First off, congrats to my old friend Jimmy Cobo, who occasionally reads this blog and is maybe the only writer who writes longer posts than I do. It’s a mutual problem, why use 4 words when you can use 5,000 to describe a 4 minute song.
Why not.
Anyway, he’s starting to get some dap from the mp3 bloggers of the world.
He’s one of my ten favorite reads on the net, up there with Simmons and Klosterman.
I have a Superman post coming up later tonight or tomorrow. The delay comes from the problems of the net. I mean to go to Gmail, but go to Youtube and the first video is “titled man catches cobra in his mouth!”
How can you say no?
Since, I’m not posting it here, I didn’t like it that much.
Highlight of the week:
During the NBA Draft:
Right before this starts, Dan Patrick asks where David Stern is.
Watch how Stern can barely make it through without laughing, especially on the words Utah Jazz.
This guy should be running America. He is faster with quips than Tony Blair, and more menacing than Bush, Cheney, and Rummy combined. This guy is to the NBA what Churchill is to WWII England (with the exception of letting the Refs win it for the Heat).
One more Draft highlight.
A homemade video of guys heckling Steven A. Smith. Just gold. If you don’t know who STEVEN A SMITH IS, this is the best intro possible:
Stuff like this makes me wonder if I even want to be famous. Between this and The Streets line about camera phones and doing lines, I can’t imagine the blowback of my first bender during fashion week.
But Steven A. Smith deserves this. He really does.
The worst video I have seen in a while.
Wait, you’re telling me he can’t even attempt a Walken?
This guy even sucks the fun out of something as cool as jumping over a car:
Watch out world.
And now for the INLY’s viral video of June:
Something out of nothing. Makes me nearly cry every time. (continued...)
Part of this comes from his perfect role. He gets to be Jack Black the persona more than he is Dewey, which would almost always make it seem like he is just playing to the audience. This discounts that we love actors for doing this (like everything Bogart was)… so what. Dewey’s maturity was bound to grow, it’s part of the plot. What Black does in this film is instill a confidence in those around them, allowing the other characters to progress along with him. It’s not just about the character turning the kids on to music, as Black’s public persona makes it all the easier to believe Dewey’s amore; it’s how far Black actually responds.
On one level it’s a guy playing a part tailor made for him, but on the lower, behind the scenes presence, you get the feeling that Black actually got the people around him to understand what he is thinking. Watching the kids, you get the sense that they are trying to play cool to an older brother who believes in them, and most effectively, you see Dewey (and Black) listening, and responding to their joy of being brought into his and their new love of Rock and Roll.
But it’s Jack Black who fuels everything, in the end he doesn’t do anything great…other than inspire everyone around him to believe. It’s his reflection in the others and vice versa that makes it all the more…wonderful.
Denzel Washington in Training Day – On some levels, it’s a lousy movie about a bad cop. On another, it’s a fictional verite about the corruption of LAPD. On another, it’s a buddy movie in a trip through crime. On all of them, Denzel rules this movie. There is such gravitas in his command of the role it’s hard to care about anything else. He is a terrific villain, and like all villains of the post –modern era, he is given meat to chew on dramatically. Faced with a death sentence if he doesn’t raise the money, Denzel doesn’t play this character as a guy with a means to end-- many would play the role with a tilt of fear--but as a guy who is cool enough to get what he wants because he needs it. All swagger, all style, pure bravado. Even when he’s beat, he’s still charming enough to hold the power and the attention.
Tom Hanks in Cast Away. I don’t give much to weight loss and or gain, for the same reason I don’t care about actors playing the mentally handicapped. Hanks goes a full hour with nothing but a volleyball to play off of. The easy testimony is that he makes you care about that object, even to the point of tears when the ball floats off. But what gets me is when Hanks is back on the land and he is talking about ice in his glass, there is a sad subtext that he relied on something, then was forced to live without it, and now that he’s back, all he can feel is abruptness, as if all he did…was for nothing.
Hugh Jackman – X-Men 1 and 2. Sure he’s given the part via the comic books. But he makes the character feel like his. On an adaptation level, he wins out the fan in me because he not only looks the part, but because he sounds like it. He also has a small subtext underneath that’s endearing allowing a tip of the general cockiness to come out as the dominant trait, not the killer instinct or memory lapse. Many people could play Logan as haunted and angry, Jackman plays him as a man with as a lost past, who might as well have fun with what he’s given. It’s one thing to actually bring genuine emotion when it comes to the death of Jean in X-2, but it’s little bits, like his scene with Iceman (Bobby Drake) in the mansion, when he points the bottle to him to chill. His eyes are filled with a swagger and cockiness that is perfect for the scene and the character. Tis’ not a great bit of acting, but a consummate act of stepping into a preordained role. The best acting job in any comic book movie this decade; Hugh isn’t playing the part, he’s redefining it. (for all of the brilliance of the movie and the role, Christian Bale does a wonderful job, but it’s not him that makes the film he is in believable and great).
Rudy… I mean Sean Astin in Lord of the Rings parts 2 and 3 – He’s simply the most decent character of this decade, and maybe of all time. That’s one hell of a blanket statement, but mind you, all of what he is doing is selfless. And it’s in his final speech in King, when he talks about Rosie cotton and her ribbons one gets his character, it’s that he’s almost content with letting it go for the greater good, but he really wishes, for one moment, that he could be something a little bit more loved.
Craig Nelson – The Incredibles. It’s one of my favorite films of the decade. And it’s easy to know why, but for all of that is done by computers for the look of the character, it’s Nelson that takes this role to another level.
Rather than rant, just watch the climatic battle. Right before they start Mr. Incredible tries to tell Elastigirl to stay:
Mr. I: I need to do this alone. Mrs. I: So you can prove to yourself that you still have powers for good. Mr: I: No. No. Mrs. I interjects and makes Mr. I go to babble. Mr. I: I’m not strong enough. Mrs. I: And this will make you feel strong. Mr. I: No. NO. Mrs. I: What. What is so important? Mr. I: I CAN’T LOSE YOU AGAIN. I’m not, I’m not strong enough.
It’s an easy line to win favor, but it’s the coronation for a true hero. He knows what he cares about. All of the pure love for others in that shouted line… the quivering, the hamming and then the final line with finality in place of reluctance, that’s one hell of a performance without using your hands or body.
Bill Murray – Lost in Translation and Hugh Grant – Notting Hill/ About a Boy. All three roles are about lost men. One is a bookseller, another an actor, the last a do nothing. In all three of these roles, the two actors make isolation easy. But watching the characters redeem themselves via the vessels, you see men who flow through life only to find a point worth joining to in form of a woman. I could go on with all three roles, but I’d sya the same things.
Just watch Grant in Notting Hill reject Julia and then realize that it’s not a game.
Watch Grant in Boy as he finally grows to care about the boy and then, someone who is more than a friend.
Watch Murray in Translation see a reflection in a soul, and stammer through scenarios where he doesn’t belong just to follow someone who makes him feel like he does.
Now for my favorite five of the decade thus:
Ryan Gosling—The Notebook. It’s a terrible movie. Well it’s not terrible, nor is anything bad, it’s actually pretty good. But I call it terrible because it has a needless war scene where E from Entourage dies, and that whole bit with James Garner and Queen I have no memory. If the director has any balls he would have thrown away the bookend/ framing device.
Rachel McAdams may wind up being the next Julia Roberts, but this movie is worth watching if only for Gosling. He did a wonderful piece of “dangerous acting” as a Neo-Nazi in the film “The Believer” and it allowed him some buzz, because he’s amazing on a Russell Crowe in “Romper Stomper” mode of acting.
Gosling is the great everyman in this role. Talking with Kris last week about men vs. women, we both agreed women fall in love more easily, men longer. This is a perfect portrayal of a man who never lets go: because he never plays the role pouty or heartbroken in a look at me performance, he exists as a man who let the outside in once, and doesn’t want to do it again. He knows he only has so much to give with who he is, and that’s the role and his performance’s strength: solidarity. Willing to wait, but willing to fight for it, he is one of the few more roles in this decade who actually challenges the woman.
Maybe it’s the fact he is a 40’s man and not a 90’s or 2000’s man who has to be sensitive and tough, who has to chase the girl and let her woo him, he looks as the guy who knows what will make him happy, it’s her, and he’ll be damned if he lets her muck it up or walk away.
I look at Gosling and see Gable. That’s as high of a compliment I can give.
Johnny Depp – Pirates of the Caribbean. This is actually a good movie, all things being equal. It’s a little long, it has two too many climaxes and battles. But there isn’t a moment when Depp is onscreen when the film drags. This (along with Denzel in Training Day) is my stock reply to anyone who talks about actors who get the most out of a role like Cap-o-te or Ray. It’s easy for a competent actor to make the most out of a golden opportunity. It’s legendary for an actor to go for a paycheck type of role like that of a pirate in a film based on a Disney ride and make it legendary. Depp is beguiling, idiotic, and as far from normal as possible when he plays Jack Sparrow. He’s likeable, yet he’s a selfish moron, and Depp is so commanding in presence one forgets about the latter trait. It’s one thing to craft an antihero, it’s another to take a role and play it as a sleazy weirdo so well that people actually want to talk about an acting performance in an action movie.
That, is creating a character.
Heath Ledger – Brokeback Mountain. Sure Phillip Seymour won the Oscar, but is there any doubt about which people will and did remember more? Cap-o-te was as bland as an interesting movie can be. Hoffman was able find the essence of a tortured artistic soul and did so in chameleon fashion, but even for his skill, (think this is merely an impression? Just watch how he commands his first moment on screen) he is merely doing a Jamie Foxx like the year before him. This is something that pisses me off about the AMPAS awards. They find it easier to vote for the familiar or showy, not to the truly great. Stallone in 76 lost for Rocky, as did DeNiro in Taxi Driver, and Bill Holden in Network to a posthumous Peter Finch. It’s tremendously right in a sentimental way to vote for the dead guy, but really, anyone of those three should have won the award.
Alright, I’m digressing. What Ledger does here is to play the strong silent type to perfection, and he does so with a heartbreaking secret beneath. I don’t think Ennis was gay. Jack Twist was, but not Ennis. And that’s the hard sell that Ledger deals with, and why I hate people who see this as a “gay film.” Jack knew who he loved, but Ennis was the Amy from “Chasing Amy” who was waiting for his true connection, it just happened to be same sex.
The performance is one of the best on film ever made, it’s darkly angry because he is pissed from within, knowing that what he wants is impossible. Ledger manifests this emotion in his tattered vocals (when he talks) and in his quiet non-committal, he doesn’t want to let go of the one thing he had in a shitty life, and with his ever unsteady bottom lip, he wavers when others would go for showy, and that’s the essence of the role and his performance. It’s not about Ennis being unhappy and explaining it, it’s that he can’t and the power of his lack to emote that makes the character. It breaks the heart not because Ennis says what he lost, but because you see the escape of joy in his face.
In the final scene, he hears of his daughter marriage, and he pretends to be busy. Then he finally gives in. Shortly after she leaves, he goes over to the coat of Jack, and puts it in order, slowly touching the memory of what was and why he’s never happy. To see homosexuality in place of love here is not simply bigoted, but blind.
Ewan Mcgregor – The Revenge of the Sith
As I go to write this, my Itunes cues up Bluto’s speech from Animal House.
“What the fuck happened to the Delta I used to know. Where’s the spirit, where’s the guts, huh. This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you’re going to let it be the worst! Oh, we’re afraid to go with you Bluto, we might get in trouble. WELL JUST ME, I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS.”
A quote about college rebellion against the tyranny of a system which makes you fall in line to a system which strips identity.
Yeah, that works.
Star Wars stands as now, and will stand forever, as the text of those who hope for something better. And when I say Star Wars, I mean the first two movies, A New Hope, and the best film of all time (this is of course Dave’s opinion) The Empire Strikes Back. In those four and a half hours, something was created from them. Lady Portland warned me about lumping generations as a whole. I know that it’s a blanket statement. But in the end, what a whole is remembered for is the end impact.
And in the great problems of the best of the people alike me in a time born, I think that Star Wars has got a hold on many of the things we will ever do.
What happened in Return of the Jedi was an act that we accepted because we were young. The older crowd hated the Ewoks because they were too cutesy. We went along with it because we were too young to discern what was ok and what was a shill for money.
And maybe, this is a connection of the two. The worst and the best.
What Lucas did with The Phantom Menace will never be undone. It’s a Waterloo; he took the collective love and goodwill of a generation and failed.
He fell so flat and so badly, and did so with an iron fist, there is Lucas to blame for it. He ruined the first movie by suggesting that Anakin was a Christ Figure. He cast a kid on looks instead of talent. And the movie did nothing. No great battles, no great action scenes, no heroes. And we forgave it in lieu that this was the genesis, we let pass a false step in hopes of something more.
Then he never delivered. The second film, Attack of the Clones is one of the worst films of all times. It fails on every level. Nothing is progressed, nothing is introduced, and nothing is resolved. If you want to know why I hold Empire so high, I would like you to watch Alexander or Any Given Sunday as failures from a once great director who failed as example. While Alexander may be the worst film ever made, it isn’t as disappointing as Attack of the Clones. We as an audience bought into the idea that maybe Lucas was doing something for the bigger scheme, and all he did was to give Yoda a lightsaber and let the bad guy escape.
We wanted something. And Lucas gave us nothing.
Then it comes to Episode III.
It’s by far the best of the “prequels.” And it’s good enough that one wishes that maybe they were more like this one instead of realizing that these three movies should have never been made.
But caught in the middle is Ewan McGregor.
In all of which is bad, he is great. His performance in Attack of the Clones is enough to carry the scenes he is in.
Yet in Revenge, he is able to pull something off that few actors can ever lay claim to: he not only saves a needless sequel, he makes you care about everything you loved about the first movie in the first place.
First off is his delivery of bad lines. With the exception of 10 or so lines, Obi-wan is nothing more than a rank in the file of the movie. For all of his importance to the saga, he always seems to be a means to the end.
That is until his ultimate speech.
Obi-Wan: You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness! Anakin Skywalker: I HATE YOU! Obi-Wan: You were my brother Anakin. I loved you.
I decided to include the Animal House speech because it’s the ultimate speech about sticking up for what you believe in.
The Revenge speech is the opposite, where they chose to take the easy way or to do nothing.
Watching it, I always fall apart, it’s the sight of a man who has to live with doing the worst to their beloved. Sure it’s part of the saga, and I love that moment for what it means to Star Wars, but it’s more than that:
It’s a performance which transcends the mediocrity of a bad idea to bring one home to the ideal love of hope:
To try to become a hero is a long stretch for an actor who is in it for the moment. But with that speech, Ewan is not doing for him and he isn’t doing it for the paycheck. He just simply sees what we all didn’t want for a guy we loved like Anakin. He betrayed us, much like Lucas, and we shout with him, we loved the old, and that we are angry for the man for making it simpler.
And now for my vote for the best performance of the decade so far.
Kevin Heffernan—Super Troopers
Farva is one of the least likeable characters to ever come across the screen. He’s a loser with an authority complex, and totally clueless to specify.
This role is written for a schlub, but what Heffernan does is to create a douchebag so annoying and unaware that he ruins any flow of the other people in the scene. He’s the guy you want to avoid inviting to parties. He ruins everything because he’s so desperate for attention yet so self-involved he can’t help but try to top any act. You shotgun a beer, he tries to be cool by shotgunning three.
Farva is a man who never gets it, and Heffernan plays him like he’s not even reaching for motivation, like he’s channeling the most idiotic impulse that comes to him in the moments before his line. Why not spit into the mirror of the car during a still establishing shot? Why not add an extra eyebrow raise when lighting a mix tape? Why not shake up beers and yell Farva’s #1 during a classy event?
Why order a soda when you can ask for a liter of cola?
The line may have been written, but Heffernan makes them as uncomfortable as possible, making the viewer think “I know that guy” and to revel in the joy of the awkward.
Oscars go to actors playing retarded people or villains, only once in the last 30 years did they go to a guy playing a loser, and that was to Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda. For them it was easy to see a respected actor playing dumb. But here, Heffernan does Kline one better, creating a character who is so appalling on the first viewing he sucks the air out of the scene the first viewing, but on the later reviews, you can’t wait for him to appear, because he does every scene in the most painfully obtuse way possible. And it's fucking hilarious. (continued...)
I have always gotten into fights with actors and dramatists when it comes to the virtues of cinema versus theater acting.
More often than not, they feel that these two are one in the same, and the expression of so many facets is all important and thus should be what qualifies a great acting performance.
Call it a difference of opinion. I can’t stand Glengarry Glen Ross the movie. Lauding the actors for a muddled morality piece that claims to be about male competition. Feh. The whole play is filled with long, curse heavy, immaculately timed speeches. The actual content of the words themselves? Shit.
It’s the most streamlined, balls to the walls, male greed machismo talk, filled with speeches that sound exactly like those coaches give during movies like Friday Night Lights and Knute Rockne. Loud, aggressive, and as motivating as cold water to the nether regions.
As a movie, I don’t even buy it as a slice of life style film, because no group of people sounds like assholes all the time. It’s nothing more than a performance piece, and because you have guys like Alec Baldwin, Al Pacino, and Kevin Spacey playing these roles as the more cleanly filtered version of their persona, it seems like these guys are doing a hell of a job.
It’s just not the same as if you saw them on stage, where you get to see the special dynamics, you can appreciate the change in cadence, the body language in the blowhard tête-à-tête’s that provide tension that doesn’t come through in a camera. The actors have to be in such a zone for two hours, they can’t flub the lines and do another take; they can’t hope that editing masks a scene where half of the performance is set.
Watching them tear through a play like Glengarry Glen Ross in a theatre is nothing short of breathtaking; the proximity to the right level of bombast is enough for you to overlook a bad text. Call it the Andrew Lloyd Weber effect.
But I have of course left out the Jack Lemmon role in the movie version. So pathetic, so weak, so drained of a character, it takes little to nail the depravity of the role. First off most everyone else is going big in the direction of loud voices and puffed chests. By not doing so, the base pathetic level of the character is already set, do take the character down a more introverted role, and it’s easy to steal the show, even a fair actor can do it.
But it takes a rare sort of actor to have a great performance, and it comes not from any particular acting chops, but just from charisma. Lemmon is so hapless in this, one can feel him drain away the collective confidence of the audience, teetering between failure and survival. Lemmon’s famous role is debatable, but for the sake of his endearment to the audience, his character in the apartment probably has the fondest attachment (if you unfamiliar with the character, but have seen American Beauty, Lemmon is a non-toking, less modern version of Spacey).
To see him as such a schlub, as the lowest form of masculinity, it works not directly from how he says it, but what he represents to the audience as a Jack Lemmon character. He was always so close to failure, and so joyful in success, to see him here suffer the downward half of the wheel of fate is more cogent, because in most of his roles, he’s been in the middle in the beginning.
Why Lemmon works opposed to some of the others is not just that he plays off type, but because his presence is the dominating aspect, we’re getting all of the iconography, and watching Lemmon carry it to the bottommost valley of his persona. So luckless is this character in this portrait, the Simpsons have made it a running cameo (but changed the name to Gil.)
++++
Most theater buzz is that America’s greatest living actor (who hasn’t become a caricature of himself in Ben Stiller comedies) is likely Liev Schreiber. And yet he picks the worst films to act in, and you can barely tell he’s good. In the Omen, he seems to be staring at the devil for a paycheck. But to watch him play a good part, like Orson Wells in RKO 281, you get the fire from this guy, he dominates the screen like few others, pulling all attention on the bravado of his delivery and the potency of his eyes when silent.
It’s hard to judge a great performance on screen with the same criteria that one would for stage, because it’s not a matter of if the two are interchangeable, it’s a matter of recalibrating the importance of one aspect over some of the others.
As I mentioned in the 13 going on 30 post, Premiere ranked Peter O’Toole’s performance in Lawrence of Arabia as the greatest ever. It’s in my top 10, but picking the best is hard, especially since Peter O’Toole gets away with more by the color of his eyes than by other expression, allowing the actor’s sexual ambiguity deliver more effect than any monologue ever could, and to be sure O’Toole is dynamite in this role. But he lost the Oscar that year to Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird, also in my top 10 for simply his embodiment of paternal decency and good with benevolence to his children and steadfast courage in the face of oppression.
The best performances of cinema almost have to exist outside of the film itself, they have to be acted with precision and dedication, but there has to be a little bit of swagger/ iconography to some of them. After all, there are a thousand actors who can play a part like Hamlet; there is a reason why you remember Olivier: you see Olivier, in all of his prowess, killing the To be or not to be, and subconsciously you see him as the character, making that speech about contemplating life.
When it comes time for that kind of performance, you need a Schreiber or Olivier. But the joy of cinema comes often from the alternate side, when they play a vessel more than they function as an actor.
This is a history of stars Bogart, Gable, (Harrison) Ford, (Cary) Grant, Gene Hackman, Eastwood, (Jimmy) Stewart, and Cruise. These are the favorites in almost every era on both box office and acting. None of them were particularly great at acting. They were very good, but we loved them more for the iconography than we did their raw skill.
When they come between, where we see them as actors and stars, a reverence of gold circles everything they did.
Stars like Brando, Nicholson, DeNiro, Pacino, Spencer Tracy, Morgan Freeman and the like (and I’m leaving out many) get the benefit of being known as acting giants first, stars later; the dichotomy is we granted this title to them because they did what they were expected of so well that we consider them to be above the norm of a media they thrive in.
In the final moments of Oliver Stone’s Nixon, we see Anthony Hopkins as the president looking at Kennedy’s portrait.
He says: “When they look at you, they see what they want to be. When they look at me, they see what they are.”
Kennedy and Reagan were adequate presidents on most accounts. But they had that air of desire, somewhat godlike and yet completely human, (and I think Nixon may have been better than either of them) but they are always cherished for what they embodied, not in action, but in hope.
Before I get to the other section, here is my incomplete list of the top 10 male performances of all time (comments are on for this one, please interject with yours if you’re out there and care).
Peter O’Toole – Lawrence of Arabia Gregory Peck – To Kill a Mockingbird Robert Duvall – The Apostle Robert DeNiro – Mean Streets / Raging Bull (the first is his best, but it’s a supporting role) Daniel Day Lewis – Gangs of New York / My Left Foot (the latter is only worth watching a second time for him, the former is worth 20 minutes every time to catch him in it) Al Pacino – Dog Day Afternoon Sylvester Stallone – Rocky Dustin Hoffman – Tootsie Marlin Brando – The Godfather
(there are many left out, and I could extend this to 25 if I really wanted to be sure, but these are some of the only films where I watch the film for the performance as much as I do the film itself)
Ok some more
Peter Sellers – Dr. Strangelove Jack Nicholson – Chinatown Bill Murray – Stripes and Groundhog Day Clark Gable – It Happened One Night and GWTW Orson Welles – The Third Man and Citizen Kane James Cagney – Yankee Doodle Dandy Jimmy Stewart - Vertigo
See, unless you set up boundaries and categories, it’s personal preference. So, it’s onto another post, the best male performances of the 2000’s on. (continued...)
Listening to my Itunes, and going thru viral videos one after another, I finally came upon the inspiration for today’s little ditty.
I have spent the last week or so stockpiling a bunch of posts for some larger, week long entries of a theme. To kill the suspense, they’re all rather bitter and likely will suck. But I have some rage I gots to get out of me. That and a long piece on love and Radiohead I will probably keep like Capt. Miller and his wife’s rosebushes.
So let’s go the other way.
The song, Kingdom Come off of Coldplay’s X & Y. It’s the only acoustic track off of the album of any merit, and it’s a dandy.
And the line comes: “For you, I’d wait, till Kingdom come.”
Part of me goes, “hey you bastard, you already got Gweneth! You get to have X mas at the Spielbergs. Or Chanukah, but it’s in December and they get to tell the stories that would make anyone’s heart overflow.”
The other part: “It’s like, yeah, it’s an easy line, but it’s delivered well enough. Damn I am lonely.”
It’s probably my favorite part about love, solidarity. Whether it’s the old couple finishing each others sentences or the guy talking about the girl in the white dress all those years later, the notion of one love, for all of eternity, captured in your heart… it’s enough to wait for on distant shores.
It’s always joyous, but most bittersweet; that whole better to have loved and lost part, because it’s fuels the resonance (both audible and memory) of a heartbreak, it was that strength and devotion that created love which still stays.
Whether you stay by their side, or wait for their unlikely return, keeping that promise in your heart is achingly human and renders poetic all emotions about love.
Movie canon moment #10:
Brief Encounter – 1945 Directed by David Lean, written by Noel Coward.
This is my favorite romantic movie of all cinema. It’s short, told in retrospect, and aching in all functions of the cinema. From the bleakness of the cinematography, to the melancholy, muted performance of Celia Johnson, the abruptness of the story; all of the film leaves you wishing there was a better outcome for those involved, but in your sensible mind, you know it was never meant to be.
The movie is based on the play by Coward, which tells the tale of a married woman who meets a doctor in the railways of wartime London. They begin an affair, they fall in love, and then he is sent off to another place. The details are useless for me to recap; the setup is familiar, it’s the way it happens that matters.
In the end, they split, and they aren’t even given a proper goodbye. Even the final farewell is ruined. It’d be wonderful for the characters and a terrible movie if everything didn’t seem to go against them.
In their final speeches to another she says, (as best as I can do from memory):
Her: “Oh I wish I’d die. I don’t want to go on like this.” Him: “I don’t want you to die. If you die I’ll be forgotten. I want to be remembered.”
Moments later, she is ready still to kill herself, and she thinks to herself:
This can't last. This misery can't last. I must remember that and try to control myself. Nothing lasts really. Neither happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts very long. There'll come a time in the future when I shan't mind about this anymore, when I can look back and say quite peacefully and cheerfully how silly I was. No, no, I don't want that time to come ever. I want to remember every minute, always, always to the end of my days.
Waning moments… there is that slow few seconds where you’d rather feel nothing at all. One comes to their senses, but part of the soul aches, wishing that they didn’t have something to hold on to when they can’t hold on to the person themselves.
In the 70’s cinema, she would have killed herself in the tragic way. In the 80’s and 90’s, she’d run back to the doctor and figure something out. The 70’s version would have proved the point about defeatist life. The 80’s and 90’s version would have been about good things happening.
Yet, of all of the 100 or so years of history, why do I cherish this film from the 40’s about wartime London? Because it’s story and theme exist out of time, and for the cinematic adapdation, few settings could do better than the bleakness of trains in war torn London. It’s cutthroat in it’s realism, and allowing it to be the ultimate film about what could have been.
++++
I never expect to get a feeling of heartbreak from movies like the closing moments of Brief Encounter. Casablanca has the friendship coda to ease things over, as well as the sense that Rick letting Ilsa go probably was good for the war. In the great romance films, most either end with reconciliation or death; few of them leave the characters to go back as if nothing ever happened.
And yet, I got this feeling from a movie two days ago. And, baby, I’m Amazed.
Amazed to see a moment so heart wrenching.
Amazed I didn’t see the film in the theaters.
Amazed it came from a movie that essentially was a female version of “Big.”
++++
If anything detrimental is to be said about the cinema of the 2000’s is that in most years, the best/dominant films have been, in one sort or another, fantasy- from kids films, comic book movies, or sci-fi/ fantasy films .
2000 – Almost Famous, Crouching Tiger 2001 & 2002 – Lord of the Rings 2003 – Bend it Like Beckham, School of Rock, Lord of the Rings, and Finding Nemo 2004 – The Incredibles 2005 – Batman Begins
There are some left out of there, like In the Bedroom, Traffic, and Lost in Translation.
From 2004:
13 going on 30.
If this is the decade of escapist fantasy in cinema, why the hell not go with it?
13 going on 30 is Big with a girl as the lead. Jenna is turning 13 on the first day of the film. She is ready for the party with her best friend Matty, but wants to be part of the cool clique. She likes fashion magazines, Matty likes photography (important later plot points), and the only way she can get the cool girls and guys to her party is to do their homework.
She is aged a 13 year who wants to be popular and who is sick of who she is and wishes to be “Thirty and flirty and thriving...”Under movie rules of logic and wishgiving, she wakes up in an apartment and she’s thirty.
The next 40 minutes are basic “whaaa… how did I get here” scenarios, like Jenna woke up in “The Trial” as a 30 year old fashion Diva in Jennifer Garner’s body (That’s right, we’ve had a Romantic poetry, Citizen Kane, Kafka and Saving Private Ryan references in one post)
Where it goes from there… well god damnit if it isn’t fantastic. Not only does her character make every measure to do well, we actually see her earn it. She overcomes her obstacle at work with an idea I’d like to see it happen in real life, she re-connects with Matty (a great Mark Ruffalo, second only to Ryan Gosling for best male counterparts in this decade) and figures out why they were friends from him telling her of the ashes of their relationship after her 13th Birthday. She even befriends the 13 year old in her building, partly out of soul recognition, but it functions as the transformation of the soul she would be headed to if she got what she wanted.
There are some great moments in the path.
1. Her going home to find herself and trying to piece her life together. This has two great scenes: where she apologizes to her mother for missing Christmas the year before (the Midwesterner in me loved this to no end), and her crawling into her parent’s bed on her mom’s side during a thunderstorm. On so many levels…. does that work.
2. One of the great dance scenes in non-musical history. The end result: Jenna gets the whole of a party to dance to “Thriller.”
Why this works and so many others fail:
A. You have to have someone with the mind of a 13 year old to actually try to get everyone to dance the moves of the video. B. You have to have a guy who is in love with the girl be the one to back her up. C. You have to have an overweight girl with low self esteem join in. D. You have to have a gay or black man join in at the key moment and do the trademark move (here it’s a gay and the moonwalk) E. It has to be airy and goofy enough to suspend disbelief.
Check and mate.
The films biggest flaw is that it has one more dance scene set to “Love is a Battlefield” but that’s about it.
And then it comes to the end.
Matty is getting married. All of Jenna’s plans and hard work have been spoiled by her former friend and popular girl (say good bye to these! (I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist the Arrested Development joke))
And the showdown comes:
Jenna: I am not the awful person that I know that I was. I don't even know that person. And I'd like to believe... I have to believe that if you knew that... ...if in your heart, you really, really knew that... ...you wouldn't be getting ready to marry someone now. Unless that someone were me. Matt: I'm not gonna lie to you. I have felt things......these past few weeks......that I didn't know I could feel anymore. But I have realized in these past few days......you can't just turn back time. Jenna: Why not? Matt: I moved on. Jenna :You moved on. Matt: We've gone down different paths for so long. We made choices. I chose Wendy. That's her family down there. We care about each other, you know? You don't always get the dream house, but you get awfully close… I always loved you. Jenna: Look, I won't have you be late. Just go. Go on. I'm fine. I'm just crying because I'm happy. I want you to be so, so happy. I love you, Matt.
And that’s the moment. She leaves. She is forced to live with the life she was going to lead, and all of her good intentions can’t solve it.
Of course this is a movie in the 2000’s made for teenage girls. So moments later, she winds up with him in a different way.
But that moment, it makes me think of Brief Encounter. I can’t even believe I am making the comparison. Partly because it’s almost treasonous, mainly because it’s true. I can’t think of a more painful love speech to give.
Call it the dreamlike and wonderful.
Call it patched on and manipulative.
Maybe it’s the formula of 2000 cinema, to show the worst and give the best possible.
++++
Tom Hanks performance in Big recently got the ranking of #15 in Premiere’s 100 greatest performances of all time (Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia was #1).
It’s that great of a film.
And 13 going on 30 is almost the same film. The main differences, other than gender, are that Jenna doesn’t know why she is there, but Josh does and Jenna ultimately gets the guy.
In the end, I’ll choose Big. It’s a tad bit funnier, there aren’t as many easy enemies, it’s a little bit more innocent, it’s got Hanks in a white Tux spitting out caviar, eating mini-corn like real corn, and the Chopsticks on the piano in FAO.
And the last shot of Josh being Tom Hanks one second and a boy the next is pure melancholy, as she has to leave the best man she has met in ages, only for him to return to the only woman who loves him more, his ecstatic mother.
I wrote this last week, but am posting it now, because it's somewhat drivel, it's entirely personal, and I like it for what it is, but not enought to post it as new.
Most of the bad things I do, I do when I am drinking.
Most of the best thoughts I have are when I am hung-over, namely that I shouldn’t drink so much.
Dr. Marcus, Steaze, Lady Portland Rose Royce, and I all went down to Dockwilder last night for karaoke.
There was no singing to be had.
”Bar’s packed,” the guard stated. “Fudge packed?” went the Steaze, beating me and everyone else to the joke.
Went to a bar called Moe’s. Can’t lose right? Yeah, you can.
So we had the idea of going to the beach and grabbing some beer at a convenience store to add to the adventure. But these were closed, (insert the joke here) and Marcus, his old Spirit Friend, and I saddled up at Prince O’ Wales where we were the only three drinking at the bar, and the drinkstress had great taste in music. It ended with me saying “Doll, you got great taste in music, and I’d love ya if you weren’t a bartender.”
While it’s somewhat miserable, one of the best things about the summer is that the heat limits my sleep. Also aided by the fact that I am nocturnal and on GY time, I sleep during the hottest part of the day. In the winter I normally sleep 10 hours or so a night, partly because the cold causes deeper sleep and I love my dreams. I’m selfish that way.
The battle of my internal voices are of the 17 year old idealist (Indiana) and the 25 year old realist (Cali). Cali is the one who has to work for a living, has to worry about bills, tries to get better jobs, thinks about going back to school for an MBA. Indiana is patient one, filled with the hope and self-belief that it’s all going to happen for him. Indiana is agnostic but the door is open, Cali is Buddhist. Cali tends to run the bodily and daily functions, and does what he can without listening to Indiana, who always is coming up with new ideas for art that Cali tries to remember but can’t finish if he even starts them. Connected by a moleskin diary, they wonder about the past as a whole, knowing that the two paths they want to go to ultimately end in wealth, one sad, the other tortured but happily suffering.
Anyway, most of the time Cali rules my body, allowing Indiana in ever so slightly to remind him of his path.
In the hangover, Indiana takes over though, as Cali is too pained to function. Maybe this is all a falsehood, but it may be the reason I enjoy hangovers.
Wakeup around 1:30. Watch the end of the Swiss world cup game.
Great game, fantastic header goal in the 89th minute by the Swiss. But I didn’t yell in joy, because I was on the phone with my grandma (maternal).
This was the work of Indiana, he was free to share his heart with the world, and he decided to call his grandmother, who is somewhere in that area near death. Both Cali and Indiana try not to think about this. But Indiana called her to talk about books (we’re currently reading The Brothers Karamazov and will follow it with Tale of Two Cities) and Indiana called her up out of love because she used to be a librarian, and was one of Dave’s biggest influences to the arts. In fact the only reason we decide to read Tale Of two Cities is because she once mentioned in passing about the book “Oh that ending.”
I can’t do her dialogue justice, because they way she said it was so rapturous and succinct it’d take a week to fully replicate it. The short version is: Like and old widower talking about his wife, the love of his life, and you can just feel the pure “amore” flying out of him, but stops because he knows that if he keeps going, the happiness that would escape would only widen the sadness he has of her loss. When I can detect that level of love about a text, something so great you would give the world to relive it but you know that you can’t so you limit the expression, from a person, I am always going to seek that text, just to know a little bit more about who that person is and how they see their reflection in a book or album.
Call ends. I head upstairs to take a shower, but first go to my PC to load some music. For reasons (new word alert: def: a moment where one randomly finds a media that reminds them of who they are and what they believe) museiful, I decided to change my Itunes to a Radiohead only list.
Here is the stream of thought:
Is it almost disappointing that the best album of the 2000’s is still Kid A, is it a reflection of how shitty this decade has been or that the work was really that great, and that the album only gets better with every passing year.
I leave the door to the bathroom open. Steaze isn’t here, so nobody will se me naked. In the shower, I take I slow. I am still damagingly hung-over, and even with the two Boddington’s I used for hair of the dog and supplemented with Aspirin, I am still painfully far from free and clear.
Head against the wall of the shower. I think I hear Lift over the din of the showerhead. Against the wall, I realize, this pose of me perched against a wall, wet, and methodical would make a good picture, but the drawback is that I would have to shoot the shot from below the bottom of the bathtub, and that to fully get the right shot, I would have to be in a glass shower, and I would have to fix the impression of my feet against the glass so it seems more natural.
Move to the chair in front of my computer. Turn off the randomizer. Manually put the play list to the second half of Hail to the Thief.
Go to sleep. Track 5. It’s a good thought. I close my eyes to let the music envelop me.
Track six. Back to 2003, I am finishing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I remember how good these texts went together, and since then, when ever I think of either, I link them together. I remember finishing the book, completely saddened because of Sirius, and not wanting to do anything, still struck by a text so powerful. I remember the night after, where Kris called me to come to the Adam’s family house. Lisa was in Hawaii, and I didn’t have to worry about combining plans. I remember not wanting to go, because I had gone through so much already that night. But I went and the night was forgetful.
Track 8. I think back to the summer of 2001, I am in an outdoor area in Ohio watching Radiohead on their Amnesiac tour. I am there with my best friend in Indiana, Mike Griffiths, and I remember seeing them play “Like Spinning Plates” live for the first time ever. I remember Thom’s intro: “We used to have a show in the UK, I don’t know if you had it here, it was called name that tune. If you can figure this one out… you’re good.” I remember being hopeful they were going to play “True Love Waits.”
I think back to my room in the house of my dad and former stepmother. My step-sister was a huge fan of the band. I think of how I always felt they were welcome strangers in my house, that they were there, but I never knew them as I should. I send my former stepsister a pair of text messages telling her everything from I am sorry about not being family, and that I really did treat them as much.
I think back to the bathroom in that house. We moved in during 2000, and we did so when my leg was broken. And I think of Mike again, he helped me move in, because I could barely carry anything on that weight, and was still using a cane at that point. And I’m in Pacific apartments for a moment, moving in with my father after the 2500 mile drive, and I am running down the hallway. For the first time in 4 months, I could run. And I’m back to my bed, here in Culver City, thinking of it all.
Six years. That’s how long I have been here in LA (the first 6 months I lived in a dorm in Los Angeles, my heart and mind were in my home state). The aspirin and Boddingtons are doing there best to purge the old alcohol from my body. I can actually feel it. And I know it’s a bad thing to do to your body, but I was in such a foul morning after I forewent my general rules, I almost never take Tylenol after drinking, and I have maybe only three times done a hair of the dog.
And I am lifted in the most benign sense, as is all of the good in my soul has broken a barrier. There isn’t a bad emotion in my body, and it’s one of the few times I have ever felt my heart, in the most metaphysical way, I felt a rapture of love that seemed to carry from my body.
I remember this moment. I was thinking of writing about this. And I was hearing Motion Picture Soundtrack. I’m with Brian earlier this year. We are talking about Radiohead, watching his new DVD of a concert of hi, drinking tequila and we start to talk about the divorces of our parents. I remember that night; it was the first time I had ever talked about my divorce to anyone in maybe 10 years. And I couldn’t talk at times. My heart was beating so much, and all of the misery came back and almost choked me.
And I did something I have only done twice, and am going to do partly now, I talked about my dreams. I have dreams where I go home, and all I do is yell at my family. It’s pure, hateful venom, poured out at them. Usually it’s reactionary, they have found out about something I have done and I to fight the accusations I throw back all of the ill they ever did to me. I yell, and I scream and I wake up with a sense of rage in my body I can’t comprehend. I don’t have any malice to them; in fact I have nothing but love. And in the point here where I am, it may be sensible that the reason I moved to LA was to get away from them as much as it was to find me. I miss my family, but I enjoy not having to do the normal family stuff even more. Every time I go home, I have to go to the Sunday dinners, sit in my grandparents house and listen to them bicker with my Uncle who moved back in with them at the age of 50 or so putting his 2 cents in when he can. What I miss about Indiana are my other friends, and I think of those moments I had with them and those I missed.
I hate hearing stories about the times they had at college. Well, hate is a weird use here, because I may have changed the scenario so that the story would never have a genesis, but it’s the same feeling when I go home and tell tales of my life out here. I wish we were together, I wish they could have met Steaze, Lady Portland, Marcus, Brian and D’A. I wish they were out doing the same thing I was, suffering a strange set of years finding our voice.
I spent 5 years with these guys in Indiana, and I spent 3 with my guys in California, and it pains me that they aren’t connected.
And it goes back to the Buddhist thing. It’s the old thing about texts, you don’t find them, they find you.
Flashback to 1998. I am in Waves music store in the Fashion Mall in Indy. I am there with Brad. I have every intent of buying Radiohead’s Ok Computer because the lead music critic in Entertainment Weekly named it the best album of the year, and described it in words like “Cohesive, beautiful, and modern.” I don’t know why that attracted me to it, but it did. In the store, we are looking through the R section of the Rock/pop CD’s. Brad implores me to buy Rage Against the Machine. I think maybe, but I decide to get the Radiohead CD anyway.
We are on our way to the movie theater in the pathfinder, and he cues up Paranoid Android and then Karma Police. I had never heard them before, because I only listened to CD’s and I didn’t like any modern music (this was during the period after grunge and before hip hop and Britney clones took over the music mainstream). We went into the theater, and we met a bunch of the rest of the group. We were going to see Good Will Hunting.
We laughed so hard at the preview for the Apostle with Robert Duvall that they girls infront of us moved three rows forward. We loved the movie, and one of my favorite moments came when Will is asked by Skylar to tell her he never loved her. And will tells her he never loved her. And Mike bursts into laughter.
I remember that. And I go back to Ohio, and watching one perfect evening with Radiohead. They didn’t play the songs I wanted to hear exactly, but I loved that show, and maybe it was all helped by the guy behind us, who was traveling solo but carrying. While I won’t say I smoked a bit with him persay, I will note that without a trace of booze in my system, I saw stars on a lifted plane.
And I think of Brian, and a conversation we have been having for the last two years. I don’t like to go to concerts. For some reason I can’t fully explain when asked, I don’t like music concerts. I love bootlegs, I love buying live CD’s but I don’t like being there. I hate seeing people wrap themselves in British flags for groups like Oasis, I hate seeing couples make-out when Dave Matthews plays Crash, I hate seeing people pull out lighters. It’s like we are giving them the respect of old tendencies, as if we couldn’t come up with something else. I wish they knew how much I loved them and their albums I listened to for years alone in my mother and fathers house. I wish every concert I went to was like that one in Ohio.
I guess that’s the problem, I can’t stand to go to these things unless I am there with the people and memories I came to love the band with. If I go with a girlfriend or a couple of new friends, I feel like I’m discounting the very reason I fell in love with the band.
I have so much history with the bands I love, from playing Piano Man at the end of almost every party I had in high school, listening to Led Zeppelin while playing Goldeneye, listening to the Clash with Kris in 401 and playing instruments along to it, listening to Bruce’s Secret Garden thinking that some girl was the answer to my sorrow. If they aren’t there, it’s almost as if I am leaving them out.
I wish they were here with me. In concert I know they aren’t, but alone in my room recovering from a hangover, I still have them with me in memory, and in the right settings I can feel them with me. And it makes my heart glow.
I wish they were here, but maybe, they feel the same way. I’m tied to Radiohead because of the four years from 1998-2002 where they meant everything to me, because my friends were always there. Going to concerts would be trying to recapture the past, and it wouldn’t be the same if they weren’t there. I connect the two because I love them both, but in separate venues, and that would mean me growing up to another point, where I knew I have left them behind.
I am without them, they are without me. Lives on their own paths, and I can’t help but think that some of my happiness was tied to Kris being back in LA, for the first time in months, I felt like my life was a little bit closer to complete again.
That’s the silliness of love, you only feel complete when things are going your way, I fear to start a new memory without the rest.
And on comes a live version of High and Dry from the mid 90’s I picked up on Audiogalaxy. And I think of AE and that miserable fall we spent trying not to fall in love. And I remember the last 6 years as how it was from one muse to another. And I get all the joy of all of those years. That’s when you feel love. (continued...)
With the growth of Web 2.0 programs like Flickr, Youtube, and Myspace, the web continues to evolve to the heights everyone on the staff of Wired predicted 10 years ago. While the greatest inventions are porn based (tabbed browsing and thumbnails), it’s nice to see advertising take a come 360. From the loading screen to the detail of the chicken in the country kitchen, it’s a fully realized piece of web advertising, effective, interactive, and employs three of the five senses (maybe four/ five if you fart or lick the screen).
Dressing up in droogs gear (who is Alex is your guess) and now going on MTV with Chewbacca (1997 lifetime achievement MTV winner) on drums:
Gotta love it.
Speaking of stuff on MTV, here is the best put down since Colbert vs. Bush.
Just brutal, if the girl was a man, the car would have erupted in the greatest fist fight ever on TV. Seinfeld had it best about boxing matches, they don’t have enough to fight about most days. You look at the history of boxing and you find some of the best matches were the most hateful, like Rumble in the Jungle, Ali Vs. Frazier II and III, Rocky Vs. Drago, (I can’t remember if it was Vargas or whoever two years ago in the best battle of the ages, I already follow English soccer, don’t ask me to follow a dead sport as well). Jerry’s idea was to have the boxers drive go carts around the ring until they got into a crash and tried to figure out who was to blame. When that kind of fight is brewed on such hostility, the fighters are willing to go to the death.
On a side note, if the guy was a girl, it could have been the greatest cat fight of all time, slaps, boobs, tears, I’m already there.
++++
Onion link of the month:
A gem . Is it a war allegory, is it to be taken as is, figure it out for yourself.
It’s not over yet though.
It’s time to talk about something so special it just makes my heart run over with joy.
The World Cup. I don’t know why Americans haven’t embraced this yet, and I know it will be a long time until they do. But fortunate for me, I live in LA now, not in Indiana, and south of the Valley, it’s one of the most diverse cities in the world. We have Brazilians in Culver City, Iranians who prefer to be called Persian’s in West and Brentwood, Chinese in Monterey Park, Koreans around Wilshire and Vermont, Japanese around the Westside, El Salvo’s in the South Bay, British in Santa Monica, Russians, El Salvo’s, and Ghana-esque in the South Bay, Nepalese working my 7-11, African-A’s in Baldwin Hills and everywhere south of the 10, and whitey and Latiney/ Mexicans everywhere in the city.
First off:
Yeah, it’s all over the top and gooey, but this is what this means to countries, it’s about country pride in the best sense. It’s not about culture, it’s not about style, art, additions to the world, it’s about belief in where you are from, not as a mark of personality, but about the people you grew up with, and how much it could mean if a culture divided by any possible task can be mended in cherishment of what they all hold similar (this is why everyone outside of Brazil is hoping for them to lose, they already have won 5, give it to someone else, and why a US win would piss everyone in Europe off), it’s about believing in ones growing up, and it’s regionalized not by city but by country, it’s not who you vote for, but for which country you vote for—if they let you vote, that is. I want the US soccer team to win it all, it would be a Miracle on Ice moment, because we can embrace a collective greatness.
But it’s the wrong time. If we won, it would only raise more issues about our politics and do more for the O’Reilly’s of this world. I want to win so bad, but I feel that it would undermine the achievement because it would take the glory to someone who didn’t care. We as Americans need this moment, but what do we have to cheer about. We’re in a bad war, and even if people in Europe secretly like us for fighting Muslims, it’s not the right time. (this is the INLY double secret super reverse jinx hope tactic, because if they win, I will be running wild for a decade)
My guesses for the Cup?
Brazil loses in the quarters to Germany or England.
The US gets 7 points in the first round, shocking the Czech Republic, tying Italy, and beating Ghana. They make it to the semi’s where they lose to a Euro Team or the Argentines.
Of course all of these predictions could be off as I don’t have the knockout seeding sure, but I will give my prediction for the winner.
And I came upon it while watching the Mexican – Iran match. I was watching the team which represents a country that is flaunting all global decrees about nuclear weapons battle the sworn Soccer enemy of the US team, (don’t take this as a slur, the Mexican team are a bunch of dirty players, they chop calves, they take dives, and to their credit because they don’t have any height in the front line they make up for it with speed and rule bending, but there are few teams that like to face the Mexican squad because it’s going to be a foul laden, slide tackle, elbow gouging struggle). It took a bit of self realization not to localize my feelings, but in the end, I still can’t get over the rivalry of the US and Mexico.
It reminded me of a quote from a very famous spy:
There are two things I can’t stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures. And the Dutch.
Dave’s picking the Orange of Netherlands to win the whole shebang. But if they tie with say Argrentina and Ivory Coast, I must ask you, did you not expect the Dutch to split evenly?
Ok… one last thing.
I was going to rip on the newest Bad Boy south artist Yung Joc for his latest single “It’s going Down” which we are going to have to suffer through this summer as a collective whole. In the song he says: “Everbody love me/ I'm so fly/ Nigga throw the dueces every time I ride by /I know you wonder why/ I'm so cool / Dont ask me / just do what you do.”
Even giving that hip hop is built upon boasting and mixtapes which exclaim greatness, isn’t it a little much to say “I’m so fly …wonder why, I’m so cool?” Most rappers come out with a declaration of their greatness as a challenge via battle tape or underground rep, not when they are the latest of assembly line Bad Boy South promotion artists. But Joc spares these tasks and just states, I am so cool. Talk about cutting out the middle man. Short of ripping off the opening to Tenacious D’s Tribute “this is the best and greatest song ever written,” this is unparalleled boldness for the first release.
But once again, Tom Delounge trumps the whole thing with his Angels and Airwaves promo tour.
“I feel that this music has some magic in it. Sometimes I look at the crowd, and I almost see them floating three inches over the floor.”
This guy is getting must watch status on any appearance. When the quagmire in Iraq ends in 15 years, I am not going to put it past him to claim credit. Even more so than The Hills or Laguna Beach, anytime Tom is on camera, he smashes the barrier of self conceit and evokes a sense of “how self-unaware is this guy?” that could never be seen. Terence Trent D’arby said that his album would be better than “Sgt. Peppers” and yet his boast seems comical compared to A&A. Just fantastic stuff. (continued...)
Really, what are the odds of Paris Hilton making a good song? I mean it’s got to be Infinity minus 1 to 1. The Kansas City Royals have a lesser chance of running the table and getting to the World Series only to lose to the Spungos.
For all you haters out there… Wait I am channeling Britney’s pre-divorce poem to the fans. And before I get back to the blonde bombshell who f’d all of LA, let’s spend some brief time on Brit.
So now she is done with Marriage #2. Or 1 1/2 , if the Vegas quickie is filtered in. It’s not only that we all saw it coming, it’s a wonder why she kept sleeping with the guy. I mean, after one baby and living with the retard, you have to wonder, why in gods name did she have sex with him again. They haven’t been photo’d together in something like 80 days, and she’s in her first trimester. They must have the greatest makeup sex in the world.
What does this tell you about hot girls and women in general? 98% of the time, they pick the wrong guy. When a guy has two kids and his lone marketable skill is being a backup dancer, he’s got to be the greatest fuck in the history of mankind. I can’t think of a lone guy in the world (from 2003 and to infinity-and beyond-) who would say: “All things being… if I could have the skills and looks of any I would pick Kevin Federline.” This was the kind of guy in high school who nobody liked. He picks his identity as a cutoff form of Urbanism, dumb enough to cop someone else’s culture and mannerisms as an act for identity. Who is the real Kevin Federline? Is he a guy who hung out with the black kids in school? Is he that annoying wigger kid who wanted to be hard, but wasn’t good at any sports but could dance? Was he just cool kid? Did he possess a legendary cock whose legend passed trough the halls of the school?
I can only come to two conclusions:
1. This guy makes Cassanova look like Steve (not Stephan) Urkel (not Ourkell). 2. Britney always wanted to fuck a black guy but knew it would kill her racist southern fanbase.
If it’s # 1, then god bless her. It’s almost a cosmic rule that the greatest lovers are the worst mates, and the most loving are the worst to mate with. To give someone you love a good romp in the sack, you have to momentarily treat them like a piece of meat, more physical, more intense, giving them coyness and roughness and no affection from after foreplay until the cuddle. Soulmates have to disengage all view of the person, as they have to treat them as ethereal outposts of a spirit, it’s an out of body relationship, and maybe why the happy AND sexual married couples go into role play.
If it’s #2, we know that Usher is right out as he’d only cut her hair real short and act like Ennis with Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain. She could have had 50 cent, Thierry Henry, and given that Jesus may have been black, I am sure he would have returned if he knew the son of the lord could hit that.
In 2004, Britney was on top of the world, she kissed Madonna on stage, her single Toxic was the best song of her reign since Baby One More Time, and she came out of the J-Tim breakup looking like the winner.
Then all of her de-skankifying unraveled. She Vegas married a guy named Jason Alexander (I find the salted meats to be the most sensual), and helped the city move away from a family friendly place to a nation’s permanent Woodstock, where if you didn’t get laid, you weren’t really there. In the 90’s it was a family destination, now, whatever happens there… may result in an STD.
I have met Britney Spears in limited sorts more than five times. While I am doubtful that she would recognize me, I would give K-Fed 30% odds of recognizing me. As little as a year ago, it would have been 70%, but the guy does more weed and coke than Charlie Sheen on a bender. At the hotel I worked at on Wilshire and Ocean, he would come out at 7:30 in the AM, get into his car, stay there for about 15 minutes, and then ask us to move his car.
If I was asked, I would have failed a drug test due to contact high.
My best memory of my contacts with the dethroned princess? During her first pregnancy, she and K-Fed drove up to the hotel. We weren’t expecting her, but we never knew. She pulls to the side of the driveway, runs out of the car and into the hotel. We thought, maybe she left something inside. Eight minutes later, she comes back out of the hotel, waddling with a pregnant belly, and gets back into the car and drives off.
She had stopped at a hotel to drop a deuce, and best of all, she did the whole process barefoot. You don’t have to go to the inland empire to find white trash out here after all.
When I was 12 or so, my Uncle showed me a graph he made and had blown up via Kinko’s. It was a 25x25 chart which depicted both Napoleon and Hitler’s military conquest into Russia. Red represented das Furher and blue was the little man, yet both plots showed the same, they went into Russia with the greatest of forces and came out with almost nothing.
That’s the only historic point I can think of to compare when it comes to Britney’s marriage to Federline. She went in with everything going for her, and came out a sorry loser who continually lost believers as they realized their leader’s fraudulence and incompetence.
If one is from the Red States and full of belief in a Christian God, this is comeuppance on Earth. She sold sex, and used the works of the devil to achieve wealth, and ultimately, she was taken down out of transgression. Maybe K-Fed was God punishing her. Making her suffer for desires of flesh, and ruining her name in the process; it seems like a test of Jonah, if she can make it through this, she deserves her baptism.
Maybe that’s god working. He punished a woman who took every sinful path to reach fame and fortune by sending Kevin Federline to her.
But then it comes back to Paris Hilton.
Look first, but then listen.
Shouldn’t this have been the worst thing possibly imaginable by all accounts of a balance in the world?
As a man struggling with his own spirituality, I ask, how could this happen?
Is this a test to humanity not to hate those better off than them?
Is this proof of the lack of god’s presence since 9/11?
Is the path of Mary Magdalene the only course for redemption and acceptance as a full person in society?
Does he even exist, and if he does, how could he let this happen.
Paris’s album is currently postponed as she made a far past conceivable request to delayt the album so she could include a cover of Gnarls Barkely’s Crazy.
I am going to quote Simpsons here again:
Homer: You sure you don’t want to join our civil war reenactment? We’ll need plenty of Indians to shoot. Apu: I don’t’ know which part of that sentence to correct first.
Considering the plight of Britney Spears almost has to believe thing there is a God with a wheel of fortune, gauging success and crimes against humanity. She got what she deserved, and she is a laughing stock. That’s balance, right.
But Paris contradicts should kill every notion of faith. I mean, she was a person who is only famous because she was born rich, semi-hot, and was a total lush. She was famous for being famous. (cosmic)
But now, she releases a song that doesn’t suck. And all of my heart wants to discount it, but it’s a shade away from fucking great. Even if during the chorus she sounds like Gwen S. you have to wonder, but I mean…
Even with the news that her album is being pushed back because she wants to add a cover of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” which is incomprehensible in itself, I have no ounce of hate for her right now.
“What is the word for the opposite of shame?” “Pride?” “No not that…” “Less shame?”
Maybe that’s it. The slut finally proved her worth, and all axioms make her all the more envious.
Yet, if her single bombs, isn’t that America “Right NOW,” where we turn against everyone for doing something different? All odds point to this being her Waterloo, where she finally out-graces our goodwill.
People are suddenly getting sick of Paris because they are tired of the act. After Page 6, after a sex tape, after Nic Richie, after Matt Leinart, what is left for her?
If she fails for doing something good, is that going to be her end?
Ever since my CD player went out, I turned to the radio. With the exception of 89.9’s morning becomes eclectic and Indie 103.1, there isn’t much worth listening to outside of talk radio. And given how bad the sports radio is out here, the homogenized efficiency of ESPN radio is hurt.
The top ten radio shows is another post entirely, and me and Steaze may collaborate on that one.
But for now, a little bit about Conway and Whitman on 97.1 Free FM have one of the more entertaining of the mindless lineup on LA’s FM talk station. From 8-11 Mon – Fri they have a rather loose flowing comic show, both of them are based in comic roots and with decent timing.
One of their best segments is caller heavy, as they just set up a prize for the caller with the best joke. The upside is the very genial atmosphere, akin to shooting the shit with friends. The downside is that every third joke is weakly racist, not in the whitey can’t dance way, but that Puerto Ricans are lazy type of setup. Not only are the bad jokes, they are not even funny in a racist way.
Thankfully there are gems like this one.
An old man sits on his porch in the afternoon when he sees a young kid go by with a couple of rolls of duct tape.
He asks the boy: “Where you going?”
The boy responds: “To catch some ducks!”
The old man retorts: “That’s duct tape, with a T, not duck. You can’t catch water fowl with that!”
The young boy shrugs and walks away.
A few hours later, the young boy comes back with three ducks in tow. The old man is befuddled.
The next day the young boy walks by again. The old man peers up from his rocking chair and calls to him.
“What you got this time?”
“I got me some chicken wire. I’m gonna catch me some chickens for dinner.”
The old man guffaws and gives him a wave.
Three hours later, the young boy comes back with five or six chickens wrapped up in the chicken wire. The old man is still taken aback.
A few days pass when the young boy passes by again. The old man stands up and waits for the boy to notice him.
“What you got today, young man?”
“I got some pussywillow”
The old man stops for a second, and then says to the boy, “Hold up, I’m gonna go get my hat.”
AND scene.
And while not on the show, here is another of my favorites:
As far as complicated setups and deliberate payoffs go, this is one of my favorite jokes. It’s top heavy, it was the Greek angle (always a plus) and destroys the English (PRESENT DAY AMERICA #1)
There is a beautiful desert island in the middle of nowhere where the following people are stranded: * 2 Italian men and 1 Italian woman * 2 French men and 1 French woman * 2 German men and 1 German woman * 2 Greek men and 1 Greek woman * 2 English men and 1 English woman * 2 Bulgarian men and 1 Bulgarian woman * 2 Swedish men and 1 Swedish woman * 2 Irish men and 1 Irish woman
One month later on this beautiful desert island in the middle of nowhere.... * The 1 Italian man killed the other for the Italian woman. * The 2 French men and the French woman are living happily together in a "menage a trois". * The 2 German men have a strict weekly schedule of when they alternate with the German woman. * The 2 Greek men are sleeping with each other and the Greek woman is cleaning and cooking for them. * The 2 English men are waiting for someone to introduce them to the English woman. * The Bulgarian men took one look at the endless ocean, one look at the woman and started swimming. * The 2 Swedish men are contemplating the virtues of suicide while the woman keeps on bitching about her body being her own and the true nature of feminism. But at least it's not snowing and the taxes are low. * The Irish began by dividing their island Northside-Southside and setting up a distillery. They don't remember if sex is in the picture, cause it gets sort of foggy after the first few litres of coconut-whiskey, but at least they know the English aren't getting any. (continued...)
The circling winds that arise from Memorial Day activities from an America so off course may signal that we are not adrift as a whole, but sailing far reaching in separate directions, no longer on a course as a whole all for one to a larger destination.
What do X-Men, Barry Bonds, and a new wave of high school kids reaching adulthood have in common?
X: Men 3, The Last Stand is something of a cinematic shame. The plot is decently solid, but the execution is muddy, ham handed, and any hope of subtlety was cast away by its director for hire. When the first notable image of the film is Wolverine with a cigar, smiling in front of a massive explosion, it’s easy to ascertain a few things, depending on viewpoint:
This sequel is all about bombast, a summer movie all about action and blowing things up.
The director likes the easy imagery, and squarely plants the hero as a guy who is enjoys the defiance and violence.
Wolverine represents Brett Ratner, smiling with a bit of vice in his gullet, enjoying as he blows the beloved work of Brian Singer, and will then lord over the ashes.
(I like the third one, but I don’t think Ratner is clever enough for self-reflection. Scratch clever, this guy figured out how to coast into Hollywood with little talent, relying on connections and his long list of models homes. Subtle is the word, INTELLIGENCE is what the director lacks, and this entails, subtly, acute inspection, and motivation over movement. I’ll go with #2, namely because Ratner has to use his hands)
Ratner stands as the newest hybrid of a director, he is a (slightly less skilled than the best 2nd set directors) technician who can speak executive, able to attach to a franchise and extricate the skeleton of a plot and add in the tools and momentum that the marketing side seems to believe the viewers want. Lacking the visual flair of bombast masters like a Bay or Tony Scott, his films are very often adequate, and they serve their purpose and hardly falter yet rarely transcend mediocrity. A copy-cat master in the vein of a Brian De Palma, he takes famous works and uses them as templates, yet unlike De Palma, he does not ever look like he understands why the mechanism works (to invoke and paraphrase Jurassic Park, “he stands on the shoulders of genius, never taking the first steps to understand why it should be, only if he could”).
Which is fine, except when it comes to a text like X-Men, which is not a simple action movie like Rush Hour (where he succeeded with casting), or cop drama like Red Dragon (where he was disappointing, yet adequate in continuing the Lecter character). Ratner may be the first director in years where his writer may deserve credit for anything intelligent or clever, as he seems like an affable guy for actors, never interfering and like the studios pay for the big names, just letting them play the persona they do best, and with Wolverine (and most all of the cast), he certainly ups the charisma factor, but does so at the cost of the back-story of the character.
X-men is not a franchise like Lethal Weapon, where the action is interchangeable because the characters can carry the scenarios on charm, it’s a comic book movie, which even at it’s base level, is about people who struggle with their sense of separate identity, burdened with powers that make them more powerful outcasts, and they have to bear the task of protecting the people that shun them for the greater good. Along the way they kick ass, but that’s the icing on the cake, allowing the nerdish, boyish, or outcast appeal to feel joy in allowing the meek to inherent the Earth by force.
Rather than get into the appeal of X-men in depth – in short, it’s a parable for those who are different (any twist on deformity or exclusion) to excel—I am going to talk about why I am almost glad he was the director for this film.
First, because he is a gun for hire, it allows him to get to the meat of the plot structure, and for all of the films flaws, it has some decent action, and moves along at a speedy clip, adding mutants on top of mutants to fuel the action (which even though it’s done with little regard to the plot, we do have a TON of material for the fan boys).
The source material was already in place, both in the comics and the first two movies. We don’t have to watch Ratner fumble through origin stories, wrenching drama from the wrong cues, and updating the back stories to a 2000’s mindset. If he had done the first movie, it would have been one of the worst comic book movies of all time, and it would have killed the franchise. While the jokes in the film are weak, the story itself is rather decent, and in the hands of a more careful director it could have been one of the better comic book movies; essentially, it’s good enough from a script standpoint that it prevents him from making a truly terrible film.
His lack of attachment to the characters allows him to kill them off and his desire to keep the franchise alive prevents him from doing total damage to all characters except Cyclops, who I was actually glad to see go. I never loved that character, in the comics, in the TV series, and in the movies.
But my biggest joy comes in the form of relief, because he had to leave the Superman franchise to others to direct this film. The great comic book adaptations (Superman 1&2, Spiderman 1&2, X-Men 1&2, and Batman Begins) work because they use the character of the superhero. They understand the appeal of the characters and their struggle, examining why they fight, what they believe in, and then allow us to revel in the joy of dispelling evil.
For better or worse, Superman represents the USA better than any character in the media today. Evolved to be the most powerful, filled with a God-like arsenal, and left with few equal enemies in the world. Superman’s great struggle is that he should rule the Earth, subject them to his will, yet he chooses to do the right thing, to protect them, and to hear their cries of despair. How far he (and the US) should intervene is always the problem: to meddle too much makes the society reliant, and often causes terrible collateral damage, causing hatred and repulsion; lack of action causes envy, resentment, and can often lead to chaos in the filling the power vacuum.
If inclined to follow this metaphor, read The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, which casts Batman as the true hero for the people, cleaning up society for the people in the cities, while Superman, too powerful for day to day work hero work, moves on a global scale, left with the endgame of being a mere patsy for the US government, the one weapon in the world that that can not be stopped.
And while the trailers and previews for Superman Returns are difficult to read, I remain hopeful, because of the way I read about how Brian Singer is approaching the film: as a parable to coming back into someone’s life, on the intimate setting of Lois Lane, and to the global, societal view as a person who can be a true hero has returned. The film may be a mess, but given Singer’s track record, I’m withholding judgment, hoping he nails the underpinnings for 2006.
Ratner failed to connect any of the potency of the scenarios and situations to the modern world with any real care or depth. During the film, there is a rally where many mutants are waiting in line to receive the cure for mutantism (the crux of the comics and the fuel for the plot) and are met by protesters on both sides. It could be seen as both an anti-homosexual or abortion metaphor, and it’s touched upon, but where another director might pry deeper, Ratner just uses it to set-up a battle between Iceman and Pyro for later.
++++
I should note that the in the nights after 9/11, the films most American’s rented were action films, Die Hard, Rambo, etc. Films that featured men and women who stood up in the face of inconceivable tragedy, American’s were looking for absolution, someone who stood up and fought back. And it begs a question:
Where have all the heroes gone?
++++
On the same weekend that Barry Bonds crossed one of the sacred numbers in America’s pastime, more people went to see a fantasy film, instead of being witness to a historic event. The 2001 World Series was in the backdrop of similar confusion for our Nation, and served as an outlet when it was needed most, healing some, if only for a bit, with genuine drama, last second saves, and triumph of the little guy in the end. In a mere five years, the culture itself has not changed in terms of the love of the game, but in the knowledge that one of it’s greats accomplishments were spoiled.
I have written that it’s not even the controversy that ruins the moment, it’s the lack of joy. When Big Mac hit #62, the MLB showed the game on national television during prime time, and did so during the fall season. For all that Barry did, this happened on a holiday Sunday, when people were either grilling in the yard or watching the Indy 500. That, is how you give a back-handed compliment.
If I ever were to make a film, have a TV series, or publish a book, my father would surely remember it, it would be the moment that he saw his son achieve his dream. But if I made a second, I am sure his memories would be hazy. I am not knocking him as if I don’t think he would not care, his mind doesn’t work that way. This is a man who is one of the top 100 doctors in the country, maybe higher, but he was 250 pages into “Silence of the Lambs” before he realized that he had read it before.
But I have asked him about when it grew up and what he remembers. He of course remembers the moon landing and the Kennedy assassination, and he even remembers the Beatles on Sullivan. But he barely can tell if House (the only show he recommends as realistic for MD’s) is a rerun or not. He couldn’t tell you who won best Picture last year, he couldn’t tell you the last game he went to.
But he remembers Hank Aaron hitting 715.
++++
Listening to Adam Corolla on Tuesday morning after the Memorial Day weekend, he was ripping on the people who went to see X-men. One of his theories is that men and women are going to essentially change roles in about 20 years, with the women becoming the sullen silent types, and the men, the overly sensitive, whiny group. There is plenty of evidence, and while it’s a comical look at the evolution of the tropes of society, it isn’t exactly false. Men are not being taught by their fathers anymore, women are taught that they are princess, men are the source of all evil, etc. Watch “American Beauty” and see the plight of Lester and you will get the basis point of where the Ace man is going.
And to back his points, the generations after X (1965-1977), mine (1977-1984), and the next Gen gave rise to the most revised men in American history, we weren’t solely given manual labor as a first job, we weren’t raised on the John Wayne arctype, we weren’t taught to suck it in, but to let it out. Taught to express our feelings we were.
But Corolla fails to account for one thing. For most of us, we were taught inclusionist history, part revisionist, part male-apologist, completely sensitive and with nary a black and white distinction. It’s easy to stand in one place when one knows an evil, it’s easy to assume a role when the generation stays the course.
Many of his points are valid, and I agree with many of them, yet he doesn’t consider what is the most damaging and common problem for the rising people of the generations after him: most of them were children of divorce.
When the divorce rate of first marriages is around 50%, and one doesn’t take that into effect, it’s a mistake. First off, the damage to a kid between 3 and 15 is insurmountable. It is not as deeply painful as the loss of a parent, but it can be just as powerful on a lasting course, and maybe more so, as it presents the standard for the familiar unit with a high pretense of failure. Most all of the Boomers and many of the early X-ers rebelled against their parents, they didn’t like the system and they found their own way, because they had a system to fight about.
This notion (and I know it’s not just Corolla, it’s a view of many of the old time males) is based upon their growth. Yet they don’t realize that we don’t come from the same system. Many of us didn’t have the same role models, and even if we did, they didn’t ring true. Losing a father figure is hard enough, being raised by woman (for better or worse) creates a change in a boy growing up (we’ll leave the girls to others) and we become a different type of man when we come of age.
Kids of divorce learn in their early years what many generations learned far later on in their life: fighting for your rights is a losing game; one has to find where they fit in and then succeed. It’s the same lesson that the Greatest Generation learned but never taught, and why Boomer-speak malagates (A new word from Dave, which means to combine the successful way with bad processes) the work friendly (read tolerance and understanding over quality) force.
We as divorced kids are damaged from an onset, and it’s almost irreparable, yet it doesn’t mean that we are:
A: not men B: not capable of doing hard labor C: Not the generation that is going to save the world
Tyler Durden said: “Our fathers were our models for God…” and what does that tell you when failure transcends? Maybe we don’t believe in your way. And to end a divorce conversation, let’s just say that maybe we aren’t going to consider your tropes as heroic.
We are ingrained with the idea that maybe things don’t work out. Maybe that’s why I continue to become Buddhist, in search for balance in a world.
++++
In my younger and more emotionally vulnerable years, I always searched for the new start. I know now that then I was searching for an absolution apropos identity, but then I was perpetually looking for revolution in a world to redefine what I could be. I remember being in seventh grade, amongst all of the terrible bitterness of all the kids, of all of the infighting, of all of the self-loathing, that there was a better way for all of us to get along. We as a group shared nothing outside of awkwardness and puberty, all in a protected system yet subject to the terrors of adolescence, and looked on another as foes instead of friends.
I remember when I finished Sixth Grade, I went to summer camp, and when I came home, instead of going swimming or to the sports fields, I read. I just wanted to get away. I turned to Fiction. I turned to games, basketball, Nintendo, card, etc, and found strength there. In comic books and all other forms of fantasy media I found a safe haven, and among the lot, because of the cartoon series, I found Batman, I found Spiderman, and I found X-men. And yet I wasn’t the lone outcast, I was one of many.
Dorky as it is, I became a Magic: the Gathering fan, and many of my friends from Middle School were from there, and many of my friends to this day were from that period. It was the next step for male enthusiasm, it was the combination of baseball cards with nerdy competition, by which I mean, the smartest and most ruthless guy would win, even if he was in a wheelchair, he could overcome.
It might have been the start of a generational trend. It is entirely possible to play an entire game of Magic without having a conversation with your opponent.
And then came Instant messaging.
And then came TXT messaging (when we get to TXT massaging, call me, my phones on vibrate)
And then came myspace.
An article in this Tuesday or Wednesday’s USA Today (so you know it’s already been written elsewhere) talked about the silent nature of the kids in High School, who spend less time talking on the phone than they do on the net, which infers that they spend more time in solitary communication at home than they do outside. The addiction of myspace is undeniable, and like any addiction, it’s damaging.
I know the impulse, I had a relationship where I talked more on IM to her than I did in real life, when we got together, all we did was fool around. Never mind that we lived 200 yards from another, it was easier to just talk. It’s incredibly lame in one sort of sense, but in the other, it’s understandable when you know the mindset.
Most kids of divorce are looking for a replacement for a void. I spent years trying to find a vague object before I found cinema and music. But also note, these are things a person can do by themselves and yet still be connected to a community, it’s a cheap balance of the outside and the personal life, yet it’s tremendously comforting when you are in it.
The love of superhero texts is going to grow over the years as the acceptance grows and ease to live in the world past the media via the Internet stays there to relive it again at the end of the night.
++++
We don’t fear people, we fear failure, and when we do commit, we want to be something great, we don’t want to be nothing. We know that feeling all too well, and will attach to ideas of greatness and heroes, in any form. Even if it’s not real.
When Hammerin’ Hank hit 715, there was a scary moment as a fan rushed onto the field. Aaron had gotten thousands of death threats from people who didn’t want him (as a black man) to break the Babe’s most sacred record. When a white fan ran onto the diamond, there was a slight moment of collective shock, as you feared this guy may be a killer.
But he didn’t attack him. He just ran up and patted him on the back. And he does so with the most joyous of smiles.
May Parker: You'll never guess who he wants to be... Spider-Man! Peter Parker: Why? May Parker: He knows a hero when he sees one. Too few characters out there, flying around like that, saving old girls like me. And Lord knows, kids like Henry need a hero. Courageous, self-sacrificing people. Setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later, they'll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them how to hold on a second longer. I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams.
++++
INLY dictionary: (I got this wrong the first time, making it about culture not the person)
Old Spirit: Def – The wounded soul, men and women out of time who never feel comfort in surroundings that aren’t their own. Could be taken as the quiet type, but it’s not as if the old spirit has nothing to say, often they speak with gestures and nods, hoping for other spirits like them to notice. Never part of the trend or new scene, they find their way by common friends and shared ground. Wary of joining from the start, they know that if things didn’t end badly, things would never end at all. A spirit because they seem to drift; old not because of age, but of accelerated childhood. (continued...)
