Vol.3 #1. Table 30 Gets Personal
Hello. Welcome to the first official Notes From Table 30 from Substack. I’m Jack Cameron. I wasn’t sure if the change in newsletter server was going to be simply cosmetic or something more than that. I’m still not sure. Like the previous newsletters this is a work in progress. I do respond to feedback. So if there’s something in this newsletter you don’t like or something from the previous newsletters I don’t do anymore that you’d like to see again, just let me know.
Things are a bit hectic for me right now. I just turned in my second of four packets for my first semester at Goddard’s low residency MFA program. It’s a lot of work, but it’s all stuff I love doing. I mean it’s hard to complain when I’m reading Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James Ellroy, Victor Lavalle, Elmore Leonard, and Michael Connelly. But the critical papers I have to write on each book I read are no joke.
In other news, I’m moving. This is probably the last thing I write from my apartment in North Tacoma behind the Parkway Tavern that I’ve lovingly called Outpost Omega. I could just barely afford the apartment with a roommate and now that the lease is up my roommate has chosen to move out. I have a new potential roommate but he’s not going to be ready to move until January.
This leaves me with three months where I’m basically going to be homeless. I’m putting 95% of my stuff in a storage unit. I’ll be crashing at a relative’s house near Parkland until January. I’ll refer to this as Outpost Doghouse on account of the number of dogs at the house.
In the meantime, in addition to my work on my Master’s program, I’m going to be looking for some form of gainful employment. So if you know something that might fit my skillset, let me know. Okay. I think that’s enough housekeeping. Let’s get to the rest of this thing.
What I’m Listening To
These days artists like John Mayer are releasing singles rather than albums. I understand that modern people tend to buy songs or if they buy albums they buy them digitally, but I miss albums. There’s something wonderful about having an hour or so of music put together by the artist in a particular order for a particular reason. There are albums I return to again and again. I’m a big fan of concept albums whether it’s a simple linear story like Queenryche’s Operation: Mindcrime or something more thematic like Sting’s The Soul Cages.
The Soul Cages is Sting’s album about his father. I bought the album back in the 1990s because it had All This Time on it, a song that remains my favorite religious song. It’s as close as us atheists get to a good atheist song. (Not including Steve Martin’s Atheists Don’t Have No Songs of course.)
The Soul Cages is a somber album. Its themes of toil and death aren’t likely to cheer anyone up, but they do give me comfort like sad songs do. Certain lines from the album echo in my head even when it’s been months or years since I’ve heard them. “They go crazy in congregations, they only get better one by one.” has been my religious mantra for decades. It’s why I haven’t regularly attended church this century. Back in my days of unrequited crushes, a line from the song Mad About You would find a home in me: “It would make a prison of my life if you became another’s wife.” And when that crush was done, I would find another line in that song just as poignant: “I have never in my life felt more alone than I do now.”
That line has felt true to me more often than I’d care to admit. Some albums, like some books or movies, seem less like pieces of media and more like friends. Art can save lives. I expect The Soul Cages has saved mine more than once.
What I’m Watching
I recently took an afternoon and watched Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame back to back. It’s difficult to say that the Russo Brothers don’t get enough credit when these movies literally made billions, but what they manage to accomplish in these two movies is incredible.
Infinity War managed to do something we’ve never seen before in a comic book movie: the heroes lose. They fight the good fight. They work together. They throw everything they’ve got at their enemy and still come up short. The Russos have mentioned that this is really Thanos’s movie and it is, but I prefer to look at it as a reminder that sometimes the good guys lose.
In the comic books, when Thanos snaps his fingers and half the population of the universe disappears, eventually someone gets the Gauntlet, snaps their fingers and brings everyone back like nothing happened. This is a classic comic book trope. In Infinity War when the likes of Spider-Man and Black Panther turn to dust we know that they’re going to come back because we know they have more movies. I’m so glad that Endgame does something just a little different.
Instead of simply making it so nothing happened, it takes them five years to bring everyone back and five years changes everything. This is something comic books usually avoid in a shared universe. You don’t want to jump ahead in time unless everyone else is doing it too and that takes coordination that is usually difficult to pull off. Even with the movies, they’re struggling to do it right. Spider-Man: Far From Home does a good job of incorporating the time jump, but still, the world of Endgame and Far From Home are very different.
Yes, I’m aware of possible plot holes, but I think the Russos should get credit for everything they got right rather than the things they got wrong. I can’t think of another instance where two movies had to combine so many franchises, much less movies that do it so well.
What I’m Thinking About
I mentioned this on Facebook this week, but I think it’s worth mentioning here and talking about some more. This year has been a difficult one for me.
I’ve faced a lot of rejection. Earlier this year one of my oldest friends stopped talking to me. A few months later my girlfriend and I broke up. A few weeks after that, I was almost kicked out of college for something I wrote. Last month I lost my publishing contract. A few weeks ago a friend from high school got angry at me because I tend not to ask personal questions. And this week a friend told me that he hesitates to spend time with me because he never knows when I’m going to say something that he or others in the group might find offensive.
Now one might look at a track record like that and think that perhaps I’m doing something wrong. Maybe I’m too self-centered. Maybe I’m a narcissist (this is a favorite word of people with zero mental health training). Maybe I’m tactless. Maybe I’m not sensitive enough to other people’s triggers. Maybe. But that’s only looking at half the story.
I’ve also managed to patch things up with my girlfriend, graduate with my Bachelor’s Degree from Evergreen Tacoma, get accepted into Goddard College’s MFA for Creative Writing program (which has a 30% acceptance rate), get a short story accepted for publication by Goddard’s literary journal, the Pitkin Review, and make over a dozen new friends at Goddard who seem to think my behavior is just fine. Also, my novel, A Better Lie is almost ready for publication, and I’m already working on the next book which will be my Master’s Thesis.
Yes, there are those who do not approve of my life or lifestyle. There are those who do not approve of my behavior. There are those who would like me to change in order to better suit their sensibilities. These are people who have problems with me. These are not people I have problems with.
I’m not lacking in empathy for others. I do care. And I try not to be needlessly crass or rude. That said, I’ve never been one to sugarcoat or people please. Some people have an incessant need to be liked. And sure, I like to be liked, but it’s not necessary. What’s necessary is that I remain honest and true to myself with those I interact with. And I can’t do that by following someone else’s values. I have to be me. Not who someone else wants me to be.
It’s strange. I’m broke and essentially homeless. I’ve lost friends. I was in the hospital just last month. And yet, I’m hopeful for the future and I’m comfortable with who I am and the direction I’m heading. That’s not to say I don’t need or haven’t had support. Some friends and family have been nothing but supportive and I appreciate that more than I can say. I literally could not have achieved as much as I have without them.
Thanks for subscribing. Thanks for reading this. See you next week.
- Jack