Perfect Nonsense

By Marc Porter Zasada

(An Urban Man classic post. First appeared on KCRW.com)

Like most people, the Urban Man often says, “if only life were more like media.” If only the women were reliably beautiful or wise, the men muscled or avuncular. If only we offered one another heartfelt looks at the tail ends of dramatic days, and never had to tie our shoes after moments of true love.

Today, as I sit working on a laptop at a favorite hotel bar here in L.A., I look up from time to time to watch yet another production crew shooting out by the pool.

Just One Little Thought – An Urban Man Video

The Urban Man has been trying all day to have just one little thought of his own. Check out the video at http://youtu.be/KGHLTo81k2U.

Produced by Terra Abroms, Directed by Rupert Green, Edited by Ed Abroms.

The Well-Ordered Estate

By Marc Porter Zasada
(An Urban Man Classic – First Appeared on KCRW)

Like most Americans, I like to believe that capitalism operates with a kind of heavenly logic: that it ultimately makes sense for the whole society, and that the people at the top are not robber barons, but the guarantors of social order. I want to feel that their relentless efforts create not just prosperity, but a logical mansion in which we can all dwell at peace.

Maybe Beethoven Knew

By Marc Porter Zasada

Like many in the present age, I now do much of my work from a bedroom at the back of my home. Often, it’s just me and my small electric window on the world, staring at one another long into the dwindling afternoon.

You might think this a peaceable scene, but of course it’s not. Not only am I engaged, IM-to-IM and flame-to-flame, with colleagues and clients on four continents, but I am by digital extension part of every conflict and tragedy

Hollywood Epistemology

By Marc Porter Zasada
(An Urban Man Classic Post)

People complain that we in the media expect too much of actors. That we ask them deep philosophical questions and want them to reveal great truths when they’re masters of nothing but illusion. Why should we care what they think about life and the universe? Shouldn’t we be interviewing, like, actual wise people?

The Endless Avoid

By Marc Porter Zasada

(An Urban Man Classic Post)

Here in L.A., we are all experts at avoiding people.  In fact, a lot of folks move here because they don’t really like people, and they can easily hole up in a small tract house with their big TV and cocoon-like car. If you telecommute, you don’t even have to see people in the office. Go to a midnight club, and you can get all sweaty without actually touching a single sweaty other.

Letters to America

A Short Story
by Marc S. Porter Zasada

Dear friends of the Urban Man: I rarely publish fiction, but I thought you might enjoy this story, which first appeared in The Antioch Review.

ONCE OUT INTO BIG CITIES and finding himself alone, the irrepressible Thomas Putnam took to writing letters home to his sister. From Chicago, high in a hotel room with the window open and the armies of the wounded moving below, he felt himself full of his youth and wrote: “Already it is summer here. On the streets, their cheeks puff out with wind, their eyes fill with light. Our nights are ten miles high and Arabian. The lamps are moons. One is surprisingly aware of trees, how deep they are, the way they hold themselves aloof.” And he sealed up the letter and dropped it in a mailbox the next day; from there it was delivered to Concord, Missouri. The year was 1957.

The Arrow of Logic

By Marc Porter Zasada

I don’t know about you, but I have never actually won a political argument. No one has ever said to me, “You know what? Now that you put it so clearly, I see I was wrong.” Not once. Not ever. Not when I marshal facts, not when I quote Jefferson, not by Socratic inquiry or blunt force of will.