Blog Archives - David Alan Dedin

A Small World After All

6/27/2013

I've been following Seth MacFarlane on Twitter, and reading his tweets while filming "A Million Ways to Die in the West." How cool is that? Live updates from a set in the middle of the desert? It makes me wonder how different life would be had the Internet been around during the golden age of Hollywood. Imagine for example, the tweets we might have seen from the set of The Conqueror:

"Day 27 of filming, and I can't get rid of this goddamn headache."

"My hair keeps falling out. Must be the heat."

"John Wayne as Genghis Kahn? Christ, what's next? Elvis as a Shiek?"

We're all so damn connected now, and it makes the world seem small. It was only as recently as the early 1990s when cell phones were bricks, computers were stationary, and live video required a microwave truck. But when it comes to current technology - the Internet in particular - it feels like we've always had instant communication. Instant news, instant video, and endless instant texts, tweets, emails, blogs, and Facebook posts...it's a fog of digital chatter. I'll bet if we could actually "see" our communications, the world would look like The Matrix credits.

Back when I was in high school, I remember didn't really "get" the importance of history classes until lessons reached the 20th century - and textbooks were accompanied by video. There was something about seeing the "footage," the grainy black & white images from the 1920s, 30s, & 40s which caused me to think: "Wow. This really happened. And this film was actually state-of-the-art technology, recording this moment forever." I imagined how cool it would be to see video from the Civil War, the Inquisition, or the construction of ancient Rome. I imagined watching a YouTube file of what really happened when those apes found the monolith.

I often wonder what the world will be like two or three hundred years in the future, when Star Trek is finally reality. I imagine we'll have much better communications - something like Radio World's "Headline," only with a better interface. Or maybe we'll all have digital "skull caps" - as described in Arthur C Clarke's 3001: The Final Odyssey. I figure we're still a solid 1000 years away before we evolve into beings of pure energy, so I imagine our tweets until that happens will be as petty as now, only on a more universal scale:

"Day 27 of floating through the cosmos, and still I can't get rid of this damn engorged, pulsating, oversized-head ache."

"(Unpronounceable alien name) as God? Christ, what's next? (Equally unpronounceable alien name) as Shatner?"

"ROTFLMAO! Look at those idiots freaking out over the monolith we buried on their moon -
Who's going to tell em' that it's just a goddamn Coke machine…?"

The Demon Barber of Oak Street

6/22/2013

I'm normally not one for dragging abandoned furniture into my house, but when I saw the leather recliner on the curb a few houses down, it was hard not to make an exception.

First off, the recliner was black - perfect for where I wanted to put it. Second, the chair itself seemed in good condition: no dust, no egg sacs, no food caught in the cushions. Most importantly, the recliner was in front of an elderly couple's home - a house with a yard as manicured as my own. I often see the couple sitting in their backyard in the afternoons/evenings, so I knew the chair came from a good family, which was why I decided to take it before the garbage man did.

After dragging the recliner down the street, into my house and then down to the basement, I navigated it into my playroom, where I keep my leather gear. I temporarily placed it in the center of the room so I could examine it under the track lights; I saw that it had a few dings & bruises, but really not enough to throw it away. I wondered why it got tossed. I figured the old couple had just gotten tired of it. Whatever the case, I was happy to have it...and it was time to give the recliner a try.

"They probably redecorated," I thought, sitting down and pulling the lever to put my feet up. "They probably realized that they were a little old for black leather and" -

WHOOMPH-

CRASH!

Before I finished my thought, the recliner toppled backwards when fully extended. It threw me me to the floor - and nearly into the wall - and as I rolled off to the side - as soon as my weight was removed from the cushions - the chair recoiled to a semi-upright position. shuddering slightly, like a spent Jack-In-The-Box.

I stood up and smiled.

Apparently, I now own SWEENY TODD's barber chair...

Somewhere That's Green

6/18/2013

Introducing space-age cooking circa 1949: the NESCO roaster!

This amazing device includes such cutting-edge features as an on/off switch, a clock with a timer, a plastic dial that opens the top (with a squeak), a separate removable heating coil that can be used to warm the kitchen....ANNNNNND a 65-year-old cloth electrical cord guaranteed to make your house as crispy as the 30lbs of meatloaf that you're cooking for a family of four!

The NESCO is a must-have for the modern housewife, a small kitchen appliance made of portable, lightweight steel, ceramic, and hammered aluminum. It's the convenient way to roast a ham, turkey, or any animal....and cleanup is a breeze with a just a bottle of ammonia, a jar of oil soap, a wire brush, a box of Brillo pads, a garden hose, a couple of Tom Collins' and a little elbow grease.

And if Khrushchev should drop a bomb us, we'll...the NESCO even doubles as a fallout shelter! Nuclear war has never been so tasty...

I've had my grandmother's NESCO oven ever since she passed away. I never actually saw her use it, but all through my childhood, the little oven sat in the corner of her kitchen - a room that like the NESCO itself, was a relic from the past. The last time the NESCO got used was Thanksgiving dinner, 1989; we needed an extra oven for a second turkey, and the NESCO somehow managed to cook the bird without igniting the surroundings.

Grandma replaced the cloth cord shortly thereafter.

I've toted the NESCO around for the last fifteen years, and until very recently, incorporated it successfully into my retro-modern decor. My current house is the first place I've lived in where I just didn't have room in my kitchen, so I've reluctantly stored the antique in my basement.

This past weekend - when I noticed the humidity was causing the roaster's stand to rust - I brought the NESCO upstairs into my kitchen, and put it in the corner recently vacated by Josie's litter box. It looks funny. It's like a prop from a MST3K movie. With as modern the room is, the NESCO comes off as an alter to 1950s kitsch, the culinary equivalent of having a vintage Chevy in the garage that you only drive on weekends.

Hmmm..."only drive on weekends." I guess that means I should occasionally cook something in it. But that's going to be hard as Hot Pockets & popcorn only come with microwave instructions. And to be completely honest, the NESCO is designed to roast something much larger.

(Thinking.)

You know, now that I think about it, the neighbor's kid IS kind of noisy...

Hold the Pickle, Hold the Lettuce...

6/17/2013

I felt just like a pervert yesterday, as I looked both ways before entering the establishment. I was embarrassed to be there. I was afraid of what my friends would think had they seen what I was doing in my free time. My collar was up, my hands were in my pockets, and my eyes were carefully hidden behind dark glasses.

Once inside, I avoided looking at anyone directly, in that way all gay men do when shopping a dirty bookstore. I slowly worked my way towards the counter - passing a display of what could only be described as "flavored sauces" - and then onto the cashier, where a very hot guy had been watching me all along. He looked me over when I approached. "And what can I get for you today?" he asked, jokingly, knowing exactly what I wanted from him. I was so ashamed for coming into the place to begin with, my answer was barely a whisper -

"I'll have a Chic Fil A to go," I said.

(Ahem.)

It's hard to stand up for a cause when it's against something that you really like. I used to stop by Chic Fil A at least once a month - because their sandwiches rock. With that in mind, I also understand the need to avoid those businesses/organizations that hurt ones' quality of life in some way....and the fact that I'm not allowed to marry is something that definitely qualifies. But I hate having to boycott anything, and the guilt I felt I buying a stupid sandwich yesterday was silly. I sincerely believe that a business should have same right to their own personal/political opinions as I have, myself.

I went through the same thing last year while shopping for spring flowers. I have a killer covered porch that I always decorate with 9-10 hanging geraniums, and nobody has a better garden department than my local Lowes - a store that until recently, had two convenient locations. But Lowes shut one location down last year, and the way they did it really made my skin crawl. They removed their signs in the middle of the night, and when employees came to work the following morning, they were greeted by locked doors and security guards. Yikes.

As my neighbors learned of the closing, all were shocked that a company would treat its employees so seemingly poorly. Again like Chic Fil A, there were immediate calls to boycott the retailer…but though I understood my neighbors' angry reaction, I also understood Lowes' decision, having worked for Handy Andy - regional home improvement center - myself back in the mid 1990s.

When Handy Andy announced its impending closing, our employees robbed it blind - from part timers to managers. Some stole merchandise outright, others (like me) set merchandise aside to buy on the last day of business (at 90% off). I guess it's human nature to vent frustration in negative ways…and acts like stealing are easily justified.

I did boycott Lowes for a season btw, and last year's geraniums (bought elsewhere) didn't look as nice. But I returned to Lowes for my flowers this year, and I don't regret a thing.

Flowers last a lot longer than chicken sandwiches, after all…and they don't carry the guilt.

Facebook Status Updates Deemed Unfit For Public Consumption

6/12/2013

The following Facebook status updates were never used :(

They were either too dirty, too racial, too offensive to the workplace, too gross…or in most cases, just too damn funny. Viewer discretion is advised. (NOTE: I always write my Facebook posts in third person.)

1. DAVID ALAN DEDIN, despite being one of three compulsively-clean gay men living in the same house, is always amazed at how dirty the bathroom gets. "We may be gay men," David thinks - while bleaching the urine on the wall by the toilet, "but when it comes to aim, we're still just men."

2. DAVID ALAN DEDIN until just this morning, considered himself to be a gay man who still had a shred of dignity. But all of that changed when on waking today he realized that sometime during the night, all of his watches got ruined by a spilled bottle of lube.

3. DAVID ALAN DEDIN while watching the neighborhood's pregnant teenagers flick cigarette butts into his yard, often wishes that machine guns were easier to come by.

4. DAVID ALAN DEDIN hates those explosive/liquid morning dumps that happen the morning after drinking a whole bottle of whiskey all by himself.

5. DAVID ALAN DEDIN knows that racial profiling is wrong, but you've got to admit that all "******S" inventory counters fit a certain...err, "white male stereotype."

6. DAVID ALAN DEDIN chuckled at the big-breasted woman whose enormous tits looked exactly like two watermelons in a downhill race - and one of them was winning.

7. DAVID ALAN DEDIN loves the fact that he can watch porn on his iPad in any room in the house.

Charlie's Dark Passenger

6/12/2013

It's hard to write a post about depression without sounding like I'm feeling sorry for myself. Nobody wants to hear this shit, which is why I only write about it occasionally; "sadness as deep as mine cannot be discussed with others. It would scare them, disgust them, and push them away forever." Depression is the conversational equivalent of a subway's "third rail."

That being said...

Alcoholism is a recurring subject in my stories, and as I begin writing The Casual Cafe - a novel set in the early days of a young man's addiction - I can't help but think of my own. Having lived with addiction for 23 years, I have - like most abusers - tried to stop drinking many times. But I've also always failed because until very recently, drinking has provided genuine relief - not only to depression & anxiety disorders, but to the shame that comes from hiding mental illness. Being known as a drunk is far more socially acceptable than being known as someone with a mild schizophrenia.

With all that in mind, I've made a pivotal decision this week, and I know it's the only way I'll ever find sobriety. I'm not going to fight depression anymore. It's far too strong, far too entrenched, and unlike alcoholism's textbook progression, depression is genuinely "cunning, baffling, and powerful."

Like Dexter's psychopathy, depression has been my "dark passenger" for 34 years, and no drug - prescribed or consumed - will ever make it go away. I've wasted too many decades trying to change something that's as permanent as the color of my eyes...and if people don't like me because I'm mentally ill, then that's their problem. They probably don't like black people, either.

There is no shame in being depressed, and if readers could accept Charlie Brown's melancholy, then they've gotta' love mine because it comes with Seth MacFarlane humor! Besides, I'm not suicidal; I have every intention of staying alive for as long as possible. I've accepted the loneliness brought on by social isolation, my next three novels are outlined from beginning to end, and I haven't had a mood "collapse" since Goodbye to Beekman Place was published. By the standards of depression, these have been some pretty good days.

And when you share your head with schizotypal's dark passenger, good days are very hard to come by.

TITANIC - if directed by Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker

6/8/2013

Cue the music: Celine Dion's "My Heart Must Go On."
"Every night in my dreams, I see you, I feel you…"

Cut to a wide shot of the open ocean. Titanic is visible in the distance. Fade to black.
Elegant white letters on a black screen: "She was the greatest ship ever built."
"Far across the distance and the spaces between us..."

Cut back to the ocean. Titanic is closer now. Fade to black
White letters, black screen: "She was the queen of the ocean."
"You have come to show you go on..."

Cut to ocean. Titanic is super-close. Fade to black.
White letters, black screen: "She was majestic."
"Near...far...wherever you are..."

Cut to ocean. Titanic is so close, we can now see passengers on deck. Fade to black.
White letters, black screen: "She was romance."
"Once more, you open the door..."

Cut to Titanic. A long, sweeping camera shot takes us to the bow of the ship, where Leonardo DiCaprio & Kate Winslet are doing that "King of the World" thing: Rose is standing tippy-toed on the railing, her arms outstretched. The music reaches a crescendo. "And you're in my heart, and my heart will go on and on..."

White Letters, black screen. "And she was absolutely unsinkable" -

Fast cut to Leslie Neilson, playing the captain.
He cups his mouth and screams, "ICEBERG!"

Cut to ocean. A long-shot shows the ship slamming into an iceberg with the force of a car hitting a wall.

Cut to Jack & Rose: The impact sends Rose tumbling over the railing - ungracefully - into the ocean. SPLASH.

Celine Dion stops dead. Fast cut to different music: The Love Boat theme song:

"Love! Exciting and new…"

After that, you can use your imagination: Rosanne Barr playing the Kathy Bates character. Richard Simmons giving an exercise class on the poop deck. A "May/September" romance between Jack & Rose, starring Nolan Gould and Jennifer Carpenter. Love Boat's Doc, Gopher, and Isaac Washington as themselves. Charo. Florence Henderson. The Harlem Globetrotters. Maggie Smith...

When the ship finally breaks in half, you'll laugh all the way to the bottom of the ocean!

Top Ten List...

6/6/2013

Possible Sequels to Mitch Albom's "The Five People You Meet in Heaven."

THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET…
1. In Super Wal Mart At Two in the Morning
2. In the Barnes & Noble Self-Improvement Section
3. While Waiting In Line To Buy One Direction Tickets
4. In The Wackiest Planned Parenthood Ever
5. At That One AA Meeting That's Always Filled With Self-Published Authors
6. On Singles' Night at the Y
7. While Removing Baggies From the Medical Waste Dumpster
8. At the American Homebrewers Association's National Homebrew Conference Pruno-Making Competition in Vegas
9. At the Closest Bar to an Alcohol-Free Wedding
10. At Denny's

The Torque of Anxiety

6/6/2013

I haven't been able to sleep since Josie's death, and my days have been filled with anxiety. At night, I'm constantly reaching over to touch her, but of course she's just a memory - and the little tufts of cat hair that I'll no doubt be finding for the next several months.

I've taken to bringing my iPad to bed, setting it next to me and playing a movie on YouTube or Netflix (usually something familiar, like MST3K); it gives my mind something positive to focus on, and keeps it from going to dark places. I've been averaging - maybe - four hours of sleep a night, but it's always fitful and filled with empty dreams. It makes me wonder if I'll feel this way when an actual person dies.

Fuckin' cat...

Over the past three years, I've gained an incredible understanding of addiction, mental illness, and long-term depression. I've realized that they're all tied together, each one reinforcing the other, and as I strive towards reaching my own good mental health, it's the alcohol that lingers - an abuse that could easily morph into dependency, if I don't find something healthy to replace it.

I fully recognize my 20-year pattern/progression of Type A hereditary alcoholism, and I understand drinking's many negative consequences. But the dirty little secret is that alcoholism actually held my depression at bay for two decades, numbing my anxiety long enough to finish writing Goodbye to Beekman Place. I am - quite literally - afraid to stop drinking.

Before the book was published, I routinely battled chilling periods of melancholy - dangerous mood swings that varied in length, lasting from a few hours to several days. Whenever this happened, suicide became my foremost thought. I've described these moments as "fires in my head," and alcohol was literally the only thing that extinguished them. It was a dangerous catch-22, like stopping a virus by quarantining the infected - and allowing them to die. No one wins, but at least someone's still left alive at the end...and in my case, that someone was a writer.

From the time I was 16, I've struggled to explain my anxiety to professionals. I remember sitting in a high school guidance consoler's office in 1983, describing how I thought in pictures - and how hard it was to forget past events. It wasn't until 2010 (when I saw the HBO film: Temple Grandin: Thinking in Pictures) that I was able to tell psychiatrists, "THAT'S how my mind works…I think in pictures, too!" A year after that, after finally getting a proper diagnosis, I clarified that description to a very-personal explanation: "I think in visual metaphors. And with my depression, it's really hard to keep a grip on reality."

But depression is like an onion's skin, and there's usually something festering just beneath the surface. "Anxiety" was my own devious/private issue, but after passing out copies of my book at IML, I've learned how to better explain it:

Anxiety is "torque," the push of forward motion…and the feeling of pressure around my heart & chest. It's a simple feeling - "the quality of a work of art that conveys the emotion of the artist" (per Webster's), and it's something that I've realized I've lived with for as long as I can remember. ANXIETY = TORQUE. Pressure. Squeezing. The feeling of not being able to breathe. I can't help but think of Grandin's "Hug Machine," and how the device brought her calm - when the same scenario has always brought me fear...and of course, anxiety.

And anxiety, no matter how severe it might be, can always be explained very simply.

Maybe if SUPERTRAIN had starred a chimp...

6/5/2013

"What do you mean, you've never heard of SuperTrain?" I asked, stunned at my coworker's deer-in-headlights look.

We were talking about bad television - reeeeeeally bad television - and my buddy was trying to convince me that "Small Town Security" was, without a doubt, the worst show on TV. I reminded him of "Honey Boo Boo," and MTV's (very-literally) short-lived "Buckwild." Our discussion of reality-TV led its way to scripted television, and I realized that my coworker's age had spared him gems like "Hello Larry," "Manimal," "BJ and the Bear," and that horrific 1979 abortion where Andy Griffith builds a working rocket out from a Texaco truck.

I've often wondered if Andy Griffith's complete and total disregard for the laws of science - radiation in particular - was why Opie lost all his hair.

Anyway, as my buddy had never heard of SuperTrain (and definitely didn't believe that a single bad show almost destroyed a network), I found the series on YouTube and played him the opening credits. His eyes grew wide as saucers. "My god," he muttered. "That looks just...awful." After watching his reaction, I couldn't resist showing him other bad series'' opening credits, starting with BJ and the Bear: That's right. A trucker and a chimp, and their wacky misadventures once a week in prime time. Suddenly, Small Town Security doesn't seem that bad, does it?

It's hard to remember a time when we didn't have TV at our fingertips, an era before smartphones, iPads, computers, and DVRs. I grew up in the 70s/early 80s, in an age when even VCRs were scarce. If you wanted to watch Dallas at 8pm, you had to be in front of the set at 8pm...unless of course you were wealthy enough to afford a VCR ($800), and lucky enough to have remembered to buy tapes.

In the late 1970s, my Father worked for the 7up company. Squirt was one of the products they sold, and one night in 1978, Father brought home "Billy Squirt" (aka: the "little squirt"), a midget spokesman for the soft drink. Mother made dinner, and the dwarf had several scotch on the rocks before Father dropped him off at his hotel, sometime after 10pm. My sister & I were in the living room, eavesdropping occasionally, but ultimately far more focused on the TV.

I mention all this because Billy Squirt happened to visit our house on the one night a year that CBS showed The Wizard of Oz. Apparently, he had been a munchkin in the movie, and as the film was playing (and the scotch kicked in), he entertained my parents with the behind-the-scenes gossip like which lollipop kid was sleeping with the ballerinas...and what the good witch really did with her wand. I was too young (and too engrossed in the film) to appreciate any of this, but as I look back at that night I can't help but think: man, that was the coolest thing ever!

Had YouTube been around in 78', I have no doubt that I'd have captured the entire evening on camera. Father's cigarettes. Mother's Sears coordinate. Billy's using his fingers to play with the ice in his drink. Forget The Wizard of Oz (or even the goddamn Star Wars Christmas Special), we were unknowingly staging a moment that captured the very essence of Springfield, Illinois in 1978.

At least until we realized that by watching the movie, we had totally missed BJ and the Bear.