2012: Farewell to the Suck

It's too tempting to dismiss 2012 as nothing more than the Year of the Suck nothing could have been

more apropos. Maybe that's what the Mayans were trying to tell us. They foretold that last year was going to be chock full o' suck and just wanted to give mankind hope by assuring them it would all be temporary by way of an end of the world scenario.

"Yeah, brudda, times is tough, but it'll all be over before you know it. Party on, mon!"
(Because we all that Mayans were the first frat boys and spoke like Samoans)

They knew that the majority of us would just throw a series of big ass Apocalypse parties and, by the time we'd all sober up, hey, it's January!

But far be it for me to run down the horrible events of 2012. Because I'm shallower than a Kardashian gene pool (or is that a septic tank?), my purpose here is to focus on some of the better things that crossed my path. Here are some of my picks for the Best of 2012:

FILM
The amount of movies I saw in 2012 was the lowest since I've been keeping track, a measly 100 exactly. Too much television occupied my viewing time and hey, there are only so many hours in the day. As Alvy Singer says in ANNIE HALL  "And eventually you grow old and die."
1. BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD-Blissfully Oscar nominated for Best Picture, Director and Actress. Go Hush Puppy!

also: SKYFALL, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, MOONRISE KINGDOM, THE AVENGERS and several not released in 2012 but make my list anyway: BEGINNERS, TAKE SHELTER, TIME CRIMES (these three from emerging filmmakers that give me hope for the future of cinema: Mike Mills, Jeff Nichols and Nacho Vigolnado), PROJECT ZIM a great doc from James Marsh, THE ARTIST, THE DECENDANTS, BUG (a crazy ass film from William Friedkin with Ashley Judd in an unjustly overlooked performance), Phillip Kaufman's HEMINGWAY AND GELLHORN, MARWENCOL and 3 w/James Cagney: 13 RUE MADELINE, G-MEN and CITY FOR CONQUEST.



TV

Living in what I call the Platinum Age of Television, there is a bountiful feast of superb programs at our disposal, more than ever before. Of course, we have to wade through shit swamp to get to them, but with a pair of blinders and a decent pair of nose plugs, you can find your way to the treasures before succumbing to the excrement around every corner. The best I saw this year were the usual suspects: MAD MEN, BREAKING BAD, THE WALKING DEAD, BOARDWALK EMPIRE, JUSTIFIED, LOUIE, HOMELAND and everything else except DOWNTON ABBEY which I've never seen. My list has to include THE BORGIAS (the show I like to call OH, THAT FUCKING POPE!), HELL ON WHEELS (a western I consider better than DEADWOOD and it has another unsung hero of mine, Colm Meaney) and my new favorite guilty pleasure, RESTAURANT STAKEOUT. And of course, 2012 will known as the year I totally gorged on DOCTOR WHO. That sentence is going to haunt me, I'm sure.

BOOKS

In 2011, my obsession was P.G. Wodehouse. This year it was Elmore Leonard. (I'm nothing if not diverse.) I particularly enjoyed ROAD DOGS and UP IN HONEY'S ROOM. But again, non-fiction ruled the roost, especially after discovering the works of Susan Orlean. Her RIN-TIN-TIN was my pick for best of the year, followed by two superb books about rock music Will Hermes' LOVE COMES TO BUILDINGS ON FIRE and FIRE AND RAIN by David Browne.

MUSIC

Not much to shout about with only one really stealing my heart, the Of Monsters and Men song "Little Talks". It's a perfect compliment to my DOCTOR WHO festival and the video is quite frigging spectacular.

So there are some of the better things I encountered last year. They served to sedate me, feed my spirit and otherwise distract me as I survived the suck, a tall order for what transpired in that painful calendar year. You can tell me that time is relative and I will wholeheartedly concur, but you have to admit, 2012 was your Uncle Sandusky coming over to babysit for 12 months. Let's just say hail and farewell to this Year of the Suck and please let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, 2012.

You totally deserve it.

Moonrise to Dark Knight

With the end of Labor Day, another summer bites the dust, the Big One and, for all intents and purposes, even a dusty Big One. (ptui!) Yeah, Summer 2012 has no right being mentioned in the same breath (let alone the same same sentence) as last year, but nothing could have competed with the grand and glorious New York Cherney Journey. That was one for the Book of memories while this year barely fits this here blog.

However, no sour grapes say I since it became almost a necessity to low-ball this past season  both economically and spiritually. At least I mustered up enough effort to book-end the summer with two very distinct trips to the cinema viewing two very distinct films, though they did have one thing in common: my state of mind.

After a horrific spring that culminated with my psyche taking a throttling of absurd frequency, I needed a break more than anyone really knew and took refuge in the wonderful world of Wes Anderson, namely MOONRISE KINGDOM. His wistful tale of young love propelled me back into a time when summer actually meant something in my life instead of another reason to hate hot weather. I'll totally cop to the desire to flee the present into that warm glow of nostalgia because it was a safe haven I really desire to escape into  for at least a couple of pleasant hours. MOONRISE KINGDOM called up sweet memories I never had, desires never satisfied and adventures never lived, but recalling even the longing of these gave me the solace I truly needed. So sitting in a packed matinee audience in June, usually another circle of my own personal Hell, turned out to be a tranquil afternoon that provided just the right of therapy to survive the suck and get me through to the next crisis. It also reaffirmed my love for the film-loving people of Portland who are the best audiences I've ever encountered. If I could get over some of my anti-social ways and discomfort with the general public, I'd join them more often. It's funny that I can sit side-by-side with an audience during a live performance, but I'm hesitant to do so at the movies. Then again, I never attend the thea-tah alone. Say it loud, I'm neurotic and proud.

It wasn't until August that I ventured out again to catch one more flick before Labor Day. I was all ready to step into a second run theater for a last gasp showing of PROMETHEUS, but stopped dead in my tracks when I spied a mother with five pre-teens at the box office AND two other mamas in the lobby cradling their babies. Uh-uh. No way was I going to subject myself to that torture dungeon. It didn't matter that the admission was only a dollar. I beat feet away from that place as though it was a nest of Herpes-laden hornets.

The next day, I took the plunge into the dreaded multi-plex for another anticipated film, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. Though I had been looking forward to it for months on end, I found myself reluctant to see the grand finale of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy due to the morbid shadow of the Aurora, Colorado massacre the month before. How could I even begin to watch this movie without the mental images of that tragedy play through my head? I actually had an interior debate, even accusing myself of insensitivity. I decided to take my chances and deal with the guilt if and whenever it came. It didn't. Instead, I realized that here I am, a lone patron in a cinema and suddenly, I am suspect or at least, I very well could be. Attending movies solo has been my modus operandi for, well, ever. My wife abandoned the idea of accompanying me long, long ago and in almost 15 years, has gone with me exactly twice. It became one of those activities we don't do together and if I can't sit next to her, call me Greta Garbo, but I want to be alone.  I am also one of those odd ducks that never buys anything at the concession stand, preferring to bring in snacks from the outside. This usually occurs during the winter months when I can cram a lot into a large jacket. I've brought in sandwiches, hamburgers, burritos and assorted beverages (non-alcoholic). One fine day, I brought in sushi from Trader Joe's and watched the great kung fu epic HERO. This time, I didn't bring anything more than a protein bar (it's a 2 3/4 hour movie for Chrissakes). With the temperature in the 90s, a big jacket concealing various food items would raise more than just one red flag, so I lowballed it. Parking myself in the back of the auditorium, I sat in silence in awkward anticipation of suspicious glances or nervous whispers about my lonesome self crouching in the corner, a potential Madman du Jour. But these notions of mine soon evaporated into the paranoid ether once the film began and I opted to engage myself into Christopher Nolan's bold and brash cinematic symphony, just like everyone else in the theater who didn't give me a second glance if any at all. In the end, what happened in Aurora had nothing to do with the movie at all and everything to do with a crazy motherfucker with a gun. And the rest was all in my head. Maybe that's where it belongs.

Summer ends. Fall begins. Life goes on.

Bad Timing

Timing is everything, even when it’s bad.                                        


Last week I ran another free promotional giveaway on Amazon for the Kindle version of my novel, RED ASPHALT. This was to be a virtual online onslaught of plugola in order to hopefully kick start some sales and interest into a piece of work that is essentially a piece of me. (If you were to read a few choice comments from a couple of Amazon customer reviews, it is also a piece of shit. I respectfully disagree. Strike that. I disrespectfully disagree.)

As usual, I digress.

All the pieces were put into place with announcements placed on various e-book sites, my blog and website. The first day seemed to go quite well, placing RED ASPHALT into the top 1000 freebies of the day.

Then midnight struck.

The shooting in Aurora, Colorado put the brakes on everything. I’m not about to bemoan the fact that a tragedy of this magnitude ruined my day in the sun. I am totally insignificant in this whole ordeal. There are people who lives were brutally and senselessly altered and dismantled forever by a raging psychopath. I can’t even begin to tell you my feelings or thoughts about this insanity other than my heart goes out to the victims, their families and friends. That this massacre occurred in a movie theater, my favorite place in the entire world and my own personal sanctuary, sickens me to no end. But I can’t realistically comment on the situation with any insight so I refuse to do so. Leave that to the 24 hour news cyclists because they have airtime to fill with enough speculation, disinformation and shit-spewing talking heads that will blather on about this until the cows come home and become tainted hamburger. I also won’t speculate about the effect this will have on THE DARK KNIGHT RISES because in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter at all, artistically, financially or philosophically. Others can, I won’t.


What this has to do with me at all concerns my book. I restrained myself from promoting RED ASPHALT any further than what was already out there, which was beyond my control, due to the nature of the book itself.


RED ASPHALT’s main character is an unhinged individual who takes his pathetic frustrations out on the world with the use of a gun and his car, just to add road rage into the mix. It is not a sympathetic portrait in the least. It doesn’t justify his actions though it does try to explain them. Conclusions can be made that Calvin, the main character, is just a whiny little twerp who decides that everyone is out to get him so he’s going to get them first. He’s blaming everyone else for his pathetic life and, oh boy, he’ll show them. Unfortunately, once he acquires a gun, he tries to "solve his problems" by using it on others instead of himself.

I wholeheartedly confess that Calvin is pretty much of a stand-in for me. Much of his back story comes from my own and his voice, for the most part, is mine. How he handles it all is pure fabrication. I wrote this to alleviate my own stress in life, to blow everything completely out of proportion in order to make what I considered to be a compelling story. I poured my heart and soul into it and attempted to exorcise as many demons as I possibly could in the process. That’s the difference. Calvin picked up a gun. I picked up a pen. There are more, but I must point out, that’s key.

But after early Friday morning, I left the promo for RED ASPHALT alone, not out of guilt or respect, just because I didn’t know what else to do. This doesn’t make me a good guy, an upright citizen or a moral midget. It just makes me conflicted and, just as I did in the creation of my novel; I’m trying to work it out by writing about it.


RED ASPHALT stands on it own two feet. Those are my words, good and bad and I’ll stand by them. But for the moment, maybe a little off to the side, at least for a time.

Judge for yourself.

RED ASPHALT on Kindle and paperback on Amazon

Not buying it is also a statement.