Anorexia

Posted 2:25 AM by sean
People tend to wear their disfunctions on their sleeves. If it isn't an eating disorder it's a struggle to battle addiction or to overcome a rotten childhood. We start wanting to be judged by what we *aren't* doing; that we need credit for overcoming our inclinations for bad behavior. Food is described as "sinful", running for an hour on a treadmill, one of the most absurd activites invented by man, is greeted with congratulations.

I quit smoking a year and a half ago in a flurry that deserves no attention and no credit to me. I suddenly lost the taste for it. Those of you who smoke will know this feeling, when you smoke a cigarette and it does nothing good for you, just makes you feel hollowed out like gallon of cookies and cream with all the oreo bits gone covered in freezer burn. That happened one day, the next cigarette was just as bad, the price of a pack jumped and I sorta wandered away from it. I had been trying to quit for years before, but sometimes the path makes it way for you and last May was when I was supposed to quit.

My ex was an anorexic. Not so's you'd notice, she never seemed to be unhealthy although she was always very trim. But it's the behavior that I identify with. Anorexics aren't trying to be thin, that is incidental. They are trying to find control, control over their world ultimately, but the have to begin with themselves. They deny themselves food because the weight loss and the feeling of hunger is their fault and they know they are in charge of it.

Fat people have the same thing. The feeling of fullness and the extra weight you have gained is your fault, you're in charge of it. And that's a refreshing feeling. You get angry when people congratulate you for losing weight, you resent feeling good about being thin. It's hard to explain this to people, but fat people want to be fat, they want to have reasons for the hate they feel and they want to be in control of who they feel it for.

I have enormous wellsprings of hate. I used to direct it at my dad, then I directed it at the "system" and the "world" and a thousand other groups of people. The reason this blog is called "Seanrants" is because I am pretty well known for just losing my temper and explaining, in long exhaustive detail, about how much shit is pissing me off.

But I know I'm wrong most of the time. Sometimes I still get angry for the right reasons, sometimes those deep wells of fury that burn inside of me, those reserves of magma-like hatred that make my back break out in boils, sometimes they come to the surface for rational reasons. But knowing that hasn't done anything to make me any happier, I have to take a two step approach; A) avoid the thing that fills me with fury and B) find ways to control my anger when it is undirected.

I have found that cooking really helps with my anger management. I really like to cook for other people. I cook a lot, I cook at unreasonable times, and I cook too much. I like to make big breakfasts, I like to make deserts, I love the way brown sugar feels and the way butter and flower mix in a pan. I put together dinner menus and I invite over people who don't make me furious and feed them food.

But this cooking of mine is essentially anorexia, and I know that. I am fascinated by cooking the same way I used to be fascinated by how much and how quickly I could alter my body. Strange to think that my anorexia does nothing to change my weight and actually makes the people around me fat. But allowing some self expression to come out like that, giving me something constructive to control, means I'm not going to blow up the next time someone does something horrible. I'm just going to walk away and bake some cookies.

Holiness

Posted 1:12 PM by sean
There is very little that I do with my life that can be considered holy. Almost everything involves some sort of earthly pursuit and always has. There has always been this great battle for sex and money and sensual experience. Also, despite the fact that I take other people's rituals very seriously, I have seldom taken my own with much more than a grain of salt.

The wedding that Jordana and I are about to have has been considered, for the last six months or so, a thing we are doing for other people. We have demurred and told people not to worry about it, we have laughed and tried to find ways to keep the whole thing grounded. Jordana in particular is the kind of person that desperately does not want to be the center of attention, and it has been painful for her, almost humiliating for her, to ask the people around her to do things for the wedding.

I think I may have turned a corner on the wedding. I think, considering the quality of the bride in this ceremony, that she ought to not be humble in asking for people's help and input. There are people who are celebrated constantly, who crave attention and need celebrity, and these people generally get what they want. When you prioritize your life like that, you will achieve your goals.

Jordana is a very private person, a person who is not going to try for the spotlight, a person who will probably never have too many festivals held in her honor. But she should, and this wedding is one night where she will. This is not a night to be taken lightly, if fifty thousand dollars are going to exchange hands for this one night, and it is a night that is celebrating not only our union but the fact that this one beautiful strange creature, who has been wildly misunderstood her whole life, has a chance for marital happiness, then maybe everyone, inluding me, should take it very seriously.

The really wonderful thing about this is that my immediate family has been celebrating this wedding not only because Jordana makes me so happy, but because she makes them so happy. My mom said it best, that she was celebrating the marriage because she got to have Jordana join the family. So maybe I shouldn't worry so much about it.

In Your Hands

Posted 9:01 AM by sean
Jerry Falwell stated, at the 1992 Republican Convention, that there was a holy war being waged in the United States, the we are fighting over the spiritual soul of America. The Republicans lost that election and have been really good about distancing themselves from right wing Christian quacks ever since, but that's not my point. My point is that he's right, and I am asking you to fight.

The fight isn't where you might think it is. It isn't at Abortion clinics and synagogues, although those are important battles and we have to continue to join hands against hate and ignorance...

Yeah, that's right. I said "join hands".

...we have to continue to join hands against hate and ignorance, but that isn't a fight we can lose simply by being lazy. The fight is in our minds. It is a war against the worship of celebrity that is more in our hands than any other fight, and it is just as important.

Please, turn it off. When the TV is showing you celebrities at nightclubs, grainy video of some heiress in her underwear, turn it off. Just turn it off. It's become a self-feeding monster, and it's up to you to stop it. When the daytime TV shows were showing endless loops of White Supremacists and people who slept with their boyfriend's dads, we started turning it off and rising above it, and now it's time to do the same with the Hilton sisters and the stars of Smallville.

Boycott the E! channel. Boycott red carpet coverage. Boycott Parade magazine and People magazing and yeah, even Rolling Stone if they can't get their shit together. You make yourself small when you oogle, when you stop and stare as someone does the simple act of *walking*, when you celebrate someone because of their simple *existence*, you lower the level of discourse in our country. When you have an opinion about a famous person's marriage, you're burning calories that could be used for *masturbation*, which is a useless tast, but at least one with an iota of satisfaction at the end.

There is a fine line, to be sure. My brother Ian wants to talk to artists he admires at weddings, and that isn't this. For me it exists somewhere that side of the Osbournes and this side of The Osbournes. The TV show is brilliantly edited and masterfully put together, it is an allegory on family love, the makers of it demand craft and they should be celebrated.

But then, on MTV, Kelly Osbourne sings at the MTV music awards and Jack videotapes her, and on The Osbournes, on the same network, we watch Jack videotaping Kelly at the MTV music awards, and then, on E!, owned by the same company as MTV, we watch Kelly and Jack arrive at the MTV movie awards, and then on Entertainment Tonight, produced by the same company but in syndication, they run a piece on Jack and Kelly at the MTV movie awards...

We need to turn it off. I'm not kidding. I don't want to talk about who is famous, I want to talk about who is good. The film-makers behind the TV show The Osbournes are brilliant, the members of the Osbourne family haven't done anything yet to garner any attention. Ozzy had his moment, but none of the rest of them have earned their celebrity. You are making this happen, you are creating a cult of personality, you are excusing drug addicts and rapists, or passing judgement on them unfairly.

I'm gonna say it. You are creating the same environment that leads to totalitarian dictators. They had pictures of Saddam and Lenin covering their walls, we have pictures of Ashton Kutchner.

I know you will be tempted to drop me a smarmy message about the fact that I couldn't possibly know all this unless I watch it myself, but I don't. My roommate has it on in the background a lot, and I have to hide in my room until it's over. Those *HOUR-LONG SPECIALS* that air *every night* featuring celebrities giving the camera the finger and trying desperately to be left alone. People, artists and sportsfigures who try to eat a meal or go to a gathering and get harrassed by people demanding autographs and pictures, people who are recognized by the fact that others recognize them, this needs to be stopped and only we can stop the supply side of the economics that drives this ridiculous machine.

Don't laugh at how dumb the girls are on reality TV. You're the asshole that is making that dumb girl rich. Don't sneer at a celebrity's behavior. You're the asshole that makes him think he is above reproach.

The Boss

Posted 1:19 PM by sean
I refer to my mom as "Boss" in the studio because, well, I like refering to her that way and also it clears up any kind of nepotism problems we might have anywhere outside of Utah. In Utah, if you aren't hiring your family members then you don't have enough kids.

The main knock on my mom is her apparent arrogance. I don't know if that's the right word, but the only time people get angry about my mom's behavior is when she says stuff like "I'm too talented to take out the trash", a wildly out of context misquote often attributed to her. Her adult ADD and her bad driving and stuff like that is all laughed about, but people have accused her of being haughty and judgemental.

The fact is, my mom is just a punk. Y'know that girl in high school? The slightly chubby one with the quick wit and the loud unreserved laugh? The girl with the mohawk and no money who bums cigarettes off you and invites herself to dinner and then makes you laugh? Wanna know what happens to her if she lives another 60 years? She becomes my mom.

I mean, the truth is, she couldn't give a fuck. Every once in a while I think she feels slightly underpolished, slightly tubby and ungraceful. And truth be told, she does run into stuff, a trait she handed down to me and my brother Kent. But you wanna know why she fedexes her underwear to her next gig? Because she doesn't want to carry them. Simple. It costs her ten bucks, and she's figured out what ten bucks buys her. It buys her the ability to not have to carry her crap around. She couldn't give a shit about that ten bucks.

Wanna know why she lost her keys and found them in the fridge? Because she was unloading the groceries, she set her keys on top of the cottage cheese, and she couldn't give a shit where her keys are. You can hang up your little key chain rack or put out a silver bowl, my mom is gonna put them wherever the hell she feels like it. Because she is actually punk. She's not doing it to be cool, she actually doesn't have the capacity to give a shit.

How much jewelry does she have? No clue. Floating around the United States there are gold chains and silver hoops, diamond earrings and opal necklaces, all of them owned at one time by my mom and set down in restaurants and on top of phone booths. Where are her nice clothes? In a box. Maybe in Oregon. Where's she's never lived. She doesn't know why. Even God doesn't know why. And neither of them care.

Wanna know why she's too talented to take out the trash? Well, she just is. But do you wanna know why she said it? Because it was a waste of her time. It was a fucking waste of her time, and her time was too damned wasted as it is. She should have had her trash taken out for her.

(Man, it's no wonder my parents marriage failed. Neither one of them should have been taking out the trash, and since all of us kids thought we were better than everyone else, none of us wanted to do it either.)

Yesterday, I woke up and made breakfast for everyone and then I cleaned the kitchen. I set the mouse traps and sat down and worked for about six hours. I worked with Jordana for about half an hour on her audition. I worked for an hour or so on my script for Lucretia. I took out the trash. I watched the end of Alias with Jordi, washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen, talked to some friends on the phone and went to bed.

I did these things because I am very talented, but I am also useless unless I am being of service to someone. I know that about myself, I went years thinking I was too talented to take out the trash, and those were sad years. Jordana picked up dinner after her audition. She is too talented not to get cast, too talented not to go to auditions, but not too talented to pick up Chinese food. She has taught me the value of service for people like us. Amazing people, brilliant people, but not rare, once-in-a-generation kind of people like my mom.

My mom is too talented to waste her time with bullshit, with dinners and jewelry and nonsense. If you get the chance to take some of her time, you'd better understand the quality of it, because she's also too kind to tell you to your face. If you get to be part of her family, if you get to eat with her, or if you get to work with her on music, then know that you are getting to be part of her non-wasted time, because these are the things that she is too talented not to spend her time doing.

Someone's got to take out the trash, I understand that. If all I can do for my mom while she's at my place is to be the guy who does that so she doesn't have to, then I hope I continue to do it.