I won't be posting for a while...

I'm at the library, on the 15-minute Email Express machine, and I have less than five minutes before I have to give up my spot to the long-haired crazy guy eyeing me. My internet and cable are shut off, since I haven't paid my bills since buying my plane tickets to San Diego, so I have to rely on the free internet available at the library.

Long story short, I probably won't update this blog until after June 13, the day I fly to San Diego to start my new career as a writer. Just to let you know.

Ok, the guy is hovering over my left shoulder. I should probably sign out now...

Peace.

Going to California

Sorry I haven't written in a while. I've been busy daydreaming about California. Today I turned in my letter of resignation, and effective June 13, I'll be living in San Diego (La Jolla, to be exact) for at least the next three months to house-sit my youngest sister and her husbands' place while they do some missionary work at some camp somewhere.

I hope the move is permanent, since I've lived in Iowa my whole life. I'm anxious to see a different world, to live in paradise, the "Beverly Hills of San Diego," according to a new gal at work who just transferred from Oceanside. I'm going through the contents of my apartment right now, trying to see what I want to take with me on the plane. Right now I wish I had an ipod and a laptop; that's all I need, is my music and my writing. All I want to take with me are a weeks worth of clothes--no need for my sweaters, hats, winter coats, and mittens anymore--and the contents of my hard drive, my digital camera, and voice recorder. That's all I need to start a new life in California. Everything else in my apartment, my couch, my tv, my dvd's, mean nothing to me, and can all be purchased again someday. I'm trying to think of a way I can ship my box of old writing from my childhood media mail to my new place. I originally thought I'd put everything in storage until I found my own place in California, but I want to sever all ties to Iowa right now and make a fresh start.

I'm excited to meet an entirely new group of people who have no knowledge, no stereotype of who this "Jonathan Nauman" guy is supposed to be. I'm anxious to try something new. I don't want to have to play the stupid kid from Iowa anymore so I don't get beaten up. I want to live up to my full potential. To find other smart people who understand me. I want to go somewhere where my intelligence is an asset, not a liability. "This is our chance to reinvent ourselves," I say to my younger sister Holly who is coming with me for support while I find my new life in California. "This is our time to be who we really are. I've changed tremendously this last year working as a line cook--I've broken out of my shell. Goodbye Norma Jean, hello Marilyn Monroe. This is the new Lisa Simpson. You can be anything you want--anything!" I tell her.

I want to eventually move to LA and become a staff writer on some comedy show. I don't care which one. And then maybe if my ideas are as good as I think, I can write my own screenplays and pilots based on my life. The way I see it right now, I'll start out in an improv group and do open-mic stand-up nights like my mentors and heroes, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, from my favorite show of all time, Mr. Show. I'll try to find an agent who understands my point of view, and who can best represent me, who will put me in touch with whoever I need to speak with to land a job as a staff writer. Then, after I get the staff writer job, and meet some new people who will help me script some pilots based on the ideas inside my head, if they're good enough.

When I go to California, I'm going to overhaul everything on this site. It'll be about me trying to make a name formyself in California as a comedy writer. This is going to take some time. Definitely more than three months to get famous enough to make a living, and probably more like five years or so to make enough of a name for myself in Hollywood to quit my day job. So I'll have to get a real job in La Jolla. I've already talked to management at work about transferring to the San Diego restaurant. But I don't want to be a line cook at a corporate seafood restaurant anymore, especially since San Diego is so close to the ocean. I'm sure La Jolla has some 'real' seafood restaurants that would be willing to take on an apprentice cook. I just hope my lack of culinary training doesn't stop me...

This is all I can say right now. I've written several versions, several first drafts, about me moving to California. My life is going through tremendous changes right now. I'm both scared and anxious, but mostly excited at the promise of starting a new life in San Diego. My biggest fear is that I don't apply myself, I don't at least try to live out my dreams. My fear is that I don't try any open-mic nights and end up moving back to Iowa. But Holly assures me she won't let that happen. "I've realized why I'm going with you," she says, as if she's seen the light, as if she has had some sudden realization from God, sitting and drinking at Old Chicago here in Coralville, Iowa, our favorite bar. "I'm going with you to make sure you don't fail. To make sure you don't just sit on the couch and drink beer. That you at least try. My home is here in Iowa, but I'll stay with you as long as it takes, I'll work as a server at some fancy restaurant, but you HAVE to do your stand-up. You have to try. I believe in you." And that is all I ever needed to hear. I'm going to pack my bags. I'm moving to California.

Peace.

Currently Listening to:
Led Zepplin
"Going to California"
Led Zepplin IV, 1971

Going to California

Spent my days with a woman unkind,
Smoked my stuff and drank all my wine.
Made up my mind to make a new start,
Going to california with an aching in my heart.
Someone told me theres a girl out there
With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair.
Took my chances on a big jet plane,
Never let them tell you that theyre all the same.
The sea was red and the sky was grey,
Wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today.
The mountains and the canyons started to tremble and shake
As the children of the sun began to awake.
Seems that the wrath of the gods
Got a punch on the nose and it started to flow;
I think I might be sinking.
Throw me a line if I reach it in time
Ill meet you up there where the path
Runs straight and high.
To find a queen without a king;
They say she plays guitar and cries and sings.
La la la la
Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn
Tryin to find a woman whos never, never, never been born.
Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams,
Telling myself its not as hard, hard, hard as it seems.

Check out the new look!

I changed up things around here, since the Capri Lodge has got new management. I think now I'm finally able to tell my personal stories, minus the usual childish soap-box rantings. Things are gonna change around here, I can feel it. On Monday, I went morel hunting with Clint and Byron, and did some male bonding. I see Byron in a completely different light--he's a really great guy. I could write a book about what I learned from Clint and Byron, who taught me how to find morels, since it was my first time. Spring has finally sprung! I'm out to do some serious soul-searching, and dig around in the dirt for more fungi. Monday, I became a man.

Peace.

Currently listening to:
Billy Preston
"Nothin' from Nothin'"
The Kids and Me, 1974

Nothin' from Nothin'

Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'
You gotta have somethin'
If you wanna be with me
Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'
You gotta have somethin'
If you wanna be with me

I'm not tryin' to be your hero
'Cause that zero is too cold for me, brrr
I'm not tryin' to be your highness
'Cause that minus is too low to see, yeah

Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'
And I'm not stuffin'
Believe you me
Don't you remember I told ya
I'm a soldier in the war on poverty, yeah
Yes, I am

[Instrumental Interlude]

Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'
You gotta have somethin'
If you wanna be with me
Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'
You gotta have somethin'
If you wanna be with me

You gotta have somethin'
If you wanna be with me
You gotta bring me somethin' girl
If you wanna be with me

Nash Equilibrium for restaurant management

I'm trying to work out the Nash equilibrium for the restaurant, and all restaurants, for that matter. But I'm not a mathematician; the highest math class I took was Calc II, and I don't remember much. I just know there must be a win-win-win-win situation, a Nash equilibrium, that allows the guests, managers, servers, and cooks to be happy.

It's like a dot-to-dot puzzle. I don't know the algorithm for connecting the dots, but I can tell the image is that of, say, a bunny. I don't know in real-life terms what needs to be done to reach a Nash equilibrium since I don't have enough formal education in game theory, but I have seen A Beautiful Mind several times. I'm tired and Wikipedia is looking like a bunch of dots to me right now, but I can see the image roughly forming in my mind's eye. It's slowly taking shape. Much like how John Nash sees formulas starting to form.

We need to seat fewer guests at a time. There is some magic number, some number relative to how many servers, cooks, open tables, and maybe some other variable that I can't see right now which determines how many guests we should seat at a time. Basically what I am saying is, we shouldn't seat everyone at once. We shouldn't go from being empty to being full during dinner, because it puts stress on everyone: managers, servers, and cooks, therefore making the guest suffer. There are only so many guests we can accommodate at a time before we max out our resources and ticket times skyrocket and people start to complain.

I'm sure a formula exists, and I wouldn't be surprised if the corporation knows it and puts it in their management training manuals. But it isn't being used, as far as I can see. Tomorrow I'll ask Petra how restaurant management works. I'll work on my Nash equilibrium. I'll post tickets on my wall and connect bits of yarn and string and find my own version of Nash's equilibrium. Then I will be able to explain to everyone working here what needs to be changed. Because, I'm learning, if I don't do it, nobody will.

I'm just one man trying to change what I can to make everyone happy. I like John Nash. I'm trying to find my original idea, no matter how long it takes me. I'm a writer, not a mathematician. It could be a while...I'll keep you posted.

Peace.

KISS Me I'm Stupid!

KISS is short for keep it simple stupid, stupid.

I need to be more straightforward. More serious and to the point. Hone in on my message and make is so simple anyone can understand it, rather than rambling and jumping all over the place. I was thinking earlier that I'm a post-9/11 renaissance man: a jack-of-all-trades but master of none. In today's age of specialization, I could be left out because I simply am not great at any one thing. People want to be able to summarize other people in a paragraph or less. They want to say "ok, he's a racist plumber," "she's a black lawyer," "he's the artist who paints butts," "and so on. I don't want to be "the arrogant kid who thinks he knows everything and is better than everyone" anymore. (Mom--I'm growing up. YAY!)

I don't know what my epithet is. Am I really a self-loathing arrogant-asshole? [ed.--Or do I just play one on tv?] Who am I? Geez, I don't even know anymore. I can't say it in a paragraph or less, but I'm trying. I still can't do it now no matter how hard I try. That's why I'm trying to document the process on my blog in the hope that it might help someone someday, even if that person is just my future self. I'm getting exhausted writing all this. I'm internalizing way too much, becoming more introverted when I should be more extroverted. I'm thinking too much--I should get out and start doing. I need to talk to real people, not just myself.

And then one day I will wake up, and I'll be forty-seven, and I'll stumble on this blog thing I wrote when I was twenty-seven, and I'll have a mid-life crisis. I will re-read this craptastic blog, and have an epiphany that will change my life forever, and I will become the next David Sedaris. The serious writer writing about my generation that I know I can be. But I can't do it now. I'm still telling and not showing. I'm still trying to run before I've learned to crawl. I need to get out and learn the rules, I mean really learn them this time, before I start breaking them. God, I hate to say it, but I need more schoolin'.

Enough! I'll have no more of this talk of returning to school! I don't need no education! I'm not another brick in the wall! School forces you to narrow your mind, focus too much, until you develop tunnel-vision. You become a myopic nerd with glasses like me. Oh, wait........Ehh...I give up. I don't know what's what anymore. I don't know what's real. This writing thing is driving me crazy. I keep going around in circles...Let's see if this helps:

Some ground rules for my writing:

1. No more parenthesis, semicolons, dashes, or brackets. Sentences must be simple. No more asides or editorial comments.
   
2. Focus on one medium at a time. If I'm doing a writing piece, no photos, and vice versa. Let each medium speak for itself.
3. Outline and plan a course of attack, don't just improvise. Figure out what you're trying to say first, and then find the best way to express it. Don't use the spaghetti method, and just throw a bunch of crap out there and hope it sticks.
   
4. Write several drafts. Don't just assume what comes off the top of my head is pure gold.
5. Don't trust my gut. If something sounds funny to me, it probably is just funny to me and no one else.
6. Don't be afraid to be unoriginal. Appeal to the lowest common denominator by using cliches that everyone can understand, i.e. KISS. You want your message to reach the widest audience possible, not the narrowest.
7. You are not special. Don't think you can break the rules just because you're different. You're not. You're a biological social entity just like everyone else.
8. Bad art should not be mixed with good art under any circumstances. Either be good or bad, but not both at the same time. Avoid mixed messages.
9. Bad art should not be confused with a personal style, or artistic voice just because it's the easy way out. It' s too hard for most people to know what's good bad, and bad bad. And good bad is almost impossible to do. You have to be bad, then good, then finally good bad, but only a select few reach that point. There are no shortcuts.
   
10. Don't assume people know who you are or what you are talking about. Assume the only thing they will ever know about you is what words you write.
    

God, my rules are stupid. But I need them, for now so I can sleep. It's 3:28 am. I have to work a double tomorrow. Goodnight.

Peace.