Daddy Wants a Shine Part Two

For those of you too lazy to scroll down, part one can be found here.

When it comes to film, there's few directors that I am in as much awe of as Stanley Kubrick. There's really not much I could say about his genius that hasn't been said elsewhere, but out of all the Kubrick movies I've seen, The Shining is the only one that isn't very good, despite the fact that it's incredibly entertaining.

So how does a guy like Kubrick fail at adapting The Shining, especially when he takes the same approach to adapting the novel that he took with all his other adaptations?

I think, quite simply, it's because Kubrick had no interest in retelling the story and decided to film a straightforward horror movie chock full of cliches. To be clear, I have no qualms with Kubrick's approach. I think it was a fantastic idea to strip out all of the back story. Films are not books, and as such, have to get the point across in a much shorter time than a book does. Likewise, replacing some of the more fantastic elements with practical ones, such as replacing the topiary with the hedge maze.

In the book, the hotel grounds sports a bunch of hedge animals that come to life and chase the characters around. Now, this is one of the aspects of the book that I flat out disliked. Admittedly, I'm not much of horror fan, and things like anthropomorphic shrubs are part of the reason why. They are just silly. I really liked them early on in the book, when they were just haunting the Jack and Danny, but by the end when Halloran is wrestling a lion bush, well, it's silly. Others may not think so, and that's fine. But I think it's a good example of something that "works" in a book, but would look silly in a movie.

Likewise, in the book Jack chases his family around with a Roque mallet as opposed to the Axe Nicholson used in the film. This allows him to be a truly brutal character by severely beating his wife. It also allows for some haunting foreshadowing with Danny's visions of a monster chasing him down a hallway with the steady thunderous thud of the mallet on the wall echoing after him. But let's face it, an axe is much more immediately frightening. And Nicholson nailed the scenes where he chops through the doors. I think it was a good choice.

Also gone is the history of the Overlook Hotel. As I understand it, the hotel is haunted simply because a lot of people died there, thanks to gang dealings, suicides, and so forth. Trauma such as that leaves behind psychic imprints which people with the "Shine" are able to see. Kubrick sidesteps the various gangster murders by instead focusing on the previous caretaker's daughters whom the caretaker murdered before killing himself the previous winter. This is another good choice. It provides a strong visual that's actually more relevant to the characters situation. I was actually a little surprised King didn't focus more on them in the book.

So, strip out the excessive back stories, the silly bushes, etc, and you have a much tighter story. But Kubrick doesn't stop there, he goes further and strips the characters down to their core. Firstly, gone is Jack Torrance's resentment toward authority figures. This is fine, focusing on just the alcoholism gives you more room to drive home the point. Also, Wendy is no longer the resilient woman she was in the book, but rather a meek, victim, typical of horror films. I don't enjoy this. Seeing a strong female character turned into a typical horror movie "woman victim" is a little disappointing. Likewise, Danny's psychic visions are changed from being his inner self explaining what the visions are to an creepy alternate personality. This presents Danny's telepathy in a more horror film context, making him sound possessed instead of oddly intelligent. I don't mind it so much, as it's basically a shorthand to get across the creepiness his parents feel about his telepathy.

So, I stand by the decision to strip out a lot of the excess and keep the key scenes. But in doing so, you lose the narrative of the story. Now all we have is a bunch of disparate scenes without much motivation behind them, and this is where I feel Kubrick failed, because he couldn't provide a strong narrative for the remnants of the story.

What he does instead, is cram in a bunch of horror movie cliches, such as Wendy being a meek victim mentioned earlier. The hotel was built on an Indian burial ground? Really? Is that supposed to be some sort of an explanation? Halloran shows up and gets murdered in a yawningly "shocking" method. And worst of all, the scene where Danny first encounters a ghost and realises that they can hurt him(because his psychic powers are bringing them to "life") is replaced by another typical horror cliche where upon Jack meets the sexy woman(in full frontal) ghost and proceeds to make out with her, only afterwords to realize that she's suddenly turned into a decayed hag woman. Man, I saw that scene already in movies featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

But I think the worst offender is the fact that Kubrick didn't even bother to try to present Jack as a loving father. The complex Jack Torrance of the book, the man who when drunk accidentally broke his son's arm, who went sober out of fear of hurting his loved ones or anyone else for that matter, who submits himself to humiliation and back breaking labor just so he can provide for his family...is completely gone. Jack Torrance in the movie seems to actually hate his family before he even gets to the hotel. It's so off base, I can only assume it was done on purpose, which if that's the case, I can't fathom why. It takes all the punch out of a strong family unit trying to kill each other. Part of it could just be that Nicholson is just a surly character actor, I don't know, but whatever the case, in the movie Jack is an unrepentant asshole.

Finally, we get to the ending, which...is baffling. In the book, the Overlook Hotel wants Danny to die so that his psychic powers will stay with it, thus keeping it and the ghosts a conscious entity. It uses Jack to do this. It manipulates his vices, coerces him to give into his paranoia and ego in an effort to get him to kill his family. In the movie, I don't even know what Kubrick was trying to say. At the end, after Jack dies, the movie zooms in on a photo of the Overlook staff from the 20's, and featured in the front of the group of employees is non other than Jack Torrance, implying(I guess) that Jack is the reincarnated caretaker or that he was absorbed into the hotel somehow defying space and time. I don't know, it doesn't make any sense and is purposely ambiguous. This just reeks of a scatter shot attempt to provide a horror film ending.

Furthermore, there was a scene in the original cut of the film at the end where Ullman states that Jack's body was never found. This is ridiculous, and just further proof that Kubrick was throwing whatever horror cliche's he could think of to get some cheap thrills in place of the story he cut out.

So why do I think this movie was a poor adaptation. Well, I think it was the right decision to strip the story down to it's bare elements, but unfortunately Kubrick didn't seem to be bothered with trying to present the story at all, but rather present some vivid scene's tied together by horror movie cliches. Scene for scene, it looks great and Nicholson is fantastic, but the movie is so gut wrenchingly weak as a whole, I can understand why Stephen King would want to remake the movie, this time in a series of three hour long episodes. So, how does that work out? I'll give my insights in the next blog post.

REAL LIFE/REAL DEATH Chapter Three

"SO LONELY"

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

I pawed at the alarm clock, trying to stop the irritating noise. Then I realized that I didn’t have an alarm clock. It wasn’t an alarm clock buzzing at all, it was my phone. Ringing. I was cold, where the hell did my good blanket go? How much did I drink last night? Didn’t matter. I picked up the phone.

“Hullo.”

“Mr. Calico.” It was a lady, and she sounded like she was making a statement, not asking a question.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Calico, this is Pamela Shelly. I was calling to see if any…progress has been made…since we last talked.”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, bitch? Calling me up, checking up on me! You don’t trust me to do my job? Like I’m not going to give you all the information as soon as I get it! Fucking classist bitch, where do you get off?” At least, that’s what I was thinking before I remembered that there HAD been progress made; and that I had promised to call her this morning to let her know if I got the pictures or not. Fuck, I’m a mess.

“Uh, yeah. But I don’t think we should discuss it over the phone. Can you meet for lunch, same place as last time?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, see you there.” And I hung up the phone. Shit, I needed a shower.

I needed to check my camera and see what photos I got. I was too tired and hung over to remember much of the previous night and needed to get myself straightened out before I made any commitments to the Shelly woman. I wandered out of my bedroom to get some coffee. My apartment was small, but I didn’t mind. I don’t own a lot of stuff so what did it matter. Five steps across the living room and I was in the kitchenette, salivating over some instant coffee.

The coffee didn’t do much to wake me up, but I guess it never got a chance to. I turned around and dropped the mug. Landing on the carpet, it didn’t break, which was fortunate because it’s my only coffee cup, but the coffee was going to leave a stain. None of this mattered of course because I was too distracted by the naked girl sleeping on my couch. At least I assumed she was naked under my good blanket. That explains where my blanket went. She’s gotta be naked.

Probably.

She was lying on her side, face buried into the couch cushion. She was nestled up tightly under the blanket, one naked leg sticking out one end and her short black hair ruffled by the pillow on the other end.

I took a few deep breathes and tried to keep from gawking at her leg, but my eyes wouldn’t pull away. Where did this girl come from? She looked much too young to be with a guy like me.
She rolled over. She was definitely too young for me. Her pert little nose twitched uncontrollably, one arm fell out from under the blanket and dangled off the edge of the couch. She had a warm, familiar face. God, I’m lonely. I should go see Sandy. She’d take care of me.

Always has since my wife left.

Of course, it had to be at this moment, the moment of my gawking, horny, resentment, that the girl opened her eyes and let out the appropriate scream.

I stumbled backwards, my feet tripping up in some kind of loose fabric, causing me to come down on my back hard. The girl ran into the bathroom. I laid there for some minutes, afraid to move for fear of having broken something. This would be an appropriate end for me, I suppose.

After a few minutes, I craned my neck up (nothing broken there) to see what I had tripped on.
It was a wig. A blonde wig. The fragmented memories of last night came flooding back. The bodies, the blood, the girl…the costume. Shit, she wears a blonde wig. The girl that I was lecherously eyeballing was the same girl I swore to help last night. What the fuck’s wrong with me? She probably thinks I’m going to rape her now and locked herself in my bathroom. Damn, and I need to get cleaned up before meeting with Mrs. Shelly. Shit, what time was it anyway?

I looked at my wall clock. It read 11:43. Christ, no time for a shower anyway, but I can’t leave with that girl locked in my bathroom.

I pulled myself up off the floor and made my way toward the bathroom.
“Listen, uh,” I paused, trying to remember her name,” Jen, Jennifer. Listen, sorry if I startled you. I’m, uh, not used to other people being in my house.”

Silence.

I continued,” Look, I need to go, some work things to take care of. I won’t be gone long. There’s really not much in the fridge, sorry. I’ll bring some food back, though.”

More silence.

“Okay, well…well I’ll be back in like, an hour. Bye.”

I threw on some clothes and grabbed my camera and my coat and made my way out. My apartment was on the third floor of a rundown building sandwiched between two other rundown buildings in a rundown neighborhood. It’s no castle, but it’s cheap. And cheap suits me just fine.
The meeting with Mrs. Shelly went surprisingly well. I hadn’t developed the pictures yet, but I told her what I saw and that the pictures were coming. She took it surprisingly well, she didn’t seem to want to make excuses for her husband at all. Which I don’t mind at all because it makes my job that much easier. The meeting took ten minutes; we didn’t even get food, just some coffee. Truthfully, there wasn’t anything that couldn’t have been said over the phone. But if I hadn’t met her in person, then I couldn’t have squeezed another check out of her.

So that went well. I cashed the check at a gas station and picked up some food for Jennifer, some Scotch for myself, and filled up the gas tank with the leftover money. So I was at least set for another week or so.

I was trying to feel good as I parked across the street from my apartment, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Jennifer. Secretly, I hoped she had run off while I was gone and I’d never hear from her again. But that wouldn’t keep me from worrying about her. But hey, that’s what the Scotch was for, right?

But whatever good feelings I could sum up from a bag full of groceries and a fresh bottle of Scotch were instantly diminished when I saw the police squad car parked along the curb right outside my apartment.

Daddy Wants a Shine

Last month I read The Shining, and these last couple of weeks I've watched both the movie and television miniseries. Like many movies I didn't see until I was older, The Shining was ruined for me by The Simpsons, but in a good way. That was definitely the spark of my interest in The Shining story, but more recently I've become quite interested in the Intellectual Property(as it were) as I think it's a great example of what goes wrong when trying to migrate a story across mediums. The movie and the miniseries both take a decidedly different approach to adapting the story and as far as I'm concered, they both failed in doing so.

Let's look at the book first. Now, this is actually the only book by Stephen King that I've read, so I'm not going to presume to be an expert on him or his writing style, but I've read a lot about him and his insights into writing and I think all those insights are on display in this book(for better and worse). Cheifly, what I liked most about this book were the characters. I think King's greatest strength as a writer is his ability to present the character voices quite distinctly, especially though third person narrative. This makes the book pretty accesable and quite easy to read. Though this, King presents a haunting tale of a man struggling with alchohol and authority issues, driven mad when he's manipulated into giving into his vices. It's a good book, if a bit rambly in it's approach to the climax(which is really good).

In his book On Writing, King states that stories should not be plotted out beforehand, and that the writer should instead focus on the "seed" of the story and let it grow itself. I both stenuously agree and disagree with this(Ambivalence!). On the one hand, I think that a good idea, with well rounded and developed characters should be able to write itself(to a degree, naturally). In that, the writer should never really reach a point where he can't decide what he wants the character to do. If the character is fully developed, the writer should know how the character will react to most situations. On the other hand, I think it's a terrible idea to to write a story without a clear idea of what you want to say and how it's going to be said. Now, keep in mind that this dilema could easily be solved with some strong editing, but that's not always the case.

In the case of The Shining, I feel that some tighter plotting could have made the book much better. The chapters almost seem to hop without any concern for the flow of the book. I don't think it's all that distracting, per se, but upon finishing the book, it felt really long for only having a few (what I would call) key scenes. King also likes to dwell on backstory, which adds leagues of sympathy to the character of Jack Torrance, but the story seems to lose some subtlety in doing so.

But all in all, it's a fantastic story. Ghosts, a madman trying to murder his family, a pshychic child, it's no wonder Hollywood would want to mine this for a movie. But there's no way you could trancribe a suitable screenplay by using everything in the book. It's litttered with backstory, it's a very long, slow build to it's climax, and some of the supernatural elements are seemingly impossible by the special effects standards of the time. So, how does Hollywood do with an adaptation?

More to come later.

REAL LIFE/REAL DEATH Chapter Two

"BEING HONEST"

The police sirens began to fade into existence like a Polaroid snapshot. I knew I had to get out of there; unfortunately I was pretty distracted by the girl. There was something about her; she couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. I was suddenly reminded of my daughter, Anne. God, I haven’t spoken to her in so many years. So many memories flooding into my mind, struggling for dominant attention, I couldn’t really focus on anything. Wait, did she just say she was a superhero?

“Holy shit,” I stammered. I admit at this point, though not drunk, I was a little buzzed and subsequently at a complete loss for words. Fortunately, this girl didn’t really seem interested in striking up a strong conversation; she seemed much more interested in resuming her panic attack.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Azul’s dead!” She repeatedly cried. Then she did what comes naturally to a person who’s not used to being surrounded my dead bodies. She threw up.
Something had to happen, and it was becoming painfully obvious that I had to make it happen. I grabbed the girl by the arm led her back to my car.

She wrestled free from my grip, “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“We have to go,” I grunted.

“Are you going to take me to the cops?” she asked gravely.

“No,” I answered honestly, although it was my back up plan, “but they’re on their way, so unless you want to stay and talk to them we’d better go.”

The girl looked around frantically, probably hoping to find somebody else to save her.

“Okay,” she said, realizing that I was her only option.

We ran back to my car and sped out of the parking lot, passing the brightly lit police cruisers along the way.

What the fuck had I gotten myself into? I was just witness to a murder scene, one of the persons involved was sitting in my car (incriminating the hell out of me I might add), and said person was a crazy girl in a cat fetish costume. Shit, she may have even beaten that other guy to death. I wouldn’t peg this girl for a killer, although one look at her and its obvious wasn’t working to the same standards as the rest of the world. I drove blindly for a few minutes, unable to collect my thoughts. This was a bad idea, one of my worst, probably. There would have been a dead silence were it not for the girl’s sniffling; clearly trying to hold back a torrent of tears. I felt like I had to say something and opened my mouth to do so.

“Put on your seatbelt,” was all that came out.

Surprisingly, she complied. I realized talking wasn’t really my thing and restrategized. I’ll just ditch the girl and drink til I forget the whole night.

“So….where am I taking you?”

“What?”

“Where do you live, where am I dropping you off?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know where you live?”

“I live in New York City.”

“Jesus, what are you doing here?

“Crime fighting.” She said plainly.

“Well, I’d say that was ridiculous, but I can see you’re already in a costume.”

“There’s nothing ridiculous about justice.”

“You don’t need to sell me on anything, girl, I was a cop for thirty odd years.”

“You’re not a cop anymore?”

“No.”

“Did you retire?

“Something like that,” I croaked, my throat hurting from all this talking. Besides, I wasn’t really interested in talking about myself. I tried to turn the conversation back to her, “Look girl, what are you doing out here?”

“Fighting crime.”

“Right, you said that, but what happened, back there?”

“What do you think happened!” she snapped, “We were stopping a drug deal and they shot the Azul Amigo! Jesus Christ, I told them this was going to happen! I fucking told them! And now Azul’s dead!”

“Who? Told who? Were there others beside’s you two?

There was an uncomfortable silence, and this time it wasn’t soundtracked by sniffles and tears. This was graveyard silence.

“I can’t talk about it,” she finally said.

Well fuck. I briefly considered just dumping her off at the nearest street corner and resuming with the drinking plan, but every time I looked at her, her blonde curls a tangled mess, I imagined Anne’s face under the mask. I had to help her.

“Okay, that’s fine. I want to help you,” I said rather straightforwardly, “If you don’t have anywhere to go, we can just go back to my place and figure it all out in the morning. Is that alright?”

She nodded, slowly.

“Okay, it’s settled. Now I know where I’m going. My name’s Frank, by the way. Did I already tell you that? My name’s Frank. Frank Calico. I’m a private detective. You can trust me, okay?

“Okay.”

“So, what’s your name?”

“Night Cat.”

“Hmmm, yeah, I guess you don’t want to tell me your…” I couldn’t believe I was actually saying the words, “secret identity.”

“No, I don’t have a secret identity, when I’m not a superhero I’m Jennifer.”

“Oh, okay…well Jen…”

She cut me off, “No. I’m not Jennifer. I’m Night Cat. Jennifer is safe right now. Night Cat is here.”

I think the car drifted off the road slightly, because I found myself frantically swerving the wheel to get the car steady again. Holy shit, please don’t tell me this girl is crazy. Sad as it sounds, it would explain the costume. I mean, shit, who else would go out in a costume and fight a bunch of gun wielding drug dealers? This girl really needed my help. I could see it all so clearly; it was like, my sacred duty to help this poor crazy girl. Although, really, who was I to say anything. She’s no more fucked up than me, if I’m being honest, which I guess I am.

Great performance of a great song

REAL LIFE/REAL DEATH Chapter One

"WE'RE SUPERHEROES"

As a child, I wasted a lot of money on frivolous entertainment. Entertainment such as comic books. Superheroes were my favorite, Batman, Superman, Spider-man, and so on. And being a child, I believe in superheroes. We all did. We read about their adventures. And after reading about them, we’d pretend to be them. But I eventually grew out of it. And as I grew older, superheroes were never much more than an afterthought. That is, until today, when I saw one bleeding to death in a hotel parking lot.

The night was clear and warm. It had been a pretty relaxing night, made even more relaxing with a bottle of whiskey. The parking lot was pretty empty; the types of people using this hotel don’t usually own cars. I had been sitting in mine for six hours, waiting out the Shelly case. Mrs. Shelly hired me to tail her husband, a suspected adulterer. Thirty years of doing real police work and now I’m just a professional peeper. It pays the bills though, so who am I to complain. Desperate, jealous wives are the backbone of the Private Eye industry. I did my best to remain inconspicuous; fortunately my piece of shit car wasn’t going to stick out in this hell hole. One of the benefits to being a poor son of a bitch, I guess.

Jerome Shelly has been inside his hotel room for the last five hours and thirty-eight minutes. Some woman entered the same room four hours ago. I got some pictures, but I was waiting for the big one, one of them together. This guy was playing it pretty paranoid; never let himself be seen with the girl at the same time. Fuck, I hoped he didn’t know I was out here. Had to remind myself that he doesn’t know who I am. Can’t let my own paranoia get in the way of rational thinking. I was already starting to get a little restless. I should just run up and kick the door down. Catch them right in the act. What could they do, nothing. They’d just lie there, naked and helpless while I caught them in their lustful lies. I told myself I was going to do it, but I didn’t believe me. I just needed that fucking picture. Without it, I didn’t get the big payoff. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t get off on destroying marriages, but without the irrefutable proof of a square picture, wives like Mrs. Shelly always make excuses for their bastard husbands. More often than not they expect me to prove them wrong, to assuage their fears, not confirm them. And more often than not, I confirm them. And then I get yelled at. A lot. It’s typical of these broads, but I’ll put up with any abuse just as long as they pay me.

I looked at the dashboard clock. It read 12:56. It was getting late. Finally, the door began to open. I grabbed my camera and started snapping shots in successive order. But like always, luck was against me. A barrage of thunderous gunshots drowned out the sound of my camera right before the hotel door slammed shut. What the fuck was going on? Before I could get my wits about me, a car came barreling around from the back of the hotel. It sped past me and fled onto the highway. Gunshots were never good, but at least it looked like it had nothing to do with my guy. This wasn’t all bad. Somebody probably called the cops, though I doubted they’d show up around here for another half hour at the most. Jerome must know this, hell that’s probably why he meets here; he knows no respectable person dares show his face in this part of town. He’s probably in there right now, yelling at his bitch to calm down so they can make an exit plan. He’s going to want to leave soon, before any cops show up, doesn’t want to get spotted by anybody. He’s going to be even more careful, more paranoid now. Not good for me. But that’s not terrible. I can still get the picture.

At least, that’s what I was thinking when the girl started crying. Or, to be more specific, wailing. Not the girl in the hotel room. This was coming from behind the hotel. Where the gunshots came from. This was bad. Every cell in my brain was commanding me to stay in the car and wait for the picture, but still I found myself climbing out of my car. I told myself that it was my old police instincts kicking in. Yeah, that’s why I would do this, not because I’m a fucking stupid drunk with a death wish. My pistol rattled unsteadily in my hand. The shakes were back. Fucking great. I made my way across the parking lot and leaned against the wall, catching my breath. Only an old fool would get winded running toward his own death. There was still time to get back to the car, but I knew I wasn’t going back. I could hear the girl crying, and something that sounded much like a person being beaten to death. Foolishly, I spun around the corner, completely unprepared for what I would find.

Lying on the ground, not five feet from me, was a corpse covered head to toe in garish blue spandex. There was some kind of yellow lettering on his chest; his face was covered by the same blue spandex as the rest of his body. It was dark, the parking lot was not well lit, but I counted four visible bullet wounds. The blood seeped out from underneath him, pooling around him in the uneven concrete.

This was not the most disturbing thing I’d ever seen. Be a police detective in this city for long enough and you see some strange shit. But there was something about this image, this costumed person lying dead; it shocked me to the core.

The screeching girl brought me back to reality. I suddenly remembered why I had run over here in the first place. I looked for the helpless girl, but instead found something even more shocking than the dead kid. There was another body.

This one looked more like your standard street corpse. Blue jeans, wife beater, tattoos, and his hand gripped around a .357 caliber handgun. But crouching overtop him, was a girl. She too was wearing some kind of spandex costume, this one a deep red. She wore a mask over her face that allowed her long blonde hair to flow down her back. She was the source of the crying and wailing. And she was beating the shit out of this guys face.

I ran over and tried to pull the hysterical girl off of the dead gangbanger. Not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. As soon as I placed a hand on her she spun around and took a swing at me. Thankfully she was off balance and toppled over as she blindly swung her bloodied fists. She screamed.

“Wait!” I coughed out.

She spun around on her butt and looked straight at me and froze. She was wearing some kind of Halloween mask. It vaguely resembled a cat. “Don’t shoot, please!” she cried.

It was then that I realized I was pointing my pistol at her. I quickly shoved into my pocket. It wasn’t until later that I hoped I put the safety on. “I’m not gunna shoot ya, girl,” I said.

“What…what do you want?” she stammered out between whimpers.

I was dumbstruck. I’ve never really had an answer to the question in my whole life. “I’m a detective, I want to help.”

“Are you a cop?” She spurted out.

“No, not anymore. Are you okay? “

“They killed him. He’s dead. You bastard!” she screamed as she resumed pummeling the dead guy.

“Hey, get it together. My name’s Frank, what’s your name?” I asked, trying to get her under control.

She got off the beaten body and stumbled over to her dead friend, muttering incoherently. I was beginning to have serious doubts about getting involved and began the standard cycle of self loathing that comes with regretting your life decisions. But then she turned around, finally showing a semblance of composure and said, “He was the Azul Amigo. I’m the Night Cat. We’re superheroes.”

Me and my big mouth...

"Starting next week, hopefully, I'll begin putting up chapters..."

On a cosmic level, it was really funny that I typed that. Let's see, it's been....about two months. Yeah, so much for "next week." The day after I posted that previous blog entry, my computer imploded. Which effectively cut off my work flow. There's not really much else to say about it, complaining about it won't give me the time back. The good news is, that I got a much better computer that is much more useful in every way, well...except for the various Vista problems.

Anyway. After the initial fear that all my work had been destroyed(it wasn't), I was pretty peeved off about being computerless. Not just for all the daily uses like communication and getting news and such, I actually don't mind being disconnected from the grid, as it were. What really bothered me was that my motivation was completely derailed.

For myself, and many others I imagine, getting started is the hardest part of...well anything, if you ask me. Even after I got a new computer, I still had a hard time getting back on the horse. It just becomes so easy to allow yourself to be distracted by the rest of your life. I've heard people say that they write, draw, play music, etc. to escape from the stresses of life. But I can't say that I feel the same way. It's actually the opposite for me. I write to work out my problems and stresses, so that I can deal with them(or not deal with them, in some cases). Which, I think is why it's so easy for me to get distracted. I mean, really, who ever wants to face their problems. Not I. It's much easier to play video games and read books and so on.

Regardless, this is kind of a dumb post. What I'm saying is I've got my shit together and am going to start posting chapters of Real Life/Real Death, immediately. Like, as soon as I get done typing up this little explanation.

Oh, and to steal a line from "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" when I say, "Dad, sorry I said "fuck" so much."

It's a good sign when your blog post starts with "Uhg"

Uhg, my slave job has been bearing down on me this last month, and it is every bit as horrible as you would expect from something referred to as a slave job. What I find most stressful, is that my creative work always slows down. I mean, ya know, that's what happens when you have less time to devote to it. So, instead of getting anything done, I spend all my purloined time thinking. Thinking and thinking about all the things I want to get done. The bright side is that after all that thinking, I usually feel pretty inspired to get it all out there. This then leads to the frustrating dilemma of being really intent to produce work, but being too stressed out to really get anything done whenever I do have those few precious available moments. Not to mention, I have even less things to write about on here.

Fortunately for me, aside from thinking about all the cool things I do with an Aquaman book were I given the opportunity, I was also able to think about basic organization and planning. And I'm totally two bird/one stoning this thing.

In order to keep myself practiced and producing content for the blog at the same time, I've decided to serialize a story I've had brewing in me for some time now. The origin for this story came last year while I was sitting in the courthouse waiting for my name to be called. For those of you who've never had to go to court to deal with a ticket, it's boring. Luckily for me, I was being thoroughly entertained by the quiet ranting of an angry piece of white trash behind me. I can't remember his whole spiel, but it was amazing. I guess he was talking to his girlfriend or wife or something, but he went on about how all the cops around here are joyless bastards out to squelch his and his buds whenever they go out for a good time. The story really crescendoed up to the grand climax, where he claimed that he judge hated him, and if he had to go up there he was just gunna run, knowing that the bailiff wouldn't be able to tackle him. It was pretty great. I wish I could remember the whole story verbatim, but I can't because I was distracted by all the names getting called, listening for mine but never hearing it. But I did hear the following:

Frank Calico
Preston Rocket
Sandy Breeze
Jesse Gurly
Peter Poppins

No joke, I speak the absolute truth when I say these were real people's names. Frantically, I grabbed a pen and scribbled them down, because I knew that deep down inside me there was a noir story with these characters waiting to be written. It was a true moment of inspiration.

I stored the list away, waiting for the time when I would need it. Which is now. Starting next week, hopefully, I'll begin putting up chapters of what is tentatively titled, "Real Life/Real Death" a pulp noir story about Detective Frank Calico, as he tries to solve the murder of a Real-Life Superhero.

For those of you who don't know what a Real-Life Superhero is, well, enlighten yourself. As a superhero comics fan, I'm truly fascinated by Real-Life Superheroes. I realize that Ed Brubaker currently has a monopoly on Superhero noir, but as said before, this is first and foremost a project to keep myself busy and practiced(meaning it'll probably be an unedited, meandering mess). I don't like using the term "stream of conscious writing," but let's just say I'm Stephen Kinging this one.

Inspiration

So last week I talked about being inspired, which I would like to follow up on today. As stated, I am inspired by many things. I do, however, want to make a distinction here between inspiration and influence. I am influenced by everything, whether I like it or not. Sometimes I'm influenced directly by things that I read or see. Other times I absorb ideas through pop culture osmosis. That is life. We are influenced by the things around us. I am mostly the product of my surroundings.

But true inspiration is different. Inspiration comes from connecting with something on a personal level in such a way that it completely changes the way you look at the world. At least, for me it does. And I remember specifically what it was that first truly inspired me:




Calvin and Hobbes opened my eyes to a whole new way of looking at comics. I'm going to try to refrain from gushing over how great Bill Watterson and his creation is because it's pretty much a universally accepted fact(I could talk for hours about how great, funny, identifiable, etc every single strip is). But I do want to talk about how Watterson, through Calvin and Hobbes, changed my life.

Ill be blunt, I grew up learning to read on Calvin and Hobbes comics. I read it in the paper everyday, forced my mom to buy me all the collected books when they came out, and cut most of the Sunday strips out of the paper and taped them to my bedroom wall. I was in love with Calvin and Hobbes, and for many reasons. It's hilarious, well drawn, and able to jump from innocent simplicity to complex commentary with no effort at all. And it had dinosaurs.

This wasn't just a comic strip about a child and his overactive imagination. Even at the young age that I was, I could see that this comic was vastly different than anything else in the paper. Watterson's layouts were nothing less than stunning, his backgrounds were detailed and imaginative, and the jokes were universally understood.

I was imbued with a strong sense of artistic integrity long before I ever listened to punk rock (or anything else that requires you don't sell out to "the man") without even knowing, all thanks to Calvin and Hobbes. Clearly, this strip was doing something that no other strip could. I won't go into detail over the specifics because you can find them in many places(like the Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book or Wikipedia). The bottom line is, Watterson refused to compromise his artistic vision, and though it seems stubborn and bullheaded, and he received his fare share of criticism for it, I think the fact that he's remembered as one of the greatest cartoonists of all time speaks for itself.

Calvin and Hobbes didn't just inspire me to write, read, and draw(which it did, as a kid I drew Calvin and Hobbes fanfiction), it inspired me to live my life to the fullest, to constantly push myself to improve, and to never follow anyone's agenda but my own.

The big "Why?"

(or, I'm tired of being a Wannabe League Bowler, I wanna be a League Bowler!)



Why? This is the question that has plagued my mind for the past few years.

I suppose that is rather vague. The question, more specifically is: What is it that drives me to pursue artistic outlets rather than, as most people my age are prone to doing, a career? I am at what I consider to be a crucial age of my adult development, an although the big "Why?" question has loomed over me since the beginning of adolescence, it wasn't until this last year that it really started bearing down on me. Last year, I was in the middle of a sixth month unemployment spell, had lost contact with some very close friends, racked up a fair amount of debt, and was having what I now understand to be a Quarter-life Crisis. Frankly, I was a little depressed, but not as depressed as you would think. All this freedom, freedom from work, freedom from responsibility, and (depressingly enough) freedom from a social circle allowed me to do what I've always wanted to do, even if I was afraid to admit it: Write.

With my newfound freedom and paranoia about the world, I immersed myself into the "arts." I had only sparingly touched my guitar in the few years since my high school band had broken up, but now I had the drive and ambition to give it another go. I started a new band with my younger brother, The Sock Rockets, and since the summer of '08, we've been playing shows in "kid bars" to nonexistent crowds in St. Louis. And it's been great fun. I love playing music more than anything in the world.

But music wasn't my only outlet. I also found solace in my second great love: Comics. As a kid, I always fancied that someday I'd draw comics. I've long since realized that I don't have the discipline to draw comics. Perhaps one day I'll buckle down and really hone my cartooning chops, but as of now, said chops are rather embarrassing. So now I focus on writing. Not to suggest that writing is creatively easier, but practically speaking, it's much easier and cost effective to sit and type than it is to to draw. After half a year of writing and planning, I've got a rather large(as in, there is money tied up in it) webcomic project nearly ready to get underway. Hopefully, it will see publication before the year's out.

So now it's been a year since I hit rock bottom(emotional rock bottom, so to speak) and what has changed in that year? Well, I've got [the same] minimum wage job, which does carry with it a larger social network. I'm paying off debts. And I'm writing more. Really, it's not too entirely different from where I was in life before crashing and burning. So what exactly is different? Simply one thing, my attitude. I've never considered myself too good at the school learnin' but I'd like to think I'm smart enough to learn from the lessons life gives me.

And what I've learned is thus: You cannot wait for life to happen, you have to make it happen.

Not entirely new or earth shattering, I know, but some things just need to be learned the hard way. The reason I had such a hard time learning this lesson, was because I never had an honest answer to the big "Why?" question. More to the point, I didn't want to think about it. You see, I've always liked writing scripts and playing guitar, but I never took it seriously, or rather, serious enough. Sure, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to write and play, but I was approaching the arts with a lazy and carefree attitude. I believe my immature attitude to be a defense mechanism against the fear of failure(and believe you me, I have a deep fear of failure). It's really easy to write off the possibility of failure when it's only a hobby or something you do part time. That way, if you become successful, then you were obviously good enough, but if you fail, well then there's all these excuses for why you failed, such as blaming real life from getting in the way. But that's all they are, excuses. Either you want it or you don't. And during my bouts of unemployment and insomnia last year, I had a moment of clarity. I wanted it. I even wrote a song about it(it's called Self Aware and it's on the Sock Rockets myspace page, natch!). I liked the work I was doing(non of it was any good, but it was great practice) and I didn't want to have to sideline it while struggling with a real job. I've since gotten a job again(gotta pay the bills), but I've learned to prioritize my life and approach my art with right attitude.

So, what does this have to do with the big "Why?" Well, I think it's important to come to terms with the big "Why?" before you can begin to approach your work honestly. For some people, it's really, really easy(the simplest answer of course, is because they love it). For me though, it was quite difficult. Growing up throughout high school, playing guitar, writing, and drawing were all recreational activities. Stuff that I got to do AFTER school, work, church, and other obligations. As a result, I kind of conditioned myself to feel pretty guilty about wanting to play all day instead of work like regular people. I actually lamented the fact that I couldn't just go to school, become a doctor, and be happy. I was ashamed of my artistic desires, not even willing to think of myself as an artist. I've since come to terms with those ridiculous notions. I'm happy when I play music, I'm happy when I write. It's as simple as that. As I said earlier, these are things I love. And although that's as much as anyone needs to be an artist, I still don't think it answered my big "Why?" question. No, after much rumination, it became clear to me, why exactly I wanted to be a panhandler(all artists who sell their work are panhandlers in some fashion) instead of a career man. And like my life lesson from earlier, it is neither mind blowing or particularly innovative.

The answer to my big "Why?" question is simply because I'm inspired. I'm inspired by the movies I see, the books I read, and the music I listen to. I'm inspired by the people I meet and the world around me. It's as inexplicable as it is obvious.

So that's why I've started this blog. I intend to write about the creative process, the challenges I face, and any amusing anecdotes I gain along the way. Admittedly, most of this writing is more personally cathartic than informative, but if you're not writing for yourself, then who are you writing for?