TV

It was early in the morning. The sun wasn't up yet, but the house was stuffy and hot so I couldn't fall back asleep. I was groggy, but I also counted my being up as a good thing; nobody was awake in the house, so I could watch whatever I wanted to on the TV in the living room. Five-year-old me (I can't remember how old I was, to be totally honest) snuck out of the bedroom and to the television; an old CRT with a laminated wood base that was in my family well until I was in high school. I turned it on and turned the volume down so it was barely audible. Channel surfing didn't come up with anything interesting until I found a show that caught my attention; it was the pinnacle of 1990s aesthetic; geometric shapes and gaudy pop art in the background of the stage, one of the guys from Full House and a pretty lady hosting, and home videos of people doing goofy stuff. It was called America's Funniest People, and it was like an alternate reality America's Funniest Home Videos except not quite as funny and hosted by Dave Coulier instead of Bob Saget. I watched a bunch of it for a few hours and then decided to go back to bed once the sun started coming up.

The early 1990s, pictured in one image

That's the story of one of my more vivid childhood memories. It wasn't playing t-ball, my first day of kindergarten, or 7th birthday party; it's 1992-era Dave Coulier.

I liked television as a kid, so much so in fact that my parents had limited my time watching it to an hour a day at one point. It may explain why I was sneaking around the house in the early hours of the morning watching knockoff home video shows, but TV managed to be a staple in my upbringing, for better or worse. Yes, my family went camping in the summer, my dad would take me fishing, and I'd explore the neighborhood with my older brother and his friends and this big Great Dane named "Boogie", but I also remember a lot of late 1980s reruns and 1990s programming.

One show most people can agree was a cornerstone of the '90s and still watchable today is The X-Files. It's still on Netflix (thank goodness) and I've critiqued it before, but I vividly remember my parents loving the show. I was too young to watch it I guess, but looking back I kind of get it. Every night it was on, my parents would sit and watch the new episode in the living room. The theme music would kick up, and my blood would run cold. It wasn't because I was afraid of the aliens and monsters in the show; after all, I didn't get to watch it because my parents were pretty sure it'd give me nightmares. No, the thing that set me off was... the music. It was spooky, implying that something scary was coming, something so bone-chilling and horrifying that I wasn't allowed to see it. I'd run to my bedroom with my imagination running amok, dreaming up nightmarish terrors only a Halloween obsessed 8 year old can conjure, and I'd end up having bad dreams just from the opening credits.

It just hit me that The Orb that
gaveeveryone powers is a giant
 massage ball.

One show I could watch, and actually really liked to watch, was The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. It was only one season long, but my brother and I really enjoyed it. Honestly, I can see why; it was in the Old West, it had weird steampunk and sci-fi elements, and it had Bruce Campbell playing a rough-and-tumble marshal in search of revenge. It centered around this thing called The Orb, which had the ability to give superpowers to whoever had it, and it was up to Brisco and his friends to thwart the bad guys that had it. I don't remember it making much sense, but I also remember not caring because it was action packed and corny in ways only a one-off Fox show from 1993 could be, and I loved it because of that.

I could go on with a laundry list of 80s and 90s shows and cartoons that helped mold and shape me into the Hapless Millennial I am today, but I'll spare you. It's funny to think how there was so much TV in my upbringing, so many hours hooked on it, and nowadays I don't even have cable and sometimes forget I have a Netflix account. I spend a lot more time outside, being active, doing the things my parents probably wanted me to do instead of watching reruns on The Disney Channel. Binge-watching wasn't a thing when I was a kid, but apparently I did it anyway, and that helped cement sitting in front of the TV as one of the pivotal things in my development.

In a rose-colored-glasses perspective, the programs I watched helped foster my imagination. They acted as a springboard for creativity, seeing situations and looking for solutions. They showed me people becoming friends and overcoming adversity in the face of daunting odds. I even learned things about history, science, literature, and math. Sure, oftentimes problems would be resolved in a half-hour to hour or so, sometimes even less than that, but it at least showed me that creativity and ingenuity, patience and understanding, and a healthy dose of dumb luck (or deus ex machina, whatever) can get you through to the next adventure.

Then again, I have a fairly short attention span sometimes and unrealistic expectations for myself probably thanks to too much television, but who can say for sure? All I know is that TV played a big part in my childhood.

And knowing is half the battle. 

Blog Update 4-21-16

Shit. Uh...

Do you remember when I said I might get back into blogging because the off-season was coming and I'd have more time and focus?

I've posted four. Since October. Sorry about that.

For what it's worth, I've been busy with work since there was one of the best wildflower blooms in Death Valley in over a decade and we never really got slow, I've been running some more and have been preparing for another 10k next week and a Spartan Race at the end of the year, and I moved! Sure, it's a block away from where I was, but I still moved though and that's what counts. Plus, I'm still looking for advance my career so there's always that chance a bigger move will come.

Anyway, I just wanted to apologize for the infrequency of content on this blog. I, once again, can't make any guarantees that there will be weekly posts, but hopefully I can hammer out something at least once or twice a month. I think I can at least get race reports, prose-y shit, and stupid observations up from here on, so keep an eye out for those.

Have a good rest of the month! See you in May!

Ode To The Brick Bungalow

I recently moved into a new apartment. It's a bit smaller than my old place, but for all utilities included with the rent, being an upper floor unit, and having a killer mountain view from the front room and kitchen, a little less square footage isn't a big deal. I would jump on board the "tiny house movement" bandwagon, claim the move was to reduce my footprint or that it was to reduce the amount of things I feel I need to have, but really it was because the price was right and I'd spent five years in an apartment I didn't intend to spend five years in.

In early 2011 I lived in a room at the hotel where I work, which wasn't ideal; not much in the realm of privacy, living on-site apparently meant I was on call all the time, and it didn't leave a good first impression telling people I lived in a cheap little hotel room. Out of desperation I started looking for cheap apartments. Since I was a mature adult I had saved up more than enough for first months rent and deposit on a place, but since I'm me I saved that money between the mattresses of my hotel room bed, but I'd made sure I had enough for when the time came that I found a place to call home. In the couple months I looked there were a few promising leads. However, one stood out above them all; it was a one bedroom, one bath, single level brick unit with a fireplace and a covered patio, a short distance from where work.

It was also the cheapest option by a long shot.

An application was sent in shortly after touring the unit, and within a couple weeks I put down the deposit and the rent, got the keys, and settled in to the little Brick Bungalow

My intention was to be in that apartment for a few months and move to the northern coast of California for school, or Steinbeck country if I could find work. I didn't spend money on new furniture since I intended to bail on the place in short order and wanted all the money I could save, so a sofa from the side of the road (that had once housed mice I'd find out later on) faced an entertainment center found at the landfill, with an end table found in a dumpster years before next to a lamp that was scrapped from a yard sale. Actual trash filled the place, but it was strategically chosen trash so it looked intentional. I claimed it was recycling, and it was, but less for ideological reasons and more for "fuck wasting money on shit since this garbage is good enough" reasons.

Circumstances arose and I ended up staying in that apartment longer than initially anticipated. The junk furnishings got a little nicer over time. Art got on the walls. The kitchen, with its harvest gold colored faux-cobblestone linoleum flooring and yellow painted walls, became a shrine for all things tacky and thrift store chic. A large tapestry of the tree of life served as a curtain in the bedroom, and other New Age hippie shit was scattered throughout the place. It smelled of Nag Champa and coffee more often than not for a couple years. If it'd gone any further I might have ended up being a White Guy With Dreadlocks or an Insufferable Hipster Douchebag, but luckily I made it out of that phase with just a djembe and a collection of decent LP's.

After months became a year, a year became years, and years were about to become half a decade, I decided to at least move to a different place in town if I couldn't move elsewhere. It was a sort of like testing of the waters of change. Dipping my toes into the murky depths of discomfort and stress that come with some degree of personal growth meant that, if I could upgrade my place of residence at least a little bit, the possibility of going somewhere even better in the near future could be a possibility. It would mean I could find the wherewithal within myself to be the best person I could be and improve my life in ways I had yet to imagine. If nothing else, it would get me the fuck away from the next-door neighbor who'd scream and shout for no reason all hours of the day, the deteriorating shitshow of a landscaping job that was apparently bailed on a year before, and another five years in the place that became a testament to my shortcomings and failures.

Plus, cheap rent and all utilities included?! Sign me the fuck up!

After writing and dropping off a "letter of intent to vacate" the packing and cleaning began. Boxes and crates slowly made their way out of the old place and into the new one. Stuff I didn't need found its way into the dumpster, Goodwill, and my coworkers' houses. All my remaining furniture was consolidated, moved, and hauled up the stairs. After it was empty I began the task of cleaning the place, leaving it better than how it was when I moved in. Since there were already burn marks on the carpet, chipping paint on the ceiling, cobwebs in the corners, and grime on the baseboards when I initially moved in, I didn't have a huge challenge, but I at least made it look halfway presentable.

I made one last once-over of the place before going to the property management office to drop off the keys to the old place. It had the same smell as the day I moved in; that smell of old masonry, dusty, almost musty, like a church basement or a long abandoned house. Light cut through the blinds, illuminating the falling dust and giving the front room a golden sort of glow. The fridge in the kitchen echoed off the bare walls of the empty room. The bathroom was cold. The bedroom was still. Everything was similar to how it was when I moved in, and I remembered how excited I was to move out of my hotel room and into my own private space. It was a sad, nostalgic couple minutes of reflection, but at least the thought of better things persisted. I locked the door behind me, dropped off the keys, and went to my new home to get ready for work.

A part of me will miss the Brick Bungalow; it was my first place, and it was the backdrop to a lot of moments in my adult life. I guess, though, it's a similar case to my Jeep; I was reluctant to let it go, even though it sucked, but now I have a little Nissan Versa that's doing me a lot better. The Cherokee, much like The Brick Bungalow, had a lot of problems, wasn't maintained that well, and had more space filled with junk and bad memories than I really needed to keep around. The new place and the Versa are more compact, endlessly more efficient, and much more manageable.

That's about as close as I'll get to hopping on the tiny house bandwagon for now, but it's a start of something good I think.

That Nightmare I Had

When I dream, I often have a hard time remembering details of the dream after I wake up. This weekend I can remember dreaming that my girlfriend's cat, Guinness, stole a BMW sports car, and that I chased him through the streets of a city, but I can't remember which city or why Guinness turned to a life of crime. The specifics are a little hazy, but dreams end up like that most of the time; half-remembered scenes, fuzzy movies played out to be pushed aside by reality come sunup. Even though I re-enacted the music video for Holy Fuck's "Red Lights" in my head, recalling the dream later on might only be possibly by re-reading this blog post.

Sometimes dreams-- or nightmares, whichever-- stick with me, though. Last night, standing out on my back patio, I caught a glimpse of the moon in the haze of cloud through the trees. It was a pretty sight, but it reminded me of a nightmare I had as a little kid.

For a little while my family lived in an old Victorian-style house in Independence, California, on a nice corner lot near the town's market. It was a big, two-storied house built of redwood with a covered wrap-around porch and a two car garage. There were fruit trees, shrubs, and a big elm tree in the yard, and it was overall a pretty neat old house to be in. Aside from ghost stories my brother would make up to scare me or the ghost stories I'd make up based off the books I'd read in the school's library, the creep factor of living in an old house never really got to me. That is, I guess, until the nightmare I had after living in the house for awhile.

I dreamed it was autumn. It was nighttime, and the moon was full. I was in the yard alone, trying to get back into the house but finding no way in. I saw my siblings through the kitchen window, laughing and playing, and I yelled for them to let me in. They didn't notice me. I continued to shout, knowing something was in the darkness that would get me if they didn't let me in, but it was no use; I turned from the kitchen window and looked up through the bare branches of the big elm tree, and silhouetted in the moonlight was something feral and bloodthirsty jumping down onto me.

Then I woke up, thoroughly freaked out, in a now creepier house than I originally thought it to be. 

Maybe the trauma factor is what kept that dream in my mind's eye. After all, it plays on the childhood fear of what lurks in the dark and the very real possibility that my siblings would have probably ignored me and left me to die at the hand of some beastly horror (they aren't as big of jerks now as they were growing up thankfully). It could also be the realization that the old spooky house we lived in looked like something from a cornball scary movie or from those creepy books I liked so much. Whatever the case may be, whether it being a primal fear of being alone in the elements or having an extremely overactive childhood imagination that kept the memory of that nightmare alive, it's one of the most vivid recollections from back-in-the-day that I have. 

I wish I could remember the pleasant dreams I had as a kid instead of the nightmares that had me wake up screaming. Or, at least, I wish I could dream up how to catch and arrest Guinness the cat without wrecking the BMW he stole. Either would be okay.

The Paranormal Encounters Project (an AJ Hampton Production)

Last month, since it was October and I had all things spooky on the brain, I did my best to watch scary movies as much as possible until Halloween. By inundating myself with Netflix's selection of horror movies nearly every day for a month, I remembered a couple things:

1. I really enjoy "found footage" horror movies like The Blair Witch Project. 
2. Movies like The Blair Witch Project are, more often than not, garbage. Just straight up, steaming piles of garbage.

When The Blair Witch Project came out it was unique for being made with not much more than a camcorder and a shoestring budget-- but managing to be a box office hit. I think it's cool because there's something believable and unsettling about being lost in the woods and possibly being stalked by someone-- or something-- you never even see. The simplicity of its production, primal fears it played on, believability of an on-location film crew being turned around in a big wooded area, and sweet '90s grunge-era wardrobe make it fun for me to watch. 

Of course, since The Blair Witch Project there have been a lot of "found footage" type films, and some of them are pretty good in my book; I'm a big fan of the first Grave Encounters and the first few  Paranormal Activity movies, but, then again, I know they aren't really good; they do some spooky things well and I get a kick out of them for that if nothing else. However, a lot of movies of this genre missed the decent parts of what make a good movie but kept the shitty camera work and general premise of the movies before them.

If you want to write most "found footage" horror movies, follow this Mad-Lib:

A message like "The following footage from 2000-something was recovered last year. It is now available for viewing from the public" comes up on a black screen, with some context possibly sprinkled in.

A (documentary film crew/ paranormal investigation team/ a group of teens with a camcorder) goes to (abandoned mental hospital/ old apartment building/ unassuming house) to (perform an exorcism/ catch a ghost/ try to freak out some nerd), but then things go horribly wrong when (ghosts start moving things/ the building contains endlessly repeating hallways/ a demon-ghost-entity completely possesses someone). At some point someone gets (thrown into a wall and killed/ sucked down a dark hallway never to be seen alive again/ somehow stabbed to death) and a shaky camera running away scene commences. After the immediate threat is behind them, someone sets down the camera and (something moves on its own/ a shadow of the ghost passes by/ the possessed person is watching THE WHOLE TIME) but picks it back up just as soon as anything spooky is out of sight. BUT SUDDENLY (things in some room start to float in mid-air/ the ghost appears and kills someone/ some possessed person is crawling on the ceiling in a contorted fashion) so the remaining survivors rush toward the exit-- only to find it locked. The person with the camera gets knocked down and they are seen (being dragged through a pool of their own blood/ hovering with the possessed standing by/ staring blankly into the camera) until someone else grabs the camera and continues running toward a creepy place avoided earlier in the movie. Night vision is turned on, and shaky breathing and a green-and-black void are all that are picked up. Things seem okay for a moment, but then (the ghost finds the last survivor and kills them/ the camera light starts to die and flickers of the antagonist are the last thing to be seen/ the floor collapses and a dead body is seen through a broken camera lens). The screen abruptly goes to black, shitty generic hardcore music starts playing, and the credits roll.

~The End~

If I just made you the next best film director, you're welcome. If you were looking to watch any Paranormal Activity/Grave Encounters ripoff, I'm sorry for the spoilers.

"Is This Place Haunted?"

Old hotels are interesting. Old photos of forgotten people and paintings by unknown artists hang from the walls. Well-worn furnishings add to the aesthetic the hallways, reception, and rooms, acting as living history for days long gone. Ugly floral wallpaper and paisley print carpets add a quirky charm to old-timey lodging that helps you almost forget about the slight dusty-- and sometimes even musty-- smell old buildings gets.

Almost.

Above all else, old hotels end up having countless people coming in and out of them over the course of years. I work in a hotel that's about 92 years old, and I talk to at least a hundred people most days, ushering them to their rooms, showing them how to turn on their televisions, and muttering swear words under my breath when the WiFi goes out or when I have to clean up the horrors from overflowing toilets. The number of people that I've spoken to over the years that I've worked here is hard for me to think up. It's a lot of people. A lot of fixing TV, resetting modems, and seeing the poop of strangers. Most of all, a lot of repeated questions.

If it's not about availability, the WiFi password, or the adjoining doors between rooms, it's about ghosts. I usually tell people, "I can neither confirm nor deny that the place is haunted, but it's a matter of what you believe in," but sometimes I continue with, "Buuuuuut, I've heard some things from people if you want to hear some stories."

By this point half the people I talk to are stoked about it while the other half are slinking into the corner not wanting to be too spooked to go to bed. I continue with stories I've heard, and sometimes I get to hear new ones, but there's one underlying theme with all of them: this place can get a little fucking creepy.

One night I was tidying up around the front desk when a scruffy guy came up to the reception. He asked if the place was haunted, and he told me why he thought it might be. He and his hiking partner were staying in a room without an en suite bath (there are common baths throughout the hotel, blah, blah, blah) while they waited for the bus to take them back to Tuolumne Meadows outside Yosemite, so they'd been at the hotel for a night already. The first night they were there, he was in his bed dozing off when he felt a hand on his shoulder start to shake him, like someone trying to wake him up. He grumbled at his friend, "Fuck off, dude, I'm trying to sleep," but felt a little uneasy when his friend walked in the door after being in the shower the whole time. He said he was certain nobody else was in the room with him, and he slept uneasy his second night there.

Another night, when I lived in the hotel, I'd gotten off shift and made my way to my room. It was winter, and the boiler was broken, so nobody was staying in the place except for me. As I was laying in bed, curled up and shivering, I heard the sound of kids running up and down the halls, giggling up and down the stairs. I looked out my door to see what brats might be running amok, but no one was there. I went downstairs to see the graveyard clerk sitting, doing paperwork, and definitely not running up and down the halls. It was dead silent in the place after I went to check for who was making the racket after midnight, and I slept a little uneasy afterward.

Just the other night I got a phone call from a lady saying she'd experienced something terrifying during her stay in early 2011. She had been booked a room by her employer, so she didn't get much of a say when she entered the room and felt a sudden uneasiness. The unease didn't ebb off as the night went on, but she decided to close her laptop, shut off the light, and try and sleep regardless. Not long after turning in, she was startled by a bright light in her room. Seeing her laptop open and on didn't do much to put her mind at ease, but she tried to fall asleep again anyway. Soon after, she was awakened by what she thought was an earthquake, and immediately left when she felt someone-- or something, according to her-- grab her shoulder.

She said she never came back after running from her room at 4am, and that she'd never stay here again. I tried to convince her to reconsider, but she seemed pretty firm in her decision.

The hotel has undergone a few renovations and updates over the years, even since I started working there. In the fresh paint, updated furnishings, and new stucco walls, there's a little less of an old creepy haunted house feeling, but kicking up dust and ripping things out and off the building could stir up something in the walls. The rattling pipes of the boiler don't sound like footsteps. The wind doesn't shake you awake at night. I can neither confirm or deny the place is haunted, but it's all a matter of what you believe in.

Blog Update 10-21-15

Surprise! I'm not dead! Yay!

Sorry for the months of silence. Work and life have had me distracted from writing, and this summer has been an exceptionally busy one for me. With the off-season coming up, I might get back on the blogging train since it'd be easier to get creative juices flowing without being inundated with hundreds of tourists sapping my soul. Posts could get more regular again too, but I can't guarantee a post every week since, I'll be honest, I'm easily distracted as well as busy in my personal life.

But, since I've been gone, I've run a couple races and done okay-ish. Last weekend I ran a 10K and got first! For men in my age group! Out of two people! With a 26 second lead! If I ever ran for time I'd be pretty stoked, but I'm just glad I got to run a 10K in a wizard hat (it was a Halloween-themed run, so hopefully someone got a picture of me running in that hat because it was fucking awesome). I also went camping with my girlfriend without getting rained out, went to a friend's wedding up north, and ate a lot of Taco Bell, so it's been pretty great.

Next week I plan to write about some of the ghost stories from the hotel instead of an apology for lacking content, so look forward to that.

So, uh... see you next week?