Ben Tobin Johnson's Blog, page 2

Disclaimers, Caveats, and Apologies: A Celebration!

If you’ve been keeping up with this blog, first of all, bless you.

Second, thank you.

Third and finally: we’re back!

A few months ago I took Words About Stuff and Other Things offline to – among other things – find a better name. I retooled my workflow (thanks to a crash course in Trello from my good friend and longtime collaborator Andy Huber), stockpiled a bunch of drafts and ideas, and generally restructured just about all of my creative endeavors. Much of that work culminated in the launch of my website and newsletter last week.

Now it’s my blog’s turn for a (re)launch: I give you Option Paralysis!

Rather than set myself up for another stumble by explaining (for the third time, sheesh) what this blog is all about “moving forward,” I’m just going to let it be what it is. As for the title, there’s a handy little explanation on the home page of that nifty website I mentioned earlier:

http://www.bentobinjohnson.com

All of that said, a small confession is in order: consistency might be a little hard to come by ’round these parts. 

I’ll be posting weekly viewing recommendations to the best of my ability (currently under the title “Now Streaming” but I’m open to a snappier subject line if ya got one). Beyond that, I’m aiming for quality over quantity. My hope is to spend as much time as it takes to make each post worthy of your attention, rather than let a deadline have the last word. 

In short, regular posts (apart from the aforementioned Now Streaming) are not on the horizon; hope that’s not a deal breaker.

Rest assured however, I’ve already amassed a collection of material (re: stockpiled drafts and ideas) that I’m exceedingly eager to share with you sooner rather than later so stay tuned!

In the meantime, consider this sage pronouncement from National Treasure Jeff Goldblum regarding one of our thornier controversies:

 

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 P. S. Take THAT, Tuesday.

Protected: Why Everyone Is Still Wrong About Prometheus (And How it Could Save the World)

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Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as The President…

Regardless of what side of the aisle you prefer, I think we can all agree that American politics have finally achieved an unprecedented level of good ol’ fashioned entertainment value.

My favorite development? The budding quarrel between Arnold Schwarzenegger and President Trump, and not just because it is objectively hilarious.

A few years ago I wrote an over-the-top, schlocky action script about dinosaur-riding Amish super soldiers squaring off against a horde of zombies that had overrun Hollywood. It’s been through several rewrites, but throughout the entire process I’ve had an unshakable mental image of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role of The President.

Lucky for me, I have prodigiously talented friends like Sally Rath, who captured that cheesy vision in this marvelous sketch:

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So! Since Arnold himself graciously suggested that he and Trump switch places, I thought it fitting to share a little taste of the Schwarzenegger administration.

Below is an excerpt from my script in which The President addresses the nation while the eponymous Amish Dinosaur Coalition gears up for battle. (Kindly ignore the asymmetrical page breaks – getting the excerpt this far was a challenge in itself thanks to file conversion repeatedly scrambling my formatting).

And for full immersion, listen to Steve Jablonsky’s “Autobots” from the Transformers soundtrack while you read.

 

Now fire up that mental movie screen and enjoy!

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If you’d like to find out what happens to our intrepid heroes and President Schwarzenegger, shoot me an email at ben.tobin.johnson@gmail.com for a copy of the script. Thanks for reading!

Forelsket

Strangled by knots of my own making

Desperately clawing to make legible

My trembling hand

Exhumed a misshapen self from before

I knew knowing

Crying only to be consoled

Wept for the need this self petitioned

Urging me to feed

Ashamed of this deformed creature

Begging only to be understood

But there…

Your hand

From the shadows

Reached toward my spilling wounds

Your heart

In the darkness

Echoed the wretch in my chest

Your voice

Amidst chains

Called the same song

And in the blackened tangle we

Touched

Tortured each by the distance

Transgressions furrowed between us

Stone by stone

Plank by plank

Tear by tear

The bridge wrought a new magic

Barely visible

Closer

A weary step

A wavering grip

Nearer

A cautious call

A hopeful wish

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Hiraeth (Unabridged and Semi-Unrepentant)

What you are about to read may shock and disgust you… or maybe I’m just projecting.

After all, it’s Halloween: a time to reflect on and confront things that frighten us. For me, one of the most panic-inducing thoughts is the idea of someone reading my work before it’s finished; while the stench of typos and syntax errors and self-indulgence still reeks. So in an attempt to confront and/or conquer that fear, I’ve posted the following piece exactly as it was first written.

No editing of any kind has been done.

Hopefully, a more palatable version will be available before too long, and the compare/contrast between the two will provide a working demonstration of how much ‘good writing’ is really just ‘good editing.’ For now, enjoy… if you dare!

***

I really wish I had a journal or pen and paper handy. Right now, October 23 2015, I’m typing these thoughts out on my phone because I have nothing else. This particular trip has been unique in that I sensed from afar that it would mark a transition. Driving here, it occurred to me that most of the people I knew here are elsewhere. Many of them are still in my life so its not as though I’ve lost them – they’re just not here. In a sense of course neither am I, because what I’ve come for is an attempt at time travel. I come back to these old haunts to haunt them, and experience the ways they haunt me. I relish that feeling, I’ve come to expect it – to know which locales and sights and sounds and smells are most likely to trigger a million memories I’ve almost forgotten. What I haven’t expected is to return to these places and find them unable to haunt me. So much has changed on this campus, I’m no longer coming back- I’m simply coming here. Because here looks less and less like there with every passing day. The Commons Lobby is being entirely renovated, which means I’ll never wander over to the couches that line the windowed walls and think back on all the nights I spent at my computer watching movies. I’ll never again be able to sit in one of those couches and see what I saw then, feel what I felt then, smell what I smelled then. Its gone. The Quad is under a similar overhaul and is totally fenced off at the moment of my writing this. Gone is my dorm as I knew it. I’ll never again step through that heavy, dingy door and smell that distinct dorm smell – floor cleaner and body odor and paper and dirt and deodorant and bedding and rubber and something else I can’t put my finger on ever again. Kyle Field is a kind of beautiful monstrosity, having shed its faded glory for a shiny new facade of pristine brick and mortar. Even familiar off campus spots are fading; Hastings has closed, though the faded outline of its signs and window dressings can still be faintly distinguished in the glass. Hobby Lobby is going out of business. Countless new businesses and apartment complexes and assorted centers are cropping up in between the jump cuts of my return journeys. And I knew all of this was coming, I knew in some objective sense that all of this was inevitable. But now it’s happening, its my in-the-moment subjective reality. Following instinct I look for the few islands of untouched topography left and try to summon countless trivial blinks. I’m on the 4th floor of the library in the seat where I *think* I studied occasionally. But the memory is so faint, I can’t be sure. I lean forward and get a whiff of some long lost specter in the carpet and desk. My memories are dying out, slowly going extinct. I try to keep them breathing by listening to music I favored then – for some reason Sonic Syndicate’s “Eden Fire” does the job fairly well, as does the soundtrack to Edward Scissorhands, which I’m listening to right now. I was unable to find the soundtrack to Gothic 2 anywhere but YouTube, though it failed to recall the sensation of shirking my assignments to play it, a habit I indulged quite often my freshman year. And they’re here, those old memories – distant phantoms – rising from slumber to greet me with a tear or two. And now, perhaps for the first time, they’re telling me its time to let go. I’ve never been hung up on the past or stuck in it, but I’ve cherished each chance to travel back and reminisce. Now that’s being taken away from me as places slowly reform and renovate, leaving them only living in my memory.

The library is so quiet. The shuffling sound of my clothes, the tiny clinks of my backpack zipper tabs, my breath coming in and out of my nose, the rustling whisper of books sliding against each other, removed and replaced.

The staircase of the library, shellacked brick and silver railings, echoes my footsteps with an odd hollowness. I recall the many ascents and descents to and from wasting time pretending to study here. The illusion doesnt survive reaching the ground floor with its new Starbucks and redesigned arrangement of chairs and couches.

I pause in one of the classrooms in Harrington – Room 207 – and try to summon words to capture how alive this empty room feels. But it doesn’t. Chairs, many of which I once occupied, stare blankly toward the front of the room where the podium sits unoccupied. The static hum of the computer equipment and projector continues constant and undisturbed. My feet don’t want to walk me out.

I step inside the Academic Building and immediately collide with that beloved scent of ancient air conditioning. I trip backwards through time for half a moment, remembering dreams of faraway places and thoughts of foreign travels. I took German classes in this building, which is probably what prompts the dormant wanderlust instinct. I step into one of my old classrooms and scribble something pretentious on a dry erase board.

Bolton smells differently than I recall, or at least unfamiliar. I wander down its circuitous hallway, finding the Comm departments offices under renovation, which accounts for the unfamiliar scents.

Its getting harder and harder to dredge those moments from their slumber, like a form of memory-based smell tolerance, even as I trace wellworn paths and places I’ve stood.

Why do so many of these faces seem familiar? Voices and mannerisms seem copied and pasted from my dim recollections onto these forms swirling around me. Their cares are familiar; confusing tests and open weekends, dodging cyclists, trying to avoid prolonged eye contact with that cute guy or pretty girl. I’ve been them before. I’ve been to their parties and sat next to them in class. In time they’ll be me. But for now they’re in the midst of memories they’ll look back on and return to collect some day coming.

The Quad dorms are hollowed out, tarps drape from the corner of one building while a crane looms over another. Industrial lights glow within the concrete carcass where I once roamed the halls and rooms. I stand in front of the arches where, on a humid August night in the wee hours of the morning, my first week in the Corps of Cadets – FOW – came to a thundering close. All of the newly minted fish were stacked shoulder to shoulder as the existing body of upper classmen told us that the hard part was only beginning. But they proclaimed that if we had what it took to survive the next four years, we would look back on that night with pride and remember those four years of some of the best in our lives. Standing here 9 years later, it’s never been truer.

Its silent now. As I wander around to the opposite side of the Quad – making a few phone calls and coordinating my evening plans – it comes alive with familiar echoes of freshman answering upperclassmen commands in unison. The chorus or voices surges and dwindles as I make my way away from what remains of my formative locus. The echoes and shouts at my back carry me on, a last reminder that some small piece of what I experienced remains, and will always remain, as long as this place stands.

The Annex still carries that nameless scent of pages and nondescript furniture that the library has abandoned in the wake of its renovations.

For the first time during one of these trips, I feel a greater affinity for I am becoming – who I must become – than for who I was. I’m not pulled into the past so much as propelled by it into the future.

The smell of sweat and freshly cut grass, damp earth and unwashed workout gear, boots caked with mud and water that’s been stuck inside a plastic canteen too long.

So in another sense, what’s being taken away is also being entrusted to my care as never before. These places, these people, these ambitions and dreams and drives, these late nights, these failed tests and pointless arguments, these unhealthy foods and fleeting hookups, these boring classes and life-changing assignments, these relationships failed and friendships forged, these triumphs, these scents and sounds, these moments of pure joy suspended in time and hours rushed, these groggy mornings, these loved ones, these lost ones, these streetlamp walks, these regretted confessions, these landline phone calls and old laptops, these chance encounters, these hopeful yearnings, these dreams fulfilled and moments seized…they pass away from the recollection of things touched and seen and into the night time of memory. I’ve returned to collect them, to curate their fading light and shepherd them beyond that dark threshold where they will die no more.

And I am conscious of a single truth, ringing so clearly I can not bear to contradict even its smallest part: everything is exactly as it should be.

***

That was painful.

As a thank-you for slogging through that, here’s a picture of my pup – Chewbacca – the night I brought him home 6(ish) years ago.

Ben’s Ultra-Awesome Hearty Harvest Vegetable and Nutrient Explosion Soup!!!

Don’t you hate it?

Don’t you just hate it when you’re browsing the internet for a recipe, you find some vaguely pornographic pictures of food, and follow the link to a blog post that’s roughly 99% life story and 1% actual recipe?

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Me too.

Anyway, I was born November 13, in the year of our lord 1988 on a chilly evening around 6:00pm. Thankfully, our species isn’t known to recall the details of those first blinding moments because that would horrifying. But thanks to the magic of family photo albums (ask one of the Old Ones), I know I was splay-fingered and ugly in that acutely disappointing way that all babies are, if we’re honest with ourselves. There is simply no such thing as a truly cute newborn, in the sense that a puppy or an otter kit is truly cute. Cuteness, like paternal resentment, develops over time. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It wasn’t long before the family moved to San Antonio, where my early years were split between pretending to be a dinosaur and pretending to be Spider-Man. When I got a little older I also pretended to be Goliath from Gargoyles because he was the coolest (followed closely by Brooklyn) and because I learned how to tie my towels around my shoulders to mimic the way Goliath folded his wings.

 

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My first encounter with foul language and the senseless way children betray each other occurred on that cruel, wood chip-strewn stage known as the playground. I remember it clearly thanks to my perfect memory: my friend John was at the top of a slide, coolly surveying his surroundings and taking long, cynical drags on cheap cigarettes the way 6-year-olds so often do. I joined him on his perch and prepared to tell him a lurid story I had been told by another one of my school chums at San Antonio Christian School.

“So…” I whispered, because one of the teachers was within earshot, “do you know the F-word?”

“Yes,” the fool replied practically shouting, “FUCK!”

The teacher zeroed in on us, charging. John flicked the remainder of his cigarette at her in slow motion. She combusted in slow motion. Then John stood over her blazing body and laughed while flames danced in the foreground in slow motion. It was the 90s; this kind of thing happened a lot.

…I probably don’t need to point out which parts of this story have been embellished. That said, John’s outburst did grab the attention of a nearby teacher who started towards us. Without missing a beat, John pointed to me and shrieked “He told me to say it!” As an adult who has since interacted with many children displaying various levels of proficiency in deceit, I’m still amazed that Mrs. Whoever-She-Was didn’t see right through this patently obvious slander. I was forbidden from enjoying the rest of that particular day’s recess as punishment and my alliance with John formally dissolved. So, if you’re out there, John, I haven’t forgotten the taste of knife-in-my-back and I just wanted to tell you that someone saw the F-word scribbled in the school parking lot. That’s all.

Idiot.

It wasn’t long before we were moving again, this time to Athens, TX – where most of my Dad’s side of the family lives to this day. You know how certain music can zap you back in time almost instantly? Just about any of the songs from Wow 1997 can perform this spacetime alchemy and transport me to the house wherein I procured my first own bedroom – 603 Cherokee Trace. The most effective songs for this task are Michael W. Smith’s “I’ll Lead You Home” and Point of Grace’s “Keep the Candle Burning” – I listened to some real barn-burners in those days.

The next house we lived in was on the surprisingly underrated Lake Athens, and were truly some of the best days of my youth. It was in this home that I perfected my impression of Ed from Good Burger and broadened my musical horizons to Wow 1999, 2000, and 2001. I also did not get as many turns water-skiing as the older cousins did whenever everyone came over, so consequently I never fully learned how and I’m still sore about it.

I made my first stop-motion LEGO movies in that house, perfecting the art of ketchup-for-blood whenever it came time for my one Stormtrooper to (again) pay the ultimate price. I owned my first copy of Jurassic Park and The Lost World in that house – the Collector’s Edition Two-Volume VHS, which came with over 75 minutes of exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage from two of the biggest Jurassic hits of all-time.

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The next time we moved, it was to a different city – San Antonio. My treacherous teenage years were now upon me, and I was soon to unleash tidal waves of irresistible charm and charisma in nearby youth groups. Don’t believe me? Picture this, ye of little faith:

Reddened from a sunburn and possibly wearing blue jean shorts, I stood in the large metal building that served as the chapel for our church camp that year. The air was thick with that confusing blend of evangelical zeal and teen angst made all the more volatile by the crackle of raging pubescent hormones. I, however, was oblivious to the temptations of the flesh because I was in. the. zone. (“On fire” in Church-speak) Thus, when pretty girls arrived in my vicinity, foremost on my mind was how to impress them with ostentatious displays of virtue. One of them, Maria, wore a henley whose top few buttons were undone. Of course I was personally immune to this debauched display of zero cleavage and the slightest suggestion of collarbone, but this stumblingblock was sure to corrupt a weaker soul. I leaned over to this Jezebel and whispered: “Would you mind buttoning your shirt up a bit?”

Needless to say, I was the toast of that youth group basically forever – to the point that some of them pretty much stopped talking to me. We left the church soon after that, refugees of a bitter civil war over what kind of worship music would be played and at what volume (seriously) and a few disagreements over how to steward the church’s modest income. I guess we can’t all get into Heaven with honors, amirite?

But by this time, my attention was preoccupied with a decision that – for once – was entirely mine: college. I nominated Texas A&M as my future alma mater and did not even bother applying to other schools. I was so set on this outcome that had my acceptance letter read otherwise, I would have relaunched my campaign all over again the following year. Not only this, but I was determined to join the Corps of Cadets. In retrospect, I don’t fully understand this decision because it was made by someone so different from who I am now as to be almost unrecognizable. That said, it was one of the greatest decisions of my life and I’ll expound more upon those times in another recipe post.

Yadda, yadda, yadda, I graduated and moved back to San Antonio where I lived with my best friend’s family while job hunting. I eventually procured a job working IT for a local car dealership family and settled into my first apartment of my single adult years.

And during this time, I came to grips with the fact that I was grossly out of shape. I was eating Jack in the Box a couple of times a week, for God’s sake. I was also just over broke, so I needed to spend my grocery budget wisely.

Thus, this glorious soup was born; a means to improve my diet and do so at a relatively low cost.

The soup has been through several iterations over the years since that bachelor epoch, like its maker, and benefits from being both simple and versatile. Feel free to experiment, but keep one thing in mind – it will usually need a little extra salt.

 

Ben’s Ultra-Awesome Hearty Harvest Vegetable and Nutrient Explosion Soup!!!

Yields: 6-8 servings

As with most soups/stews, this one tastes even better the day or two after it’s been served, so this recipe is calculated with plenty of leftovers in mind.

Ingredients:

3-4 garlic cloves, pressed
1 yellow onion, diced
2 ½ TBSP Olive Oil
1 bunch of kale, chopped
3 medium-sized potatoes, chopped/cubed to small-bite size
1 zucchini, chopped
1 yellow squash, chopped
2 cans of beans (see below)
4 cups vegetable broth
2 cups water
Seasonings to taste (see below)

Instructions

Put your favorite music on in the background. This soup is incredibly versatile, so your choices range from Andrea Bocelli to Zao.
In a large mixing bowl, stockpile your chopped/diced kale, potatoes, zucchini, and squash like it’s 1899. I recommend leaving the kale stems in; just make sure to chop them fairly small so they cook down easily. Other leafy greens like chard or collards can be substituted or mixed into the kale to diversify your nutritional portfolio as desired here.
In a large pot (and I do mean a LARGE if you’re making the full recipe), sauté the diced onion and pressed garlic in the olive oil over medium high heat until onions are translucent and blistering tears stream down your face like Alex Jones railing against Hillary Clinton.
Dump your veggie cache into the pot. It will be quite full, especially if you ignored my previous advice about a LARGE pot, and you may begin to wonder how you’ll accomplish this without making a mess.
Accept the fact that you’re probably gonna make a bit of a mess.
Dump in your two cans of preferred bean variety, juices and all. I recommend bean blends that combine numerous types in a single can. Failing that, I prefer garbanzo beans and kidney beans in this particular soup, though black beans are also excellent here (especially if it’s the kind with little chunks of jalapeno). Don’t get 3 cans of beans to mimic a bean blend if you can’t find one, the soup will be too bean-heavy. Just pick two and be an adult about this.
Pour in the veggie broth and water. The liquid level should be at least an inch from the rim. Give it a few stirs so everything is evenly distributed throughout the pot.
Reduce heat to just above a simmer and cover with a lid.
Over the course of the next hour to hour-and-ten-minutes, stir occasionally. You want the harder vegetable bits to cook down without liquefying the beans, so don’t try to cut corners by increasing heat to reduce time because you will regret it. Maybe not today or even tomorrow…but some day. The kale stems are your friends here; they should come out easy to chew while still retaining their shape and fibrous texture. Similarly, the potatoes should be soft but not wimpy. If you feel embarrassed on your potato’s behalf, you’ve cooked too long or too hot or both and dammit, I already warned you.
Once a taste/texture test verifies the soup is at the aforementioned sweet spot, remove from heat. You’ll want to flavor it with a salt-based seasoning of some kind – seasoned salt, smoked sea salt, plain ol’ salt (classic). Use at least a tablespoon of your selected seasoning, but no more than two. A few shakes of Montreal Steak Seasoning is pretty great here too, or a little smoked paprika (but not too much!) if another smoked seasoning isn’t handy.

There you have it! Serve with your favorite bread or sandwich and bask in the surge of nutritional whoop-ass coursing through your veins.

 

The Greatest Day Ever (Until the Next One)

“Hey, I like you!” She blurted out, as if the thought had suddenly taken her by surprise.

“I like you, too!” I replied, emboldened by her frankness.

By then, the afternoon was winding down. A few hours on the Guadalupe River can feel like an eternity or a moment depending on how much of it is spent absorbing direct solar radiation. Yet somehow this excursion felt like both to me – a moment that passed me by in a crisply detailed flash. Everything about that day had been last-minute, down to my decision to join a couple of friends and strangers on the river that fourth day of July in 2014. She hadn’t even known I would be joining the planned group outing until a few minutes before my car pulled into her driveway. When she answered the door, the confusion on her face prompted me to explain:

“Hey, I’m Ben… Kat’s friend.”

I said it almost like a question.

She introduced herself as Tabitha, though she went by Tabby. At the same moment, we seemed to realize we had run into each other once or twice before or at least attended some of the same parties. We were both a frequent name the other had heard through a web of mutually interlocking friend groups, which was sufficient to dispel the unease of front porch introductions. I ducked inside the bathroom to change into river-garb and found that getting naked in an unfamiliar home brought all the previous strangerly unease flooding back. I’d felt it before, but there was something about this place that made it more potent. I noticed this potency, but paid it no particular mind. After all, I’d only just greeted a lovely young woman who now roamed the territory of the bathroom door’s other side – some self-consciousness was to be expected.

The remaining mutual friends began to arrive, and before long we were enjoying a refreshing lounge in the Guadalupe’s drifting shallows. Only a few short hours later came that fateful crescendo in our conversation:

“Hey, I like you!”

“I like you too!”

I was officially bitch-slapped by destiny.

As it happened, a night on the town in Austin was planned for the following evening; Kat had mentioned this in passing earlier. Generally speaking, I hate last-minute changes in my schedule even when I have nothing scheduled…especially when I have nothing scheduled.

“So, are you coming to Austin with us tomorrow night?” Kat asked. I replied as if I hadn’t decided on the spot:

“Of course!”

***

I leaned in close.

“I think he kind of looks like a dwarf,” I whispered. “The beard, the nose…”

She scanned his face, mischief twinkling in her eye.

“You’re going to have to toss me…” She whispered, imitating Gimli’s sheepish request to Aragorn during the Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers. The fellow in question did indeed resemble a dwarf, but what arrested my attention was how quickly (and accurately!) she supplied a Lord of the Rings reference.

Destiny was now beating me with a two-by-four.

The evening had been spent romping around Austin’s callow vignettes with the same friend group I had grafted myself onto the day before. Without planning to, Tabby and I had become the designated party-parents; herding everyone from place to place and ensuring no one was whisked off on compromising misadventures without their consent.

We danced. We chatted. I bought her chicken shawarma. We trekked back to the hotel on foot.

I spent the next few hours sitting around the hotel room with her and our other friends; the only male amidst a quartet of feminine brio. When it came time for me to make my exit, I used the occasion of arriving safely home as an excuse to exchange numbers.

I think I muttered some transparent overture like “Just so you know I made it home safely…”

I drove home in the moments of dying darkness before dawn, her number safely encoded on my phone’s hard drive, fighting to keep myself awake. When I did arrive safely home, I texted her a picture of my dog Chewie with another obvious comment like “Somebody’s happy to see me…”

I promised myself I would wait a full two days before calling her. I broke that promise.

***

“You alright?” She asked, unable to ignore the jitters I was unable to hide.

“Yeah, I’m just pumped to meet national treasure Jeff Goldblum tonight.”

This was technically true – I was practically beside myself at the prospect. What truly had me almost pale with anticipation, however, was the fact that she was only hours away from being proposed to and I was the fool fortunate enough to be proposing.

We had talked about a big West Coast road trip for months, which made hiding my plans that much easier. I stumbled across Allan Amato’s Kickstarter for Slip: Naked in Your Own Words and was drawn to one perk in particular: a private portrait session. A half-formed thought made its way to my fingertips and typed out an email to Allan. Would he mind, I asked, possibly letting me use the portrait sitting as a Trojan horse for my proposal plans? The basic idea was that once my headshots were done, I would call Tabby over on the pretense of getting a couple of pictures as a couple and then – say, is that a ring? – have the exact moment I proposed captured on camera.

Allan agreed.

The next several weeks were preoccupied with securing tickets to see Jeff Goldblum play at Rockwell Bar, putting the finishing touches on my first big job out of college, and meeting with my Mom to pick up the heirloom I’d be using to propose. The ring had first belonged to her mother (Mutti to her grandchildren), but the stone – an opal – had fallen out long ago and the piece was hidden away in a jewelry box.

Family lore holds that Mutti was up late one night in the kitchen with Mom’s latest suitor – my Dad. He was soon to leave for Virginia at the behest of the Air Force.

“Look,” Mutti told him, “don’t let her follow you out there if you don’t plan to marry her.”

“I don’t have the money for a ring,” he confessed. Mutti then placed her old ring on the table.

“How about for just a stone?”

He picked out a stone – a deep blue, oval sapphire – and proposed two days later.

His son then decided to propose with that same ring some twenty-nine years thereafter.

When Allan answered the door to his studio apartment on that fateful 20th day of July in 2016, he was in visible need of coffee. We piled into his Scion along with one of his frequent collaborators – the illustrious Bree Daniels – and struck out in search of breakfast. The occasion provided us ample opportunity to connect on a few key issues – music, movies, and some politics – before returning to his place for the main event.

His apartment looked rather like one might expect an artist’s to look. Prints, paintings, pictures, and collages adorned the walls. The steps to the upstairs were wrapped in comic book pages. There was a ball pit like one might find in a McDonald’s play area, but set amidst aging beams and fraying ropes like some anachronistic pirate ship amenity. Of the several cats inhabiting the place, one in particular – Hex – took a liking to me. He spent most of the photoshoot at my feet, patiently staring up and waiting for my hand to again descend and scratch the top of his adorable head.

Ludovico Einaudi’s “Reverie” began to play over the sound system; a cue Allan and I worked out for me to retrieve the ring from my backpack under the pretense of changing shirts. We took a few more shots as I strategically (or was it awkwardly?) stood in such a way as to hide the clamshell in which the ring awaited unveiling. This Will Destroy You’s “They Move on Tracks of Never-Ending Light” then began to play.

A surreptitious nod passed between me and Allan. I waved Tabby over.

“You want to get a few shots together?”

She made her way around the couch as I resisted the urge to liquefy. We took a few more photos. Then, I traced the shape of little hearts on her face – one on each cheek. I had been doing this deliberately for several weeks now, in addition to dropping conflicting hints and dead-end leads.

“So… You know how I said it means something when I do that?”

“Yes.” Her reply was stiff and very slightly startled; the first whiff of what was only seconds away now.

“Well, every time I’ve drawn those hearts, a certain family heirloom has been within reach.” I pulled out the clamshell. “Namely the one I mentioned during the drive up here.”

A reflexive laugh escaped in time to avoid the hand she clamped over her mouth. I opened the clamshell and got down on one knee.

“For real this time… will you marry me?”

The ensuing reply, tangled in tears and laughter and half-words,  blended into an embrace and then a kiss and then more tears and laughter and disbelief.

We hugged Allan. We hugged Bree. We scratched the top of petitioning kitty noggins. We drove away in a haze of joy and relief.

***

My face went slack.

“It’s him. He’s there.” I stammered. Tabby craned her head back to see national treasure Jeff Goldblum just arriving. His suit resembled a burgundy rendition of a tiger’s stripes and the skinniest skinny black tie I have ever seen. As always, he made effortlessly classy that which on a lesser man might have looked ill-advised.

He was suddenly making his way towards our table. I was suddenly making eye contact and rising to greet him.

“Hello, hello,” he purred as I gripped his hand.

I spilled out a semi-rehearsed litany of applause, explaining what an honor it was to finally meet him, how long I’d been a devotee of his work, the usual fangirling. I introduced Tabby:

“This is, as of this morning actually, my fiancee: Tabitha.”

“Tabitha,” he echoed as he took her hand. He drew out the final vowel as if it were the last incantation of a seduction spell (as only he can). He noticed the ring was on Tabby’s middle finger. “Oh, are you from another country?”

“No, we just need to get it resized,” she explained.

“Oh!” His eyes lit up. “Is it an heirloom?”

“It is.”

“Oh, of course you can get it resized. Of course…” He seemed relieved somehow, and turned to the audience. “Everyone, Ben and Tabitha here are newly affianced!”

He led the ensuing round of applause.

I pressed a copy of my book into his hands, pointing out the inscription that read “Your Future Biographer” beneath my phone number. Someone handed him a microphone and he continued engaging the audience, asking if anyone else had brought him a gift. His manner was suddenly that of the game show host.

“Ben Johnson…” he mused, reading my name off the front of my book, “was also a famous actor. Can you name a film in which Ben Johnson starred?”

“The Last Picture Show.” I replied.

“Last Picture Show! That’s right,” he answered. “And who directed The Last Picture Show?“

“Sydney Pollack?” I guessed, unsure.

“Nope, no. Not Sydney Pollack.”

The next table piped up with the correct answer. “Peter Bogdanovich!”

“Peter Bogdanovich, that’s right!”

His attentions turned to the rest of the room and I again took my seat. Trivia continued, as did some light heckling of his audience (“Oh, you got the onion rings? Blech…”) Before long, he was banging away at the piano with an indomitable grin while the rest of his jazz band – The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra – similarly plied their musical trade. Between songs he played more trivia with his Los Angeles audience. During the midpoint of the band’s set, he took photos with anyone who wanted – which amounted to roughly everyone. When our turn came and our arms were wound amongst each other’s shoulders, he once again purred Tabitha’s name (after accidentally calling her Mirandaaaa) and remarked “You two started us off this evening!”

At the evening’s end, after the final trivia question had been answered and the final note of the final song faded, I noticed my book sitting on the piano in danger of being left behind. I approached the stage and caught his eye, which abruptly fluttered with the memory of his almost-forgotten gift. He snatched the book off the piano and clutched it to his chest with a mischievous grin.

“Got it.”

“Would it be an imposition to ask for a hug?” I inquired. His arms opened wide.

“Come here.”

He smelled like the accumulated magic of a day that began perfectly and then somehow improved.

***

And here is where a nice coda or epilogue should go; something to provide you, the reader, with a sense of closure and narrative harmony. But the truth of this true story is that it is ongoing, unfolding before my very eyes every day. So, to preserve the truth I’ve attempted to translate faithfully, I must leave you with an abrupt ending to this post.

Rest assured however – she still makes everyday magic, every day.

Tuesday is the Worst

If you’ve been following this blog at all, you’re well aware of how negligent I’ve been towards it.

I join a long, proud lineage of aspiring writers who neglect their blogs (and an even more illustrious subgroup of those people who open new posts with long-winded apologies/explanations) but I have a really weak excuse, if it helps.

I’ve been trying to focus my middling writing efforts by posting for MoviePilot. Well, for MoviePilot’s pre-verification platform, Creators. The long and short of it is that you post something to Creators, which you can then link and spam all your friends with, and maybe it’ll get picked up for circulation on MoviePilot’s main page. Beyond that, once you’ve accumulated a minimum number of posts/reads (as of this writing, it’s 20/150,000) you can apply for their Verified Creators program. Should you pass muster and be officially verified, you too can monetize your thoughts by writing things that get tossed into the meat grinder of internet ad revenue and wrung out for X number of bottle caps per read/impression/aha moment.

If it sounds like I’m bitter about this, it shouldn’t. More like annoyed. (Although I am slightly bitter that my proposed Jurassic World 2 idea hasn’t really taken off) The whole aim of their entire venture is to produce the fabled “content.” In and of itself, this is not necessarily a bad thing – especially considering literally anyone with a solid work ethic can turn words into money. In theory, it’s something akin to the democratization of internet journalism.

But democracy has its dark side, and having only posted 4 articles thus far (one of which was a two-parter), I’m already starting to spar with it. In effect, you can write something that will probably get you lots of views (read here “superhero stuff”) but almost everyone else is already doing the same thing. On the flipside, if you’d rather write about something not as popular, go right ahead! But it’s a long way to that 150,000 views.

It’s the usual snowflake-drama dilemma: sell out or stay true to yourself. I’m still naive enough to believe that off-the-beaten path is where I’d like to be, but I also like money, so I’m going to try to split the difference and only produce “content” that I really care about as I find time.

All of which is to say, this blog has been neglected because I’ve been preoccupied with something I don’t really care about (content) and it’s eroding the joy I found in writing. That said, if you want to make any kind of living as a writer in the pervasive era of social media, you really can’t ignore the demand for content. I may eventually find a way to outgrow that demand, but for the time being I think that content is a necessary evil of the path I’ve chosen at this moment in history.

So, I’m erecting a partition between my efforts to produce content and this blog. If you want my uncomplicated, apolitical, straightforward, pathologically positive material, check out my Creators Page! In all seriousness, I am incredibly grateful for those of you who have told me to my face that you enjoy just listening to what I have to say no matter the topic. Every time I get burnt out with this project or that, remembering you gives me that extra budge.

For everything else, all of my anti-content… whatever that means… you’re in the right place. I’m going post stuff on here that most of you probably won’t give a shit about. I’m going to get political, poetic, pretentious. I’m going to bitch about issues like animal rights and religion and artificial intelligence because that’s what I like thinking and writing about. Yes, I know I ended that sentence with a preposition. And I’ll probably write some stuff here about music, movies, screenwriting – all those things I was trying to build a blog around in the first place.

I guarantee some of the forthcoming material will be bad, boring, or any other negative adjective you can supply. I will go for long stretches without posting anything simply because I won’t feel like it. But I won’t post “content” here. I won’t write this or that purely for the amount of views it can get me, or edit a post to better fit in with my personal “brand” or anything like that.

Frankly, I’m disappointed in myself for not having done this all along.

But I’m taking my cue from Samuel Beckett:

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Moving forward, this blog is where I’m going to try, fail, fail again, and hopefully fail better.

As for the title of this post, I really do believe that Tuesdays are the worst days of the week and it felt cathartic to write that out. Tuesday is the turning-17-years-old of weekdays.

Here’s a picture of young national treasure Jeff Goldblum doing that mesmerizing thing with his hands, because I wanted this post to have at least one image.

The One Where I Talk About Me

I have a love/hate relationship with social media.

On one hand, it’s the means by which I get my writing “out there” and thus an essential component of my career aspirations. On the other, it appeals to all of my narcissistic tendencies. You know, the ones we’re all hoping no one else notices in this arena of selfies and #foodporn. Sometimes I’ll try to get around this by being self-deprecating (re: previous sentence) or meta (re: previous parenthetical) because I don’t want to appear aggressively self-absorbed.

But, in the end, we’re all here to self-promote and indulge the occasional narcissistic fantasy. With that disclaimer, I’d like to indulge the delusion that you – whoever, wherever you are – want to know all about what’s going on in my life.

First off, sales of Hold On To Your Butts continue to trickle in at a steady rate, despite the fact that I’ve been utterly delinquent in my efforts to promote it. So if you’re one of the kind souls in possession of my humble debut, I really can’t thank you enough. Every single copy sold is a boost that gets me through bad days; even more so when it’s due to interest I’ve done very little to personally generate. Thank you; thank you very, very much indeed.

In other news, my plans for moving cities are starting to line up. I’ve put in my informal notice at work and they’ve already managed to hire my replacement, despite the official move still being several weeks out. Overall, I’m excited to be starting a new chapter and making a new life; it’s something for which I’ve really yearned lately. But, as with any major change, there are the usual headaches and stresses of logistics, timing, and micro-panics. I’ve yet to line up a new job, but have discreetly started the process of sending out my résumé here and there. Given the choice, of course I’d love to find something media-related. That said, after about six years of a job that required me to get up around 6am and be on call for tech support every other week/weekend, I’m willing to forego professional prestige for the chance to get some more sleep…and read a few more books…and spend more time outside…and…generally avoid perpetual rushing to the next thing.

In the Taskbar of the computer on which I’m typing this post, there’s a Word document on which I’ve been tinkering since last year’s NaNoWriMo: Halcyon Seven (working title). As it’s still a rough draft (emphasis on rough), I’m certainly not making any concrete announcements about this piece right now. But, as one of my current focuses, it’s something I’m working diligently to complete as soon as possible, and I’m itching to share it with you. In the tradition of great sci-fi, my goal with Halcyon Seven is to (hopefully) blend enough established, well-researched science with the engaging fiction to result in something both entertaining and educational.

One of my other main focuses at the moment is a revised draft of my road-trip-dramedy, Adriana From Nowhere (also working title). Initial feedback from my circle of trusted advisors has been really encouraging, and given the narrow scope of the genre (compared to sci-fi, anyway), I’m optimistic about having a polished draft completed in the next couple of months.

As always, I continue to tinker on my Amish Dinosaur Coalition screenplays, which seem to require a fresh draft every time I want to revise them. It’s frustrating to constantly start over, but always rewarding to see how much room for improvement can be exploited by doing so. Additionally, I’ve completed a few short screenplays in recent months that – with practice – will hopefully make their way onto some screen, some where before too long.

In the meantime, I’m busy with the day to day of my day job, Sea World protests, pointless arguments on Facebook, gratuitous displays of affection with my girlfriend, catching up on Friends during my lunch breaks, and being a terrible soccer mom to the world’s greatest mutt, Chewbacca.

Thanks for reading!

…and if you’re feeling so inclined, follow me on Instagram and Twitter!

https://www.instagram.com/ben.tobin.johnson/

https://twitter.com/thepants2010

 

Waking Up to Dreamless

I went on a little web hunt for a good quote with which to kick off this post. Some were adequate, others more ideal. But I settled on the following from Nietzsche because it captures the aesthetic of the band and album in question to an uncanny degree:

“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”

Fallujah, with their third full-length release Dreamless, has consecrated the peculiar, ambient take on technical death metal they proclaimed on The Harvest Wombs and embellished with the captivating follow-up, The Flesh Prevails (to say nothing of the comparatively brief but equally mesmeric Nomadic).

What does that seemingly out-of-context Nietzsche quote have to do with this album, though?

For the answer to that question, we must digress briefly on metal subgenres which – as I’ve hinted at many times before – is treacherous territory. If the legion of frenzied opinions doesn’t turn you away, the tongue-twister adjective combinations usually does the trick. But fear not! Utilizing the same self-proclaimed expertise under which I published my first book, I’m going to teach you everything you need to know to get through this post.

So, first things first: Fallujah’s music, as previously mentioned, is best described as ambient technical death metal (or atmospheric technical death metal). Death metal, because of the guttural growl-shouts that characterizes the vocals and the emphasis on blitzkrieg drum- and guitar-work. Technical, because the intricate time signatures, experimentation with musical theory, and razor sharp composition means this is metal for classical music nerds. And finally ambient/atmospheric, because cosmic echoes and celestial synthesizers envelop the proceedings in a lush, astral beauty.

Hopefully, my ostentatious use of multiple synonyms for “space stuff” both helps to form an idea of what this music sounds like and explain why I chose that Nietzsche quote. Embedded within both is the belief that beauty and savagery can coexist; in some ways, that they must. Dreamless is a sonic monument to what heights may be reached when you chain chaos to elegance…and you’ve had a few albums to hone your sound.

“Face of Death” commences the album with what sounds like a nod to the Mass Effect soundtrack: a vaguely vintage collection of electronic reverb and minimalist, digitized phrases. This placidity is short-lived, and soon gives way to the crushing interplay between lightning-fast guitar strings and assault-rifle drumkits, unified by the primal roars of lead vocalist Alex Hofmann.

In fact, much of the album can be described this way. What sets Dreamless apart from other Fallujah releases though (and Fallujah apart from other technical death metal outfits, for that matter) is the pervasive presence of that solemn, hypnotic ambience. Where previous albums employed delays, whammy bars, and reverb to counterbalance their aggression on a track-by-track basis, Dreamless more evenly spreads the empyrean voyage throughout.

Those of you who enjoyed the flirtation with female vocals and atmosphere-sans-metal on The Flesh Prevails‘ “Alone With You” will find Dreamless all the more rewarding; multiple tracks abandon metal convention altogether for such arrangements. “Fidelio,” for example, floats on a bed of reverberating keys while sampling ethereal dialogue clips from the film referenced in its title. Similarly, “Les Silences” resembles an Aphex Twin chill-out remix more closely than any death metal release. Yet these moments, while prominent, never subvert the punishing craftsmanship from which the entire album emanates.

That kind of craftsmanship involves more than simply playing complicated musical expressions precisely – it requires composing music that conveys a singular vision. At a glance, Dreamless seems to display that cohesion. But is that unity preserved at a more granular level? Thankfully – and unsurprisingly – it is. One particular motif seems to evolve over the course of the album’s early stages. “The Void Alone” incubates this riff here and there; little more than a burst of palm-muted tremolo picking that occasionally leaps into the tiny space of a momentarily open note. It’s barely a distinct musical expression. At the 1:00 mark of “Abandon,” however, that burst of palm-muted tremolo picking rebounds off the expanse of a fully open string, pausing to revel in the echo before repeating a truncated version of itself and then branching off elsewhere. In “Scar Queen,” a mutated breed of this arresting pattern culminates in both the song’s opening moments and its closing ones, interspersed with some counterbalancing polyrhythms. Thus, this signature flurry of tremolo-picking-diving-into-resonance binds these tracks together, creating a series of distinct movements unified by a common theme.

Throughout its 55-minute runtime, Dreamless journeys to places of blistering chaos and meditates on the violence excavated there. At the same time and with equal aplomb, it drifts amidst interstellar serenity and marvels at the beauty cascading down around it. To discover these contrasting sounds successfully cohabitating an album on separate tracks would be surprise enough. To witness them enfold each other and intertwine like ravenous lovers is downright jaw-dropping.

If there’s any truth to Nietzsche’s quote, Dreamless is the proof. From start to finish, it’s a testament to greater chaos yielding ever more dazzling stellar choreography.

And that is why Fallujah’s Dreamless is May’s Album of the Month.

But don’t take my word for it…

https://www.indiemerchstore.com/b/fallujah

https://www.facebook.com/fallujahofficial/

https://twitter.com/Fallujahbayarea