Yep, that's right, I said career! After about a month and a half of working on getting the positions and details squared away, JJ and I signed contracts with the guys from the Post. We're now going to be working on the sports site full time, getting paid to cover high school and college sports, do our podcast, grow the sports community here in Long Beach, and generally run the show. Frankly, it's a dream job, and I'll be making bill-paying money while doing it—not too bad! Since I left Bobit in January, I've started four novels and abandoned three of them after writing more than a hundred pages, and whored myself out harder than ever before to try and scrape up freelance gigs. It's so nice to settle into something more secure.



The plan, as per my post-road trip mindset, is to keep hustling and grinding indefinitely. I'm a few days away from (finally!) finishing my novel, the one that I didn't abandon, and a few days from getting my first nice fat paycheck as a professional sportswriter. Thanks so much to everyone for their good thoughts and wishes, I really appreciate them; sorry for being so cryptic about what I was working on, I'm really superstitious about talking about a job until the contract is signed (which, from the picture below, you can tell it totally is!).



It's been a crazy two weeks ago—my grandfather passed away two weeks ago, which I honestly haven't had time to stop and think about. I miss him, and I'll write something about him in the future. I also saw Dark Knight—a legitimately big life moment—and covered Comic-Con, and am now in the process of starting a comics review column with my gorgeous wife (who is also working on getting some short stories of mine published so I can start doing Long Beach readings and signings), and on top of that, the sports gig. Heady fucking times.

And tonight I get to cover a freaking taco eating contest three blocks away! Yes!

Sorry this is so scattered, I'm kind of all over the place right now, trying to sleep an average of five hours a night to make sure I have time for everything!

Labels: Generalness, Mission Statement

For Christmas few years ago—Three? Four?—my mom gave me Barack Obama's first book, Dreams From My Father. He'd written it long before his Senatorial campaign, when he was just coming out of Harvard, after being the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. The book is about his struggle to find identity as a mixed race American, and the son of an absent father. It's a story at once singular, and incredibly common—the latter for the circumstances, and the former because of the way Obama navigated his early life.

I recently listened to the audiobook version, since I had to do a fair amount of driving by myself and I've found audiobooks to be a nice way to keep relaxed while stuck in traffic on the 5. I was struck once more by the quality of the prose, which is as arresting as the timbre of Obama's reading voice. I was surprised to learn that he does accents very well, from Hawaiian to inner city Chicagoan to his Kenyan relatives. If the guy weren't a bestselling author and a presidential candidate, he could have a hell of a career reading audiobooks.

I think I've reviewed the book itself before, at the Union probably, so I won't go into too much detail about his life story (obviously remarkable). I'll just say that it would have been—and in fact, was—of great interest to me long before Obama was a presidential candidate. It is also hilarious now to listen to the audiobook and hear a man who may be our next president use the phrases "bitch nigga" and "muthafucka." So, uh, if you want to hear an amazing story, great writing, or the Democratic nominee cussing, you should check out the audiobook. I'll leave you with this incredibly personal quote from near the end, which gave me actual cold shivers when I heard it somewhere near Oceanside:

"Oh Father!" I cried. "There was no shame in your confusion, just as there had been no shame in your father's before you. No shame in the fear, or in the fear of his father before him. There was only shame in the silence fear had produced—it was the silence that betrayed us. If it weren't for that silence, your grandfather might have told your father that he could never escape himself, or recreate himself alone."



Yikes. Anyway, a blog about my grandfather as well as one of my patented massive life updates are on their way later this week, so stay tuned, all both of you dear readers.

Labels: Generalness, Mike Recommends or Trashes Random Shit

Last night, Shar and I joined a few dozen of our friends, and a few million other Americans in watching the Dark Knight at midnight. And, sleepy as we both are plodding through today's work, I think it's safe to say we're both pretty glad we went. I know this whole blog will run the risk of overextending and over-hyping the movie, but I don't care—it's so rare that I leave a movie theater as filled with wonder and awe as I did last night that I couldn’t dull that enthusiasm if I tried. Jurassic Park, the LOTR movies, Spider-Man, the Matrix…I'm sure there are a handful of other movies that have left me that floored, but I don't feel like trying to remember them. All I want to do is talk about Dark Knight, until I can scrape up enough coins to go see it again.

The acting, writing, and directing are all as brilliant as you'd expect, and in a few cases, a little more. The script murders the first movie's, mostly because it was penned by Chris Nolan and his brother, and didn't have any of David Goyer's fingerprints on it. I appreciate the philosophical intensity of Goyer's approach to superheroes, and it's undeniably had a hand in shaping the modern superhero movie, but as a dialogue-writer, he is often hard to stomach. I'm not going to be able to say anything new about Heath Ledger, so I won't waste too much time trying, but: wow. He inhabits that role so fully that he actually manages to add to the dark mythos of comicdom's greatest villain. He plays every scene perfectly, and manages to capture every facet of one of American literature's most dynamic figures (read a Joker story from the 50s and then read the Killing Joke and you'll know what I mean).

The film—which deservedly made close to 20 million dollars just from midnight screenings—did things with a PG-13 rating, in terms of intensity and twisted craziness, that I never expected could be done, especially with a "kid-friendly" licensed character like Batman. The action sequences are breathtaking, and I can't wait to see it in IMAX. But I think what most blew me away was the relationships between the characters. Gordon and Dent, Gordon and Batman and Dent, Dent and Batman and the Joker, Joker and Batman, on and on—something special happened with every new combination, a result of great writing and acting that successfully drew on decades of source material while carving its own identity.

Since it's just coming out today, I don't want to go into too much more detail, especially about the plot, so I'll just say that Nolan's vision and ability to play with high symbolism (look at the shifting repetition of trinity imagery in this movie), and deft culling from several great Batman books (Killing Joke, Arkham Asylum, Long Halloween, etc) are greatly appreciated by the Lit student and the comic geek in me. The little touches thrown in there for fans—the Montoya/Ramirez fakeout, for example—were perfectly done, so that they wouldn't be noticed (and thus wouldn't detract from the movie) by non-geeks, but added an extra special kick for those of us who knew what was going on.

AH!!!!! Holy Shit it was good!

Sooner or later, Marvel and DC are going to have to deal with the fact that great directors like Bryan Singer, Sam Raimi, Jon Favreau, and Chris Nolan are doing much bigger and better things with their characters than the comics themselves are. Now, part of this is just that they have to maintain a certain status quo in the books, because that's the nature of licensed commercial properties (when they break the status quo it's usually ridiculous like Brand New Day). When they do allow writers to do innovative stories—like Ultimate Spider-Man—the results are often spectacular. Still, after the movie, I was trying to figure out: when's the last time I read a Batman book that good? Hush? Long Halloween? I don't know, and I guess I don't care—I just want to watch Dark Knight over and over, until the next movie comes out.

It's a good time to be alive, literate, and have ten bucks to spare, friends—let's enjoy it while it lasts. Those of us who've read comics are well aware that this is a golden age—and that it won't last forever.

Labels: Generalness, Mike Recommends or Trashes Random Shit

Anyone who knows me knows me knows that a fair percentage of my thoughts is devoted to dinosaurs, and another chunk to my friends—that's why Dino Day is such a perfect moment in time. The 2nd Annual Dino Day was a lot different than the first—for one thing my television is three times as big, and we ended up with a crowd that was about triple-sized, too. Around 11 o'clock, Beef and Joe showed up and we popped in Denver the Last Dinosuar. Twelve hours later we'd had almost twenty people here to watch Denver, DinoRiders, the Dino parts of King Kong, Carnosaur, and the Jurassic Park triology. Several pounds of Dino cookies, fruit snacks, popsicles, chips (okay, these were just chips) and cake had been consumed.

The most important thing to me, though, was being part of an old-fashioned "Union guys cracking jokes until I wet my pants" hoedown, during the equally laughable Lost World. I've been busting my ass the last month (on stuff I'm hoping I'll actually get to talk about soon), and I badly needed that. Anyway, it was rad, and if you were there you're rad, and if you missed it you're slightly less rad than you may once have been. Fortunately, there are always more Dino Days on the horizon. Here are some awesome pics:

Labels: Dinos, Generalness

Yeeeeaaaaaaaaaa, it's the second annual Dino Day, my friends. That can only mean one thing: tons of dino movies, tons of friends, tons of dino snacks, and so much fun you just might have your head bitten off.

Sweet! I'll post a recap/pics after the fact.

Labels: Dinos, Generalness

Throughout the ups and downs of the last few months, I have to admit I've been kind of floating on an ecstatic high. On June 3, 2008, Barack Obama more or less captured the Democratic nomination when the last Americans cast their primariy votes, ending a contentious (and frankly, kind of bullshit) primary campaign season. Four days later, Hillary Clinton ceded to reality and endorsed him. It was announced a few days ago that Obama's acceptance speech will not be in the Denver Convention Center, where the rest of the Democratic Convention is held, but rather at Mile High Stadium, where the Broncos play, and my favorite-looking stadium in the NFL. Why there? Because it's going to be open to the public, and it will seat 75,000. And they'll fill every seat, FOR A POLITICAL SPEECH! This is ridiculous.

His nomination will be the beginning of the second half of the campaign, a road Shar and I started walking with him in February of 2007, when we set our alarms for quarter to seven in the morning and got up early on a weekend to watch him announce he was launching his campaign. His acceptance of the Democratic nomination will be an enormous event, affecting the country on nearly every level. The widespread effects are obvious, but it's the personal meaning for Shar and me that I keep thinking about. Yes, obviously, it means that when we got up early that morning despite being wiped out from the Union, we made the right decision.

But what does it really mean to me? It means that my sons or daughters won't be laughed at by teachers should they say they want to be president, the way a black friend of mine in elementary school was. Should they receive the backing of a major party, they wouldn't be the blackest people in history to have done so. Should they choose to read a history book, there will be at least one page covering an historic campaign where the candidate actually resembles their mother's side of the family, to go along with the hundreds of pages sporting people their dad could be related to (I wish).

And that, more than the fact that we've believed in him, more than the fact that we've waited in line at a rally and bought his books and gotten in arguments with people on his behalf, and more than the fact that we've donated money we didn't really have to his campaign, is why Shar and I will be in Denver, to see Obama speak in person for the second time. If we have to sleep in the car, drive through snow, and buy gas on credit, we'll be there. To shout "Yes we can!" with 74,998 other people, and to mean it. To say thank you.

Labels: Generalness

Somewhere back there, when I got back from the road trip (about fifteen years ago, it seems), I mentioned that the trip had given me a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of Long Beach. This has remained true. I'm surprised by how much the trip has shaped my life, my work habits, my perspective on things I thought I'd be stubbornly set on forever, etc…One of the most enduring and valuable habits I've maintained is walking for a half hour every day, often with Shar but sometimes (as today) by myself. When Shar and I walk together, we just walk out our front door, pick a direction, and head off on a trek. It's been great for the two of us, and it's helped us keep our traveler's view of the city.

Today, walking back to my apartment after an excellent meeting in the 'Myd, I took a look around at the weather, the people walking and jogging around me, the kids at my elementary school playing basketball in a summer camp I used to attend, and smiled. There is a vibe to this city that really doesn't exist anywhere else in the country. Long Beach is suburban and urban, traditional and progressive, historical and forward-reaching, fast-paced and yet, paradoxically, also a laid back beach town. Its contradictions and complexities have, over the last 24 years, worked their way into every nook and cranny of my psyche and personality. The city made me who I am, and I can't imagine being anywhere else. Walking home, I decided not to put my iPod headphones on, but to walk the way I did in Portland or Chicago, my eyes and ears open to all the city and its citizens have to show and say to me. I'm always surprised by how much I hear.

Labels: Generalness, Road Trip

My mom recently flew into the belly of America to see her sister, and they did some research about their (and thus my) family roots. Now, I know the history of my Guardabascio bloodline about as well as is possible; it's kind of the typical "Recent Immigrant Makes Good" story. My grandfather's grandfather supposedly walked out of the mountains in Southern Italy and was taken in by a kindly Guardabascio clan, so the history doesn't go much further back than that. I think there are two family histories you can have as a white person in this country: the recent immigrant one, and the old blood one.



After learning about what my Mom uncovered, I guess I have the latter story in my veins as well. Somewhere back there swimming in my maternal bloodline, I have Revolutionary War veterans, Masons, gay Presbyterian pastors, Confederate soldiers from Kentucky, and, yes, slave owners. Most of these I think are pretty amazing, though the last has stuck a needle in my hereditary happiness balloon. It's a strange thing, knowing your family was party to the greatest atrocity in the history of your country. At least, in my opinion it's the greatest atrocity, I guess there is a pathetically large amount of competition. I'm still chewing it over, but I think the only thing I can do is to sincerely apologize to any black people I meet with the last name Cole. Shar didn't understand why it was giving me trouble, and I pointed out to her that this raises the faint possibility that some distant relative of mine once owned a distant relative of hers, was maybe cruel and violent to that person.

Basically, as cool as it is to know my family was in some way responsible for the birth of this nation, the slave-owning part makes me remember why I've never looked much into my genealogy before: I've got enough weirdos in my family that I know about, without digging them up from two centuries ago.

Labels: Generalness

I am a total, absolute, over-the-moon, pathetic sucker for the following things:
Catchy piano hooks
Extended metaphors
Chicago rap
Crowd noise being incorporated into a beat
Kanye West



As such, I've been super stoked to have "Homecoming," my favorite song off Kanye's newester album, playing nearly nonstop on my radio dial. Go music!

Labels: Generalness, Mike Recommends or Trashes Random Shit

It's been an occasional preoccupation of mine, trying to figure out what to do with this blog. Ultimately I decided to do what I always do when I can't figure something out, writing-wise, which is to just throw stuff down on (virtual) paper and let it work itself out. So, I guess, that's more or less what I'm going to do. Maybe I'll post flash fiction once a week again, as I miss having a place to jot ideas down and work them out every now and then, almost as much as I don't miss the daily grind of doing the story blog. Other than that, I'll link to stuff I'm working on, and write about movies and books I'm sponging up through my eyeballs, and I guess whatever else I think of.

It's been a crazy month and a half (or however long it's been) since we got back. Actually if I'm being honest, it's been a crazy two weeks, with an amazing freelance opportunity I hope pays off, a regular job that should be taken care of in the next few days (I don't want to talk about it until the contracts are signed), and my novel humming along. I've been spending two full days every week with my grandpa, looking after him and making sure he doesn't fall, or that if he does fall he can get back up. It's been a sad experience, to be sure, but it's also been nice to spend time at that house regularly again—I spent countless weekends and summer days there, and the brown carpet and enormous back yard have made it easier for me, somehow, to remember when I was writing as a 13 year old and didn't give a shit how good at it I was. It's been a valuable mindset to recover.

Also, Casa de Shar & Mike has a new resident, namely Angie! We're very happy to have her for a few weeks, as she is one of our very favorite people in the world, and she's so compact we can store her in a closet or under the bed when necessary. A very convenient houseguest, indeed. Also: Dino Day! Officially, in the records of the universe, there's nothing better than Dino Day, so I'm happy to get another one going on July 13. Basically, a shitton of friends and family will be over watching dinosaur movies, eating dino cupcakes and having dino caricatures drawn of them all day. There may also be snacks or a raffle involved. Sounds mellifluous, no?

Anyway, if you're still checking the blog, thanks for doing that, and hopefully you won't find it stale very often in the future. Peace!

Labels: Generalness, Mission Statement