HOH Magazine: March 2017 Issue (#1!)

I have been on a break, from many a project. Things I'll "do shortly" became "get around to eventually" because I'm prioritizing being with friends these days. Creatively I'm letting myself down, but it's all the same to procrastination. Procrastination is simply (or, put simplistically) the attention paid to distractions and diversions. This is even one of those. A distracting new project that isn't much worth prioritizing, yet feels like a thing I can bang out in a day, tapping away though, as I do now, when I have a moment of inspiration, a knowledge of what exactly to put down.
(And yet this paragraph is like a week and a half old now...More inside!)

It's hard to do the work. It's hard being a writer, a vocation based upon the lauding of and pining for inspiration. "Inspiration struck and I wrote 500 pages in one night!" is the fantasy of the writer. It's part of why the Bradley Cooper vehicle Limitless (2011) is pornography. One thing I know, know, know, is that in order to be a writer, (which I assume is a lesson which can be applied to most anything) you just have to write. Just do it. PUT IN THE WORK. Whether the writers' block is fear of writing sucky words, do it. It will suck; it has to suck. Because then it gets made better. Writing is rewriting. You don't become a cook by thinking about all the recipes you'll have in your restaurant: you do it by attempting those recipes over, and over, and over. Just do it.

So I just need to focus on one thing at a time, and accomplish the important stuff. The day that I'm writing (at least) this sentence is Monday, March 6th. Last night, late, laaaaaate last night I told myself to set Monday as The Day To Do ____. The blank I filled was twofold: one, finish making the next belated post on the conveyor belt for The Terrible Opinions-Cast, a mostly-weekly podcast my friends and I do. We did our end-of-the-year awards in January, and I've written 50% of the posts for it. The awards posts are always the most complex, as they involve often linking to so many videos, and always involve formatting write-ups on the runners-up and winners. In this instance I'm waiting on a write-up of a winner before posting it, and I'll wait on the same thing for the subsequent week. I'm not persistent enough, but it's abysmal how behind I am on that responsibility. Once these last two awards posts are done, and I'm all caught up, it should resume normalcy. I'm prepared to jump right into them next year, should there be a next year on Earth.

I'm not apologizing for nihilizing. I'm aware of my mortality these days, and I haven't even had sex. I have one major, achievable goal: Shoot and edit the feature-length motion picture screenplay I've finally finished writing and rewriting after 5 years and several iterations of both plot, and themes. (It started out as "I want to make a big end-of-high-school comedy" and then became "Oh wait, this can have themes. Lots of really good themes!!!") Let me make this movie with no money before I'm thrown into a camp for not outright hating people I don't know or I am not like.

Yes, it's exciting, and also agonizing news that I've got a feature-length movie in the works...for going on 6 years. Maybe THIS summer will end with its completion. Maybe there will be a next summer to be carefree during.

Don't get me wrong. I love The DatelessWonders Movie (201?). It's my current magnum opus, a comedic Ex Machina (2015), a platonic-comedy that encapsulates nearly every lesson I've learned in 5 years and accounts nearly every dumbass decision, behavior and thought I've fought to eliminate from myself. (In regards to relationships and interacting with girls, anyway.) In a way, I'm detaching those vices from me like a cicada's shed skin, by writing them into/onto Dennis Wright, my character, who I've always described as 'me, but stupider.' It's great. It's funny. It's specific, it's universal. "It's important"? I hope so, but let's see the "and now, your feature presentation" before you decide on that.

Anyway, you'd think I'd be focused on that 115% right now, and always. But alas...I've got a Reverse-Valentine's Day video I want to do – which is why I haven't shaved for a month now; the mustache hairs are curling around my lips with the weak grip of a claw machine, tingly and uncomfortable. A millipede taking a long break. And I've just gotta hang with friends at any given opportune evening, even as it's sloshed up my sleep schedule. "How can you not prioritize your one important goal!?!??" I hear you thinking to yourself, but I'm scrambling desperately in these times to have fun...and Spring's not here yet, motherfucker. Once leaves have grown on trees, then I'll kick a fire under my own ass so bright it'll be visible from space. The picture's set in June.

Okay, enough paragraphs that try-to-but-don't-really bridge the concepts of panic and focus. You kinda get what I mean, right? Let's move on.

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I finally rebooted my phone. In January, I filled it to the brim of its memory, at long last I beat it. Not that I was trying, but it certainly went down. I defeated it: it broke. It could not be recovered due to "electrical failure" of some kind. I went through the grief stages fairly quickly, but procrastinated the clean-slate reset until Tuesday the 7th of March. I feel like a person without a past: Or, part of it anyway. I lost my contacts. I lost a month of photos. I lost my Safari tabs!! And my calendar, which had day-by-day journal notes of what I did for most of the year. That hurt the most, as I never got around to adapting them to the physical calendars I had bought to write such on: A daily activity rendered difficult by procrastination and lack of a large-enough flat surface to write on and leave to dry an open wall calendar.

And no, I didn't have any of it backed up in the cloud. Tuesday the 7th was the evening I went to the Apple store for a class on what iCloud was and did. It's very useful to avoid situations like this, and I've learned my lesson. Gotta be a fool to grow.

"Gotta be a fool to grow."

Isn't that a thing they always do in magazines? Enlarge and out-place a key quote to highlight it for easy-glancin' in the Great Clips waiting area? I guess I didn't place it out that far away from what it's quoting. I guess that's the joke I'm making.

Anyway, I've used an iPod Touch since February, reliant on Wi-Fi from local locales and friends' houses, the former of which I've found to be in higher supply than I'd expected from different establishments. Very complimentary, I appreciate it. But now I've got a new iPhone. Which is my same iPhone, but with its new iOS (I was gonna update to 8.whatever shortly after I got it, then the day I was gonna they rolled out 9.whatever so I didn't, and never did since 'cause the UI changed) and its clean slate, it feels like a different personality in the same body. Like when someone you know gets a haircut. So yeah – friends, if you've texted me in February or a little in January/March, I didn't get it, so please don't feel like I ignored you.

What else is new?
This month I will have been a licensed driver for one whole year. That's pretty neat.

I'm 24 years old, by the way. I had no interest in driving once I actually turned 15, and I only learned it in recent years because logically, it's better and easier for me than taking busses to work, and two, I don't have to rely on rides, which makes other people's lives better. So for them first, and myself second, I conceded that driving could generally be a good thing to do. Logically, technically, statistically. You can smell the enthusiasm.

The, 1996 Honda Accord Wagon...technically "An," because this ain't mine, pictured.

But it's fun, still. Sure. The car we got for me fits me like a glove. It's akin to my personality, and really matches my character, in my opinion. It feels right. I appreciate that. Furthermore, I can listen to music on the radio, or from my slowly expanding CD collection. I may need to get a second CD case, as I've filled every slot with my latest addition: the The Harder They Come soundtrack.

The Harder They Come (1973) is a Jamaican movie starring Jimmy Cliff I saw in college, about music and crime. The former being why its soundtrack is particularly great. I picked up the CD at a Cheapo Discs about a year ago (it was on my mind as my friends and I had just eaten jerk chicken) and I finally got around last week to importing it to iTunes, then burning it onto a blank CD I can keep in my car. My favorite part of this process (except when I'm burning a mix CD, in which case my favorite part is choosing and arranging the tracks) is coloring the disc with custom cover art. When I do an album, I try to copy the official cover, or adapt it for the disc's unique canvas. Whether I ape it or try to capture the essence, I just love making album covers, DVD covers, and posters for things so much that it's a creatively satisfying and inspiring hobby. [I make all my own movie posters and DVD covers primarily because I love being a part of that process, only secondarily because I ain't got no money.] For The Harder They Come, I replicated Jimmy Cliff's visage and put it on the disc, then approximated the title with some color matching but, honestly, that font is too magnificent for me to capture. I could've spent more time, but, whatever. I used my usual 36-pack Bic Mark•It permanent markers, and spent half an hour on what I consider a successful piece.

The little twig of purple in the C is an accident. A glaring, taunting accident. But eh, I don't care.

I made a modification to the playlist with this one, however. I left off song #3, Rivers of Babylon by The Melodians. I like the song, but I can't listen to it in the car; When I first bought the original CD, I had it in my car for a bit, and every time that song came on I'd get startled and look all around: there are two short moments in that song that sound like car horns! Like a really old 1960's-1970's boxy beat-up sedan honking at me. It's concerning. So I had to leave it off my in-car version. You can't really hear it unless you're listening for it when you're sitting in a room, but when you're in the car, it alerts the bejeezus out of you. Which is a shame, 'cause it's a great song.

Now I'll write a quick list of things to which I can say: "I'm Into This!": It's the 'I'm Into This!' segment of the magazine.

I'm Into This! — March 2017

Craisins

The tasty treat I've begun adding to my routine lunch this year. They're nice and chewy, they're sour, sweet, all natural (which just means, they're freakin' berries, from like the ground or a lake or whatever. I feel like you have to include that phrase or the FDA files a complaint against your magazine) and they're most likely healthy. (I didn't run tests to find out.) They come in packages of fun little boxes and here's a tip, a trick: you can keep the boxes to refill them with the big bags they also come in if it's economically advantageous to buy the big bag rather than the packages of little boxes. (I didn't run tests to find out.) This way you can keep bringing the little boxes with you even if, at home, the craisins sit in a bag. If you're dumb as a brick I'll let you know here that they're just cranberries that have been rasinized by the nation's top raisineers at the University of South Raisinport. They're the Ocean Spray kind.

Silence (2016)

Last week (as of this part of the writing, anyway) was Ash Wednesday. My work had the company luncheon we put on hold from the holidays, and there wasn't much for me to do after filling up on Greek, so I decided to bing out early and catch the only remaining showing of Silence, the new Scorsese movie, playing the entire state that day. I left work, the movie starting in 23 minutes: It was a 23-minute drive. I made it in 22, exactly on time. Thank God. The theater had a decent crowd for a Wednesday at 2:30, for a film both slept-on at the Oscars, as well as the Alternate Oscars. I knew I had to see it, for my own sake: I wasn't gonna be a part of the populace that ignored the new Scorsese while it's still in theaters. I thought it was a fitting, if not exactly intentional, way to begin the season of Lent. The film was wonderful, contemplative and masterful. It's seriously one of the best films of the year. I thought it was funny that a Scorsese film that contemplates faith – this is the guy who made The Last Temptation of Christ – was preceded by trailers for at least two "other Christian films." You know, it's like when you buy a 120-year-old bottle of wine on Amazon and it recommends "you may also like...boxed wine." I also thought it was funny that a film about actual, real, legitimate, not-make-believe Christian persecution was preceded by a trailer for a film "from the producers of God's Not Dead" about some rebuttal to an argument no one's making. I think it was called Jesus Take The Stand, or Christlawer v. All Atheists – Take THAT!

I can't say that either of those movies should even look at the ground Silence walks on. Silence is Godblessed great. A very strong slow movie with aesthetic atmosphere that I love and a rewatchability I'd compare to my annual repeat viewings of Inside Llewyn Davis. (Of course the direction, cinematography, performances, editing, obviously sound, and everything else are top tier! I don't need to mention those.) That's high praise, even if I haven't gotten around to ILD2k17 yet. Perhaps I'll throw an emergency party to get it watched before the weather heals and Spring blooms.

Pokémon GO – Generation II

Despite its flaws, I'm a huge fan of Pokémon GO. And I routinely criticize its flaws, because I'm a huge fan of Pokémon GO; any fan should be comfortable in their love of something to be able to critique it. Acknowledging failings or shortcomings or wrongdoings in something you love doesn't mean you don't love it, it just means you want to see it improve. And something something segue with Generation II, Pokémon GO has something something improved.
Pokémon GO made Generation I Pokémon exciting again, (I've never before said "holy shit!" about Machop in my life) and now it's brought back the excitement of Gen II – this is the best thing ever, because Gen II was the most exciting thing ever as a kid...until Gen III. Crystal was my first Version. But what's best about this game is the people I get to play it with. Cruising the mall for digital [pocket] monsters, we're the New Mallrat Generation. We want to change the world.

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Well, I'm off to bed haha my sleep schedule has been wrecked, if I fall asleep by 2:00am I consider it an early night. I'll whip myself into shape, probably... I guess I'll write about that next month, as it takes as long to readjust your circadian rhythm.

Well, I'm off to bed the store, to buy sleds last-minute if I may, for the snow has fallen heavily today. I can finally film the sledding scene in my this-year's Reverse-Valentine's Day video: a spoof on Swiss Army Man, which is my personal favorite film of 2016. You should check that out, too. If we all did, we could all be a little weirder, and it be all good.

I'll leave you all with an inspirational quote, another thing which I assume caps off every edition of the magazine I'm ripping off for this. Normally when I parody things, such as Swiss Army Man [or Peanuts and the trailers for Inside Llewyn Davis and Her] I hew as close to the hem of the original work as possible. I'm very precise and pride myself on accuracy, as indicated in my The Harder They Come CD artwork [or my Tales of Mere Existence riff.] However, I aspire not for accuracy in aping O Magazine, as this is HOH Magazine; I do things my way. Also, I think a key part of how the joke works is that it's what I assume O Magazine is like. That's funny to me. If it doesn't make you haw haw, that's fine too.

So, my inspirational quote, which I'll make up based on the subjects covered in this issue (including the many, uncontrollably-plugged Reverse-Valentine's Day videos) if in fact there is an uniting theme, is as follows:

Let your mind and heart open to all, and focus on the ones you find important. The others, regard in their own right.

That sounds Oprah-y enough, right?

— David "The Pants" Hoh