Learning to Love You More: Assignment #51 12/07/2009
Posted by pcloeb in learning to love you more.Tags: celebration, death, family, friends, learning to love you more, life, loved ones, memory
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Assignment #51
Describe what to do with your body when you die.
I do not want a headstone or space in a plot of land. I would hope I have left a more permanent impact on the lives of those around me. Cremation would be preferred. I would want my funeral to be a celebration, not a place of sadness. Friends who had not spoken to each other in years would find each other, reconnect. I want happy memories and fun stories to be shared. Laughter, not tears. Death is natural.
I’d like for anyone in attendance to take a bit of my ashes. Find a place with meaning to them, a place where we shared a fond memory or a first meeting. Spread my remains there at this place and reminisce a little on those memories one last time. They are impossible to capture and preserve. Our memories, our lives are fleeting moments after all.
Roadtrip Reprieve: Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead 12/07/2009
Posted by pcloeb in life.Tags: life, denver, friends, family, memories, niece, memory, roadtrips, adventure, nephews, movies, packing, unpacking, time capsule, old friends
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The Beets Won Trivia June 3, 2009 at McCabe's Tavern
We won with a come from behind victory and only by two points. The important thing, however, being the winning of trivia. It’s a small victory but one which feels good. A nice opportunity to share good drinks, good laughs, and good stories with friends all in the service of drunken and hilarious lines of questions. I only wish we had been able to win shitty Inn Complete trivia nights. Imogene Coca came soooo close.
Of course, this isn’t the most important event but it marks the totality of the experience of the week being home. Even though not a whole lot happened.
Family being the most important thing on this trip, I made a big effort to spend time with my parents and see my sister and my nephews and niece. A week doesn’t really afford you a great deal of time and certainly life seems to speed forward in ways you never quite expect.
I have to admit having the simplest of joys waiting for me at home for dinner was nice and having Black Jack climb up in my lap upon sitting down made me believe I was lost in time back before I had even left Syracuse; a living memory preserved in a time capsule.
I unloaded my vehicle and settled in to survey the stuff and start breaking down the things I’m taking onwards to the next journey and the things which I am leaving behind.
I took the opportunity to see a lot of my family and to spend some time with my parents as I made my preparations to move out to Los Angeles. I took them to see some movies – “Terminator: Salvation” and “The Brothers Bloom” as well as having a nice meal out with them. Seeing my niece, Kaida, grow up a little bit as she stands up and crawls around made me smile or the way Kain wants me to show him how to beat some video game or little Khan wanting to ride on my shoulders, giggling and laughing the whole way.
It was also nice to catch up with friends who I had not seen in awhile. I took great joy in seeing them overcome life’s challenges and difficulties with great stride. Some of them had done great things in the past year from new additions to their family to making renewed plans for the future. While it had only been a couple of months since I had seen a number of my friends, it was a good chance to see an old friend whom I had not spoken to in almost two years.
Still, there’s never enough time and the week ran up quickly. Before I knew it, I was loading the car up again. Sunglasses on, I put Denver and its memory behind the rearview mirror.
It was time for the next adventure.
The great unknown lay beyond me out west, just beyond the rocky mountains.
Roadtrips in Reverse: Denver or Bust! 02/07/2009
Posted by pcloeb in life.Tags: colorado, Columbia, denver, everything old is new again, home, i-70, Kansas, Kansas City, kansas turnpike, max brooks, Missouri, rain, road trips, salina, Topeka, tower road, world war z
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Rain and gray skies greeted my departure from Columbia. I elected to leave early again. I lacked purpose for staying around. Sitting around and watching TV all night just doesn’t help motivate you to stick around. I worked some more on my writing, just trying to keep myself floating above all the work.
The roads were empty at 6:30AM and wet with a generous soaking of rain but they were blissfully empty. Within a couple of hours the lush greenery of Missouri yielded to the drab flatness of Kansas. Of couse, I had to pass through Kansas City and charge through Topeka and the wonderful tolls at the Topeka turnpike.
Actually, I’m pretty familiar with the whole run from Topeka to Denver. Not as if it’s a complicated one. Point your car east or west on I-70 and try and avoid going above 100 MPH and you’ll avoid most trouble. Just don’t get hypnotized by the road and the flat scenery, it’s easy to let your mind wander and doze off. I stopped for lunch in Salina and took a conference call for about half an hour. Max Brooks and the World War Z audiobook kept me company through those long stretches of I-70 with only the promises of the world’s first patented helicopter and the world’s largest prairie dog to motivate you to keep going through those desolate stretches.
Of course, eastern Colorado isn’t quite much different than western Kansas. The invisible line between the two states stand out as reminder of the foolishness borders and territories. The Colorful Colorado placard lies about this portion of the state. It’s green and the landscape rolls here.
The sun starts to drop beneath the horizon. I pull off the highway and I’m driving down Tower Road. Everything familiar is new again. New buildings have popped up and the roads have expanded but it’s home and I’m happy to be back…even if it’s for a little while.
Trip Summary:
Total Miles – 1719 miles
Hours Drivern – 27 hours, 15 minutes
Gas Fill-ups – 5
Roadtrips in Reverse: Taking It To Columbia 29/06/2009
Posted by pcloeb in life.Tags: bacon, Cleveland, Columbia, david sedaris, denver nuggets, family, future, ice cream, Illinois, Indiana, los angeles lakers, Missouri, Ohio, quizno's, road trip, when you are engulfed in flames
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“So what’s next?” My cousin Lewis asks me. He puts a forkful of salad in his mouth and begins to chew. Watching him eat borders on an almost hypnotic experience. You learn about people just by the way they eat, the time it takes to chew their food. Lewis has to focus on it. Simple acts I take for granted look like excruciating exercises for my cousin. The focus in his face reminds me of the way my dad used to look playing those crane games where you try to grab the stuffed animal and get it dumped down the prize chute. Lewis’ body probably works as well as one of those crane machines.
Every bite of his salad seems to spit in the face of the odds. A mini-triumph against the body which bit by bit has betrayed him and will eventually fail him. Somehow, he keeps good spirits even if he looks fatigued.
My silence as I ponder his question probably is more telling. It’s weird because I should be used to this question by now but it hasn’t been asked much lately. I think everyone’s dealing with too much uncertainty right now to know it.
“It’s okay,” my cousin says. ”Your grandfather had no idea what he was going to do when he got out of Syracuse. It took him until he was fifty before he found a job that made him happy.”
“Hopefully, it doesn’t take that long.”
“If it makes you happy, you’ll wait for it.”
We finished dinner and went back to my cousin’s house. Everytime I visit the house, it seems to lack a zest for life. I sit politely in the living room, petting his cat, Moose, and watching the Cavaliers take on the Magic. My cousin trickled off to bed and I loitered around the house for the night, working and writing.
I left early the next morning. I sat outside and admired the morning air while drinking a coffee. I felt bad because I wanted to be polite and keep Lewis company, to explore my family heritage in this city and to see things with new perspective but I longed to go home to prepare myself for the next move and take in a little bit of comfort and familiarity. With my time home already truncated, I wanted to get there as quickly as possible.
I hugged my cousin goodbye and thanked him for letting me stay the night. I always worry the last lingering look will be the last time I see him.
I topped off my gas and then headed out, early again to whip through town. I continued listening to David Sedaris’ “When You Are Engulfed In Flames” while crossing through Ohio and Indiana. One of the first curious observations I made came through when I stopped for lunch outside of Indianapolis. Wanting a sandwich, I stopped at Quizno’s. Unfortunately, I learned as I surveyed the menu just how awful everything sounded. In addition, almost everything is covered with a healthy serving of bacon. Disgusted, I had to resort to go off and settle for another healthy fast food meal.
Nothing much of note occurred as I continued west and crossed the southern tip of Illinois and into Missouri. The lush greenery and the grey skies made me think of living in a surreal landscape. Everything looked otherworldly and alien, different from everything I had known for the past year. I pulled into the Super 8 Motel in Columbia and waited in the parking lot as I mulled over just running straight through. On one hand I was pretty spent from the day’s drive and my iPod battery was spent but on the other hand, I just wanted to get home and the temptation of another 10 hours would have put me in Denver by morning.
Of course, discretion and some painful memories and family history sidetracked any plans to drive all night – probably for the better. I went out to a bar in Columbia and drank in the atmosphere as I watched the Nuggets play the Lakers in Denver. After the game, I wandered around the neighborhood and ate an ice cream cone.
I’ve never felt more alone.
Trip Summary:
Total Miles – 1002 miles
Hours Drivern – 16 hours, 46 minutes
Gas Fill-ups – 2.5
Roadtrips in Reverse: Sayonara Syracuse, Coming to Cleveland 13/06/2009
Posted by pcloeb in life.Tags: adventure, car, Cleveland, goodbye, i am america, Los Angeles, memories, memory, new york state thruway, rent, roadtrips, stephen colbert, Syracuse, weathe
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I looked outside the open windows of my apartment. By the state of the room, it was hard to believe I would make it out of town today but I started early and as my stuff made it’s way out of my room and into my car, the room began to feel like a memory. By late morning, everything but my laptop and camera gear had been loaded in the car.
I surveyed the little studio apartment I called home for the past 11 months or so, empty except for the provided furniture. It looked just as disappointing as the first steps I took back in late June of 2008. For whatever reason, it never felt like home but nostalgia lingered for the place; too many cold nights without heat, the sounds of passionate lovemaking, conversations in many different languages, the tears and joys and sorrows of so many different strangers, watching a hundred sunrises over the buildings of downtown Syracuse, a blanket of snow covering the city, the curtain of rain from a flash rainstorm, or coming home from a late night with good friends and just watching the stars twinkle in the night sky.
So with all of this, I deposited my keys and the rent check for the month I would never use.
The first 324 miles of this journey went pretty smooth. I listened to Stephen Colbert’s I Am America (and So Can You) for the first leg since it’s a pretty short audiobook. It had been a decent amount of time since I had been on the New York State Thruway. Even though I’m not super chatty on road trips, the solitude of a metal coffin can be a bit maddening. You think about things you want, things which should have been but are not, and wonder what the road beyond could lead to. The balance between excitement and reality finally seemed to mix. It wasn’t just talk of heading to LA, of doing something out of the blue…here I was taking the first tentative steps even though the paperwork and things were all signed a week ago. The drive out made this a reality.
I pulled into Erie, PA and stopped to gas up. I grabbed a bite to eat since I skipped lunch and checked one of my tires since the stupid thing kept tripping the pressure monitor. The tire was fine so I figured I’d just deal with it once I got back to Denver. If something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. I’m not going to stop it.
So I pulled into Lewis’ house about 6 and already pretty exhausted from the drive, packing and all the cleaning.
Trip Summary:
Total Miles – 324 miles
Hours Drivern – 6 hours
Gas Fill-ups – 1
Waitress 07/06/2009
Posted by pcloeb in life.Tags: being a grad student, cedar city, conversations, dad, dessert, family, fear, friends, gunslinger, ice cream, memories, mom, parkinson, road trip, rockies, safety, scared, sizzler, soft serve, Syracuse, utah, wild west
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For dinner, I decide to eat at the Sizzler. I don’t even know why. Part of me thinks it’s some sort of trained reaction, almost habit. Sizzler was where we stopped to eat everytime I went with my parents on roadtrips out west. It’s familiar. On the other hand, other restaurants require a drive and I loathe to concept of spending more time in the car today. Of course, being Sunday everything looks dead. One might argue a ghost town to be a livelier place.
I peek inside. The door is unlocked but I don’t see any hours. ”Hello?”
“Hello!” A voice responds from the back. ”I’ll be out in a moment.”
“Okay.” I shout back. I wonder why I’m shouting. I occupy myself with the menu. I remember the way Sizzler is set-up. It’s a combination of a sit-down casual restaurant with the impersonality of a fast food joint. Plus, you can’t even get a cheap, crappy beer here. It probably pre-dated a lot of the fast-casual restaurants which have sprung up in the last decade or so. The voice has short blonde hair and wears a green shirt with black pants. She reminds me of a past life. She looks like my old boss in appearance except this girl’s a lot more conservative than my boss was. I wonder if this girl might be my ex-boss’ evil twin or if my boss was this girl’s evil twin.
“Are you still open? I can go if you’re closing up.” I’m suddenly aware of Linda, 2700 miles away, giving me a dirty look as I try to avoid inconveniencing another person.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s just Sunday.” She sounds like someone who’s in a perpetual good mood. ”Sunday evenings are super slow.” She smiles as if acutely aware of how awkward I’m feeling being the only one out here. ”So what can I get you?” I place my order and she hands over my salad dish and my fountain drink. I take a seat in a booth nearby. I figure it’ll be less awkward if I try not to hide and besides I prefer sitting in a booth. I don’t like leaving my back exposed. It is the wild west after all, you never know what gunslinger might roll into town with a bone to pick with you.
As I’m eating my salad, my thoughts drift to the girl. I wonder how someone ends up in a place like Cedar City. I guess the idea of where people end up kind of fascinates me as I try to digest the next transition in life. I can’t imagine someone settling here unless they needed to hide from something or someone.
She slips my entree in front of me. I look at it, it looks like three meals on one plate. ”I think you might need to prep a to-go box for this one.” She laughs. I think she’s more amused by the flabbergasted look on my face than the actual statement. She takes a seat across from me.
“You don’t mind if I sit for a bit?” I shrug. It’s not like I can tell her to get up or to go away at this point. The company isn’t unappreciated, I just feel weird being the only one in the conversation stuffing my face full of food. ”You’re either a long way from home or close to it.” She seems to comment on my Rockies hat and my Syracuse t-shirt.
“Kind of. I’m heading out to Los Angeles for an internship.” I learned to just avoid mentioning writer’s mentorship. It makes it less complicated to explain what I’m doing. I’m sure she’s heard this story too often by people passing through.
“Neat.” This response seems fairly common.
“So what brings you out here.”
“It’s more like why haven’t I ever left.”
“So why haven’t you?” She exaggerates her arms. I’m worried I’ve crossed a line.
“I like it here. It’s nothing special but the familiarity of home makes the rest of the world more exciting.” I nod.
“So you’ll just stay here when you…”
“Finish school.” She finishes for me. ”Yeah.”
“What are you studying?”
“Education. I want to be a teacher.”
“A noble profession.” She shrugs.
“I think I’m just being selfish, you know. This way I can just stay here and convince others that this place isn’t the worst place in the world.” I chuckle.
“As long as it isn’t in a Sizzler.”
“As long as it isn’t in a Sizzler,” she echoes. The door opens and a family comes in. She gets up and heads out to greet them and tend to their needs. I’m finished with my entree anyways and go to get some dessert.
I take some soft serve ice cream and think about Rekha and her bad experience with soft serve. I wonder if I too will develop a phobia for soft serve just by association. I smile to myself as I spoon some strawberries over my ice cream at the way Rekha would cringe just at the mention of soft serve – not in an exaggerated manner – but perhaps she curls her toes inside her shoes.
I sit down and take a spoon of ice cream. My hand shakes as I hold the spoon. I think it’s just weariness and stress but I remember how my father trembles when he holds his eating utensils. Everyday, I pick up these little unconscious movements from my parents. ”Stop shaking.” I hear my mother shout in my head. ”What do you have, Parkinson’s?” I have to set the spoon down and laugh to myself for a moment. I regain my composure and finish my dessert and leave.
On the walk to the hotel room, I wonder why I’m trembling. Am I sick? No. I’m scared. It hits me for the first time. I’m leaving behind familiarity for something unknown. I’m arriving at the next horizon soon and I don’t know what I’m going to find there. I’m scared. I have no control over what’s next but I’m scared of safety, too. I fear my own capacity for complacency. As I step into the hotel room, I’m starting to believe I’d rather die terrified than live forever.
If I Were 06/06/2009
Posted by pcloeb in life, video games.Tags: ageing, alternate timelines, asteroids, bionic commando, dreams, jenn frank, jeremy parish, parenting, parents, reblog, retronauts
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I’m kind of fascinated by the concept of alternate timelines especially when it comes to the wonderful complacency of everyday life. Some interesting anecdotes and musings procured during travels which provided a moment to reflect and wonder.
The following came from retronauts episode 68
Jeremy: “i really like your asteroids story, because i’m the same age as your father was at that time—i’m 34 now, which makes me sad, but, you know, you deal with it. every year, you deal with it.”
Jenn: “someday i’m going to be older than my dad, who is just, like, perpetually 35.”
Jeremy: “but i can see myself, if i had gone ahead and gotten married to the girl i was dating in college, i would’ve, you know, gone on to live a, probably, more constructive life than i have now, had a good job, not write about video games and, you know, i would’ve… i would’ve maybe played some old video games out of nostalgia, but really not kept up. and this year, i would be looking at bionic commando, and i would be saying to my child, ‘do you know what this is? this is bionic commando! but look how good it looks!’”
From Jenn Frank’s blog – “if I were ten, and you were twenty-eight”
I wasn’t exactly dreaming, I explained. I was asleep and sort of thinking. I dreamed how nice it would have been, when I was ten, for you to be twenty-eight and also you, and in my dream you were there for me when my dad died. I dreamed about you hugging me and talking to me about it. And then in my sleep I was so sad when I realized that it would have been impossible for you to have talked to me or to have comforted me, because you were just eleven when I was ten.
Weird, Nik said.
Well, I told him. I think I was vaguely aware of this idea Jeannie gave me, about how when you lose someone too soon, you grieve for the rest of your life, not because you’re mourning them as a person anymore, but because you’re mourning who they might have become and what they might have meant to you.
Yeah, Nik said.
But also because I feel ten, I concluded. And — no, I guess that’s all.
Fu Manchu and the Army of the Living Dead 04/06/2009
Posted by pcloeb in film, life.Tags: being a grad student, chocolate saw, fu manchu, fu manchu and the army of the living dead, fun, hedge clippers, Newhouse School of Public Communication, one take super 8, ridiculous, saw, short film, super 8, super 8mm, Syracuse, zombies
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Fu Manchu and the Army of the Living Dead
A CreepyGuy Production
Written and Directed by Mike Canale and Phil Loeb
Produced by Mike Canale, Phil Loeb, and Bobak Shafiei
Cinematography by Lauren Byrd, Mike Canale, Phil Loeb, and Bobak Shafiei
Special Effects by Bobak Shafiei
Music by Bobak Shafiei
Starring (in alphabetical order)
Courtney Brown as Zombie #1
Mike Canale as The Hero
Ginny Cruciano as Zombie #2
Rekha Gavini as Current Groupie
Radley Little as Townie
Phil Loeb as Dr. Fu Manchu
Eric Powell as Zombie #3
Special Thanks:
-Jason Kohlbrenner
-The Renters of the Little Red House
-Anne Koester
-Lucien Jung
-The Cage
-All of our friends who came out to support us.
Premiered at Funk n’ Waffles as part of the One Take Super 8 Film Festival; Syracuse, NY
Hiatus 29/05/2009
Posted by pcloeb in Uncategorized.Tags: being a grad student, delays, life, real life, road trips
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Sorry loyal readers for the impromptu hiatus. A combination of renewed obligations, current obligations, and the process of a temporary move have made it difficult to stop and take pause at the events of the last few weeks. So expect updates soon.


