Michael Haruto Oshima

It sneaked up on me so quietly that I missed it: sometime at the beginning of August marked 1 year of #nycHaiku. I don’t know why I started, so I can’t say anything about that.

But I do know why I continue, and it’s not just because I think I’m cooler and more original than #100daysofhappy (I do) or funnier than McSweeney’s lists (I’m not). Here’s some things I’ve learned, noticed, appreciated, noted, and found over the past year.

People actually read them. Over the past few months I’ve had a chance to see some people that I hadn’t for a while at weddings, gatherings, reunions, trips, etc. Luckily I remain connected with them through my albeit bloated list on Facebook. The first thing many of these wonderful people said to me, after years of not seeing me in person, was something complimentary or half-complimentary and half-giving-me-shit about the haiku. It was nice to know that even people that aren’t actively liking or commenting are still taking 10 seconds to read and maybe even think about 17 syllables. Maybe.

They may even affect people. Some people consider likes or comments or retweets “cheap”. I don’t. With the torrents of information - posts, horoscopes, Candy Crush requests, e-vangelism - that every online person sees every day, stopping to click that button or type a few letters has become more and more of a commitment. To know that I can catch the eye and cause enough pause in a person to have them stop, regard, and click - I’m proud to be able to do that. Or maybe I just like attention and my ego cries out for it.

They make me love NYC even more. I’m madly in love with this city. Observing and chronicling its eccentricities in this way have made me love and appreciate it even more. Like learning the pet peeves, birthmarks, ticklish spots of a significant other.

They act as a running journal of my time and experiences in NYC. For most of the haiku, I can remember the circumstance, event, conversation, or interaction that led to its inception. To each is attached a unique memory and often a human, good friend or stranger, who inspired the three lines. It is natsukashii to look back over them and pop and re-pop those little bubbles of reminiscence. Perhaps obvious to the reader, or perhaps not, my more general mood at the time of writing is often reflected

I can be disciplined. If I don’t think about it as being disciplined. Or something. I’m very undisciplined. The haiku are one of the most consistent things I’ve ever done in my life. I don’t know yet what that says about my life, my lack of discipline or anything, but it’s given me a feeling of consistent accomplishment that I haven’t felt for a while, and therefore some new grounds with which to reflect on other efforts in my life.  

They’ve given me a strange appreciation of social media strategy stuff. It’s hard to produce original content of any quality consistently. It’s hard to make people engage with it in any meaningful or measurable way. It’s hard to think of ways to make things spread, stick, go viral, anything. I appreciate all those things a lot more now. Perhaps it is better I started doing this for no reason in particular. I will still make fun of people with “social media” jobs, though.

They’ve gotten me dates. Even second dates. Maybe all those centuries of love poets were on to something after all.

I’ve had to develop a new way of thinking. Successfully communicating the absurdities, intricacies, humor, pathos, ethos, hummus, and other Greek concepts in short form is infuriating sometimes. I feel I’ve gotten better at it as I go. I feel as though it’s a great exercise some parts of my brain I would otherwise never be flexing. Crossfit for creative mind juices. 

They’ve spawned their own in-jokes. One of my Facebook friends enjoys coming up with titles for my haiku. One of my other friends writes high-falutin’ and sometimes quite harsh parody literary criticism of them.

They’ve been plagiarized. Well, one has. My friend sent me a screencap of a friend of a friend of a friend or something on Facebook who had posted one, passing it off as his own.

My mom likes them. My mom bought me a nice notebook that I had my eye on (fueling my addiction), but made me a deal: I had to fill it up with haiku and give it back to her as a gift. I work on it often and it makes me think of her. It is a great little non-digital connection I have with her. I also use it as a half-diary of sorts. Some of the haiku from mom’s notebook I’ve used for #nycHaiku, most will be just for her! Every once in a while she likes one on Facebook and I’m extra proud.

It's almost Monday, and you're probably almost out of things to talk about. I am your conversational sherpa.

George Clooney, 52, is engaged to Amal Alamuddin, 36, British of Lebanese descent. She's a lawyer specializing in international law, having most notably represented Julian Assange. Also supported the whole Darfur cause, one of Clooney's pet passion projects. What will their celebrity couple name be? Gamal? Clalamuddin? 16 years - too much, just right? Who will play George Clooney in his bio-pic?

A rich white Jewish man who owns a basketball team said some pretty racist stuff, even if your bar for "racism" is set pretty high. He told his young hot model girlfriend to stop inviting black people to games. To basketball games. Actually, you know what? Don't talk about this. Instead try to ask people their ethnic/racial background as directly as possible. What are you? Are you mixed? What dusky blood courses through your exquisite veins? (Can you be white and Jewish or are they mutually exclusive?)

Why did you start playing the guitar? Why did you stop playing the guitar? If the answer isn't obvious, it should be. Then cite this poll, which from some reason comes from Japan. This is surprising because some people think that young Japanese are not having enough sex (some disagree). They also have a weird problem called "herbivore men" who don't like women, sex, relationships, and that icky stuff. Stay tuned for my charity to send guitars en masse to Japan. Is Dan Smith available for this? 

A list of "The Un-x-able Y-ness of Z-ing." Like ad-libs for linguists, literary nerds, editors, headline writers, Czechs. Make your own! Notable: "the unbearable whiteness of cheerleading" and "the unbearable meh-ness of being". 

If you need to fake that you went to Coachella or that you have any idea what happened there, just mention this remix of Lourde's "Tennis Court" by Flume. But then again, if you really need to fake that, you need to take a look in the mirror and think about some things. 

Do you know what a Hamish Jolly is? It's a shark-repelling wetsuit and probably also a Brooklyn Indie band. What would your TED talk be about?

Are you really still talking about that? Here's some much more interesting things. I'm ignoring "current events" this week. 

A man was arrested and convicted of armed (a BB gun) robbery in 2000. Sentenced to 13 years in prison. Was told he would receive instructions on when to report to prison - but never received them. A clerical error. He didn't run or hide, but rather lived a normal life for the past 13 years. He's married, has three kids, and began a career as a carpenter. In this time he's filed taxes, paid parking tickets, and registered three new businesses, all under his real name. He was picked up by a SWAT team earlier this year while feeding his 3 year old daughter breakfast. Should he serve this time? Whose fault is this? Are we all upset he missed out on all that valuable rehabilitation time in prison? Bank error in your favor?

Nancy Grace recently championed a anti-marijuana hashtag #PotToBlame. It's been hilarious hi(gh)jacked by hi(gh) people all over the world. Legalize it? Decriminalize it? Do you prefer harder stuff?

What's your favorite color? You buying one of these LED lights? I'm thinking about it.  

Here is every photo ever of people pointing at your mouse cursor (pointer). An easy way to waste 2 minutes. We all need more ways to waste two minutes. See anybody you know? Why is this even entertaining? 

You should know this word for cold chills or a pleasurable tingle, which often includes goosebumps. Frisson. Also, goosebumps have a dirty name: piloerection. When's the last time something gave you goosebumps?

And without any kind of introduction, here's Mr. Poo, from India. The UN made him. Seriously. Saving the world is dirty business. 

What the hell have you had to say to anyone the past couple weeks? Never fear, I'm back. Here's one person's heartbeat. Live, all the time. Do you feel connected?

Because everyone's hit media satiation points with Ukraine and MH730, I'll skip them and so should you. Impress and gain street cred when you talk about how the Wu-tang Clan is releasing a new album, which they recorded in secret, in the coolest way ever: only one copy has been made and only one copy will be sold. May just redefine how music/art is monetized, evaluate and shared - or not shared. An album becomes a truly unique, private work of culture. Will exclusivity be the new moneymaker for the music industry, or kill the music industry as we know it now? Are we headed back to a cool Medici-style patronage system for modern (lowercase) art? How much would you pay to be the sole owner of, say, the next Lady Gaga single? How long until the album leaks to HipHopDons?

Reportedly, the only copy is currently being kept in a handmade silver box in a vault in Morocco. It is titled *The Wu - Once Upon A Time In Shaolin.* Alright, fine if you have to talk about Ukraine, you should be following this guy on Twitter: Dmitry Rogozin is the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Head of the Military-Industrial Commission, and one of the targets of the first round of Obama's sanctions. You'll be the first to know when he says ridiculous things and taunts the West. Yatsenyuk, president of Ukraine, wants to join the G8, now the G7? "He'll have to sit under the table." He wondered if "a prankster" wrote Obama's sanctions. And today, he let the world know that "Steven Seagal understands everything clearly and explains simply." So that's that.

We're at the point past the point where talking about the media coverage of MH730 is more cooler than talking about the actual event. All you need to know is that Don Lemon, semi-respected CNN anchor with his own show, asked this question ON AIR, word-for-idiot-word, about the Black Hole theory: "I know it's preposterous, but *is *it preposterous?" Don't watch the video, it will make you dumber. Memorize that question and start using that question in conversation, though, at least once a day. "That was probably my evil twin brother making out with that stripper, honey. I know it's preposterous, but *is* it preposterous?" (The answer was: "A small black hole would suck in our entire universe, so we know it's not that, you dumbass." Maybe she didn't say that last part.)

Having a YouTube party? Here's how they get cork off trees. Street Fighter.

Here's two subversive feminist music videos you should know for the week: J Lo, and G.U.Y.

Stop being uninformed. It's completely unsexy. Here's your next-level small talk for the week.

A confederation of 7 Native American tribes has taken on a new digital crypto-currency as their "national" currency. Mazacoin will be adopted by the Lakota Nation in hopes that it will economically revitalize their mostly poverty-level population. Mazacoin is derived from Bitcoin and Zetacoin. Is this an interesting or just terrible idea? Is it the beginning of a trend, where mini-crypto-currencies become the basis of new virtual nation-states, or the yearning-to-breath-free types across the globe? Does anyone actually know what a damn Bitcoin is? Also, the tribal council of the Lakota has people with the names "Lydia Bear Killer", "Stanley Little Whiteman", and "Barbara Dull Knife".

Liza Minnellii was in the Ellen selfie from the Oscars. You just couldn't see her behind all the tall, beautiful, relevant people.

You might have to talk about Ukraine, yeesh. First of all, it's Ukraine, not the Ukraine. Better to talk about the shoddy media coverage of it: Here CNN's Christiane Amanpour yells at Wolf Blitzer on live air. Pay attention to what Professor Cohen has to say there for a idea of the other, not oft-reported side of this story. In summary, comment on how Wolf and Christiane are both idiots and CNN is dumb. 

Oh, and for some perspective on Crimea: the CIA begrudgingly admitted the Russians might be legally allowed to have all those 20,000-odd troops in Crimea. The Russians think everything they have done so far is technically legal under the well-hammered-out agreements (in 1994, the Budapest Memorandum, and in 1997) they had with Ukraine about Crimea. And technically, with their lawyers looking at it the right way, it might be. Even if it's not (according to who?), Putin already has the approval of the Duma to use military force anyway. Ukraine and the US will say movement of troops in this matter is an act of aggression or even an invasion (also citing the Budapest Memorandum and UN Charter). Who is wrong? No one, really. Who is right? Also no one. Who thinks they are right? Everyone. International law and diplomacy, folks, that's how it works. People will be very impressed with your ability to think on the other side of this issue. 

YouTubing? An Italian guy does the Coke and Mentos trick, except with a Durex condom. Who uses Durex? And here's Drunk In Love with emojis. Surfboardt.

Are you still talking about twerking? Welcome to 2014, grandparent. Here's what to talk about this week:

Kwashiorkor. Do you know what that is? Of course you don't. It's a disease brought on by lack of protein. From the Ga language of Ghana, Africa, it originally meant the situation where two babies were born close to each other and the second baby struggled with a lack of breast milk from the mother. It's something a vegan might get. Use this opportunity to make fun of vegans.

You should probably have something to say about the Oscars, you cretin. Cute kids will help with that, although did we have to start by giving the little black kid the gun? Barkhad Abdi was the pirate from the Tom Hanks movie - he's a real-ass Somalian who was working as a limo driver before this break. Not bad. The bookies have 12 Years a Slave in the lead, followed by Gravity and American Hustle. Just talk about how Leo deserves it, goddammit. Leo.

Extreme nerdiness: Neville Longbottom is the most important character in the Harry Potter series. This thing is like a book-and-a-half long, but if you need the super geek cred...

Here's a cool song just so you can say you knew Cashmere Cat before they were wicked famous.

What I did in January:

Doral, (Miami), FL, January 13-17- - The first major event of my trip, after taking the almost-90-minute trek through Miami International to pick up the rental car, (who designed that hellhole?) was being asked to step out of the car by the Doral Police Department. It became a teachable moment for my Japanese reporter and cameraman, who learned to avoid sudden movements and keep their hands in sight when dealing with US policemen. That last part is more difficult than in sounds in terms of Japanese mannerisms, and my reporter soon reverted to (what she thought) was deferentially holding her hands behind her back.

We had been driving to the house of Karla Balentien, the estranged wife of Wladimir "Coco" Balentien, slugger for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows and, as of last year, Japan's new "Home Run King" with 60 bombs on the season. Balentien beat the record held by Sadaharu Oh, known as the King of Japanese Baseball. Oh had 55 runs in a season, and he's held the record since 1964. This was kinda a big deal in Japan because, Coco, Curacaoan-born, is a foreign player. The last two foreign players to get near the record were intentionally walked for the last few games of the season. I would compare it Guatemalan quarterback who doesn't speak English coming to the NFL and throwing 60 touchdowns in his second season. Although, here's a secret: Sadaharu Oh is half Chinese, which in Japan is as good as being from Mars.

According to the police report, Wladimir Balentien had showed up at the house Sunday afternoon. The couple is in the middle of a divorce, and per court order he's not allowed within 500 feet or her or the house. When Karla didn't answer her cell phone or the door, Wladimir climbed in a back window, and grabbed her by the arm before chasing her and her daughter upstairs to the bedroom, where he allegedly locked them in for a short time while arguing with Karla. Remember that for later.

Karla lives in a cookie cutter sub-suburb called St. Moritz, made up of a single loop with maybe 40 houses that look exactly alike if you cross your eyes a little bit. The residents seem to be mostly upper middle class Venezuelan immigrants, judging from the annoyed non-English speaking people that answered the doors we knocked. And we knocked on many doors.

But back to us: The Doral PD, in an only slightly racist mix-up, were accusing us of filming Karla's house - which is legal, by the way - to which I informed them that we had only just arrived on scene and were unsure of which house was actually the Balentien's. Even offered to show him our tapes. The cop, albeit politely, said that he had "just seen us there" with a camera pointing towards the house. I kept a straight face and explained to him that there probably multiple Japanese news crews there which, to the untrained eye, would have seemed identical groups of Asian people with camera equipment. Plus we all rent the same damn Dodge Grand Caravans. Everything was cleared up but we were asked politely to stay the hell away, and the lone female cop pleaded for our sympathy in leaving Karla alone, as she was "really freaked out".

So we decided that a few shots in the dark wasn't worth the risk of running afoul of the Doral PD, who we would most likely be annoying even more over the next few days, and switched to trying to locate Mr. Balentien. It was well past midnight at this point. With a few friendly questions at the Miami-Dade Police HQ, we located the prison where Balentien was being held after his arrest: Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Facility, affectionately referred to as TGK. The information desk was actually quite helpful and informed us Wladimir's bond was set at $6000. Which, given my unfortunate lack of knowledge about the criminal justice system, led us to believe that he could bail out at any point. So, we slept outside the prison in our minivan along with 3 other TV stations. At that point, without confirmation that Balentien could or could not leave prison, we had to stay simply because the other stations were staying, with the worry being that it would be inexcusable if they got some shot that we did not. Their reasons for staying were the same. There is an important game theory study in here somewhere.

There is something about sleeping in a mini-van outside a prison that makes you think about where you've come in your life. But it's all relative, I was reminded as I watched various bedraggled looking people make bail, including the skintight pink velour tracksuit stripper who was picked up by her co-worker and bouncer a little before 4am. But Balentien didn't get out that night, and we gave up after 9 in the morning when the lawyers got in for the morning and informed us (meaning we called their offices 17 times) there would be a bail hearing Wednesday morning and wasn't going anywhere until then. And we went to go see if we could get an interview with Karla again. The sophisticated journalist method we use for this is walking up to the front door, knocking, and waiting to see if anyone answers. We were the second or third on the house, so actually missed the first phase of this maneuver and stood waiting on the sidewalk with two other crews for two hours. But, eventually, Karla came out with Mia, her daughter, in hands, to make a short statement.

Karla Balentien is so strikingly pretty that one finds it hard to trust her at first. She looks quintessentially Miami, and is a Venezuela of indeterminate age, muddled by her youthful looks, liberal but tasteful use of makeup, somber bearing, and probably some elective augmentation. I guess her to be about 30 if not a few years older. Cursory internet searches say she's 29. I don't believe them. She has a middle-school or freshman-aged son from a previous marriage, and a newly 2 year old daughter, Mia, with Wladimir. Gathered around her in the driveway, one of the other Japanese reporters struggled through a question or two before I jumped in with my high school Spanish to save the day. Karla claims to speak no English and all interviews were done completely in Spanish. It seemed like it wasn't zero English, either; I noticed her accidentally answer an English question or two before I translated them. At the end of this first group interview I was left with no new information and a mild headache, as producers and reporters from other companies babbled simultaneously in Japanese and English as I tried to real-time translate to Karla, who seemed impatient with us even being there.

So the first interview of the estranged wife went to air, with a few permutations of "no comment" translated into Spanish. One other company missed it, largely by bad luck.

Wednesday morning during a quick bail hearing, the judge set bail at $6500 and didn't require that Wladimir be under house arrest or wear an ankle bracelet. The incontrovertible argument from Wladimir's lawyers was that, as a international celebrity with intense media coverage, running or disappearing would be "literally impossible". 20 members of the Japanese press, proof of this point, sat in the courtroom. His passport, however, was confiscated and a date set for a hearing to decide whether he would be allowed to travel internationally. Wednesday night, despite camping out in front of the prison for 8 hours, we would missed the chance to film Wladimir being released from prison to his lawyer (he was transferred by prison bus to another location, then released). We were the only crew to not get footage of this event and spent the next 48 hours doing penitence for it.

Thursday morning Wladimir gave a press conference at which a public relations spokesman, flown in from Japan, apologized for him in Japanese. Wladimir and the PR guy bowed deeply for a full minute before sitting down with Wladimir's lawyers. Wladimir read a short, bland statement apologizing and expressing his desire to see his daughter before he had to return to Japan. The only words Wladimir said were those few pre-written sentences, and his lawyers answered all further questions while Wladimir kept an embarrassed, repentant expression on his face. His explanation for being at the house was to pick up baseball equipment.

Still being punished for not getting the shot of Wladimir being released, we were sent back around to Karla's to see if we could squeeze any more information out of her. The first interaction with Karla had been, for lack of a better word, stilted. We went by the hosue, no answer at the door, and I left a note asking her for a comment now that Wladimir has out, had apologized and said he wanted to see his daughter. That seemed to hit a soft spot and I got a call from Karla later that night.

We stopped by the house the next day, Friday, to try to talk to her again. She was home, but she refused to appear at the door without spending at least 45 minutes on her outfit and makeup, but would then appear as casually as if she had just rolled out of bed. We actually had caught her after she rolled out of bed, and she looked like she had just come out of the makeup trailer. In this interview, with just our team, she made love to the camera, knew exactly when to look into it and when to ignore it. Her eye contact is dazzling sometimes, her eyebrows expressive. On-camera, she kept her expression deliberately blank after every question I asked her, considering her answer. The answer was usually along the lines of "I wish I could tell you that. I really wish I could, but I can't say anything about that." She told us then that she would be able to tell us anything after next Tuesday, when she had a family court date, at which Wladimir was required to show up at.

After the camera was off, her face fell and she asked me if it was true that Wladimir had said he wanted to see his daughter. She said he hadn't tried to see her for more than a year, hadn't even asked, and that he didn't even try to see her for her birthday which last month. We also learned that Wladimir had started the divorce proceedings, without warning and without explanation for almost a year now. Karla claimed to have no idea it was coming.

So, after a quick weekend in NYC, we flew back into Miami on Monday (1/21) night and were at family court bright and early. Family Court is a sad place. I watched two young black men, I'm guessing my age or younger, struggle to sound as well-spoken as possible in front of the judge, using such phrases as "In fact of that matter...". I had just heard one of them refer to the baby mama in question as "ratchet" to the bailiff outside. One man complained he didn't know how to get in touch with the mother, and didn't know where she lived now. The judge shrugged and said to said to him "Well, you had a baby with this person, so I don't know what to tell you."

Karla walked in with her lawyers shortly after 9 in a skintight skirt and white button-down looking like she walked off the set of a Pitbull music video. I almost gave her a standing ovation. Wladimir walked in soon after with his 3 much more intimidating lawyers. He didn't look at her once the whole hearing. Little was decided at this hearing. We learned a $500,000 bank account had been roughly split between the two of them, with $100,000 currently frozen in the account. The house, though still owned by both of them, was for Karla's exclusive use. Karla was never given an opportunity to speak or give her side of the story, which she had seemed to think she would be able to do today.

So we showed up at her door again that day to try to talk to her. We waited two hours outside this time, she brought us all tea and we talked to her this time without a camera in sight. The same canción and baile happened on camera, no comment, I wish I could say, I don't know, no comment, so on.

Off camera and off the record Karla was almost a different person. I think she had gotten used to me - none of my snark comes through in Spanish, so maybe I sound friendlier. She leaned against the door, forget about her imposing posture for once (she's like 5'9") spoke with a more slangy inflection, rolled her eyes exasperatedly and at times appeared genuinely, sad, hurt and confused, frustrated. [[redacted]]

She said she didn't know why Wladimir had come by the house that day - no idea. There's a twist here - we had learned near the beginning of all of this that at the time Wladimir came by the house, Karla was giving an exclusive interview to a Japanese journalist about her marriage to Coco, their divorce, her mistreatment, his philandering with Japanese women, unsupportiveness as a parent, refusal to help her immigration process (oh, by the way, Karla's visa has expired and she's in the country illegally, and could be deported with her 2-year-old daughter to Caracas, one of the most dangerous cities on Earth, where she is a C-list celebrity that everyone knows has a lot of money) etc. etc. So Karla having no idea why Balentien would be there was naive at best and completely dishonest at worst.

There's also the question of how, if there was no communication between the two, Wladimir knew about this interview. It is unlikely that the journalist would have told Wladimir. It is unlikely that Karla's family, who live in the house with her, would have told Wladimir. And I remembered, thinking about that, that Karla had contradicted herself about her contact with Wladimir and admitted to texting with him on and off. It is possible that Wlad has a friend in the world of Japanese journalism who tipped him off. But it seems, to me, that Karla told him.

So we have to ask: why would Karla tell him that? Was it an honest mistake, a symptom of her doe-eyed naivete? Did Wlad bully it out of her? Did she tell him maliciously, to piss him off? Was it an attempt to provoke this reaction and gain upper hand in the divorce proceedings and impending custody battle? Did Wlad even care about custody of his daughter? Or was it perhaps a last-ditch effort to coax or coerce some kind of cooperation out of Wladimir, either about the financials of the separation or Karla's looming immigration problems?

The Japanese journalist published his story in a weekly magazine of some repute soon after we got back to NYC. It told a story of a womanizing, callous and absolutely unfatherlike Balentien in Japan, who had sent Karla home to Miami after suddenly initiating the divorce. But it also drew Karla as a "snake woman", all eyelashes and innocence but having skillfully sunk her gold-digging fangs into an unsuspecting and young Wladimir, and now in the process of milking him for every cent. (It reminded me that earlier in the week, I had to translate this phrase into Japanese: "take him to the cleaners.")

I have been following the rest of the updates from NYC. The charges against Wladimir were dropped from felony false imprisonment and battery to misdemeanor battery and trespassing. He's started spring training in Japan with his reputation largely unscathed. He'll probably hit at least 30 home runs this year, and hey, homer and forget and forgive, right?

As for Karla, one thing she asked me stuck with me: "Didn't the Japanese media ask any questions about me this season? Didn't they notice that the wife and daughter that had been with him all through the 2012 season were suddenly gone? Why didn't they have any questions about that?"

A friend asks: Are zombies fast or slow creatures? Hollywood can't seem to agree on this. 

I reply: 

An interesting question that requires an interesting answer.

We can consider two basic types of zombie: the supernatural zombie and the "medical" zombie. Medical, here, of course, is to be taken with a grain of salt, as any actual physiological explanation for zombie-ism need necessarily be a bit far-fetched. Supernatural zombies come into being through a variety of circumstances: the gates of hell open on earth, a powerful witch doctor summons a horde of walking dead, some ancient evil power reanimates the corpses of the fallen, etc. In these cases, mostly, we will see a shambler. This makes sense when we think of a corpse, in various states of decay, which is barely able to hold itself together, let alone burst into a sprint or manage a superhuman long jump. The exception here is when we are dealing with some kind of advanced necromancy, in which corpses are made into undead super-soldiers; to me this violates the ethos of the genre. So for the most part when talking about the "unexplained"/supernatural zombies, we have a slower, stupider, less aware monster. However, this breed often comes with a certain amount of longevity not seen in other types - as it is magic or some other unexplained dark force holding the shamblers together, they are much less likely to have a biological (again, salt) expiration date.

Moving on to the "medical" zombies: the best way to think of these are a rabid animal, or a less focused meth addict on Red Bull in Florida who chews someone's face off. Ferocious, fast and somewhat animally intelligent. The stereotypical backstory is that some virus escaped a lab, some evil corporation was doing some god-playing experimentation, or some rashes like infection jumped from dogs/apes/livestock to some poor sod in a third world country, where they couldn't contain the infection. Also, it is often not clear whether one must actually "die" to be transformed, or just become extremely sick or feverish, possibly even appear to lose vital signals (remember this for the footnote). These zombies will have increased speed, strength, and ferocity, but usually come with some built-in weakness. For instance, sometimes they need to feed within a certain amount of time or will shrivel up, sometimes they are susceptible to some specific attack, sometimes they are even "curable".

Two interesting sidenotes: the very first reported cases of zombis are from Haiti - and they are an intriguing mix of the religious and the medical, with some pseudoscience mixed in. If the reports are true, and they may just might be, deceased members of the community were found days or weeks after burial wandering graveyards, and seemed to be in the thrall of local witch doctors. Here's how it was purported to happen: the victim would become suddenly and fatally sick, feverish, and delirious. This was due to a poisoning by a witch doctor, which was a mix of psychoactive and other drugs which had the effect of putting the victim in a temporary coma-like state, and also edging them towards drug-addled insanity. This is usually how the victim was buried. After burial, the victim was dug up by the witch doctor and redosed - as well as subjected to a series of rituals which we can basically consider a deep hypnosis and brainwashing session. Again, probably all under the influence of string psychotropic herbs and venoms. So it was some truly ungodly mix of mental torture and drug addiction that brought about what would become the basis for the modern concept of zombie.

Second, here's my professional opinion: most likely, when the time comes, we'll see some mixture of both of these types. Much like the meth addict I mentioned above, the zombie will be able to move quickly over short distances, becoming extremely rambunctious when realizing it is close to eating human flesh. They would be of a lower intelligence, definitely unable to strategize in groups or open doors. It is unclear how they might interact with each other, most likely in the fashion of an extremely stupid and aggressive pack of dogs. Their main senses would be sight and sound -humans are simply not equipped with the olfactory faculties shown in some zombie genres. Depending on how rabies-like the affliction were and the effect on the nervous system, they might be extremely resistant to injury and pain, but this is mostly consistent across all works. How long would they last? Unclear. (I can address the further questions here if anyone is interested. Is there possibly a third type of zombie...?)

Remember, though, that zombie stories are not about fear of zombies, really. Zombies are really an embodiment (encorpsiment?) of humanity's fear of humanity. The three scariest parts about the zombie mythos are: that there are so many of them (read: "us"); the struggle to pull the trigger when faced with the monstrosity born out of our humanity (is boyfriend the same after he turns? Will I be able to look into his dead rotten eyes and pull the trigger? Will he be able to do the same for me?); and lastly, and perhaps most frighteningly, the realization that maybe you are alone along them (read: "us"), that the inevitable has already dawned on the forsaken world and you are the last one, the only, humanity's last breath to take in the suffocating dark, and that your remains will be the last fresh meal of an animal that has not the neurons for a single memory of you nor breath for a single word of you after you are gone. And gone, truly, you shall be.

(In Roughly Chronological Order)

[This post will is a personal account, and will perhaps blasphemously not be focusing on the victims of the events in Boston, nor will it overly speculate on the motives of the suspects. Perhaps that says something about my experience of the events of the past week, but I do not wish to appear overly heartless. To help the victims and the recovery efforts, give here: The One Fund.]

I was in Virginia Beach on Saturday and Sunday of last week for a nice easy coverage of the USA Judo National Championships, where a famous Japanese judo player was fighting as the first step in a quest to represent the USA at the Rio Olympics (he lost and said he may give up on the pursuit). It was a pretty light work trip and I got to see tons of old friends and with the exception of a grumpy reporter and the mostly bad food, the trip was smooth. I woke up on Monday in Virginia, we caught an early plane back to LGA, and I was finishing my lunch at the office in NYC when the news broke from the Boston Marathon.

As a matter of full disclosure, I am ashamed to say I hadn’t even realized the Marathon was being run that day. I’ve been two years without a Patriot’s Day in NYC, and it had completely slipped from my mind. As media will do, the first reports were of “explosions” at the finish line or even “reports of explosions”. This was about 3pm.

I was on a plane at 5pm with only the clothes on my back and a back pack full of the suspicious type of electronic equipment that gets one searched at security, every time. We touched down and I learned another crew had been sent from NYC by train, the fear being that either train or plane service between the two cities would be suspended in the immediate aftermath. Monday evening you couldn’t get anywhere near the spot. We set up camp at a location on the Commonwealth Mall at Exeter and Commonwealth, two blocks down from the spots of the two explosions. The media circus was already almost in full swing. Andersoon Cooper was a few spots over (the presence of Anderson is a good indicator of the seriousness of any news story), and the mood in the satellite trucks and live shot locations was a quiet and concerned urgency. Information trickled out and then deluged, grisly photos surfaced to be cropped judiciously and splashed while reporters summarized, re-summarized, and re-re-summarized what they knew. Interviews were scarce to come by at that time and cold hard facts even scarcer. After some live reports with the “latest from Boston” that lasted well past midnight, we were informed we’d be staying the next day.

Tuesday we spent the morning outside the hospital, where reports were done on the fluctuating number of casualties and wild wild speculation started on suspects, motives, invasion plans. I believe the word “terror” was first used this day. We finished earlier that night, and I loaded up on socks and a pair of my brother’s underwear from home, and also picked my 5th year Harvard report and a judo black belt I had left at home. I thought those things, along with the “journalistic” equipment in my backpack combined to make a cute little profile of myself.

Wednesday we got to see puppies – a sympathetic redditor organized a “Free Puppy Cuddles” event at Boston Common, hoping to bring a little light into a city that was in a bit of a sad mood.

News, it seems, involves the art of not being the first one to say something wrong. Really, the mistakes are so innumerable and so couched in News-Speak it is almost impossible to say who was wrong first, wrong more, and wrong how. If Fox News (just for example) reports that “some sources say that they have heard rumors something may likely happen” and whatever it is doesn’t happen… what exactly went wrong there? With my world-class linguistics training, I can say that the news media are grievous abusers of the irrealis moods. CNN, which is our affiliate, was stuck with the first big mistake, having reported that an “arrest was imminent” and the suspect would be soon transported to the Federal Courthouse. And so, acting on their own information, CNN moved two crews over to the Courthouse, which caused a swarm of about 200 members of the media to the front of the courthouse, rendering the access road inaccessible, momentarily shutting down the highway out in front. The median was packed full of satellite trucks, every Tow Zone – No Parking area bumper-to-oblivious-bumper, the sidewalk impassable in many places. Then the as-of-yet-unrelated bomb threat was called in, and an hour later the building was declared safe and the news mob dispersed, dusty (it is seriously dusty over by the courthouse) and dissatisfied.

By Thursday, our cameraman had stopped talking completely. I got a sunburn waiting for Obama outside the old South Church. I saw him not, they used the back entrance. We’d had about 15 minutes to run out on Newbury Street and buy some overpriced underwear. We hadn’t had time for proper meals that day, and the suspects photos were released by the FBI at around 5pm. This, of course, following the erroneous releases of photos of the suspects the day before. Thursday night, if you’ll allow me this cliché, is when shit hit the fan. We were at MIT when the police cars peeled out to the chase in Watertown. In the middle of uploading a file to our FTP server, which took a minute and thirty seconds, I fell asleep hanging out of the back of our rented minivan packed with equipment. No one would talk about a connection yet, but I think everyone knew.

We arrived at the police line surrounding Watertown at about 3:30am. It was very dark, and this was noticeable because the bright lights of the news crews only carved out small hemispheres beyond which the police lights made things softly blue-and-red. Tamerlan was dead and the other one was still on the loose. It was the most nerve-wracking stakeout of my short news career so far, because I knew spread-out Watertown was, and the thought kept occurring to me of what sitting ducks we were, all lit-up and immobile while a psychopath with automatic weapons and homemade explosions roamed about. The truth is, at that point, you were probably all more informed than I was. We were too close to the trees to see the forest, as it were. I kept as abreast as I could have everything using a combination of Twitter, reddit, and personal blogs and even Instagrams of people in the area. These were all consistently 6 hours faster than the “main-stream media”, if you will, but it meant picking through the conspiracy theories, speculation, and outright misinformation.

The streets of Boston were empty on Friday. I switched lanes with impunity and without turn signals (the whole week I had been ignoring all parking restrictions and parking on curbs and in tow-away zones, a freedom I will probably never be accorded in Boston again). I drove from Watertown back to the Park Plaza hotel at 12:30 in the afternoon, and was on Memorial Drive with a grand total of three other cars. That day I told a lot of people to “stay safe out there”, but I’m not really sure what I meant by that.

I suppose as “the news’, we are supposed to be observers and disinterested third-party, well, reporters. I am reminded of a famous physics experiment involving two slits and an eternal argument about the wave or particulate nature of matter. Everyone, armed with a smartphone, a Twitter account, Facebook, some Instagram filters and a Connection becomes an Observer in such a way that we must, must, be affecting the very news we purport to report. I feel this was made especially apparent in the chaos of the early hours of Friday morning, when frantic CNN producers were F5ing Twitter feeds of #watertown trying to keep tabs on the situation. The police forces too, were rumored to have more than a few eyes on social media during the whole week. It was even said the suspect might have had access to social media during the manhunt and did in fact tweet a few messages between Monday and Friday. And the startling effects of the pervasive big networks in digging up leads and locating “persons of interest”, warrant-less and unbeholden to the laws of due process and criminal investigations, cannot be ignored. Every big news story that comes along, the lines dividing the general public, the media, and the Law become more and more blurred, and are probably soon to be swept away into the type of recent history that makes them perfect fodder for, ironically, long-form news analyses.

I can’t and won’t make any big conclusions or give any big insights this time, sorry. This is just an account and some thoughts. The next time will be funnier and more conclusive.

If someone asked me to describe the Republican National Convention in one sentence, I would just say "white" and save the rest of the sentence for something that was harder to describe. Other descriptions I thought of for what the crowd at the RNC looks like include:

* the top two decks of the Titanic * Texas * a NASCAR race without 80% of the rednecks (but not all) * the opening weekend of a Will Smith movie * the audience of an Eric Clapton concert

Ok, the cheap jokes are out the way. I've been in Tampa for more than a week now, which is usually something someone says when they hit rock bottom and they want you to pay for their plane ticket directly to the Mayo Center. My first few days in Tampa I spent at establishments with names like "Odyssey 2001"; "Mons Venus"; and "Thee Dollhouse". The misspelling is theirs, not mine, and is meant to force a pronunciation so as to differentiate the club from any other "Dollhouse"'s. Surprisingly, this is actually a real problem in Tampa, where strip clubs stand on every corner like Starbucks in NYC. Odyssey and Mons, as they are classically and anatomically referred to around here, are full nude clubs - which means they do not serve liquor but only water and virgin Red Bull vodkas. In fact, any club that has any type of nudity (defined as "nipple", seriously) cannot serve liquor. Thee Dollhouse, for instance, features similar entertainment, but all bottoms stay on and all nipples and aureolae (Things To Do Before I Die: #48 use the word "aureolae" in regular correspondence, check!) are covered by flesh colored pasties. The goal is to be alluring and sexy and stay lawful, but I can only imagine it results in strange nipple-less silicone creatures. But as a pay-off, Thee Dollhouse offers fine wine, champagne, and cigars. Yes, you can smoke inside. Just no nursing.

Thee Dollhouse featured actress and performer Lisa Ann in character as Serra Paylin for the Friday and Saturday before the RNC. I was lucky enough to attend Lisa's press conference on Saturday, in which she revealed herself to be actually more well spoken and intelligent than the ex-governor she purports to parody. Lisa spoke candidly, intelligently, and chestily about her 20 years (!) experience in the adult entertainment business, and was one of the highlights of my trip - Lisa was a consummate professional and the whole crew wished we could have covered more of her. She quite ably discussed what she thought would be the biggest issues in the upcoming election (the economy and healthcare), her role as a "den mother" in the adult industry, which is currently in the grips of a Serious Syphilis Scare (and also a decent band name), but declined to say if Democrats or Republicans spend more money in da club (it's Republicans, by a factor of 3 - source: every single stripper I talked to).

But then, sadly, it was time for the actual Convention. We did a good job of avoiding Hurricane Isaac, which was expected to cause millions in damages by delaying thousand of tee-times in the Tampa area. I'll skip ahead to the important parts, and let everyone else talk about the insanity that was Clint Eastwood's speech.

My two big takeaways from the Republican National Convention:

1. Republicans don't lift the seat to pee. I'm no political scientist, but my theory about why Republicans don't lift the toilet seat is simple: Republicans hate black people.

2. Someone seriously smoked a cigar in the men's bathroom. From the smell of it, it was a nice cigar. Let me remind me you that this is the Tampa Bay Times Forum. It is a major sporting arena. The Tampa Bay Lightning plays here (Ok, bad example). Let me also remind that this is a federal level high security event at which the Secret Service has jurisdiction. You can't bring a goddamn umbrella or an Aquafina within 100 meters of the Forum. But you know why someone smoked a cigar in the men's bathroom of the Tampa Bay Times Forum during the RNC? Because they wanted to smoke their fine cigar in comfortable air-conditioning and couldn't be bothered to walk literally 25 feet to the nearest exit to smoke outside. What is this, Thee Dollhouse?

Now, I'm not a Democrat by any stretch, but in those two experiences I learned more about the Republican party than I have in a year and a half of pretending to work in news and a lifetime of watching NBC at the dinner table because my dad put it on so he didn't have to talk to us.

Of course, a lot of speeches happened and I'm sure other media outlets will tell you that in some of those speeches, incredible things were said anyd dangerous ideas expressed that will shape the future of this election, the future of the American presidency, and the World at large, whether it likes it or not. But for this reporter, the things that I will remember from my trip to Tampa are what a naked girl looks like doing a split upsidedown on a pole, and the two Republican bathroom anecdotes above. And really, with just those three experiences I have learned enough about Tampa and Republicans to last a lifetime.

As I finish this dispatch, Mr. Romney has just finished speaking. Ecstatic and probably drunken Republicans stream through the hallways into the humid Florida night with a fever in their eyes, a bounce in their octogenarian steps, and about 2500% more money in their pockets than the average American, even after they just paid 5 dollars for a hot dog. But in the end, there's a half-black guy and a Mormon running for the highest office of the nation that leads the globe in exportation of freedom, liberty, and the pay-per-view pursuit of happiness, starring Will Smith. And that's pretty cool, so God Bless America and may the best man win.