The Cosmos: Hey Matt, remember that last blog post you wrote, where you said that all the tourists in Chiang Mai, Thailand were a bunch of jerks?
Me: Yes, I remember that.
The Cosmos: Well, guess what? I’m going to fill your vacation with so many friendly, awesome, really cool interesting people from every corner of the globe that you’re going to feel like a big giant stupid jerk for making such a gross generalization.
Me: Well…okay. I guess.
What can I say? I had a wonderful trip. Despite the somewhat melancholy tone of my last post, I had a great time. I met dozens of amazing people; Swedes and Scots and Brits and Poles and Germans and French and Hungarians. I got super drunk and had great conversations. I saw sights. I bathed elephants. It was excellent.
Although breaking into social circles remains something of a mystery to me. I’ve never been very good at it, and it always seems like magic when I manage to crack the ice and a group of strangers actually starts to treat me like a human being, and they go from seeming like standoffish dicks to being really great people. I suppose there’s a trick to it, but damned if I know what it is. It just happens sometimes.
Anyway, I’m not ready to be back. Every time I leave Chiang Mai, it gets a little bit harder. Picture me at the airport, trying not to cry in front of the taxi driver. It’s strange, how a place can get under your skin like this.
So, yeah. Here I am in Thailand. Why? Sometimes, when a man gets round trip tickets to the other side of the world for less than $600, a man’s just gotta go, you know?
I’ve been here once before, two years ago. And now I’m back.
This place stinks. It smells like trash and durian and fetid tropical dumpsters. It’s too hot. It’s more humid than a sauna. The traffic is insane. It’s filthy. I fantasize about running rampant through the streets with a pressure washer. There are staggering levels of poverty on display. The pavement is uneven. Buildings are thrown together. Everything is falling apart.
The Thai people are wonderful, gracious human beings, but the tourists are the biggest bunch of assholes you’ll ever want to meet. Snobby douchebag backpackers in paisley parachute pants and dreadlocks, do you even yoga, bro? Annoying flocks of Chinese grandmothers. Subtly condescending European retirees on holiday. Bald, troll-like German expat whoremongers in tank-tops with hairy shoulders. Loud, stupid drunk Australian teenagers.
So why do I love this place? I don’t know.
There’s something about this crazy, ancient city that keeps me coming back.
As usual, when I travel, I am surprised at what a solitary endeavor it is for me. I’m too old and square for the backpackers. I’m too young for the retirees. I have too much dignity for the whoremongers. I’m too introverted for the party crowd. So why am I even here?
This place is hard to explain. It is so many extremes, so many contradictions. So organic. It’s like what a city might be if nobody were in charge, and yet, somehow, it all just worked. It’s chaos, all the self-organizing splendor of a flock of birds or an ant’s nest. I’ve never met a friendlier people. It boggles my mind, how these locals, after being inundated with hordes of brash, ignorant tourists (not excluding myself) for generations, can continue to be so damned nice.
And so, even if I’m usually keeping my own company, even if I’m just reading a book and drinking a cappuccino in one of the hundreds of little coffee shops and restaurants in the old city and watching the world move by, like a post in a stream, somehow I just enjoy being a part of it.
Cheap food, cheap beer, cheap coffee. Wonderful, gracious, welcoming locals. A beautiful, vibrant culture.Thai massage for ten dollars an hour. No, not that kind of massage. An ancient, living city that manages to somehow be completely frantic and completely laid-back at the same time.
I haven’t explained it half as well as I’d like to, but I’m hungry and I need to go get some pad see ew for the equivalent of three dollars American.
Matt apologizes for the lack of posts and comment replies. He has been stuck in a flying death tube for 20 hours, and now needs to shower and eat. More updates to follow.
Artist’s statement: Matt Kincade uses vivid imagery, rhythm, and rhyming words written on paper to embody his inability to take himself, or life, or anything, all that seriously.
An Ode to Coffee, by Matt Kincade
Oh coffee, my lovely, my wonderful drug,
You’re beautiful steaming there inside my mug.
When, in the morning, I wish I was dead
The thought of you, baby, gets me out of bed.
So bitter and black
You’re my liquid crack
The welcome monkey on my back.
You exquisite thing, you beautiful bean,
Morning or evening or times in between.
True satisfaction is you in my cup
The only damned reason I even wake up.
You quicken my pulse, you sharpen my wits,
If I drink too much of you I get the shits.
Image credit: Matt Kincade, featuring his favorite tommy-gun mug.
I remember my excitement, way back when I was in high school, when I found out they were making more Star Wars movies. Those were difficult times to be a Star Wars fan, in that long stretch of time after Return of the Jedi and before The Phantom Menace. It was a long, dry season. I had the original trilogy on VHS. I played X-Wing and Tie Fighter on the PC. I built the Millennium Falcon model kit that I ordered via snail mail directly from the Lucasarts company store, located in the back pages of the Lucasarts Adventurer magazine. I read the paperback novels. But still, the pickings were slim.
Then one day, I found out that George Lucas was going to be making a new trilogy.
My childhood.
For you youngsters out there, I suppose I should explain that at the time, George Lucas was a god. The Star Wars trilogy and Indiana Jones were, quite literally, my childhood. The greatest science fiction and fantasy movies ever made, all brought to us by one man: George Motherfucking Lucas. In addition to that, his game company, Lucasarts, were putting out some of the best games of the era. X-Wing. Tie Fighter. Dark Forces. Full Throttle. Day of the Tentacle. Sam and Max. And if that wasn’t enough, his special effects company, Industrial Light and Magic, was a part of some of the best movies of the eighties and nineties. The man could do no wrong.
And so, when we all heard about the Star Wars prequels… well, I don’t think excitement really covers it. It was something closer to messianic fervor. The prophet has returned!
We waited for years, soaking up every bit of new information, poring over every new production still, marvelling at the new trailers. Ewan McGregor? Liam Neeson? Natalie Portman? Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson? We waited in line on opening day…
…and the movie was kind of a mess.
I mean, it was bad. It was more deeply bad, in more ways, than I care to explain. And I don’t have to, because the mad geniuses over at Red Letter Media made this series of Star Wars reviews that explains it better than I ever could. And they’re hilarious, and everyone should watch them.
I watched these reviews dozens of times, because they were just as obsessed as I with the question: What happened? How could something so good go so wrong?
And then Indiana Jones 4 happened. And I knew it had all been a lie.
The disappointment I felt, we all felt, was…it was more than disappointment. It was betrayal. It was the awareness that God makes bad things happen to good people. The discovery that Santa Claus isn’t real. The realization that The Wizard of Oz is just a man behind a curtain.
I suppose, at some point, all of our childhood idols must fall. But I have to admit I took it personally. I was angry at the man, at him personally, for ruining this thing that was such a big part of my life. That the originals were so good, and the prequels so bad, it made him a fake. A phony. A con-man.
In some weird way, the Red Letter Media Star Wars reviews helped me heal. To put it all in perspective. Those reviews were the anger stage of my grief, they helped me work through it so I could move on. Some of it was just time and maturity. But at some point, I realized that anger is a curved blade. The bitterness I was holding onto wasn’t serving me. I was only hurting myself. George Lucas is only a man. A flawed man like the rest of us.
In retrospect, I can see how this sort of thing might warp a person’s self-perception.
As someone who now writes fiction, I understand just as well as anybody that sometimes you set out to create something great, and it doesn’t turn out that great. And sometimes you’re so blinded by your love for your creation that you just can’t see it. I’d imagine it doesn’t help to have millions of fans convincing you that you can excrete gold coins.
Did George Lucas fall into the classic Hollywood trap, believing his own hype, surrounding himself with yes men, avoiding those that might give him an honest critique, instead listening those who fawned at his boots? Probably. Did he try to do it all himself, as befits the genius prophet that we all convinced him that he had to be, rather than engaging in the creative collaboration that movies require? Yeah, it certainly looks that way. But maybe it all happened because he was trapped in the cage we created for him.
And let’s not forget, the man created Star Wars. And for that, I’m willing to forgive a lot.
And so to you, George Lucas, I’d like to apologize. I was angry. I was hurt. I thought some bad thoughts. I dwelt on it more than I probably should have. I said a lot of hurtful things about you, both in person and online. But I’m sorry. A few bad movies don’t justify any of that.
George Lucas, I would like to sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart, for bringing Star Wars into existence, for creating the universe that brought me so much joy and entertainment over the years. Thank you for letting me play in your sandbox. I know, this marvellous universe being your baby, you must care about it more deeply than I, and I’m sure that your limitations as a father to that baby hurt you more than they ever hurt me. In light of Disney’s acquisition of the franchise, I would like to thank you for having the dignity and the wisdom to let your baby go out into the world.
Thank you for Star Wars. Thank you for Indiana Jones.
You’re probably going to think this story is fiction. But it happened.
It was a dark and stormy night.
That’s a pretty cliché way to start a story, I know. But in this case it actually was a dark and stormy night. I was living in a flimsy little house in the woods at the top of a hill, and there was a ripping rainstorm outside. The wind howled. The pine trees swayed. Rain lashed the windows.
So, me and Emily decided it would be a good night to try the Ouija board. Continue reading →
I don’t know about the good book, but I can tell you about a good book. The prologue and the first three chapters of my upcoming action/horror novel, The Devil’s Mouth, are available for free! Give it a read! See what you think! And then when you think it’s totally awesome, you can read the whole thing when it comes out in April. Really, what do you have to lose?
I knocked on the old, warped door. It opened a crack, and James’ face appeared. His eyes were red. He looked pale and gaunt. He eyed me nervously.
“Hey, James.”
He looked around at the street behind me. “Hey man. Haven’t seen you around in a while.”
“Yeah, I’ve just been busy. How’ve you been?”
“Good.” He looked at me for another few seconds, then opened the door and stood aside so I could enter.
The curtains were drawn in the tiny living room. There was a new Pink Floyd poster on the wall. Black Sabbath played on the stereo. Against one wall lay a disassembled drum kit, a guitar in a soft-sided case, and a guitar amp.
Three total strangers sat on the stained, threadbare sectional couch; two men and a girl. They watched me suspiciously while I entered the room. Paranoia hung heavy in the tobacco-stained air.
Soda cans and beer bottles covered the coffee table, except for the space that had been cleared away for a piece of mirror. On the mirror was a pile of white powder, a razor blade, and a section of McDonald’s soda straw. White with the red and yellow stripes.
James sat down. He picked up the razor blade and resumed chopping the white powder, finer and finer. The others sat hunched over, watching him like a lonely man watches a stripper.
I sat down at the end of the couch. Nobody said a word.
Five people in the room, including me. James pushed the coke into five little lines on the mirror. He handed me the straw.
With a shrug I put the straw to my nose, bent down, and inhaled.
The world brightened and snapped into Kodachrome focus. My face went numb. That old, familiar bitterness ran down the back of my throat. Suddenly the shabby room felt like home. I felt like a million bucks. “Shit,” I said.
James smiled for the first time. “Right?”
The strangers relaxed. The ritual was complete, the test passed. They smiled, laughed and leaned back on the couch. One by one they bowed their heads and did a line. James lit a cigarette.
I stayed for fifteen minutes or so, making small talk, catching up on old friends.
Finally, I stood up and said, “Hey man, I gotta go. I just wanted to drop by and say hi.”
“Cool, man.” James pulled out a small bag of white powder. “You want one for the road?”
“Nah, I’m good. Hey, while I’m here, why don’t I grab my guitar and my amp?”
James managed to look a little hurt. “It’s not taking up any space, if you want to come by and jam sometime.”
“Nah, I need it. This guy I work with plays base. He wants to jam.”
James nodded slightly. “Oh. Okay.”
I picked up my Strat in one hand, the guitar amp in the other.
A short essay that got out of hand and became a long essay
Automation is coming. It’s coming sooner than you think. Self-driving cars are getting better every day. Artificial intelligence is getting better every day. Dozens of companies are throwing money at the problem; dozens of different technological innovations are converging. Within my lifetime, and probably much sooner than that, we’re going to see the Apple II of general purpose robotics, and then it’s game over.
It’s no secret that middle class, blue-collar jobs have been bleeding away for decades. For the average Joe, a large percentage of the jobs remaining are either retail, manual labor, or driving. And we’ve already got self driving vehicles. It’s only a matter of time before these are widely implemented, and then you can kiss driving jobs (the most popular jobs in 29 states, the trucking industry accounting for 8.7 million jobs) goodbye.
And what’s left? Yes, there are still actual grown-up career jobs out there. But cashiers and retail salespeople alone make up six percent of the workforce. Throw in janitorial, food service,and warehousing, and you’re up to something like twenty percent.
Keeping that in mind, watch the following two videos and ask yourself how much longer it’s going to be Continue reading →
What can I say? I had a wonderful trip. Despite the somewhat melancholy tone of my last post, I had a great time. I met dozens of amazing people; Swedes and Scots and Brits and Poles and Germans and French and Hungarians. I got super drunk and had great conversations. I saw sights. I bathed elephants. It was excellent.
This place stinks. It smells like trash and durian and fetid tropical dumpsters. It’s too hot. It’s more humid than a sauna. The traffic is insane. It’s filthy. I fantasize about running rampant through the streets with a pressure washer. There are staggering levels of poverty on display. The pavement is uneven. Buildings are thrown together. Everything is falling apart.
There’s something about this crazy, ancient city that keeps me coming back.
And so, even if I’m usually keeping my own company, even if I’m just reading a book and drinking a cappuccino in one of the hundreds of little coffee shops and restaurants in the old city and watching the world move by, like a post in a stream, somehow I just enjoy being a part of it.
Matt Kincade 