On Friday, Dark Shadows is officially opening and I’m going to be sitting in a theatre sometime that day, watching the big horror offering of the summer movie season. Probably on an Imax screen. My tiny bit of ambivalence is swamped by fierce anticipation. While quick to say I don’t like horror movies, is this really a horror movie? Seems to me, from watching the trailer a number of times – and reading up a bit to try to sort this out – that Dark Shadows is closer to another billing given it: comedy and fantasy. Isn’t this new production going to be more like Rocky Horror Picture Show? This suspicion is strengthened by learning that TV Guide lists Dark Shadows as one of the Top Cult Shows Ever.

Come on. This is a Tim Burton movie which stars Johnny Depp. The trailer has that polished, campy look of current movies looking back to the 1960s or 1970s, a sheen of high production values, and a cast of beauties including Helena Bonham Carter, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Chloé Grace Moretz and Bella Heathcote. Surely these ladies will lift the tone, at least a little. All this is very seductive, never mind the faultlessly charming Mr. Depp, or should I say the vampire Barnabas Collins?

Never saw the soap opera produced by Dan Curtis on ABC in the late 1960s. Reading now about the series, I recognize a classic setup, beginning an involved plot with a young girl on a train heading to a gloomy seacoast town in Maine and a mixed reception from residents and family. This blend of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Turn of the Screw, and plots increasingly driven by mystery and the supernatural were a perfect foil for paperbacks published in the 60s and 70s. The soap opera was also apparently blessed with creatures like ghosts, werewolves, zombies, witches and that tragic romanic lead — the vampire. Well, all this sounds like a gothic romance careening well out of control, and who doesn’t love watching a train wreck?

Not literally of course, although the train wreck in The Fugitive (you remember, Tommy Lee Jones? Harrison Ford? the doctor who didn’t kill his wife), well, that was spectacular. In the past few days, it’s been fun learning about the original Dark Shadows, described repeatedly as the “long-running vampiric soap opera saga”. But I didn’t know any of the background when I first made up my mind. Dark Shadows had me the first time I saw the trailer — and I’m going to go see the movie.

KINDA WANNA GO

George Barris at work

This Saturday, May 12 between 9 am and 3 pm, Culver City will close Culver Blvd and Washington Blvd between Duquesne & Ince to through traffic for a car show. George Barris, who customizes cars for individuals, movies and television (Batmobile, The Munsters‘ Koach, the Beverly Hillbillies‘ jalopy and others) has lent his name (and some of his creations) to the event. Hot rods, muscle cars, classics, and movie props—what a mix of nostalgia and memory! Reportedly there will be live music, at least one well-known comedian, Jeff Dunham, food booths and probably food trucks, and more than 400 cars competing for a couple of dozen trophies. Free to the public. Worth checking out, I am told by those who have attended past shows.

Note: parking may get a little tricky, but the downtown lots will be open. Once you are there, you have a chance to wander around the lovely downtown district. There are maps at the show web site (www.culvercitycarshow.com). Living close enough to walk “into town” makes this a definite maybe.

SORTA WISH I COULD AVOID

This weekend, Sunday is Mother’s Day. Take your mother, or stepmother, grandmother, aunt, sister, friend or another mother out to lunch, buy her a card, candy, or flowers, offer her attention and whatever gifts you like. I like Mother’s Day. However, this election year, I have especially mixed feelings about this lovely sentimental holiday. There are such tough practical issues facing mothers (and fathers) these days.

Anna Jarvis would not be surprised by the turn celebrating the holiday has taken. A West Virginian inspired by her mother, Ms Jarvis campaigned at the turn of the 20th century for a day to recognize mothers and motherhood. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day an official American holiday; as early as 1920, Anna Jarvis publicly declared the holiday too commercial.

More than 100 years later, a politically fractious America doesn’t feel as friendly to families as we might wish for. After the Civil War, Julia Ward Howe — remembered as an abolitionist and as the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic— suggested women band together for a day on which they would speak out for peace, another early push for a Mother’s Day. In 2012, I would be happy for a day in which Americans campaigned for mothers—a real Mother’s Day!

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File Photo: Me recovering my sinus infection (note the snot from which I make my escape)

I rise from the NyQuil ashes like a mythical phoenix with a stuffy beak. So kick of your shoes, throw on some Foghat, and pour yourself a mojito/margarita/Arnold Palmer/water(?). This Fierce Anticipation is all about summer time, and the living is nerdy.

Fiercely Anticipating 

Previously, I spoke about how here in South Florida, our changing of the seasons is about as noticeable as a mouse fart (read: not very). The one season we do notice quite well is Summer. You can best notice summer ANY TIME YOU WALK OUTSIDE when you are hit with one of two things: 1) a crushingly severe heat and humidity like being wrapped in a blanket that is both on fire and damp at the same time, or 2) a thunderstorm that rivals The Tempest, which we affectionately call “3 pm.”

Despite it being hotter than the devil’s taint, summer in South Florida is something I do, oddly, enjoy. Now, I say “oddly” because, genetically speaking, I am well insulated (hairy and chubby) which does not bode well for the tropical, near equatorial summers of South Florida. I’d be bet suited for a colder, more Northern climate. Like a viking, or a bear.

My summers, however, are amazing for me for several reasons (if you’ll indulge me while I gloat about how awesome I am). For one, I work at a summer camp. My job, aside from being a counselor, is Director of Fun. I am not making that up. My actual title is Director of Fun. I ensure the fun of every camper and staff member, rain or shine, sun up to sun down. If you aren’t smiling, tough shit! Get smiling! I see this as an opportunity for walking around in graphic tees and sandals, rocking a boom box, doing impressions and cracking jokes, all while collecting a paycheck. The camp would rather see me run activities, ensure safety, and otherwise maintain order, but hey, you get what you pay for. But it’s a great gig. I get a tan (finally), as much juice and cookies as I can eat (which is a lot), and it’s a fun way to beat the heat (except for when it’s not).

This gig takes its toll on you

For the amount of time I spend sweating outside, I make up for it with air-conditioned movies, as the the season is ripe for the blockbuster movie. By that, I don’t mean the long forgotten video store chain, but rather the time honored tradition of blowing things up for two hours. Whatever little money I make from my summer job goes right back into my cinema fund. Thank goodness I don’t have a crippling drug habit, or I’d NEVER get to see Prometheus!

On the Fence About

Going to Disney World. Living in South Florida means that at any time, you can pick up, hit the highway for 3 hours, and be in Disney World (unlike LA where it’s an hour or so to Anaheim, except when there is traffic, then you might as well be driving to Orlando).

Disney is great. It is. I always forget how magical it really is until I step foot in the park. I go on a few awesome rides, marvel at the clinically insane attention to detail, and just sit back with childlike wonde—GOOD LORD IT’S HOT! Do you pave this place with lava?!

Disney World is magical for a few hours, then the heat, crowds, smells, chafing, screams, foreigners, unattended children, chafing (it bears repeating), and cheerfulness all starts to wear on you. By the end of every trip into Disney, I find myself saying the same thing: “I am NOT coming back here until I have to; when I have kids of my own!” And then one of my friends coerces me into going back.

"This is worse than our trip to Neverland Ranch!" (too soon? too bad)

It’s a fun nightmare. And I am sure I will go back this summer to drink around the world at Epcot. That’s when magic meets mayhem. Usually around Germany for this Jew.

I’m Really Not Looking Forward to

All these friggin kids out of school. “Where the hell are your parents?!” is what I find myself yelling, like Carl from Aqua Teen, daily during the summer… when not at camp, of course. During the summer months, parents just dump their kids at public locales (movies, starbucks, malls, even supermarkets), expecting that whatever authoritative figures on-site will take responsibility for them for a few hours.

I get it. They need a break. But these kids wander around, talk loudly, cause scenes, break stuff, and are otherwise just disruptive tools. I am not sure if this problem is localized to South Florida, but I have a feeling it’s a pandemic. Kids, of all ages, go completely unsupervised. This wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the mere fact that kids are assholes when unsupervised. They are just self-absorbed, mannerless jerks when not in the company of their parents (and a lot, around here, could care less if their parents were there).

Then sent to Neverland Ranch... nah that's an empty threat, now. (I got a million of'em)

Look, I am not a cranky old man. Far from it. I wouldn’t care except that during the summer I am in camp-mode, and the rest of the year, I am in teacher-mode. I can’t switch it off. If a parent lets their child run around unattended at a restaurant, I wait until said kid makes eye contact with me, and then I give it the “Hey…Not again” face. My friends say I am an asshole. But I say back to them (in my best Alec Guinness) “Who is the bigger asshole. The asshole, or the one who lets their child run amok?” I was a kid once, and I was probably a bit unruly. But if my parents ever found out, you could rest assured I was going to pay for it. Once at the mall with some pals, I tried to act cool and curse loudly. Sure enough, my mother’s friend was present and she ratted me out. I pumped the hand soap into my own mouth that night, while my family stood by and watched. And now I am awesome. It’s science.

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featured image credit: zisk0

Let me clarify, he has either been reading Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories or watching the brilliant Granada version of Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy Brett. The Granada TV presentation of Sherlock Holmes is beautifully true to the original text, unlike many other versions which are… what’s a fancy turn of phrase I can use here?… dumb as shit. I adore the BBC’s Sherlock. Benedict Cumberbatch is amazing and has the best name since Sherlock Holmes, himself, but have you seen A Study in Pink? In my mind, someone told the writer, “You borrowed this scene from The Princess Bride. Don’t you think people will notice?” The writer then responded, “Inconceivable!”

A Study in False Advertising

As I imagine is true of many of my peers, my first introduction to Sherlock Holmes was Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective. This film featured the mouse who lived beneath 221B Baker Street. The mouse detective is named Basil so it is pretty clear they are using Rathbone’s series of Sherlock Holmes movies as their source as opposed to the actual stories. Naturally, the mouse wears a deer stalker, the Watson character is a bumbling idiot and Moriarty is the bad guy. From my early youth, I was given the standard movie tropes instead of some genuine Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock is up there with Frankenstein’s monster in being misrepresented to the masses.

The next incarnation of Sherlock Holmes to cross my path came in the form of Without a Clue in which Michael Caine plays a dim-witted actor hired by Watson (Ben Kingsley – future knights abound!) to portray the hero of his books. Watson is the genius but Sherlock is the star. It’s a clever twist on the premise and a charming movie. It has nothing to do with the source material but it captures the manly friendship of Holmes and Watson. They are of a time before “bromance”, back when the term “confirmed bachelor” could be used without a wink. Robert Downey, Jr. (in the Guy Ritchie films) is currently having fun digging into the controlling and possessive aspect of Holmes’ friendship that is hinted at in the original text but Caine and Kingsley embody the kind of love that totally dares speak its name.

I finally fell in love with the real Sherlock Holmes in my late twenties while working in a hospital. I didn’t work for the hospital, I just had to be in the hospital while the sex offender, with whom I was doing a 1:1, volunteered (I was there to protect the entire population of the hospital while my client helped people find their way around). I spent her six hour shift reading because I wasn’t actually allowed to follow her around (that might have tipped people off that she was a sex criminal and, apparently, that would have been a bad thing). I polished off Dan Brown’s ANGELS AND DEMONS and found that short chapters are nice when you are reading in a distracting environment. That’s why I brought the massive Sherlock Holmes paperback that I had bought for my husband. I began with A STUDY IN SCARLETT as one should. The introduction of Holmes and Watson is fascinating, funny and intriguing. Then there’s the boring mystery bit. Doyle wisely realized the gold in his story was Sherlock Holmes. He took the character and embraced him forever more (except that time he killed him).

The Valley of Schlock Sherlocks

Sherlock Holmes was loosely based on Henry Higgins in Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. Pygmalion was famously turned into the Broadway musical and the movie My Fair Lady in which Jeremy Brett (the Granada Sherlock Holmes) played Freddy. P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves was inspired by the butler in THE ADVENTURE OF THE MUSGRAVE RITUAL. Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie played Jeeves and Wooster in the wonderful BBC adaptation. Fry has gone on to play Mycroft Holmes in the Guy Ritchie films while Hugh Laurie is small screen Holmes-clone ‘House’ (Holmes-House, I get it!). What does it all mean? Nothing but it demonstrates that Sherlock Holmes is everywhere. I doubt you need a full six degrees to attach everyone in Hollywood to Sherlock Holmes, especially since everyone and his father has played the role (Leslie Howard played Henry Higgins, his son Ronald played Sherlock in a TV series – it is that incestual).

As long as they’ve been making dramas based on Sherlock Holmes, they’ve been writing goofy mysteries and useless Watsons. While Watson is self-deprecating in his narrative, it’s clear he is not a stupid man. He is Holmes’ trusted advisor and friend and while Holmes will torture Watson a bit for the sake of solving a mystery, the friendship is always true. The actual stories are full of little domestic interactions such as Holmes getting out of cleaning the living room by telling Watson about one of his earlier cases. While Basil Rathbone is an appealing Sherlock Holmes (and has a name that sounds like a Holmesian baddie), it’s hard to believe he would really bring Nigel Bruce along on his cases. The man didn’t exactly inspire confidence. It’s funny that so many Holmes fans are worried that the new American series, Elementary features a female Watson, which will reduce the character to a weak damsel in distress. Watson as damsel is a pretty typical Hollywood representation. The real Watson was usually packing heat and, not getting kidnapped by every bad guy in town. Despite the constant character assassination of Watson, my husband and I will still watch just about anything Sherlock Holmes because he’s just that good a character. Thankfully, there have been some good Sherlock Holmes adaptations (the Granada series, novels by Caleb Carr and Michael Chabon) and Sherlock Holmes is blowing up (almost literally in the Guy Ritchie films) and is currently all over the place.

The Sign of the Three Sherlocks

Sherlock has been rocking the small screen for a while now, but he’s been using pseudonyms. We had Monk, the defective detective. Instead of a drug addict, he was OCD and instead of solving really complicated crimes, he solved the easiest cases ever. The murderer was always the only other guy in the show. House kept the drugs, the doctor buddy (Wilson for Watson), he banged his Lestrade (Cuddy) and went off the deep end. However, he did solve some tough crimes while being very eccentric.

After lying low for a while and using pseudonyms, Sherlock Holmes is back with a vengeance! On the big screen, Guy Ritchie has Robert Downey, Jr. looking hot and kicking ass with Jude Law. I’m not even sure the movies have mysteries but they are gorgeous and fun to watch (the movies… and the actors). Is it an accurate representation of the source material? No, but there are nice touches that hint a true Sherlock fan was involved.

On the small screen, the BBC has Sherlock, a modern version of our favorite detective. The mysteries are mostly terrible but Benedict Cumberbatch is charmingly bizarre and Martin Freeman (Tim from The Office) was born to play long-suffering. He has one of the best sighs in the business.

Always on the cutting edge, America is now going to have a new Sherlock Holmes series (featuring a modern version of our favorite detective) but they’ve got a twist. Sherlock will be played by one of Angelina Jolie’s ex-husbands! Oh, and Watson is being played by Lucy Liu. That gives us our first female Watson since Joanne Woodward in They Might be Giants and I believe our first hint of ethnic diversity.

It’s interesting that Arthur Conan Doyle openly dealt with racial discrimination and drug addiction and yet the most modern version of Sherlock skirt the issues. BBC’s Sherlock hints there may be some recreational drug use in his history but right now, he’s on the patch. Guy Ritchie brought in Robert Downey, Jr. and totally avoids Holmes’ addiction to cocaine. Serious? Robert Downey Jr. and you are not going to deal with the character’s self-destructive need for constant stimulation?

Perhaps with all these sexy young Sherlocks on the scene, we’ll actually see a Sherlock Holmes mystery that resembles the clever and subtle mysteries created by Arthur Conan Doyle. A Holmes who is charmingly eccentric in his behavior and clever in his deductions. Until then, I’ll watch whatever Sherlock Holmes the media wants to offer me. I need my fix like Sherlock needs his 7% solution. (Seriously? We saw Jeremy Brett shooting up but not Robert Downey, Jr? Are we in The Matrix?)

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featured image credit: zoomar - Elementary image credit: TNYF/WENN.com

Prior to the advent of the internet, masturbatory inspiration wasn’t a twenty-four hour, seven days a week possibility. As an eighth grader on summer vacation, I often found myself with a loaded .45 (okay, .22) and no target. Kiana Tom, the bikini clad, saline stuffed workout zealot of ESPN’s BodyShaping had thrust her last squat before I woke up and there was at least five hours before The Grind could awkwardly dance-in-place its way into my pantaloons. Skinemax, the soft core Mecca of fevered adolescent release, was but a sweaty reverie in those late morning hours. Luckily for my inner bonobo, my cable company inexplicably carried six Spanish language channels. At the tender age of thirteen my desperate compulsion for manic copulation introduced me to a new obsession: low budget Mexican cinema.

How I learned to love

With its abysmal production values, cartoonish machismo and blatant sexism, the hilariously over dramatic exploits of rifle-toting, mustachioed ranchers and buxom, helpless senoritas became more than just sin material. Every editing mistake, every silly feign of shock, every over-stated proclamation of what I assumed was revenge evoked gleeful laughter and eased the doldrums of yet another 110 degree summer. That I didn’t speak Spanish forced me supply the plot myself so every mid-day ranchero adventure turned into my own personal What’s Up Tiger Lily.

It seems the good folks at Gary Sanchez share my enthusiasm for this glorious genre and put together a rather ingenious little conceit by transplanting Will Ferrell into the action as Mexican star Armando Alvarez. Ferrell is hit and miss with me (more miss than hit) but the mere fact that he made this in the first place is enough to win me over. In a world of branded material, remakes and genre specific offerings, an homage to Mexican novellas and low budget action films is risky. I hope it pays off. I also hope nostalgia is the only thing that comes flooding back to me in the theater. Better break out the trench coat and buy a large popcorn just in case.

Kinda Wanna See – 21 Jump Street

I wasn’t a fan of the mildly popular Fox teen drama about undercover cops in high school but even I could tell the cast had serious potential. Watching an episode as a youth I felt like I was witnessing the humble beginnings of an international superstar. Years later it turns out my premonitions were little more than wishful thinking. Richard Grieco’s spy comedy If Looks Could Kill flopped harder than a New York Giant defender, Holly Robinson only managed to hang with Mr. Cooper for a few years and Peter De Luise ate Dustin Nguyen. Stardom is a cruel bitch.

And so are transitions so let’s just 21 Jump ahead (smooth) to March 16th when the film adaptation of the possibly beloved television show hits theaters. It puts a crack in my snob artifice to admit that I kinda wanna see it. Channing Tatum’s performance as the impossibly perfect husband with the body of an underwear model and the emotional range of an underwear model in The Vow was a clinic in dry humor. Like a modern day Leslie Nielson, he played every scene straight, allowing the absurdity of his surroundings to dictate the humor. If he can bring that same level of comedic precision to 21 Jump Street opposite the buffoonery of some guy who sort of looks like Jonah Hill it could be special. Not as funny as The Vow but what is?

Wouldn’t Go If You Paid Me – Battleship

Believing that the success of robots smashing the hell out of each other was due mostly in part to the title Transformers, Universal signed a deal to produce at least four movies based on seven of Hasbro’s most popular properties. Those seven titles were Battleship, Candyland, Magic: the Gathering, *Clue, Monopoly, Stretch Armstrong and Ouija. After four years of development and a reportedly $250 million dollar price tag on Battleship, Universal had an epiphany and scrapped the deal. If only there was a way to have known ahead of time that making movies based on brand names with no inherent story value is fucking stupid. And fucking lazy. And fucking soulless.

If they wanted to make a movie about a naval ship fighting Earth-threatening aliens, did they really need the name “Battleship?” Is the word “Battleship” so synonymous with the board game that when people hear it they think, “Battleship? Why that’s like that game I’ve played.” Isn’t the phrase, “You sunk my battleship” really the recognition factor here? Not to mention the fact that outside of people on a Battleship, this marketing department Mad Lib has NOTHING to do with the game. How could it? The game is literally about calling out coordinates and sticking pegs into a board to keep track of those coordinates.

What are the chances this conversation occurs:
- “Dude, let’s go see that movie about the navy fighting a bunch of aliens.”
- “I don’t know man, haven’t we seen aliens enough?”
- “It’s based on that game no one plays anymore.”
- “Oh fuck yeah I’m in!”

All of these obvious points should have been at least discussed before checks were cut. Instead, the first trailer Universal released featured direct connections to the board game. The aliens fired peg-like missiles, an arbitrary grid was created, the ships aligned in similar formations, etc. The collective groan of the masses finally tipped them off because the newest trailer largely ignores those “aren’t we cute” elements (though the stupid pegs are still there) in favor of showing how TOTALLY FUCKING TRANSFORMERS it is. Universal could slap Transformers 4 at the end of this trailer and **no one would know the difference. Given the new direction, Battleship will probably make a billion dollars and spawn two sequels. Don’t worry readers, if that happens, I’ll be here to say, “Nyah nyah nyah” and point out how dumb that incredibly lucrative decision was. That’ll show ‘em.

*Clue was made into a movie in 1985. I love it but it wasn’t monetarily successful so how did that detail get overlooked?
** You can’t tell the difference between the robots in Transformers either so extrapolating out isn’t exactly hyperbole.

A new book by Sara Zarr
A new book by J.F. Freedman (can you tell me how “Against the Wind” was never made into a movie?)
A new book by Tatjana Soli (Is the “Lotus Eaters” going to be a movie? Please say yes.)
More hilarious picture books by Anthony Browne

Kinda Wanna — Play Hooky

Instead of staring at the computer screen, I’d love to:

Go out to high tea
Go on a shopping spree at Sephora
Go to the nearest Christian Louboutin and try on shoes with four inch heels and pretend I can walk in them
Go to Central Park and spend the afternoon on the swings
Get a four hour massage
Go home and find a message from a top editor: We LOVE your new manuscript!

Wouldn’t Write About the following, if you paid me:

Developing amnesia – so damn overdone
Reality TV
vampires
Kim Kardashian
George and Laura
The first dog
Golf
Hot tubs
Plastic surgery
Locavores
Slaughtering your own….you fill in the blank.
Blood sausages
Bangers and Mash

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It’s here! That glimmer of hope right in the midst of our seasonal affective disorder*! The Federal Holiday that no one remembers! The perfect little blue balls-inducing holiday weekend: too short to merit a vacation, but long enough to keep us from realizing we should stop slaving away for our corporate overlords and open a cooperative beet farm in Oregon!

This is a nice one because we don’t have to deal with all the tediousness that marrs our other three-day weekends. I don’t have to be proud of my country, I don’t have to remember anyone, and my facebook feed won’t clog with inspirational misquotes and do-gooder cyber shaming. (Our first President was as boring as he was wooden-toothed, and as such, he is not remembered for his pithy sayings. “Bad seed is a robbery of the worst kind: for your pocket-book not only suffers by it, but your preparations are lost and a season passes away unimproved.” Pull that one out on Monday and see how many likes you get.) There are no parades to block traffic, no fireworks to pretend to care about, no enforced group meat-charring to attend. This is perfect for me, because I hate mandatory fun and I strongly dislike pool parties.

As you can probably guess, I have big plans for this weekend. The idea is to drive up to San Francisco, hang out with friends, see Pina in 3-D, and while lingering over artisanal beers, meet a 6 foot tall Indian architect who loves Shakespeare, sandwiches, and casual relationships. What’s going to happen is this: on Friday evening I will don some soft, non-binding sleep wear, open a bottle of wine, and peruse the photo albums of my facebook friends who mysteriously have husbands, babies, 6-pack abs, the time to do yoga in the middle of the day on Tuesdays, and the funds to take week-long vacations to the goddamn Bahamas every other month. I will then lip-synch to youtube videos of Sunday in the Park with George and cry, and think about the Cold War. Rinse and repeat, add in a 4-hour trip to CVS, and you pretty much have my holiday weekend. Needless to say, I’m excited.

*Ha! Just kidding, I live in California. We don’t have winter. Suck it, East Coast.

Kind of (Not) Looking Forward To:  Tuesday

Three days off is the scientifically proven amount of time needed to completely forget you ever had a job and start believing that you are actually landed gentry and have never had to work a day in your life.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. I’m lucky enough to work in a beautiful theatre in Carmel, I spend my days doing fulfilling, quasi arty things or at least enabling said arty things to occur, and by all accounts I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing to earn my pay. But lets not mince words. If I were independently wealthy I wouldn’t be an underpaid arts administrator in a town full of old white people. I would move to Paris and produce my chamber musical about Erwin Rommel! I would open a theatre facility/gastropub inside a villa in Tuscany and commission Philip Seymour Hoffman to perform a one-man Hamlet for me and me alone! I would live-blog The Bachelor! (There’s some REALLY troublingly condescending cultural tourism going on in that show, and guys, it’s racist. Also that girl’s hideous denim romper. Do you think he’s going to pick Kacie B? Is she cross-eyed? And why does she always look like she’s about to fall asleep?)

Inevitably, the disappointment of my messy desk, stack of invoices, and 4-page To Do list will hit hard come Tuesday morning. I guess there’s always Memorial Day.

Wouldn’t Go If You Paid Me: Your Presidents’ Day barbeque pool party

OK, fine. I’ll bring beer and veggie burgers. Did you invite your friend Praveen?

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featured image credit: Louish Pixel
messy desk image: MrE-PL2

Once you’ve published a post-apocalyptic novel, you’re a post-apocalyptic writer. There’s no way around this. It’s something I didn’t really understand when I was writing PURE, the first book in a post-apocalyptic trilogy that came out on February 8th. Sure the book was post-apocalyptic, but me? It just seemed like a strange thing to have to embrace about myself. In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly called it a horror novel and in those two words I became a horror writer. It’s also a thriller, so I’m suddenly a thriller writer. It’s a lot of things my earlier books aren’t, and so I’m a lot of things I’ve never been before.

I thought about this post-apocalyptic writer thing for a while and realized that, actually, I was kind of a post-apocalyptic teenager. But aren’t the teen years, by definition, post-apocalyptic? Then I thought about how, as a child, I feared the end of the world and was the only kid to take Civil Defense Drills seriously. I curled up in a row of kids along the inner hallway wall of my elementary school, taking in the elementary school dust, and knew that we weren’t going to survive. I imagined the searing light of nukes and felt sick. The end — that’s what I was clear on. How could we go back and do math when the end was so inevitable that we had to practice for it?

Truth is, I was probably a post-apocalyptic baby.

And so what am I fiercely anticipating? What I’ve always fiercely anticipated. Total mutual destruction. Nations made of human beings who can’t truly learn from the past and are doomed to repeat it.

Have I gone a little dark at the end here? I have. But what else can you expect from a post-apocalyptic thriller horror writer?

So, let me leave you with a little LURV! It’s almost Valentine’s Day — and so HERE is your post-apocalyptic Valentine’s Day Card. Send it to your significant (dyptopian) other.

Kinda Wanna See (or Read, Eat, etc)

Look, if the end is coming, I want to have eaten my share of dark chocolate. Fair enough. When you’re a fearful type, you have to get in the habit of seizing the day — and sometimes dark chocolate is involved in that, for me.

Wouldn’t Go (or Read, See, etc.) If You Paid Me

I don’t know about other post-apocalyptic writers, but I have no interest in those who seem to know when the apocalypse is going to strike. It’s adorable, don’t get me wrong. They’re so damn earnest you feel like you’re caught in a fundamentalist Wes Anderson film. But I don’t really want to see a fundamentalist Wes Anderson film. I’ll see this one instead:

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Fiercely Anticipating – God Bless America

Bobcat Goldthwait’s widely ignored gem, World’s Greatest Dad, was a scalpel-precise dissection of postmortem celebrity. Robin Williams plays a struggling English teacher who, after discovering the accidental auto-erotic suffocation of his misanthropic son, authors a bogus diary in his progeny’s name. Believing the pseudepigripha to be genuine, the school (and subsequently the media) turns him into a martyred prophet. Students who didn’t know his name are now wearing shirts with his picture on it – quoting his diary like scripture. As the meme spreads out of control, Williams has to decide whether to keep feeding the lie or admit the falsehood and destroy his newly attained writing career. Poignant, ironic and hilarious, World’s Greatest Dad was probably the best comedy, as well as one of the best films of 2009. That Old Dogs, another Robin Williams’ starring vehicle from that year, out-grossed it $96M to $221K (or 436 to 1 according to Boxofficemojo) while posting an abysmal Tomatometer rating of 5% to WGD’s 89% is, as *Ghandi so succinctly put it, “A Goddamn, motherfucking shame.” Viewing the trailer for his new endeavor, I can’t help but think this disparity wasn’t lost on Goldthwait.

Enlisting the acting services of Bill Murray’s second most famous brother, God Bless America follows Frank, an ordinary schlub with a malignant growth, a loaded .45 and an intense disdain for the spiraling standards of the culture around him. Equal parts Falling Down, Idiocracy and Natural Born Killers, this looks like a cathartic release for anyone with an agitated disposition toward the distraction mentality surrounding us. That is not to say that simply unloading a few clips in Kim Kardashian’s direction is in and of itself worthy of praise (Seltzer & Friedberg have been doing this lazy routine for a decade), just that given his track record, I have faith that Goldthwait will find a satisfying context for such mayhem.

Speaking of faith: For the hell of it, here’s his brass balls 1994 performance on Comic Relief as The Amazing Christo – a magician from Bethlehem, PA:

Kinda Wanna See – **The Super Bowl The Big Game

Hey Tebow, Jesus gave me three Super Bowl rings, a super model wife and the flowing locks of Samson, maybe you're not praying hard enough.

I’m an out-of-the-closet Seattle Seahawks fan so, outside of one bitter winter afternoon in 2006, week 22 of the NFL season has nothing to do with me. And really, anyone not residing in Boston or New York (or Los Angeles where half the former population of both states live) care about whether or not Tom Brady once again proves he’s better than you in every way. No, this February 5th is all about reaffirming the pigskin classic as the defining moment of our cultural zeitgeist. I submit that, although this weekend’s bread in the Madonna sandwich isn’t an official holiday, it sure as hell should be. Let’s take a look at the authorized, so-called national holidays and see how they stack up:

New Year’s Eve/Day – December 31st has the reckless drinking covered but what about the reckless gambling? You can bet on everything from the coin toss to the color of the Gatorade this Sunday, what comes after 11:59:59 is hardly in dispute. Other than which resolution you’ll break first or who’s paying for the morning after pill, there really isn’t much to wager on. WINNER – The Big Game.

Martin Luther King’s Birthday – How many African Americans in congress? How many African Americans on the Giants/Patriots? WINNER – White America (trick question).

Presidents Day – Are you the president? WINNER – The President.

Easter – Being plastered before kick-off is fine. Being plastered while hiding eggs in the morning means you, a wicked hangover and disgruntled children searching the backyard all afternoon for Grade A prizes you hid in your neighbor’s yard. WINNER – Your Neighbor.

Memorial Day – Ugh. This is the day my grandfather wears that stupid hat with the stars on it. He looks like such a weirdo. Embaaaaaaaarrassing. Whatever that day is for I get to sleep in so…WINNER – Me.

Independence Day – July 4th, 1776 was the day an infant nation declared independence from an imperialist overlord. July 4th 2012 is the day we will celebrate being an imperialist overlord. WINNER – Historical Irony.

Labor Day – WINNER – China.

Veteran’s Day – See Memorial Day + more hats. Really grandpa, you look silly. Knock it off.

Thanksgiving – Long before Vince Lombardi was a spasm in his father’s junk, the Puritans and the Native Americans put aside their petty differences to slaughter a turkey and watch Detroit play football on television. They lived happily ever after. WINNER – Whoever Plays the Lions.

Christmas – Oh boy, this is close. Gathering of friends and family? Check. Drinking? Depending on which family gathers – Check. Grating songs you’ve heard a hundred times? Check. Commercialism out the wazoo? Double Check. Straight up it’s a push but unfortunately Christmas is disqualified on constitutional grounds. It seems the Establishment Clause clearly states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” and December 25th is the birth date of the Persian God Mithra. Exalting the birth of a religious icon to the level of federal observance is unfair to the millions of non-Mithraists in this country. Nice try Christmas. WINNER – Freedom.

But what are the chances of that?

Tallying up the points I see that The Big Game is the winner with a decisive score of 1 to 0 (margin of error +/- 9). Judging by soccer standards this is a crushing defeat for any non-NFL related holiday. In fact, the only way these results aren’t definitive is if you could find a better representation for America than two diametrically opposed combatants sponsored by the same corporation, fighting over arbitrary rules to complete an ultimately pointless task?

Wouldn’t Go If You Paid Me – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Remake

I was watching We Need To Talk About Kevin (go see it now) and I realized just how prevalent product integration is in cinema today. Two cans of soda are pulled from a refrigerator and I didn’t recognize the label. What the hell? An actress was holding a can of generic root beer. Not A&W or Barq’s but plain old root beer. Product placement has become so ubiquitous that when I’m not being sold something I do a double take. What does that have to do with a Honda commercial starring Matthew Broderick kinda, sorta reprising his iconic role from the 80′s? It occurred to me that this highly anticipated ***Super Bowl Big Game spot might as well be the trailer for a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off remake.

Honda’s multi-million dollar snooze has all the ingredients of a modern comedy. It panders cynically to our collective memory, delivers no laughs, includes context-free quips about how cool a product is and comes complete with close ups of the logo. Throw in a trip to Wendy’s to cure a particularly gnarly craving for a Frosty and you’ve got a Happy Madison “comedy” right there. I know this is a commercial, and as such, was produced with the sole intention of selling SUV’s but we’re getting closer and closer to the point where the distinction between advertisement and film is almost non-existent. Are we not? Is the glue I’m sniffing too potent? I hear Crayola provides a smooth high with minimal delusional side effects.

The Ferrari featured in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is product placement for sure, but unless you were an executive with a minimal member and a mid-life crisis, you couldn’t afford it. More than that though, it served a narrative purpose. Cameron’s father’s Ferrari was the physical representation of his disconnect with his son. In the end, when Cameron destroys it, he’s effectively destroying the distance between them. The Ferrari 250 was necessary. Modern movies, in an effort to integrate as many products as possible, have seemingly lost the ability to advertise and tell a story. The ending of the remake would go something like this:

INT. GARAGE – DAY
Cameron rears his leg back, ready to strike the hood.

CAMERON’S FATHER
Cam?
Cameron turns to the garage door. Cameron’s Father, the spitting image of Cameron in twenty-five years, nervously fiddles with the bill of his Ferrari baseball cap.

CAMERON
Dad? I…I…

CAMERON’S FATHER
…it’s okay, son. I just wanted to say I realize I’ve
put this car before you. In my defense, can you
blame me? Zero to sixty in two point three seconds,
purrs like a tiger. And the pussy I get. Never the less,
it’s wrong. I’m sorry.

CAMERON
You mean it?

CAMERON’S FATHER
Why don’t you and I go for a spin? Together.

CAMERON
I’d love that. Can we go by Wendy’s on the way,
I need a Frosty stat.

*Source unavailable.
**Sorry NFL lawyers, it won’t happen again.
***Fuck, I’m getting sued.

featured image credit: 8 Eyes Photography

Taking my cues from Brenda Walsh

Bad news, you can’t actually complete your mental health counseling master’s degree in your pajamas. You still have to do internships and colloquia, etc. but you can do a lot of it without getting out of bed. Having a toddler, I can’t take full advantage of this fact – I have to get out of bed every single day; that’s the responsibility that comes with having a child. However, I can frequently stay in pajamas and not brush my hair so that is a definite plus. In order to pay for these on-line courses, I have been forced to take a job outside of the house. This is good because, at least twice a week, my daughter sees me looking human and leaving the home to the mystical world of ‘work’. My first course was in Theories of Development where I learned that girls respect their mothers more if they work outside the home. Sure, my toddler respects me now because of my abilities to do things like reach high shelves, work the DVD player and find her toys (by looking around for them – a concept she does not yet grasp) but eventually – I’m going to need more tricks in my repertoire.

I spent two years as a stay at home mom and my laptop was my dearest friend; all my friends lived inside of it. Taking on-line courses was an obvious choice and yet it didn’t occur to me. It isn’t like I didn’t have enough prompts. You can’t turn on the TV or go to a website without being inundated with the call to get your degree without leaving your home or talking to people. Utopia! Even Shannen Dougherty (she’ll always be Brenda to me) is shilling for Education Connection. According to her ad, she’s getting her Bachelor’s degree! In Liberal Arts! On Line! Suck it, Blossom with your Ph.D. in neurobiology (seriously, it’s Dr. Mayim Bialik). I’ll admit it, I’m not entirely convinced that Shannen is working on her degree while on set. I don’t believe she’s spending much time on sets or why would she be doing such low budget commercials? Perhaps I’m being entirely too cynical.

So these ads did not instill faith in my heart about on-line schooling. In fact, they kept me from considering it as a serious option even though it’s so well suited to my current life-style (and level of misanthropy). I continued to think on-line degrees weren’t ‘real’ degrees like you get at a ‘real’ school. I’ve known for a while that I desperately need a career change, i.e., I need to make some real money. I love working with the severely mentally ill but it’s not what you’d call a lucrative field. In my current position, I am very pleased with the level of one-to-one interaction I get with the clients but I’m not so pleased with the amount of time I have to spend mopping up urine.

Continuing to believe on-line schools weren’t ‘real’ schools, I started looking at ‘real’ schools and found a lot of them are offering on-line degrees. It was a wake-up call to me: making me realize that the world of on-line learning has come a long way and reminding me that, at thirty-four, I’m a dinosaur. After some investigation (and price shopping), I opted for Capella University. It compared favorably to traditional brick and mortar schools (formerly known as ‘real’ schools) in numerous national rankings and, most importantly, I knew someone in their mental health counseling program. She’s a friend of mine who is intelligent and very diligent so I figured she’d already done most of the research for me. She also found the coursework challenging and that assured me it was, in fact, a ‘real’ school.

Saved by the Bell: The College Years

The enrollment process was a breeze, there was less than a month between my decision to go back to school and starting my first class. My enrollment specialist was a peach. He did most of the work, held my hand through the process, was always helpful and he never pressured me to apply. In fact, he encouraged me to investigate licensing requirements in my state before committing. He would ask when he could call back and would call at that time like clockwork. As a case manager, I really respected his organization and time management. It was a very strong first impression for me. There are standards for the school although they take all qualified applicants – unlike a brick and mortar school where there are only so many people accepted at a time. You need a fairly high GPA as an undergrad; high enough that I wasn’t positive I qualified and I always did well in school. I doubt this is a hard and fast restriction, though. It’s probably more to weed out applicants looking for an easy degree. I needed two letters of recommendation, a resume and a very specifically structured essay. The enrollment specialist stressed the importance of answering all the questions asked so the essay did seem like something that could stop an application from being approved rather than just proof I was literate. I wasn’t shocked to be admitted but I was excited none the less and eager to start my first class.

In my pajamas.

The course was by no means easy. I spent well over the recommended ten hours a week on class. Each assignment comes with a rubric to clarify what is unacceptable, acceptable, good and distinguished. I was going for distinguished and as a friend of mine pointed out, it’s twice as much work to get an A as a B. I found getting an A in the class to require a lot of effort but I probably could have breezed through with a B. I was amazed by the practicality of on-line schooling. I have access to the major literary databases, I don’t need to print anything out – I just read it in Adobe, and I bought PERLA so I don’t have to bother learning APA formatting again. When I had to walk into an actual library (in my efforts to put in a distinguished performance and get an A), I resented having to leave my home. All my contact with my peers is via a forum so I don’t even have to control my eye-rolling. It’s a nearly perfect situation.

We can’t all be as smart as Blossom

Not everyone in the course was what you’d call, “grad school material”. Some people just aren’t that bright, you see that in every program. Some students are straight out of undergrad and simply not prepared for the demands of graduate work – also perfectly normal for any program.

I’m talking about people who really aren’t grad school material. My personal favorite, though it took her weeks to truly shine, quoted the Kama Sutra in nearly every discussion. She cited Sting’s seminal work, “Roxanne” when discussing her work ethic. Her citation of Sting was from Wikipedia. She spelled Wikipedia wrong! In one post, she spelled Wikipedia wrong in three different ways. It was a perfect storm of idiocy, incompetence and pure strangeness.

I don’t think I’m wrong to be concerned that she was able to get into my school. When my advisor (you get an advisor and everything!) called to get my feedback on the course, she assured me that the first and possibly the second course would have students who were not suited to graduate studies but they would soon step up their work, drop out or fail out. I hope this is the case, otherwise – I will be returning to my previous stance on what makes a ‘real’ school. Until then, I’ll continue to study in my pajamas with my toddler on my lap and hope that when she remembers her youth; she’ll know that I was working hard to give her a better life and not just surfing for porn.

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Fiercely Anticipating

Believe it or not, I am very much anticipating my new years resolutions. Ah yes, New Years Resolutions: the self-imposed, yet societally-enforced, tradition of setting unrealistic goals for oneself, and simultaneously setting yourself up for defeat. You inevitably reach the crushing realization that you, as always, SUCK at keeping resolutions.

Each year, we make lofty goals to “lose 50 lbs (and keep it off!)” or “quit smoking, for real this time” or “stop buying from that convenience store down the street that I am confident is guilty of human trafficking, but is the only one on this side of town that carries Schwepp’s ginger ale.” We make these goals, and then we give up. We give up because we set the bar way to high.

For the last several years, I have kept my goals realistic; open and ambiguous. When asked what my resolutions were, I’d say “This year, I will settle the score” or “show them all.” This usually resulted in the other person smiling politely, as I rubbed my hands together maniacally, magically dimming the lights around me while organ music crescendos.

This year, I do have some actual goals; goals I am really Fiercely Anticipating because I genuinely will enjoy getting them done. And if you give a crap, here they are listed below (if not, I’ll see you down at the next section):

• Lose more weight. I’ve been doing much better, weight wise, this past year. My goal is to lose 10-20 more lbs this year so I can wear clothes I have not been able to wear since middle school. Are Z Cavariccis still in style?
• Use technology less. Nah, Macbook. I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean that. You know I love you.
• Catch up on Music, Movies,TV, and Reading. Yes. An actual resolution. I have neglected a lot of newer trends. For example, over the last week, I have watched the first two seasons of Breaking Bad. I have The Shield up next, followed by Archer. Also, I have to rediscover the music of Elvis Costello and the writings of Stephen King.
• Officially learn guitar. No more half-assing it and pretending!
• Build a smoker. I am tired of having to buy my meats at stores and restaurants, pre-smoked!

On the Fence About

Oh, there you are. You made it. Good.

This year has an impressive slate of nerd-core movies, but as always with highly anticipated flicks, I remain cautiously optimistic. With The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Hobbit, a new one from Tarantino, and many more, I approach this year in cinema cautiously optimistic. Sure, they look great; the trailers have left me breathless. The Avengers has… EVERYTHING. And Dark Knight  has Heinz Ward!

But…. *sigh* Look, it’s not you, Summer Tentpole Movies. It’s me.

How dare you.

I have been hurt many times before, twice by Ryan Reynolds (in Blade 3 and Green Lantern. And I liked him so much in Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place!). I just can’t keep doing th—

Okay, if I give you one more chance, do you promise not to put nipples on the bat-suit, and have Robert Downey, Jr. talk for an entire act before he puts on armor? Okay. I’m sorry I doubted you…

Not Looking Forward To

As this is 2012, I am really not looking forward to the onslaught of apocalyptic talk. History Chanel has been airing enough Armageddon specials to make me want to chug the kool-aid preemptively.

As far back as I can remember, the apocalypse is every year. Every year it’s “the big one.” The asteroid is coming, the flood waters are rising, the earthquakes will awaken the mighty sarlacc to swallow us whole. And every year, when a disaster strikes, people start pointing the finger to the Mayan calendar saying “Toldja!” Magically, we survive every year, only to have the date conveniently pushed back to the next year. Religious zealots, cultists, and (my new favorite) Ancient Astronaut “theorists” claim that December 21, 2012 is it. Kaput. The final curtain. The last pudding cup on the salad bar. The end of everything. No more baby seals, Xbox, Trader Joe’s, Hoobastank, promotional big gulp cups from 7-11, chimichurri steak, George Takei, or oscillating fans.

Or this

I am just going to put this to bed right now. The Mayans, NOWHERE in their predictions, discussed an end of days. They did say how at that date (the last on their calendar), things would “start over.” Why did they say this? Because it was the end of their cycle. Like December 31st of every year on our calendar. If the Mayan calendar was a One-A-Day Farside Calendar by Gary Larson, you’d tear off December 21, 2012 like any other day to reveal a cardboard backing. It’s so tough to tear off pages made of stone slab, by the way. Presumably it would be a comic wherein a Mayan priest is conducting a human sacrifice, holding a heart in his hand, and saying “Thank you, and for my next trick…”

This won’t stop people, all year, from worrying about it. And going on TV and crying, praying the end of days is nigh.

Hey, I’m a Hebrew. We are the chosen ones. I don’t gotta do jack squat! If it is the end of days, and zombies show up, and Abe Vigoda takes his place as king of the mole men, and the McRib never comes back but rather becomes sentient and enslaves us all… good. Humanity had a good run.

I mean, unless the Mayans were dyslexic, and it’s actually December 12, 2102.

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