Intro to the "Plan B" lifestyle

I was inspired by my best mate, Cricket McGraith, to switch my allegiances to this wonderfully literate venue I've dubbed "myspace for grown-ups". I've thus begun my blog journal which is essentially a living chronicle of everyday (almost) happenings and thoughts, with an undercurrent of the "Plan B" lifestyle. Being that this is a new blog, many of you (probably not many actually) may be wondering, 'tell me Simon, what is this "Plan B" you speak of and how may I follow the ways of your teachings?'.

There comes a time in a man's life when he begins to question everything he's done, what he's doing and what does it all mean. This usually hits around 33. I've read that this is some sort of cosmic "coming of age" year, with Jesus's crucifixion and Hitler's rise as 2 famous examples. Not two names you'd often say in the same sentence, huh? Anyway, I think this came early for me, more like 25 or so. In fact, as 33 came and went, I find I'm still there. I think I'm getting clarity however as to what I'm doing and why. It doesn't necessarily fix it, but I dont obsess about it either.

So, back to Cricket. He and I have been friends for a couple of years and we spend many sunday afternoons holding "meetings", drinking coffee and comparing notes on life's idiosyncracies. What we've deduced is that the way we live and the paths we're on are essentially necessary. Unless you're born rich, you win the lotto or have that million dollar idea and slave away to bring it to life, most of us go to college and then get jobs to earn a living. If you're lucky you'll like your job, maybe even find it rewarding. The reality though is that the reward you'd rather have, no matter how much you love what you do, is enough money to never have to work again.

With that said, we all need a back up plan to keep us going. You know, for when "the shit goes down". That's what Plan B is all about. Having a back up plan. The spare apartment in Amsterdam, a new name, the passport and the swiss bank account with some cash socked away. It may be a Bourne Identity type of dream, or you may actually follow through. That's the beauty of it, you dont actually have to do any of it, you just have to have the plan. The plan gives you a type of confidence you may have never thought you had. Say, you have a shitty day at work or you get in a fight with a loved one, what do you do? Sulk? Hell no! You think to yourself..."fuck this crap, if I wanted to I could leave all this shit behind and start from scratch".

Remember, no one owns you (or limits you for that matter) except yourself.

The Oscars...

In one of my last posts I spent the better part of a half hour praising all the wonderful things about television. Tonight the Oscars...oh sorry, I mean ...The Academy Awards (tm) are on and while this is one event that even TV haters like to tune into, ironically, this whole category of masturbatory programming is one that I despise! I hate awards shows. Almost more than anything.

The whole concept of all these people who are already famous, designating several nights a year under different guises, just to remind themselves how great they are, just seems messed up. Now, whoever reads this might say that I am just jealous. I am not. I never grew up wanting to be an actor. Not to say that I didn't think I could be one if I wanted to...a good one actually.

Being a creative person I can understand the need for incessant reassurance and praise, to be recognized for excelling at your craft of choice. You may recall my post a few days back when I spoke about the power that reality has when it hits you in the face with less than glowing criticism. But this is just ridiculous. And really the superfluousness is what gets me the most. Sure, one event a year (the Oscars) would be ok, but do we really need the Golden Globes, the People's Choice Awards, the AFI awards, the SAGs or the MTV ones? Holy crap that's a lot and only the movie related ones I can think of.

My recap of last night's event would be as follows:

1. Ellen is a pretty good MC
2. Al Gore should be president
3. The Departed deserved to win
4. Jennifer Hudson didn't
5. I'd like to see West Bank Story
6. Hellen Mirren is old enough to be my mom, but still hot

So, why did I watch you ask? Well uh...how's that one go about the trainwreck? In my defense I was on the couch working on a proposal while my wife watched and it was sort of background noise...and of course it fueled my observations of pop culture. I still love you TV!

1999

The last 2 days of this past week I had been stuck in a hotel conference room in Columbus, Ohio with the 45 employees of our company for our "annual" meeting. We have 3 offices, so we try to do these all-hands company meetings once a year, but they seem to happen far less frequently. This was the first one in almost 2 years, so there was a ton to get caught up on.

The meetings start off like any meeting of this sort that you can imagine (think Wall Street meets The Office). You have several slides presented by the owners with graphs, pie charts, gantt charts and the like. Then, in case you didn't understand those charts the first time, the same data points are re-charted in a different way. Call it filler.

The next part entails our 2 departments (design and engineering) walking through several slides that give an overview of all the work done since the last time we met. Being a creative firm, there are also lots of pretty pictures and leniency when it comes to giving the presentation (as far as what I can get away with saying). Good thing too as I distinctly recall drawing a similarity between a lively brainstorm session and a meth lab bust.

When I was a kid I was really shy in front of groups of people. I remember having to sing and dance as part of Mike Fink's crew in my 5th grade production of Davey Crockett. The sight of all those parents and kids in the audience was startling. Like any kid you dont want to be the one that screws up and embarasses himself or his parents. It went fine. This sort of inhibition continued into high school when my sense of humor seemed to really sharpen. I dont know how or what eventually clicked and I realised that people weren't actually lauging AT me, they were laughing WITH me...most of the time. I guess I've always marched by my own beat and have been comfortable with myself, but have been sensitive to the criticism of others. I've gotten over that too. Funny what age and experience can do to shape us.
Anyway, while these meetings are invaluable in their special way, the preparation required of management (that'd be me and a couple others), is insane. With that in mind, the first day of these meetings is always the best for me though because a), we're halfway done and b) there will be some opportunities to hang out with people outside of work and socialize.

When I checked into the hotel, naturally I flirted with the ladies behind the counter ('cause that's how I roll). The rooms were prepaid, but they needed my card anyway for "incidentals". I involuntarily replied, "good, 'cause I'm gonna party like it's 1999 and trash the joint like a rockstar". All said mind you with the straightest of faces. The women behind the counter all gasped and looked at one another trying to figure out if I was serious. It's fun to mess with old ladies. It's particuarly funny too becasue I'm normally in bed by 10....maybe 10:30 on the weekends. A girl needs her sleep ; )

So, as the day 1 meetings drew to a close and we all left for the big company dinner, I never would have thought that I wouldn't have just come back to my room afterwards, read some stuff online, send out some emails and then get to bed early to prep for day 2. How wrong I was. Dinner ended and everyone returned to the hotel bar for a nightcap. That's when I was introduced to the "chocolatini". My drink of choice normally is the Vodka Gimlet. My 007 drink if you will. Wine is also an important part of my potable life. I dont usually go for girly drinks, but I love chocolate and I guess it looked tasty. Well, 1 turned to 3 pretty damn quick and before I knew it I was being whisked away to the first of 2 bars to continue what I had started.

I'm not exactly sure which of my co-workers accompanied me or exactly how much of an ass I made of myself, but I do know that there was dancing involved..on a table no less and I was not in bed until 3:30 am or so. As comofortable (and borderline obsessive) as I've become with being in front of crowds over the years, adding alcohol to my already extroverted personality can be a recipe for disaster. Now if only I had adopted the Gimlet when I was 10, I might have had the starring role.

Television...

I'm watching American Idol right now with, from what Ryan told us, about 30 million other people. Of the other 270 million odd americans not watching Idol with me, there is a large group, though likely not as big as they think, who like to bash television and all of it's faithful viewers.

This group of self-righteous liberals love to hang their Dukakis/Greenpeace hats on the "kill your television" hatpost. They say it rots your mind, is a waste of time and is dumbing and numbing our children. I'm actually quite liberal myself. I mean, I love whales, trees, baby seals in trees and alternative fuels as much as the next guy. I also happen to love television. I think it's great. I think too however, that not unlike driving a problem-prone car increases your chances of sputtering out on the highway, the more weak-minded the simpleton, the more likely to be influenced by the bright likes and talking pictures. But why waste time on a high horse over television? Just turn it off!

Brains are just big slimy sponges that absorb what they're stimulated by. If you take your kitchen sponge and drop it in the toilet, it'll absorb toliet water right? The less saturated the sponge, the more it'll take in. Nature is magically built with balance at it's central of laws. Pretty neat.

I think I'm a relatively intelligent guy. College educated, dean's list and fairly well read and cultured. Granted, I'm no Stephen Hawking (I'd probably be a faster typer ), but you get the picture. I'm smart enough to know better and bottom line, I think television is great. The whole concept of hundreds, even thousands of channels of useless information and contrived situations is frankly just really entertaining and fulfilling to me. Always something new to see., something to make you feel better about yourself or just make you think. Don't get me wrong, I like books, magazines, plays and other non-television driven entertainment and education media as well. But don't discount the purpose of reality tv, cheesy sitcoms or your evening news. They're all the same and should be taken for what they are. Mindless entertainment....and lots of words and pictures.

Engineers

For some reason people seem to find me funny. I'll have friends say to me 'oh, so and so loved you,he/she thinks you're so funny!' For a moment I'll catch myself wondering, what on earth could I have possibly said that would make "funny" the adjective of choice when describing me? I'd certainly prefer "good looking", "talented" or "great in bed", but I suppose it'll do.

Anyway, with that said, I have never been much for actual joke telling. Most seem so simple that I dont find them that funny. Others that actually are funny often become too complex to recall verbatim. I recently read a joke though that I thought was brilliant and it was due in large part to the fact that I work with several engineers. Upon hearing this joke (an engineer joke), I couldn't wait to use it!

Yesterday my boss was taking a new face around the office. He stopped by and introduced his nephew Jim, or Steve, I cant recall. What did stand out is that the nephew, a lanky, meek fellow, happened to be an engineer! Finally my big chance! We exchange pleasantries and then I lead in with...'hey, I heard a great joke about engineers, want to hear it?' Poor guy, what was he to say but 'sure'.

'Great!' I said with obvious glee in my voice. 'How can you tell the difference between an introvert engineer and an extrovert engineer?' 'I dunno?' he says. 'The extrovert engineer looks at your shoes when he's talking to you!'

The look on nephew's face was priceless! And while he might not be one of the ones that says 'oh, he's so funny!', for that heart-piercing and emasculating moment, I truly was.

The thing about parents...

As a designer and artist I (my work,actually) have, through education and practice, been subject to years of highly subjective, deeply critical and sometimes downright nasty commentary. By now, having suffered through that gauntlet of professors, clients and random passers by, I have grown a pretty thick skin. If you can't take some abuse (remember, it's aimed at the work, not you), you just shouldn't pursue a creatively focused career. Otherwise you'll end up like countless other creative types before you and just go fucking nuts, shooting your ashes out of a cannon, cutting off your ear or hopefully at least coming up with a more creative way "out".

For the past several years I seem to periodically go through a cycle where I need to feel creatively productive. This is due in large part to this most common of occurences. Guy goes to (insert type of schooling here), he gets really good at what he does, he gets a good job, works hard, management says 'heck, if he's that good on his own, maybe he can lead an army of his clones', guy then moves into management. Hopefully he gets good at that too, otherwise he gets canned. Remember, you can't get promoted back to what you were originally good at if it doesn't work out. So, what happens in this process is that eventually you are no longer doing what you love and instead you are trying to train monkeys to be like you. Not fun...mostly. To help you reconcile this, they give you bigger paychecks. That doesn't suck. The thing though is that there is a creative form of expression that's lost. I imagine it's kind of like making it big as a musician, where the charm that got you there is what they want to strip from you to make you appeal to a broader audience. My audience is small.

I was getting to a point, being the need to still have a creative outlet. Those last several years I was talking about, I have been (when motivated) painting. This isn't something that I do for long stretches of time. It sort of goes in waves, say like every 2 years I'll get in a groove for a few months and crank a bunch of stuff out. Then something in my house breaks or I get really busy or there's a sale at Barney's and I fall off the creative wagon. It's a bit manic, but longer term. I'd like to do this more often. Paint that is, not stop and start like some crappy tv you bought at a thrift store because it was a sweet deal. Now, if I had a benefactor or sugar mama I could have been a painter full time. Granted I'd get bored and take breaks from time to time, we are flaky us creative types, are we not? As it stands, I squeeze a few hours in here and there between errands, chores, socializing, etc. Seems though, when I finally get all the shitty work out of my system, I have to stop.

I come from a family of artist, designers and architects. We can take critcism well, but also like to give it. Anyway, a funny thing happened yesterday and it started something like this:

My dad, who is a brilliant man (an accomplished architect, urban planner and economist, not to mention a gifted artist to boot) came by to see the work I have been doing during my most recent period "on". I have a show coming up next month and I thought I could use the feedback. My studio is in my basement, so I brought a couple pieces upstairs for better lighting then took dad downstairs to see the rest of my work. We (more like he) probably spent about an hour all told going through each of 10 or 12 paintings. It started with the usual (but uncomfortable), "hmmmm". Then in detail, my dad with his still strong accent (even after 35 years), begins to critique my work to pieces. Being a proffesor , he's trained to inflict crushing blows with minimal effort. The overall feeling was a sort of 'better learn how to walk before you try to run'.

Funny thing is that after the weeks of my friends and my wife all saying that my work was great, I really just wanted a real opinion and some tough love frankly. You could say I asked for it.

What I find most interesting about yesterday's events though is that, at this point in my life and career, I can have my work (or anything else for that matter) torn to shreds and I'll just brush it off. For some reason though, and I imagine no matter how old you get, the criticism our parents give us always seems to sting a bit longer.

Music and Lyrics...

For as long as I can remember, I was always the guy thay hated all romantic comedies, and drew the line of acceptable romantic films with Wild at Heart and Kalifornia. Not so heartwarming in the Ross & Rachel or Seth & Summer kind of way, but worked for me anyway.

Recently however (meaning over the last say 4 years) I have very slowly begun to go through some sort of a shift in my feelings towards this genre and it really frightens me. I can't say for sure which film or show it was that planted the "soft" seeds in me. It may have been the first episode of the OC, or Love Actually, maybe even Chasing Liberty. Somewhere my hardened heart has taken a liking to Hugh Grant's charm and Mandy Moore's "princess movies".

I suppose this weekend really solidified it for me that I had officially "crossed over". A couple of friends of mine (already "out"), asked if we'd like to go see the Music & Lyrics starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. For the record, when I was asked if I wanted to go I looked at my wife and did that "gag me" motion and responded something like ...'well...let me see...uhhhh....I'll call you back.'

Somewhere between "no" and "are you fucking kidding me", I called back and said "sure". Mind you this was more for the chance to see our friends, but I said yes just the same. Anyway, we went, got snacks, saw the film and left. Upon leaving, we did the usual recap and critique. Hugh Grant was naturally playing his usual smug English self, always just out of reach and aloof, but with a glimpse of a softer side. Drew Barrymore played the love interest and was typically charming. Sadly, I was the only one that liked it.

My name is Simon Chase and I like romantic comedies.