Turn Up The Volume, New Paltz

Excuse me, as I turn up the volume. Oh, didn’t you hear? New Paltz is facing a noise ordinance. Which bands do you like? R.E.M.? Pearl Jam? The Rhodes? Ghost Mall? I really like Motion City Soundtrack and Jimmy Eat World. I know that’s a bit emo. But hey, this is New Paltz, and this is quite the noisy town. Oh, I guess I’ll just have to blast something I’m really good at blasting: My words.

New Paltz without noise is like a film without a soundtrack, it’s like a country without a president, it’s like a bar without beer and it’s like a newspaper without articles. This noise ordinance being proposed by the mayor is more than just about New Paltz and its noise level. It’s about the soul of this town. It’s about the music scene. It’s about the college town we are. And believe me; this is coming from someone who hates noise. I’m a quiet soul. I like to write and read, and I like it to be quiet. Though, I love this town and I will not see it be changed by a mayor who wants to turn this into just another town. No. No. New Paltz is a college town. Not a quiet suburb. And it’s time for us college students to fight against the noise ordinance being proposed by the mayor. I ask you; fellow New Paltz residents to stand against the noise ordinance. Turn up the volume and blast Mayor Dungan. It’s time for New Paltz to fight back. Not quite sure what I am talking about? Well. Let’s look at the noise ordinance.

The Noise Ordiance reads that “Otherwise hereinafter provided, it shall be unlawful within the limits of the Town of New Paltz for any person to make, continue, aid, countenance, cause to be made or assist in making any unreasonably loud, disturbing and unnecessary noise on Sunday commencing at 8:00 p.m. and continuing through and including Monday at 7:00 a.m. and during the same hours upon each successive evening and morning of each successive day of the week thereafter through and including Saturday at 7:00 a.m. and on Saturday commencing at 8:00 p.m. and continuing through and including Sunday at 9:00 a.m.; provided, however, that the foregoing hours shall be extended until the hour of 9:00 am.” That’s right. Kiss your weekend goodbye, New Paltz. Mayor Dungan wants you to give up your drunken weekend and loud bar nights because he wants it to be quiet on a freaking weekend. I hate to sound like a party animal spoiled brat, but hey! I’m writing this for your own good, New Paltz. This is New Paltz. This isn’t the little hometown you came from. Let’s be honest, fellow New Paltz students. Do you want to give up your weekend nights?

Mayor Dungan wants you to. He wants peace and quiet. And hey, when I’m studying or not going out to the bar myself, I understand the need for peace and quiet. Though, I am willing to give up my discomfort about noise in order for the greater good of New Paltz. The Noise Ordinance reads that “Yelling, shouting, etc.: yelling, shouting, hooting, whistling or singing on the public streets, particularly between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. or at any time or place so as to annoy or disturb the quiet, comfort or repose of persons in any office or in any dwelling, hotel or other type of residence or of any persons in the vicinity.” Here, we go again. The Mayor wants to fine you for talking too loud and singing. That’s inane. And I bet, he knows it, and I am willing to bet that this isn’t about just about noise. I feel like this noise ordinance is about a radical transformation of the town of New Paltz.

Notice the language that is used in the New Paltz Noise Ordnance for noises that are deemed acceptable. The ordnance states that “lawnmowers” and “church bells”, as well as noises created by carnivals and the local government and industries shall be excused. It’s ironic that it mentions local industry. What? The bars on Saturday night aren’t a local industry? If it wasn’t for the revenue the students of New Paltz, bring to this town, New Paltz could end up another ghost town. And what about the New Paltz music scene that is so embedded in our town’s culture. This noise ordinance is aimed towards the students of New Paltz. That’s a shame because, as I said, I love New Paltz, and I would hate it to transform into just another town along the freeway. Check out the facebook group "Say No to the New Paltz Noise Ordinance". So join me, New Paltz. And bring your boomboxs.

My Favorite Anime's

I usually write longer posts than this. Essays on current ideas, films and events. Though, for a while, nothing has really presented itself for a column, so I decided to simply suggest some of my favorite animes in a short blog post. What you see is a picture from Haibane Renmei, an anime I love. In fact, when I was working on an unfinished fantasy novel I have on my shelf, I was thinking of Haibane Renmei alot. It's a mysterious anime and a very good one. I also am writing this for those new to anime. I think these are good places to start. One of the things I love about anime is often it's characters are just so lovable. You just want to climb into the world of that anime and live there.

1. Fooly Cooly- What can I say about FLCL? It’s like ‘Catcher in the Rye’ on drugs. The story of a kid named Naota, a lonely and angry kid with a guitar and a single father who would rather be a jerk than help his son whose mother is never mentioned and whose brother is over in the U.S. playing baseball. One day he is run over by a motorcycle with Haruko on it, who is a women who may or may not be a alien. What follows is a mixture of bizarre events coupled with a coming of age story. At the beginning of FLCL, Naota says nothing ever happens in his town. By the end, he is proven that sometimes things do happen in town, yet not even he can explain what those things were.

2. Haibane Renme- The story of a girl who wakes up as an angel creature. She has wings and a halo, yet, she isn’t quite sure what she is. She’s a haibane. And she lives in a castle with others like her. She can’t remember what she is. All she remembers is that she was falling through the sky at the beginning of the anime. And thus, the anime becomes something of a meditation on life and the mystery of it.

3. Genshiken- This might of been the Big Bang Theory before the Big Bang Theory. It’s the story of a group of nerds who run an anime club. It’s an anime about an anime club. A freshman, Kanji, who is just coming to terms with the fact that he is an otaku, the Japanese word for nerd, finds a place he belongs among these outcasts who start an anime club. Things get even weirder when they find that a girl wants to join their club. A fairly attractive girl. They are baffled, and thus start one of the funnier animes I’ve ever seen.

4. Eureka Seven- This anime is about a boy and an alien girl. Ok, that sounds cliché and boring. Though, try not to fall in love with the characters. The main character is a boy named Renton, who lives on a spaceship with its crew. One day there is a crash and Eureka emerges. She is a pale young girl with turquoise hair. She is also awkward and has trouble communicating with humans. And so does a young teenage boy. And thus, Renton falls in love with Eureka.

A Writer at 24

I usually write film or book reviews on this blog or tidbits on how to write. I don’t usually write just random pieces about myself. I like to stay on topic. Though, I guess now that I’m turning twenty four, I think I should write about some things I am happy and disappointed about. Some things I’m happy about are that I have an elegant writing style and dry wit that has gained a following, and wide syndication on the internet. My goal is to break out of internet syndication and be put into syndication in newspaper. I still love that feeling of being published on paper. I know I was born in the wrong era. Also, I want to write a novel, and be sure to win a Pulitzer Prize. I hope that my reviews of film and books are better than just fan boy raves or rants, as often so much of the criticism on the web tend to be. I also hope some people get some use out of my writing advice columns. My goal is ultimately a few things which are to write novels and a syndicated column, and to win a Pulitzer Prize for commentary or criticism. We can’t forget that Pulitzer, because I plan on putting that on every book cover of my series of fantasy novels aimed towards children, as well as my adult novels written in the style of Nick Hornby. I hope though that my elegant poses really get noticed, and this blog leads to a job (hopefully at a newspaper). Also, that my memoir “I’m Annoying” becomes a national bestseller, and gives hope to hopeless college students across the nation. They’ll say, hey, this guy was annoying too, and made a career out of it. Maybe I can too.

Though, I mean the good kind of annoying. Not the Rush Limbaugh, holier than Gawd, kind of annoying. My goal is to, while I ponder what my novel is going to be, is get a job at a newspaper. I want to write either reviews or columns. I started to write columns when I was still in high school, writing commentary about politics, technology, film and life in general. The title ‘columnist’ just seems to fit me. I’ll write conservational poses. It’s like we are talking on a bench about the subject I am writing about, and it’s that folksy unique lookout on life that’s going to get my column syndicated to five hundred newspapers, plus the book collections of columns and the speaking engagements, as I sit inside my nice house, polishing my Pulitzer Prize, than I will write a series of fantasy novels for kids and a adult novel that will all be bestsellers, as my readers of the newspaper column will follow me into the bookstore stacks and hand over hard earned cash to buy books with my name on it. See my dashing picture above the column every week in the newspaper, as I embarrass my future children by writing about them in my syndicated humor column.

Than I will remind my children that it is my syndicated column that had paid for the roof over their head. And it’s that column that will pay for their future therapy sessions. After all, I will tell them, I went to New Paltz. My mom asked me the other day why New Paltz doesn’t have a P.E. requirement like SUNY Binghamton that my brother attends, does. I told her that the only thing we exercise at New Paltz is our emotions. Of course, I’ll attend liberal New Paltz, and be liberal, until I make a million bucks from this column people post on their fridge and then I’ll turn conservative like P.J. O’ Rourke or Charles Krauthammer or George Will. Not like Ann Coulter. I mean the lovable conservatives. The ones, who have a sense of humor, like Dave Barry. The problem is that first of all, I need a syndicated humor column that people find cute. As I write about my kid’s cute problems and complain about my wife. Than people will post up the newspaper column on their fridge and go, yes, that guy has the same problems as I do. Like, little do they know, I do and I don’t. After all, I am an elitist of the mainstream media. After reading about a horrible event on the cover, they will turn to the opinion pages to read about my latest adventure, finding humor in everyday life.

Anyway, those are my future plans. Also, that my syndicated column gets turned in a sitcom that runs for around eighty eight episodes, than gets sold into syndication. Did you know that Dave Barry had a sitcom based on him and ‘8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter’ is also based on a humor column. The humor column was by W. Bruce Cameron. He started out writing humor columns on the internet, which soon led to him being the most e-mailed columnist on the web. Soon after, he got a job for the Rocky Mountain News writing a humor column. After that, syndication followed. Then a sitcom based on his column about his teenage daughters. So, both of those guys ended up divorced. It didn’t stop them from writing humorous antidotes about their family life. Though, I’ll never have to worry about that. I’ll never divorce a woman who finds my annoying personality charming. And after, all that’s why coffee was invented.

So I have a fictional version of myself on TV. Hopefully with a better looking wife than the one I’ll end up with. Also, a better looking me, and cuter kids, and then as I said, the name ‘Alec Horowitz’ will be a brand name. It’ll be a name people turn to when they want a column to put on their fridge because the story I told was either humorous or touched their hearts. Also, because I won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, and my humor column provides them with some solace in their depressing lives. But hey, I only say this is my business plan because writing these humorous little columns seems to be the only skill I have. Maybe I should have taken up something else in my 24 years on this planet. Oh, I don’t know. Like skydiving or modeling. After all, I do have a face for pictures. Think of the girlfriend I could have had. And think of the girlfriend you could have had.

Tips On Writing

Recently, the Huffington Post ran a piece about the new rules for writers. After reading the piece, I thought to myself that it was time to get back to basic rules for writing. So, here are my rules for writing.

1. Read. I can’t tell you how important that is. I can’t stress that enough. I can’t tell you how many people come up to me and tell me they are writers, yet they don’t have time to read or don’t really like to read but yet they say they are amazing poets or great storytellers. Nothing against Harry Potter, but if you’re going to re-read Harry Potter fifty times, and read nothing else, then that’s not really preparing yourself for being a writer. That being said, J.K. Rowling is amazing at back story and clear poses. She has some great lessons to teach those who want to write. Though, if you love fantasy for example, and Harry Potter introduced you to it, then you should explore further in that genre. Nothing wrong with that genre. You need to either read more then one thing or explore further in a genre you love. Saying you want to be a writer and not reading, is like saying you want to be a musician but don’t listen to music or that you want to be a swimmer but don’t like water. Also, it doesn’t matter what kind of writer you want to be. Sometimes those who want to be TV writers or screenwriters find that they watch a ton of movies or study the sitcom, they think that’s the key to writing. It’s not. At the end of the day, what you write is meant to be read, weather by actors or kids or adults or whatever. To write what is meant to be read, one has to read.

2. Write. You need to write. Maybe you won’t write the greatest thing right off the bat. Very few people sit down and write Harry Potter or Carrie the first time. Those few are the lucky ones. Maybe you will write short stories. With creative writing, be prepared to be disappointed with your first few attempts. You have to learn pacing. As I learn the art of fiction, I can’t tell you how many times I go into my bad habits. I love to get the story moving right off the bat, often. Within five pages, I know if my character is a wizard, vampire, robot curious about its own existence or government project. Or simply, if it’s a more realistic character, I will have it tell you its problem right off the bat. Pacing is tough. We didn’t know that Potter was a wizard or Carrie had powers until we got introduced to the world they inhabited first. You need to leave clues (yet again, another thing both Rowling and King are great at) but it’s so temping to right off the bat get to the exciting part.

3. Practice. I write mostly film and book reviews for this blog. A blog is a great place to get your stuff out there. Though, if you are going to blog, I think you should write out every blog entry onto a regular word document first. Approach every blog entry as if you’re writing a piece for a newspaper. Your Roger Ebert writing a movie review. Not some guy writing a piece for a blog. Write about a topic. Don’t just write a piece about what you ate for lunch. Writing non-fiction is a good way to start. Write about what already exists, while on the side you try to pace your dreams into workable fiction.

4. Stick with it. You might have a couple thousand cracks at that first novel. What should it be? The kid discovers he’s a wizard, angel, robot, knight in training, or an alien? Try out all your ideas and see which one takes off. If the outlandish isn’t working for you, then maybe you should try to write a novel about something you have experienced in life yourself. Or write short stories for all your ideas. Perhaps that’s better. A novel is a daunting task and a commitment. As I said, we all can't be Stephen King or J.K. Rowling or Dean Koontz (how does Stephen King, by the way, seem to publish a novel every twenty minutes but can't crank out a column for Entertainment Weekly on a weekly basis?)

5. And finally, good luck. As I said in my column on how to write columns, make me proud.

Saddle Up. The Coen Brothers Take On The Old West

Three and a half stars


Saddle up. The Coen Brothers are back in town. This time they are heading off to the old west for a re-make of ‘True Grit’, the John Wayne classic. The story involves a young girl named Mattie (Hailee Steinfield) as she is grieving for her murdered father. Well, maybe grieving isn’t quite the word. This girl has grit, and she wants revenge for her father’s murder. She wants to see Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) punished for her father’s murder. She wants him brought to justice. So, she hires Rooser Cogburn (Jeff Bridges, being well, Jeff Bridges) to track down this man Chaney and bring him to justice. Meanwhile she also meets, LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) who is also trying to track down Chaney because he murdered a senator in Texas. All in all, this Chaney fellow sounds like a bad dude. And in the old West, you get hanged if you mess around in the wrong way.


This film has all the quirkiness you expect from a Coen Brothers film. Hailee Steinfield is perfect as Mattie. She doesn’t flinch at all. She keeps looking straight ahead. An eye on the prize, as her mission is to bring Chaney to justice. Steinfield is this character. She is in every scene of this film. This is her first role. People mistake her for weak because she is a fourteen year old, though, throughout the film, she proves herself to be as strong willed as the other characters on the trail of Chaney. She is the quirky hero the Cohan Brothers love to have in their films.

Jeff Bridges plays a new version of the John Wayne role. When he looks at a dying man on the floor, he says “I can’t help you, son!” He rides his horse and he carries around that big gun, and aims it. You get the sense that the Coen Brothers are trying to adapt the novel as straight forward as possible. There are scenes in this movie that are wonderfully done. There are also scenes both crowd pleasing and not crowd pleasing. They try to keep the grittiness of the old west intact.


Bridges talks in a tone where he doesn’t flinch. He is on the mission alongside Mattie, trying to find Chaney. Matt Damon is alongside him. He does some fine acting as the less eccentric one on the trip. Mattie wants Chaney brought to justice badly. Chaney, though, isn’t that easy to come by. Bridges obviously goes full out, relishing his cowboy role.

You can tell the Coen Brothers are trying very hard to show their love for the western genre, like when the music plays when Mattie opens up her father’s processions and takes out an old western looking gun. Bridges is riding a horse, with Maddie, with the backdrop of a beautifully shot star studded background. The final act is beautifully shot. Some might think that the Coen Brothers are a little too quirky for the western genre. And in some ways, they are. They give a sense of humor to Bridges as he is the hired gunman on the trip. They try hard to keep the sense of a western alive. At times, it's hit or miss. Though, the Coen Brothers keep the story alive with their takes on the memorable characters.

I haven’t read the original novel, but one gets the sense that the Coen Brothers are truly adapting the novel. The feel of the film is that of a story that might have been written by an old western writer. I’m not sure it will win any Oscars, but I don’t think the Coen brothers made it for that reason. Old fashioned horses. Old fashioned guns. And an old fashioned law man and one determined teenage girl in the old west. The Coen brothers wanted to play cowboy. Shoot em up!

Where All The Phonies are Greek Gods

Percy Jackson is an angry kid with ADHD and dyslexia. He goes to a special school for kids with learning disabilities. Little does he know he has a very special reason for why he has learning disabilities, and we know that right off the bat, because this is a fantasy novel. And in a fantasy novel, every angry kid has a reason for the problems they have. Harry Potter’s not just an abused orphan. He’s a wizard. Percy Jackson isn’t just a kid with learning disabilities. He never knew his father. Do you want to take a guess of who his father is? Author Rick Riordan, fortunately, doesn’t do the wizard route, so you can check off the guess that’s Percy’s father is a famous wizard. Nor is he half vampire. His father is a Greek God. So, thus, Percy is whisked away to a camp of kids who are half bloods---the same title kids in the ‘Harry Potter’ books have when they have a muggle parent and a magical parent---so, basically kids who have a God parent and a human parent. So, basically Gods have kids with humans, and leave the humans to raise the kids. Ok, this series is the beginning to a series of young adult novels. The ‘Harry Potter’ crowd is clearly the intended audience. That being said, I enjoyed Rick Riordan’s sense of humor and adventure in his first book ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Theif’.

Soon after, Percy arrives at camp, having to leave his school after one of his teacher’s turns into a monster and tries to attack Percy, he spends time getting used to his new surroundings. The name of the camp is Camp Half-Blood, and it's a camp for kids who are half God. Thus, he also discovered a little later on that his best friend, Glover, is a protector called a Stayr, and there he meets a girl named Annabeth, who is the daughter of Athena. Soon, enough, Percy discovers he can breathe underwater, and thus is the son of Poseidon. Now, I’m not scholar in Greek mythology. Heck, I hardly made it through Greek and Roman literature in college. Riordan does a good job, though, of incorporating mythology in a way that kids will understand. Soon, Percy is accused of being the lightening thief, and he and his friends end up on the run. They have to go across country, because the entrance to the underworld is in a recording studio in Las Angles. That’s pretty quirky right there. Soon, Percy is accused of many things. Being a run away and being reported on in the news. He only has his two friends and his trusty new sword, Riptide, to keep his company.

Rick Riordan’s book is quirky and obviously written for a young audience. Though, the question I had been that isn’t it weird that the Gods had relationships with humans, and left them to raise the kids by themselves. Anyone who took Greek and Roman literature in college knows that Gods do interfere with human lives often. The Gods in Riordan’s universe are no different. Yet, Riordan does make his Gods very quirky. He has Gods as camp counselors. The certain Gods unlucky enough to be stuck at Camp Half-Blood are bitter. Of course, this idea of a camp for kids who are a bit magical sounds a little familiar to those who are regular readers of the magical school genre. Riordan, though, keeps a sense of humor through the book, and keeps the action regularly going, thus keeping the reader turning pages.

Though, it has to be asked. It’s kind of weird that a God would meet a human on the beach, and thus leave her pregnant. There’s an adult book somewhere in this. I had to wonder the logic of these Gods having kids with humans and than walking out. Does that make the Gods jerks? Hmmm, I guess even Gods have their faults. Just like wizards and magical folks have their faults in the fantasy genre that was spurred on by the success of books like Harry Potter. ‘Percy Jackson’ is a good page turner, and will keep your young ones reading.

Percy Jackson is an angry kid, with a bit of Holden Caulfield in him. He’s from New York City. He doesn’t like his mom’s live-in boyfriend. And isn’t that the appeal of the fantasy genre, anyway? That the explanation to your problems and bad situation is something out of this world? What’s more out of this world than Greek Gods or wizards? And it’s something all children would like to believe, I suppose. Your parents or mean live in guardians aren’t the cause of your problems. You don’t fit into the world because you happen to the spawn of Greek Gods and wizard folks. Cool.

Sometimes The Spookiest Thing Your Doing Is What Your Doing Right Now

William Gibson’s latest novel, ‘Spook Country’ is about three people who are connected by the paranoia of the modern technological world and that feeling we get, like Hollis Henry, a former rock star, now a budding journalist who can’t seem to escape the Google search anyone can do on her. She sits in an airport and than she starts to get that creepy feeling she is being watched. Maybe the man she met is taking pictures of her behind her back? Maybe the security cameras are focusing on her? Maybe it’s all in her mind? Everywhere she goes, as she tries to start over as a journalist, the people she tries to interview just want to talk about what happened to that band they all loved in college, The Curfew. Not only is she stuck with the past of herself on a poster, she’s also working for a online magazine that may or may not exist called the Node, that is run by a guy named Bigend.

There are two other characters with problems in Gibson’s novel. Tito, meanwhile, from a Cuban-American family in New York City is assigned by his uncles to hand over I-Pods with sensitive information over to a mysterious group. Than there’s Milgrim, an Ativan addict being held prisoner by a operative named Brown. Gibson modestly succeeds holding these three stories together. They aren’t directly related; except that Brown has ties to Tito’s family. As usual, Gibson’s characters are all tied together by the technology they interact with. Even if this isn’t one of Gibson’s classics like ‘Necromancer,’ ‘Idrou’ or ‘Pattern Recognition’, there is something to be said for being the more inventive of those writing techno thrillers. What other writer, for example, would think of using I-Pods as a way to transfer information?

Node Magazine for example, is another hallmark of a Gibson novel. An advertising executive named Bigend, who appeared in Gibson’s last novel, ‘Pattern Recognition’, runs Node Magazine. Mysterious, rich and having power over media and advertising, he is a creepy figure who is investing in Node Magazine and is a creepy figure to Hollis, as she tries to make sense of what she is really doing. Hollis keeps having the feeling that this magazine she is writing for, because it’s located on the internet and not in print, may or may not exist. The media effect becoming a non-hand held device is a constant theme in a Gibson novel as well. Just think back to his 1997 novel, ‘Idoru’, where the rock star character was in love with a virtual woman. The most interesting character in this book is Henry Hollis, and you often wish Gibson would just stick with her for the entire novel instead of going off with the other two characters, but it’s understandable why he doesn't. Sometimes with Gibson, the concept a character represents is more important. The concept Gibson has about I-Pods holding information is too interesting.

Even though Gibson said he has left science fiction to write about the present, what Gibson is really doing is writing a science fiction version of magical realism. Hollis is writing an article for the magazine on digital art, and that includes scenes of her putting on a virtual reality hamlet and her seeing the death of River Phoenix and her going under the projection of an anime like creature on the wall. All are little pieces of science fiction in what is a novel placed in our time. Gibson will never stop writing about that virtual light that stays lit throughout his novels. Hollis, Tito and Milgram are all connected by the technology that surrounds them and the technology that surrounds Gibson is what connects all of Gibson’s novels.