also still lived with her parents. In keeping with the independent streak of a strong wanderer, when she offered me a ride somewhere, I said I was close to San Fran and a friend could give me a ride, and I was just thankful to have met her, which was most likely the truest thing I had said since actually meeting her. She really was quite nice, and there's an open invitation for another gin & tonic on my way back.
Watching the red lights on the back of her Jeep-y 4x4 thing take off left me with a sense of some kind of accomplishment and the immediate realization I was nowhere and my bros would most certainly be playing League of Legends in Richmond by now. Walking around made me realize just how much drunk was left in me, so resisting the casino's temptation, I bought a romance novel from a K-mart to see an example of the night I wouldn't have, though didn't mind, and the bro-squad took their dear-sweet-goddamned-fucking-time in getting to the junction despite functional directions, and I didn't end up getting in until after 11pm, meaning I didn't have the night I expected of last minute blog writing about some rock concert in Japan and making un-funny inside jokes for Truman's blog,

but hey. Free gin.

Brent Jones attends Willamette University and went to a Jewish temple for the first time the next day. Although a poet by profession, such jaunts into prose so long as wanna-be Cowboys like Betty make writing (and being late) worth doing. Getting in trouble is a fake idea, and as long as you're happy you're doing something right. Sorry Tru-Tru, I blog late for you, but in the reverse situation I'd hope you'd choose jugs & gin too, bro. Also, I didn't get *my* hat back from The BBD.

DC, Part 2

When we moved from Salem to Portland, my family sifted through all of the crap we’d accumulated in our garage over the past ten years. The beermaker my parents had only used once, long unused and mouse-gnawed Christmas decorations, a few thousand of my old kindergarten and elementary school assignments (my motor skills have not improved appreciably since then) – we quickly realized that for years we’d taken everything in our house with no purpose but at least a little sentimental significance and just chucked it into the garage.

Because sure it’s useless, but you can’t throw it away, right? That would be wrong! So put it in the garage. If you ever want or need that thing, you know right where it is. It’s in the garage!

That’s the Smithsonian in a nutshell. It’s America’s garage.

There's some dusty exercise equipment in here too.

America has no use for The Spirit of St. Louis...

The first plane to make a transatlantic flight, and we named it after a city in Missouri?

...Fonzie’s jacket...

He was hilarious on That 50's Show.

...or any of the trillions of moon rocks that NASA brought home throughout the 1970s. I mean, really? Moon rocks? I feel like we gained a lot scientifically from the first one, but ever since then astronauts have just been bringing them back to show to women in bars, just in case the line, “Hi, I’m an astronaut” doesn’t work well enough.

But we can’t just throw this stuff away, because it’s all a vital part of American history as well as solid proof that we’re better than all other countries.

Solid proof.

There’s the National Archives, but that tends to only preserve the absolute most important stuff, like the Constitution – if the Smithsonian is the garage, the National Archives is the mantle piece over the fireplace, reserved for the finest commemorative plates and some boring documents from the Civil War.

So there’s the Smithsonian, then, this grand institution that grabs virtually anything American and even vaguely famous and puts it up on display for people to look at. The wide net the Smithsonian casts can lead to some pretty mismatched collections all housed under the same roof – in the Smithsonian Museum of American History you can see Julia Child’s kitchen...

This could've been Pierre Trudeau's kitchen and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

...right across the hall from the world’s first robotically driven car...

I did not take a picture of that car.

...then run upstairs to see the flag that inspired the national anthem...

I wasn't allowed to take a picture of that flag. This one probably tastes better.

... is next door to an exhibit about the Muppets...

Proto-Kermit on the left there is freaking my shit out.

...and one floor down from a fairly comprehensive and depressing collection of World War 2 memorabilia.

Nazis. I hate these guys.

I don’t think America has been able to park its car in there for years.

It’s a lot to take in at once, especially when you realize that you’re not looking at a replica of the C-3P0 costume from Return of the Jedi; you’re looking at the genuine article.

This was exactly the droid I was looking for.

You can only have your mind blown so many times in one day before you’re absent mindedly shuffling past British warships and presidential artifacts in a history-saturated trance.

Some artifacts are more interesting than others.

I didn’t have this problem as much at the Newseum – the journalism museum located a few blocks from the Smithsonian. Maybe this is because the Newseum, in stark contrast to the field of journalism, is hip, high tech, and interesting, utilizing slick multimedia presentations laid out over seven different floors.

And good lord, man, look at the typography!

Or maybe it’s because, as interesting as Tim Russert’s desk is, it just doesn’t have the same emotional impact on me as the flag that inspired our country’s national anthem, a presentation on the sacrifices America’s military makes for our freedom, or a costume that was worn in a Star Wars movie. That said, the Unabomber’s cabin was pretty cool.

They wanted to show off where somebody who was batshit insane lived, and they didn’t have room for Charlie Sheen’s house.

Now, The White House - there was a museum experience. Not necessarily because there was anything especially incredible on display, but rather because, for about half an hour, the Secret Service considered me enough of a security risk to detain me in a small pseudo-prison by the front gate.

This may come as a surprise to you, but the official residence of the President is sort of a difficult place to get into. We had to apply months in advance for our tickets and undergo a full background check, and even once we were approved we weren’t allowed to take cameras into The White House – probably because they didn’t want us to take pictures of Obama’s fake birth certificate or something.

When we got to the visitor gates, a posse of Secret Service were there to meet us and all the other guests. One by one we had to flash our ID and have our information checked against what was on the gate list. My parents got through, but when it came to me, there was a problem.

You see, the information on my diver’s license said I was Truman Scott Capps, born 11/27/1988, whereas the information on the gate list said I was Truman Scott Capps, born 12/27/1988.

You see that? One month difference. Apparently, that’s the sort of clerical error a terrorist would make.

The Secret Service ushered me into a small area directly to the left of the gate, which was completely surrounded by portable hurricane fences, where I gave my information again to a White House aide for a second background check. I glanced around my makeshift prison and surveyed the two other occupants – both middle aged women from separate tour groups whose ID had similar discrepancies to mine. My understanding was that on your first day in the big house you have to kick somebody’s ass so you don’t get raped, but I decided I’d hold off and size up my fellow inmates before I started any fights.

There weren’t a lot of people coming through the gate that morning, so I got to stand and listen as the Secret Service agents stood around cracking wise and making asshole comments about coworkers they didn’t like and movies they’d seen recently. In case you were wondering, the United States Secret Service says Due Date was, “Pretty okay”, but I Am Number Four “Fucking sucked.”

After processing a particularly rowdy school group, each of whom apparently had a lot of trouble giving him their name, the agent in charge of the guest list looked over at me and wearily sighed, “You want my job?”

“That depends,” I said. “Do I get the gun, too?”

“You can have it all.” He said, shaking his head as another group of students approached.

Giving it some more thought, I realized that I probably wouldn’t trade jobs with this guy. Even though saying “I’m a Secret Service agent” is the second best bar pickup line after “I’m an astronaut,” I feel like his job is just a more aggravating and dangerous version of my job in the checkout room. How many tourists, I wonder, come to his checkpoint in direct view of the White House and ask, “Is this where the President lives?”

Tourists, Gateway students... What's the difference, really?

Seeing me talking to the guards, one of the other two women in the pen stepped over to the fence, within earshot of a sympathetic looking agent, and said the following:

“Hey so I’m pretty sure I know the problem with my ID it’s just that I’ve still got the same last name on my ID from when I was still married but I changed my credit card after I got divorced and I mean I probably should’ve done something about this sooner but I got divorced two years ago and since then I’ve had triplets and it’s just so difficult to get out of the house and do anything when you’ve got all that to do plus my best friend has the cancer and so it’s like I’m looking after her too but it’s just so cold out here I mean I know you say I can leave any time I want but it’s just so cold I mean if I have to wait another five minutes I think I’m just going to go wait on our tour bus because it’s just so cold out here you know I mean it gets pretty cold in Iowa I’m from Iowa you see but it’s not like I like being cold, you know just standing out in it, so yeah I think if it’s another five minutes I’m just going to go wait on the bus I mean I don’t need to see the White House this bad I mean it probably isn’t worth waiting in here for this long I’m probably just going to leave in another five minutes but I don’t know it’s just because my ID doesn’t match my credit card statement probably…”

At this point, I was considering asking the other woman in the cell if she wanted to join my prison gang and help me kill this Iowa loudmouth, but she was all but tunneling her way out Shawshank Redemption by then. Looking to the Secret Service agents I’d been talking to earlier, I saw them cracking up as they watched their fellow agent wither in this stream of conversation.

You heard it here first – the highly trained, heavily armed protectors of the Executive Branch are just as big of assholes as the rest of us. When, a few minutes later, my clearance came through and I was released, I went into the White House knowing that this place would be easy enough to break into if I just brought a Jackass DVD to distract the guards.

Truman Capps hopes the extra length makes up for the lateness, and no, that’s not what she said.