Sunday, September 12, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
SRPL Reflections: Other Clubhouses
In many of these posts I’ve referred to SRPL as a clubhouse and that it certainly was. I’ve been lucky enough to have several clubhouses in my life, and I think it’s about time I gave them their fair shake as I lament the loss of the one which was most primary.
I’d define a clubhouse as any meeting space where friends gather. In my life, I scrupulously avoided bars since I didn’t drink and didn’t like being around people who were drunk if I was never going to be.
One would think that would seriously limit my options, but I was lucky enough to have an active social life through the years. 99% of my friends hung out in bars at least some of the time, but I had enough people in my life that when one group was out pounding I could do something with those that weren’t. Also, a lot of my time in those years was spent with a girlfriend, and if they were dating me they weren’t going to those places.
It’s a complete fallacy to imply I never hung out in bars. I just never did when the order of the day was getting totally bombed. So I almost never went on weekends. For several years I did hang out in one bar in particular with my library friends (best Buffalo wings ever), but the rule was “booths only!”
Friends basements always made for good clubhouses (some better than others). In the real early days I spent the majority of my time hanging out in my friend Ed’s basement. Hundreds of movies were watched there and it was the site of my one foray into the world of drinking.
When he moved to Florida and I began spending more time with my other friends and my basement became the primary clubhouse. It was semi-finished, totally private and my parents were more than happy for me to have friends over. I’m sure they felt more comfortable knowing where I was so they put up with some occasional cackling pouring through the vents.
It was around this time I began chronicling our exploits on my state of the art (for 1985) video camera and if I were a mean guy I would post our adolescent musings on You Tube (actually theirs, not mine). I recently transferred about five years worth of the stuff to DVD and I cringe almost every time I hear myself speak, or I want to punch myself in the face…hard. Still, it’s great to have those time capsules.
Anyway, my basement lasted as a clubhouse until the late 90s when the “marriage boom” hit my group, and obviously ended officially when I got married in 1998.
The other big clubhouse for me was the Television Center at St. John’s University, and it’s one that sadly, always lost out to the library. I say sadly because I really loved the people there, and as I wax nostalgic about how wonderful and fabulous the library was, I don’t want these folks to get short shrift. That place and those people meant a great deal to me (and still do) but I was always ducking out to go to…the library.
I should back peddle a bit. When I started college all I did was go to class and go home. That was my m.o for two years until Girlfriend #1 lowered the boom on me. That event was a serious wake up call for me. Here I was, nearly a junior in college, and I had not joined any clubs or participated in any activities (except for a movie review gig at the student newspaper). I had not seriously considered my future and it was rapidly approaching.
I was a communications major and had chosen St. John’s partially for its state of the art television center. However, when I was a freshman (and I don’t think I ever told my TV Club friends this) I went up there to join the club and met a guy from high school who was also there to join. I really didn’t like him and wasn’t enamored of the idea of spending yet another four years with him, so I ditched it.
Two years later, I returned to take a summer class. I befriended two of the student workers there and found out there were part-time jobs available at the TV Center. Sounded perfect to me – hang out with nice people, learn a bit and get paid (slave wages). I applied and got the job and off I went. And my high school “frenemy” was nowhere to be found.
However, the siren call of the library (and a new girlfriend there) proved irresistible. I also had an expensive laser disc habit that I needed to support, so I worked as often as possible there. I was never at the TV Center later than early afternoon on any given day. My involvement compared to those of my friends was limited.
Sometimes I feel as though I missed out on a lot and I did, but I made my decision. My limited involvement certainly didn’t influence my career path. As soon as I got involved I realized the TV industry was not for me, and it cemented my desire to find a career in writing.
It became a running gag to hear me say that I needed to leave for the library, and I hope people never felt like they were “second class citizens” in terms of what they meant to me. When I graduated I realized how much I missed out on and for at least a year I would visit during their nightly editing sessions, something I never did as a student.
Over the years, I’ve tried to keep the clubhouse concept going through “movie nights” and “Geek Fests” with various constituencies so that sense of (mostly) male camaraderie could be preserved in some form or fashion, and I do have to give props to my wife for never impeding it and always being a gracious hostess.
Getting married and starting families does tend to take its toll on the clubhouse concept. The library has endured since it’s a job whose productive value equals its social value. God knows I’d never be able to see my friends with such frequency otherwise.
It can be argued that I spent too much time there, and it was somewhat detrimental to my growth (especially in those early post-college years), but there’s no point in analyzing that now. Today I just wanted to make it clear I am grateful for all the clubhouses, not just SRPL.
I’d define a clubhouse as any meeting space where friends gather. In my life, I scrupulously avoided bars since I didn’t drink and didn’t like being around people who were drunk if I was never going to be.
One would think that would seriously limit my options, but I was lucky enough to have an active social life through the years. 99% of my friends hung out in bars at least some of the time, but I had enough people in my life that when one group was out pounding I could do something with those that weren’t. Also, a lot of my time in those years was spent with a girlfriend, and if they were dating me they weren’t going to those places.
It’s a complete fallacy to imply I never hung out in bars. I just never did when the order of the day was getting totally bombed. So I almost never went on weekends. For several years I did hang out in one bar in particular with my library friends (best Buffalo wings ever), but the rule was “booths only!”
Friends basements always made for good clubhouses (some better than others). In the real early days I spent the majority of my time hanging out in my friend Ed’s basement. Hundreds of movies were watched there and it was the site of my one foray into the world of drinking.
When he moved to Florida and I began spending more time with my other friends and my basement became the primary clubhouse. It was semi-finished, totally private and my parents were more than happy for me to have friends over. I’m sure they felt more comfortable knowing where I was so they put up with some occasional cackling pouring through the vents.
It was around this time I began chronicling our exploits on my state of the art (for 1985) video camera and if I were a mean guy I would post our adolescent musings on You Tube (actually theirs, not mine). I recently transferred about five years worth of the stuff to DVD and I cringe almost every time I hear myself speak, or I want to punch myself in the face…hard. Still, it’s great to have those time capsules.
Anyway, my basement lasted as a clubhouse until the late 90s when the “marriage boom” hit my group, and obviously ended officially when I got married in 1998.
The other big clubhouse for me was the Television Center at St. John’s University, and it’s one that sadly, always lost out to the library. I say sadly because I really loved the people there, and as I wax nostalgic about how wonderful and fabulous the library was, I don’t want these folks to get short shrift. That place and those people meant a great deal to me (and still do) but I was always ducking out to go to…the library.
I should back peddle a bit. When I started college all I did was go to class and go home. That was my m.o for two years until Girlfriend #1 lowered the boom on me. That event was a serious wake up call for me. Here I was, nearly a junior in college, and I had not joined any clubs or participated in any activities (except for a movie review gig at the student newspaper). I had not seriously considered my future and it was rapidly approaching.
I was a communications major and had chosen St. John’s partially for its state of the art television center. However, when I was a freshman (and I don’t think I ever told my TV Club friends this) I went up there to join the club and met a guy from high school who was also there to join. I really didn’t like him and wasn’t enamored of the idea of spending yet another four years with him, so I ditched it.
Two years later, I returned to take a summer class. I befriended two of the student workers there and found out there were part-time jobs available at the TV Center. Sounded perfect to me – hang out with nice people, learn a bit and get paid (slave wages). I applied and got the job and off I went. And my high school “frenemy” was nowhere to be found.
However, the siren call of the library (and a new girlfriend there) proved irresistible. I also had an expensive laser disc habit that I needed to support, so I worked as often as possible there. I was never at the TV Center later than early afternoon on any given day. My involvement compared to those of my friends was limited.
Sometimes I feel as though I missed out on a lot and I did, but I made my decision. My limited involvement certainly didn’t influence my career path. As soon as I got involved I realized the TV industry was not for me, and it cemented my desire to find a career in writing.
It became a running gag to hear me say that I needed to leave for the library, and I hope people never felt like they were “second class citizens” in terms of what they meant to me. When I graduated I realized how much I missed out on and for at least a year I would visit during their nightly editing sessions, something I never did as a student.
Over the years, I’ve tried to keep the clubhouse concept going through “movie nights” and “Geek Fests” with various constituencies so that sense of (mostly) male camaraderie could be preserved in some form or fashion, and I do have to give props to my wife for never impeding it and always being a gracious hostess.
Getting married and starting families does tend to take its toll on the clubhouse concept. The library has endured since it’s a job whose productive value equals its social value. God knows I’d never be able to see my friends with such frequency otherwise.
It can be argued that I spent too much time there, and it was somewhat detrimental to my growth (especially in those early post-college years), but there’s no point in analyzing that now. Today I just wanted to make it clear I am grateful for all the clubhouses, not just SRPL.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
SRPL Reflections: Drama
’m going to let you all in on a rather pathetic little secret. I went to Chaminade for three reasons: it was five blocks from my house, I wouldn’t be eaten alive by any of the Neanderthals that bullied me in grammar school and I was terrified of the opposite sex. Sure, it was a good school and I was reasonably sure I could hack it, and if I did survive the experience it would be a valuable commodity in the future, but that was not uppermost in my mind.
During the high school years I “apprenticed” myself to my one cool friend. He had natural charisma and while it was fascinating watching him in action I just ended up living vicariously through him and came to be known as the quaint, geeky sidekick.
When he moved and high school ended I found myself aching for the soapy angst that my peers experienced long before me. I wanted some drama. And where did I finally find it? SRPL.
When I recall what passed for drama back then I can’t help but think of it as quaint. Real drama is bills, job loss, illness, death. Back then I searched out drama wherever I could find it, not just in matters of the heart, but who’s pissed at who, who got in trouble, who said what about who, etc.
There I found not only my own drama but became enmeshed in the drama of others and I have to say, for a straight arrow Catholic school boy, it was pretty invigorating (also heartrending, terrifying and joyful at the same time). The problem was that I dove into a world I wasn’t quite ready for. I needed a little seasoning and when I think back to my earliest days there I cringe.
Of course relationships dominate any discussion of drama. As I said I was really ill equipped to handle what I was reaching for. I hid away for four years at an all-boys school and reaped the consequences of it. At SRPL I was lucky because I worked with guys who were friends of mine long before we arrived there, so I was somewhat insulated and immediately accepted (I was the last to arrive).
All of us were desperate to have these experiences but I’d say we all lacked the tools. After almost a year of bumbling I finally got it right and settled into my first real relationship. I had never experienced such highs and lows in my entire life. It was like a drug. It was pure drama. Melodrama might be a better word.
Sometimes I wonder if I had experienced these things earlier in my life would I have been better equipped to handle them. I really doubt it. What I’ve observed as the years go by is that at whatever point in your life you experience this stuff all the silly drama manifests, especially if you’re in a group setting like SRPL was.
When we arrived at SRPL a group of friends seemed to gradually “cocoon” around us in the first year. Soon, a few of us were dating some of the girls and as the group became larger, well…let’s just say not everyone loved everyone else. Friction ensued and mini-dramas popped up here and there like little wildfires.
There were such a disparate number of personalities that all this was inevitable, I suppose. I’m certainly guilty of not handling certain incidents well and maintaining loyalty to certain individuals and throwing others to the wolves. After a few years dealing with my dramas and my friends dramas there were moments where I felt like, “This is what I wanted so badly??”
Those first 2-3 years at SRPL were fraught with drama and then I was lucky enough to experience drama from other quarters, which got to be a little too much for me to handle. Things started to cool down after a time. The larger SRPL group didn’t really last very long in the grand scheme. Eventually, we kind of ended up back where we started – just us guys. I enjoyed the quiet.
There was certainly more drama to be had, right up until I left. In fact, drama is what sent me packing from SRPL. But a funny thing happened when I came back four years later. I was the older guy watching and listening to the dramas of my younger colleagues and smiling that “oh how quaint” smile as they related their stories and I wondered if I could pay my mortgage or how I would buy a new car when my wife’s died, or how I would deal with my insane neighbor who I called the cops on.
I’m not saying that their drama was somehow less than mine - just different, no less real and no less meaningful. It’s a rite of passage. And I’m also not claiming I’m above the dramas and personality conflicts that occur between human beings now as I approach 40. I wish I was, but I am surely not.
What I will say is that I shun drama as much as possible now in the light of the issues that confront most people my age who are married and have families, but more than 20 years ago when I arrived at SRPL I was lapping it up with a spoon like a kid who had just discovered ice cream.
During the high school years I “apprenticed” myself to my one cool friend. He had natural charisma and while it was fascinating watching him in action I just ended up living vicariously through him and came to be known as the quaint, geeky sidekick.
When he moved and high school ended I found myself aching for the soapy angst that my peers experienced long before me. I wanted some drama. And where did I finally find it? SRPL.
When I recall what passed for drama back then I can’t help but think of it as quaint. Real drama is bills, job loss, illness, death. Back then I searched out drama wherever I could find it, not just in matters of the heart, but who’s pissed at who, who got in trouble, who said what about who, etc.
There I found not only my own drama but became enmeshed in the drama of others and I have to say, for a straight arrow Catholic school boy, it was pretty invigorating (also heartrending, terrifying and joyful at the same time). The problem was that I dove into a world I wasn’t quite ready for. I needed a little seasoning and when I think back to my earliest days there I cringe.
Of course relationships dominate any discussion of drama. As I said I was really ill equipped to handle what I was reaching for. I hid away for four years at an all-boys school and reaped the consequences of it. At SRPL I was lucky because I worked with guys who were friends of mine long before we arrived there, so I was somewhat insulated and immediately accepted (I was the last to arrive).
All of us were desperate to have these experiences but I’d say we all lacked the tools. After almost a year of bumbling I finally got it right and settled into my first real relationship. I had never experienced such highs and lows in my entire life. It was like a drug. It was pure drama. Melodrama might be a better word.
Sometimes I wonder if I had experienced these things earlier in my life would I have been better equipped to handle them. I really doubt it. What I’ve observed as the years go by is that at whatever point in your life you experience this stuff all the silly drama manifests, especially if you’re in a group setting like SRPL was.
When we arrived at SRPL a group of friends seemed to gradually “cocoon” around us in the first year. Soon, a few of us were dating some of the girls and as the group became larger, well…let’s just say not everyone loved everyone else. Friction ensued and mini-dramas popped up here and there like little wildfires.
There were such a disparate number of personalities that all this was inevitable, I suppose. I’m certainly guilty of not handling certain incidents well and maintaining loyalty to certain individuals and throwing others to the wolves. After a few years dealing with my dramas and my friends dramas there were moments where I felt like, “This is what I wanted so badly??”
Those first 2-3 years at SRPL were fraught with drama and then I was lucky enough to experience drama from other quarters, which got to be a little too much for me to handle. Things started to cool down after a time. The larger SRPL group didn’t really last very long in the grand scheme. Eventually, we kind of ended up back where we started – just us guys. I enjoyed the quiet.
There was certainly more drama to be had, right up until I left. In fact, drama is what sent me packing from SRPL. But a funny thing happened when I came back four years later. I was the older guy watching and listening to the dramas of my younger colleagues and smiling that “oh how quaint” smile as they related their stories and I wondered if I could pay my mortgage or how I would buy a new car when my wife’s died, or how I would deal with my insane neighbor who I called the cops on.
I’m not saying that their drama was somehow less than mine - just different, no less real and no less meaningful. It’s a rite of passage. And I’m also not claiming I’m above the dramas and personality conflicts that occur between human beings now as I approach 40. I wish I was, but I am surely not.
What I will say is that I shun drama as much as possible now in the light of the issues that confront most people my age who are married and have families, but more than 20 years ago when I arrived at SRPL I was lapping it up with a spoon like a kid who had just discovered ice cream.
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