"They're All Gonna Laugh At You!"

Stephen King's brutal, bloody little fable, "Carrie," remains my favorite book.  I have read better books, and I have been more fulfilled by books, but "Carrie" came along at just the right time in my life to sear itself into my brainspace forever.

I came to the book through the 1976 movie starring Sissy Spacek.  Something about that classic double-image VHS cover scared the everlasting shit out of me.  I begged and pleaded until my parents finally relented and let me watch it.

I was in third grade.

I don't blame my parents for the blunt-force trauma the movie enacted on my brain.  I mean, sure, I had nightmares for literally years afterward, but I kinda deserved it with the hell I had been raising over it.  The thing is - I didn't even make it through the whole movie on that fateful first viewing.  As anyone who is familiar with the story knows, it's 2/3 setup, 1/3 bloody payoff.  I coasted through that setup thinking, "Wow, I'm so tough.  This is a scary movie and I'm not even scared!"  But then the blood came rushing down and everyone burned up, and well, ladies and gentlemen, pardon me while I take my leave of this room.  The last image I remember, and it's one I'll never forget, is the double doors of the gym opening up on their own and Carrie, silhouetted against the inferno inside, seeming to glide out into the night, the doors closing behind her with a resounding "thwack."

I spent the rest of the movie in the bathroom, listening to everything through the bathroom door.  That was probably a mistake on my part, as sounds without pictures freed my mind to concoct any number of different scenarios as I rolled them over and over in my head during the years to come.

Finally, in seventh grade, I very logically decided that the best way to overcome my fear was to face it head-on.  I revisited the movie alone in my room with all the lights on and smooth jazz playing in the background.  I survived that second viewing with my senses intact, and decided then that the next step would be to own it - to know it so thoroughly that there would be no shadows left in it for bloody hands to reach out of at night and strangle me in my dreams.  So I watched the movie again and again.  And I picked up a copy of the book, and read it again and again.

And, eventually, I managed to strike a livable balance with the poor, sad, lost girl who haunted both my waking hours and my dreams.

I have spent a lot of time contemplating what it is about the story, beyond my childhood trauma, that continues to intrigue me so much.  I was bullied in high school (who wasn't?) and I often fantasized revenge on my tormentors, but I would never have wished to replicate the prom night massacre of the book.  Critics often refer to it as "the ultimate high-school revenge fantasy," but (school shooters aside) who fantasizes about getting their entire class together in a huge room, locking the doors, and barbecuing everyone alive?  That's not revenge - that's tragedy.  And the scope of the carnage and the raw brutality of the book still shock me.  It's like the Titanic sinking - so many people onboard the Chamberlain high school prom that night...so many people with their whole lives ahead of them and dreams in their hearts who didn't deserve to die.

There are bullies, and there are victims, but in the end they are all still just children.

The sharp savage shock I felt as a child has worn into a deep-set sadness that I can still recall in an instant, and which I'm sure will be with me the rest of my life.  I get that the Titanic was real, and "Carrie" was invented in Stephen King's head, but I saw it so early that it felt real to me in the unique way that fantasy only can to the very young.  And in the way I've read it is common for people to do, I have slowly become obsessed with the object of my original pain.  

By 1997 (I was 14), I could pretty much close my eyes and play out my ideal movie version of the book in my head.  The 1976 version wasn't it.  Too much had to be left out due to budget constraints and the technology of the time.  Where was the terrifying incident from Carrie's childhood with the neighbor girl's "dirty pillows" and the ensuing rain of boulders from the sky?  Where were all the vivid flashes of bullying from Carrie's past?  Where was the ending outside the roadhouse, bringing Carrie's life full-circle?

It could be argued that the deletions make the movie leaner and stronger, but I would argue that the ending is too rushed.  The book has a real slow and steady descent into hell feel to it that the 1976 movie doesn't match.  One epic set piece at the prom, the confrontation with mama, and then wham blam thank you ma'am hand out of the ground.  The end.

The 2002 TV remake wasn't it, either, although it came closer.  While it was nice to see some more material from the book included, I felt the movie was hampered by inclusion of some of the "documentary" materials that the book featured so prominently.  The book is constructed like a case file of sorts, with bits and pieces of faux non-fiction material interspersed throughout the main story.  The effect of this, coupled with the third-person omniscient main narrative, seems to make Carrie a voiceless victim even in her own story.  We are always left on the outside looking in.  It works in the book, but in the movie it just feels choppy.  

Supposedly, the 2002 version was intended as a pilot for a TV show that never happened.  So right up until the end the movie is pretty solid with sticking to the book but then abruptly jumps the tracks in a head-spinning WTF moment that leaves a sour taste in my mouth even today.  But if you turn the thing off five minutes from the end, you end up with a pretty solid "Carrie."  It even manages to transcend the limitations of its TV14 rating.  In terms of hewing closely to the book, the 2002 version bettered the 1976 (at least until that damned ending).  Technology had advanced to the point where more of the destruction could logistically be shown onscreen, and the post-prom section, quite lengthy and detailed in the book (Carrie destroys most of town) gets some real heft in this version.

But it still wasn't quite right.

So, it was with some great anticipation that I looked forward to the newest version (Carrie 2013), with Chloe Grace Moretz in the lead role.

The viral marketing campaign led to some great conceptual artwork:

The movie had a few more things going for it - an R rating, a maverick, feminist director (Kimberly Peirce), and an edgy screenwriter best known for his work on TV and in comics.  But pretty early on some things started to get fishy.  The movie, originally scheduled for a March release, was delayed for seven months to give it a release closer to Halloween.  Okay, sure, I get it.  But when it finally did come out a second screenwriting credit had been added - Lawrence Cohen, the writer of the 1976 original.  Okay, I wondered, did Cohen actually work on this new version, or did they lift so liberally from his original screenplay that Carrie 2013 was legally obligated to credit him?  

Uh-oh.

I am left with the feeling that the movie was ready for release when originally intended in March, but some ignorant studio bureaucrats started sticking their fingers in, and the seven months between March and October were spent tinkering.  "It's too different - not enough like the first movie.  People love the first movie!"  The finished product falls somewhere in the middle - not close enough to the 1976 version to truly satisfy that crowd, and not close enough to the book to satisfy fans of King's original.

Don't get me wrong.  "Carrie 2013" was a good movie, and it incorporated some new technology in effective ways.  And it did take a few steps closer to the book in keys places - Carrie was back in control of her mega-meltdown whereas the previous movies made her seem catatonic during it (in the book she thoroughly enjoyed it).  It included a memorable prologue featuring Carrie's birth that is unique to this version - but could have been fleshed out even more.  It does away with the "after-the-fact" material that hindered the 2002 version.  And it includes some cool footage of Carrie practicing with her powers.  Which, I suppose, changes the character fundamentally from the previous movie versions.

But that is where it seems that Peirce's vision ends.  I have nothing to base this notion on other than her history as a strong, independent filmmaker who I got the impression of would probably only want to take a project like this on if she could make it distinctly her own.  That tremendous potential that filled me with rapt anticipation for over a year before the movie finally came out is an opportunity lost.  It wasn't good enough - bold enough, inventive enough, close enough to the novel - to merit its existence.  I tried to find evidence online that director Peirce was unsatisfied with the end result.  That at some point the beast had been ripped from her hands and bastardized without her consent.  But I couldn't.  Either she's keeping her feelings tightly under wraps or this really is what she intended all along.

The movie made money, and I suppose that's why movies get made, after all.  Three movies have been made in 37 years of Stephen King's book.  If you average it out, it stands to reason that we'll see Carrie White again on the big screen in about 2026 or so.  

In the meantime, I'll have to make-do with endlessly poring over the book and revising and revamping the version of the movie I've been filming in my head for the last two decades.  Who knows - in 2026 the person to remake the movie may be me.  

Paranoia Strikes Deep

 

Part of what makes Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" so great, and something that is often discussed in critical reflections, is the way the movie implicates the audience in the voyeurism that is movie watching.  James Stewart is every one of us, sitting in a darkened room, staring at a human drama playing out before our eyes.  Some find condemnation in Hitchcock's movie, but I find a sort of world-weary acceptance of human nature.

Fragments, snippets of real life are gathered by the crippled photographer watching from his rear window out at the windows across the courtyard.  Out of context, these fragments coalesce into a number of different stories, most of which are in various states of incorrectness.  One story, in particular, the door-to-door jewelry salesman across the way with the "nagging wife who suddenly isn't there" proves too interesting to resist.  Onto a bare framework of observation wild and outrageous suspicion is laid.

He was packing saws in his apartment - he must have chopped up his wife.  When the photographer explains this theory to his police officer friend, the police officer responds, "How many knives have you owed?  How many saws?  Did you ever kill anyone?"  The photographer is momentarily chastised, but quickly resumes his vigil.  A small dog turns up dead and everyone rushes to their windows except the salesman - he is obviously capable of taking a life.  

The photographer's suspicions, paranoia, and hyper-voyeurism are, in the end, justified in every way.  That's a tidy way for the story of the movie to end.  Real life is seldom as tidy.  Anyone who has ever sat and "people watched" knows how easy it is to invent stories to lay on the shoulders of the strangers passing by.  

One night when I was 9 or 10 I was spending the night with some cousins at our Grandma's house.  Her neighbor was coming and going all night long, and we heard yelling in her house, although we couldn't make out what was being said.  Like a spider web, our speculative story quickly grew into a massive murder mystery.  We were thrilled and amped, but terrified.  Something about the thrill of witnessing what is not meant to be witnessed.  The danger of it.  

I knew I was a voyeur even then, although I didn't know the word for it.  I was not familiar with the concept of exhibitionism until later.  The idea that some people wanted to be watched and got a similar thrill from it that I got from watching.  I have some of that in me, too, but mostly I am a "watcher from the shadows."  

Everything has its limits, though.  I recall a particularly disturbing dream I had during a time in my early 20's I was house-sitting for a friend in town.  I found it fascinating to observe the comings and goings of the neighbors.  Slowly, steadily, I began to sink into a swamp of paranoia.  I kept all the blinds closed at night.  Eventually I refused to turn the lights on at all.  Finally, one night I had a very vivid dream that I was in the house with the lights off and blinds pulled as normal, getting ready to peek out, when I had the distinct feeling I was being watched.  I went to a window and pulled up the blind only to see myself peering back.  I screamed, and ran to another window on the far side of the house, and it was the same.  I was hovering in the shadows peering back.  That was my tipping point.  I woke the next morning and resumed a more normal way of life, lights on, curtains open.

I got to thinking about all of this in light of this year's revelations about governmental spying.  The sheer scope of it, and that it is also focused on tracking the domestic actions of American citizens.  When the government tracks each citizen's whereabouts via our wonderfully "smart" phones, records the content of our messages, our phone calls, our emails, our internet searches - basically, our entire digital lives - in massive, searchable databases, it gives one reason to pause and reconsider a few things.

We have all become our own versions of the door-to-door salesmen of "Rear Window."  Of course, we are not all murderers, and he had the benefit of not realizing he was being watched.  We are not so lucky.  And I've heard people say, "Well, if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't worry about it."  But that's not the point.  I mean, I guess that's true.  But why even bother to watch unless you think you will catch somebody at something?  And doesn't thinking that way mean you don't trust anyone?  And how are the untrusted supposed to deal with that?

When I was a kid I would, from time to time, get the feeling that certain people - teachers, etc - expected me to fail at certain things.  Or, if something would turn up missing in a classroom, they would assume I had taken it.  And it was never true.  Not even once.  But I couldn't shake the perception.  That's a hell of a thing to have to carry around - that knowledge.  It made me intrinsically, deeply angry and resentful.  I couldn't shake it - and I still carry it around with me to a certain extent even now.

So this nightmare Orwellian scenario is now real life.  Government is watching us.  They say it's not true, but trust is gone, so nobody really believes them.  Paranoia digs in again, little by little, sliding in slowly like a knife between the ribs.  It gives reason to pause and reconsider even the most benign things (this very blog post, for example), as you always have to wonder how it will look to another person.  The pimply shadow-dwellers I imagine sitting in a dark control room somewhere in the desert in a room full of screens - staring out their own rear windows, given free reign to piece together whatever scenarios they want from the fragments they are collecting.

Of course, it would likely make even the most robust of us go mad eventually.  But that urge to watch is an inescapable part of human nature.  Hitchcock knew it, and I wonder what he would make of the sheer scope of what is happening today.  It goes far beyond national security.  It's all about power.  It was about a group of people at some high level of bureaucracy being told how far they could take it - how far the technology would allow them to go, and those bureaucrats following the electric spark they felt in their genitals and saying, "Oh, well, yes, let's do that."  And sitting back to watch the show.

Eventually, though, you reach the point where the fantasy becomes a nightmare and you have to lift the shades and turn on the lights and try to get back to normalcy.  Maybe that's what the end result of this ongoing "whistle blowing" will be.  In any event, I'm sure there will be more people in suits on tv telling us we have nothing to fear.  And we will try to believe them, but in the end we will know that the erotic urge to watch will simply be too much to resist.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

So how does a person exist in this sort of toxic digital environment?  The urge to drop "off the grid" is certainly palpable - to revert to a circa 1989 existence of snail-mail letters, no cell phones, and cash/check for every purchase.  Even today, it would still be possible, but it would be a huge pain in the ass.  Shouldn't a digital life be our right and privilege?

In the end, I suppose we are all made to be exhibitionists.  The question becomes, "Do we continue to hide behind our flimsy curtains, or do we boldly throw them open, turn on the lights, and parade around the house in our tighty-whiteys and granny panties?"  Of course, this decision is fueled by the knowledge that we are helpless to protect the sanctity of our privacy.  I suppose you could always sell your house in the city and move into a wigwam in the mountains, but doesn't that just mean they have won?


There's something liberating about knowing you no longer have the capacity for keeping secrets.  That wonderful, horrible moment of release when the thing you have been trying to keep hidden for so long is finally laid bare.  When you have been caught at 2am pissing in the park fountain and you realize you have two options - run, or finish your business.  When your back is against the wall and you realize you are being watched, you may as well stand there and face the music.

You may as well put on a show.     

Warrior Diaries: Mercy (inspired by the movie "The Warriors")

February 14, 2008

Dear Diary,

It's hard to believe that it's been almost 30 years since that fateful night when I met my darling Eugene. Of course, it took me 6 more years to become Mrs. Mercy Swan. I still think there's kind of a poetic ring to the name, don't you, Diary?

Every year around Valentine's Day I start to reflect back on the love that I have with Eugene and how much of a mess my life was before I met him. They used to call me "Mattress-Back Mercy" which I used to hate, but it was true. I never used to think I was a whore. I remember one of the first things I ever said to Eugene on that fateful night in the summer of '78 was "I ain't no whore," but I can see now that I was. I was a whore. But all that is behind me, diary, and I can now officially declare that I truly ain't no whore. Although I still enjoy a nice train every now and then. Chugga Chugga, Toot Toot!

Eugene did the sweetest thing for me today for Valentine's Day. He apparently had been rummaging through some boxes in the attic and came across his old Warriors vest from back in his gang days. I used to give him such a hard time because he wouldn't get me one. Not even one vest. Even though I knew the man could easily get another one. Eventually, I forgot about it and stopped asking. And then once we moved to Kansas and Eugene started teaching English at the local community college, I figured that all of his stuff from his boppin' days back in Coney was long gone. But I guess I was wrong.

Anyways, so I come home from work today and on the table there is a box that says Mercy on it. I open the box and there it was, the familiar brown leather vest that I used to covet so. It still has blood and sweat stains from so many years ago. With it, Eugene had left a card. It read:

Dear Mercy,
I know you always used to want one of these,
and I'm sorry I never gave you one.
You was just a whore to me then and not
worth the effort of getting my mom to
embroider you your own vest. After all, that skull
and wings pattern takes forever to stitch! But life
is different now, and better, and I want you to have this
now. If you want, I can invite some guys over, wear the
vest, and we can pull a train on you, just like old times.

Love your valentine,
Eugene Swan

Now after reading that note I almost started to cry. Eugene is usually so stoic, but when he wants to let his guard down he can get downright poetic. Maybe I will take him up on his offer!

I will let you know how it goes, as always.

Love,
Mercy Swan

P.S. Happy Valentine's Day!

 

 

Warrior Diaries: Maasai (Inspired by the movie "The Warriors")

August 4, 1978

Dear Diary,

Well, shit, Cyrus is dead. I don't know if you heard. I always wanted his job but this is not the way I wanted to go about gettin' it!

I have a feelin' this is going to be a long night. It all started well enough with Cyrus' big happenin in the Bronx and then just as he had everyone in the palm of his hand, someone shot his ass. As he fell off his podium, on the outside I was all like "Shit!" but on the inside I was like "Oh, man, I get to be warlord of the Riffs, the biggest gang in the city, which means I won't have to take any shit!"

But Cyrus is dead, and we have to find who did it and waste those mutherfuckers. There's word that it was a clique from Coney called the Warriors. They got a long way to go, and I think they got nowhere to run to, and nowhere to hide.

I just got word that the Turnbulls, they blew it.

We got our connection, Mama Mary, of Mama Mary at Midnight over at KKNF 102.7, droppin' soulful clues to the soldiers out there about the Warriors whereabouts, as well as providing a rocking and ironic soundtrack to the evenings proceedings.

I guess I have a lot of things to plan for now that Cyrus is gone. For example, I can finally change the official Riffs uniform to one which I have always found conducive to rumblin' and wastin' - black toe shoes, black parachute pants, and a black sparkly vest open at the waist with no shirt underneath. The boys will inspire awe in the hearts and minds of their opponents as they be wastin' them.

I just got word that some small time clique ran into the Warriors. Apparently this click is called the Orphans and, while they're not in our network, they rumble anyway.

Who are the Warriors? I want them alive if possible, if not, Wasted!

Yeah, that's just what I'm going to say to the gang at the meeting!

Got to go, diary. This night will be a long one! All this talk about the Warriors has kind of made me want to visit Coney. I always did love the beach there. I'll let you know how it goes.

Love always,

Maasai

 That's me in the sunglasses. Since I am the baddest, I wear the darkest sunglasses in the most dimly-lit rooms!

Warrior Diaries: Cleon (inspired by the movie "The Warriors")

July 28, 1978

Dear Diary,

Man, if any of the other guys in the gang find you, I'm toast! They will totally think I have gone faggot! Sometimes I think some of them keep diaries, too, but I am not the kind of WarChief to get all up in the shit of my gang. I try to lead by example. For example, when I'm packed and looking for some boppin I don't demand that any of the other guys join me in my adventure, but I know that they know if they was the ones doing the boppin' I would totally have their ass, hence I never have to bop alone.

Three days ago I was using the pisser here in headquarters (Warrior central) and I seen that someone wrote on the wall, "Cleon is a wuss who couldn't even soldier through the territory of the Moon Runners without the aide of a pipe or a molotov cocktail." Underneath this, someone else wrote, "Aaah, fuck him." Now, this shit bothered me, but being War Chief and everything I didn't want to let anyone know it bothered me, so I been keepin' cool, but all the time I been watching. Cochise is the molotov cocktail expert in the gang so I been suspecting him, but it could be any of them.

Two days ago someone bleached my leopard-print WarChief dewrag and now it looks like zebra-print. That totally throws off the color scheme of the Converse sneakers, vest, jean, dewrag outfit I worked so hard to get right! I am afraid there will be trouble in the gang soon.

I guess that big happenin' in the Bronx is still goin on. Cyrus sent an emmisary today to see if we would be there. I said not only would be be there, but I gave him our word that the Warriors would uphold the truce. I'm a little bit nervous about soldierin' all that way without packin' anything, but I have always loved to hear Cyrus speak, and this is such a big opportunity for him! Hopefully it will be a magical night for both of us!

We initiated another member today. He's a wimpy young kid named Percival Wallingford, but he's so good at taggin' shit everyone just call him Rembrandt. You know, like the painter?

Last night me and the gang soldiered down to the amusement park here on Coney to ride the Wonder Wheel. Man, fuckin' Highball from the Destroyers was there. Once we saw him, we was all like yelling how we was gonna kick his ass and everything, and he threw up at the top of the Wheel and it rained down on everyone. Ajax got it the worst. He was so caught up on meeting up with some strange wool that he didn't want to go back to headquarters and shower. He wanted to keep lookin for chicks covered in Highball's puke! So we left him to it. He didn't get any takers, and by the time he came back to wash up it was too late and all the chicks had gone back home to their dudes. What a character that Ajax is!

Well, I gotta go. I can hear the guys comin' back from a supply run. I hope they didn't forget that I wanted onions on my hot dog.

Love forever,

Cleon

 

Warrior Diaries: Vermin (inspired by the movie "The Warriors")

July 29, 1978

Dear Diary,

Man, I hope the other dudes don't find you. That would totally suck. I would totally get japped if that happened. But sometimes I think they have diaries, too. Oh well, I'll probably never know.

I know I never told you, Diary. Shit, I never told no one, but I never really wanted to be in a gang. All I really wanted to do was to open up a nice Italian deli like my grandfather had. Hopefully, after all the soldierin' and wastin' and wreckin' is done with the Warriors, I'll have enough bread saved up to start my own little place.

And I know I got the big one, but I never really like it when we pull a train on some chick. I still hope to find a nice girl some day, and I just don't think a nice girl is going to want to marry a guy that has been the caboose of dozens of trains. Even if he does have a big one. I guess I'll just have to keep the trains a secret, but then you just open up a whole new set of problems.

Diary, what can I do? How can I cut back my participation in the wreckin' without seeming like a total wimp? I like these guys, and the Warriors is my life, so it would suck if I lost that, but I just feel myself being pulled farther and farther from where I originally envisioned myself at this point in my life. I mean, my brother Fredo has joined the priesthood, my sister Sophia married a nice Italian boy and has started a family, and here I am sitting in the head at a run-down gang headquarters getting ready to go out and bust some heads, do some general soldierin' to protect the turf, and by tomorrow I will probably have participated in at least two trains. After all, I have got the big one. Oh shit, diary, I don't know if I can take this any more! I really am a Vermin, I guess.

Cleon says that Cyrus' big happenin' is still going on. I'm excited! We never get to go into the city! I think it will be fun and good for us as a gang. I've heard there are some all-girl outfits in the city. Maybe I can meet a nice girl who is like me and wants to get out of the life, but who won't hold all the shit I've done against me because she's been there, herself. Ooh, baby, oh baby, I'm beginning to feel my temperature rise just thinking about it!

Well, I guess that's it, diary. It's off to another night of protecting our turf here in Coney. Maybe we'll ride the Wonder Wheel tonight. I love the feel of the mist from the ocean on my face when I'm at the top.

Sincerely,

Francis (Vermin)

P.S. I keep having this ominous dream about baseball bats, roller skates, subway tokens, and clinking bottles. I wonder what it means? Maybe I'll ask Rembrandt. He's pretty smart and probably knows all about that stuff.

In Remembrance of Michael Jackson (10-7-2010)

Being a Michael Jackson fan during the 90's and 00's was an exercise in surrealism that became more painful as time went on.  One year before MJ died, you couldn’t get a person to admit tenderness for the man or his music, although we all saw the die-hards outside of his final go-round through the judicial circus relating to the unutterable nocturnal activities that he had been denying and running from since the early 90’s.  We all saw them, and we all got to shake our heads in unison and say, “Poor silly bastards,” when what we were really thinking was, “Come on, Mike.  I believe in you.”


I fell head-first into the pool of my MJ idolatry at what I am confident was the last great window of time when it was possible to do so, 1991-1992.  In 1991, I was eight years old, and I was too innocent to care much about the face or the crotch-grabbing dance moves.  My eyes were dazzled by glitter and sequins and effeminately masculine pop magic.  (Of course, the irony that this was likely exactly how MJ would have hoped I would react to him had I ever met him in person is not lost on me.)  Such is the wonder of childhood.  You simply accept things.  MJ used to be black, and he used to have an afro, and now he was much different, but does not an MJ by any other physical appearance dance as sweet?


I claim that my window was the last great window for two reasons: I became aware of MJ before the scandal erupted – the last wave of innocence, as it were.  And I also was too young to appreciate the scandal when it did erupt.  So when I saw MJ come on TV one morning from Neverland, looking pale under his shock of black hair and dressed in a scarlet shirt, talking about how the evil lawmen came to his house and invaded his privacy, even taking pictures of his penis (and my, how I did blush when I heard that), I did not recognize a desperate, panic-stricken man trying to beat the press meat-grinder to the punch.  All I saw was my idol looking sad telling me that some judge had given the cops a warrant to search his junk.


While most of the rest of the world exclaimed one giant, “I KNEW it!” I carried on in my joyously oblivious world of preteen fandom.  Worshipping in the privacy of my own Walkman was as easy as it had ever been, but witnessing for the glory of the King in public began to get the few social doors open to me slammed in my face at every turn.  When I was given the responsibility (at 10 years old) of running the music at my elementary school cake walk and I discreetly swapped the cassette in the machine with my discreetly stashed copy of MJ’s “Bad,” (the only reason I miss cassettes was how portable and easily concealed they were, like hidden weapons loaded with bullets of rock and roll), and had the kindergartners cake-walking to “Dirty Diana,” I was swiftly relieved of my duties.


I got older, as did Michael.  I watched as he married Lisa Marie, and I was glad for him because she was so pretty and a real woman who surely wouldn’t marry him if the allegations from a few years prior had been true.  Again, I realize now that this is exactly what MJ wanted us to believe, but I was too naïve to see it that way.  My heart still raced in anticipation every time an MJ special or performance was announced on TV, and I would be there with my finger over the record button of the VCR, waiting to capture it all for posterity.


I hadn’t grown up alongside MJ as my mom had, nor seen him spring into the public consciousness as a member of the Jackson 5 with the wizened eyes of an adult, as my dad had.  MJ burst forth upon me with the weight of his mythology firmly in place.  It was too much too soon and it was too late for me to let reason win out and kick him out of my heart forever, even as I matured into the capacity to understand more of the reality of MJ than I ever wanted to.  As I saw the cracks in the crazy plastic façade of his life, his music, and his face (which I am convinced we will all one day learn the truth about), I turned like so many towards newer, less difficult objects of rock and roll adoration.  But MJ was always there, sitting quietly in the back of my mind, weeping softly about the things he had learned: that love’s not possession, that love needs expression, and that it won’t wait.  All of these things he learned too late, as did I.  “Have you seen my childhood?” he would meekly ask, and I would reply in tones as soothing as I could muster that I had not, but that like so many of us around the world who had not forgotten, I was still looking.


When MJ announced the historic run of London concerts, my ears perked and my heart began to race.  Could it possibly be that he was finally giving his fans something back for the years of torture he had subjected us to?  The veil of MJ fandom shame had been lifted, and people all over the world held their breath in collective anticipation.  It was beautiful to see how quickly all fifty London concerts sold out.  Rehearsals for the massive new show were underway.  There was a band, dancers, an entire production, and rumor had it that MJ was singing and dancing better than he had in years.  That he was energized, excited, and passionate.


And then it was all over.  MJ had fooled us again.


Like it tends to do, MJ’s death seemed to vindicate him of all sins, from his alleged crimes against children to his “Invincible” album.  MJ memorabilia sold out all over the world, as did his music, which you know everyone already had anyway.  I was happy for this outpouring of capitalist support, at least insomuch that it would show his family, both biological and fan, that we all really did still love MJ.  That for those dark years he had been whispering to all of us.


I felt angry and cheated that the world never got to see the actual “This Is It” shows, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the timing was probably good for MJ to go out when he did, just to the left of the spotlight, having reawakened the sleeping leviathan of his legacy and once again taking the reins of his life.  Fifty concerts is a lot for a man who hadn’t done a full show in almost a decade, and there’s no telling how it all would have gone, but MJ’s track record wasn’t the best.  That he never got the chance to mess it all up may be one of the greatest cosmic blessings of his entire long career.


How can I live in a world post MJ?  How can any of us?  The shock wore into awe, which has worn into a dull acceptance.  I have happy memories of my childhood, and MJ is a big part of that.  From signing my autograph as MJ when I was 5 years old to tearing the plastic off my “Dangerous” cassette on Christmas morning 1991 and weathering all of the insanity that came later, when I think about MJ I always feel once more like that wide-eyed boy so blissfully unconcerned with everything but the music, and the magic.  And when I listen to him today, I am still transported back to that place.  That is what MJ means to me: innocence, joy, vanilla hard rock thrills, and a jump-start to the pop culture engine that runs my life even today.  Would it have all come to pass without MJ?  Perhaps, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as meaningful, sparkly, or filled with primal disco beats.  I cannot speak for the world; I can only speak for me.  And, MJ, from me to you, thank you.  May you finally find your childhood, and claim your throne in the lusty pop hereafter.


Forever your fan,
Mark Schuster    

A Conversation With Tom Waits (10-19-2009)

I sat, alone in my house, and watched as a bird flew into my bedroom window. It hit the glass with a thud and then fell to the ground below - its neck broken.

I stood, alone, and pressed my face against the bedroom window. I looked down at the bird; so fragile, so recently a living thing - now a corpse. I closed my eyes and felt the cool kiss of the glass plant itself on the oven of my face.

I heard the crack of a match from somewhere behind me.

When I opened my eyes Tom Waits was in my room. He was lying on my bed and smoking.

There was a question that had been troubling me for some time, and I presented it to the lounging troubadour.

“What’s it all mean, Tom?”

He looked at me with a frown on his face. He took a long, meaningful drag off his cigarette.

“You mean life?” he answered as he exhaled.

“Yeah, that’s my question, Tom. It all seems so random. Is there a meaning to it all?”

“What makes you think I know the meaning of life?” he asked as he tipped the ash from his cigarette into a small metal dish he had pulled from his pocket. He sat the dish on the nightstand next to my bed.

“Well, you’re successful. People respect you - you’ve been around for a while.”

He paused momentarily in thought, and then spoke. “Well boy, so far as I can tell, the meaning of life is a warm bed, a loose woman, and a double shot o’ bourbon.” He sat back and took another satisfied drag from his cigarette.

“Well, sure. I mean, it makes sense you’d answer that way. But are you saying that because you’re Tom Waits, or because it’s the truth?”

Tom Waits sat up a bit in my bed and snuffed out his cigarette in the small metal dish on the nightstand. I seemed to have struck a nerve. He pointed at me as he spoke. “Boy, I seen shit you couldn’t even begin to…”

I cut him off. “Sure, I know. I didn’t mean anything. But after all that you’ve been through - all you’ve seen - that’s all you can come up with; a bed, a tramp, and some liquor?”

Tom Waits laughed. “Well now, boy, what else is there?”

“What about music? What about love?”

Tom Waits lit another cigarette and relaxed again in my bed. “Boy, I tell ya’, they’re one and the same.”

I said, “I know…I know. But I’m not talking about that. Seriously, what about music and love? Aren’t they the meaning of life?”

Tom Waits held up his hand. “Okay, boy, now don’t get all worked up. In regards to those two things you just mentioned, I can say this: one is God, and one is the Devil. I ain’t gonna tell you which is which, but boy, the Devil can’t carry no tune.”

“So, you think music is God, and love is the Devil?”

Tom Waits nodded as he took another drag from his cigarette. “That’s what I’m sayin’.”

“Well, what do you mean, love is the Devil?”

“Boy, there ain’t no single force greater for making people do crazy, foolish things than love. Wars have been fought over it. People have been killed and have died for it.”

I said, “But, don’t you think love can bring out the best in people; the beauty - the untapped potential for good?”

“Boy, I ain’t ever seen it yet.”

“But what about the love of a good woman? Doesn’t a man need a good woman in his life?”

Tom Waits sat up in the bed, and kicked his legs down onto the floor. “I already done told you about the love of a good woman!”

“No, no. Not some one-night stand…in the dark…with a woman you probably couldn’t stand to look at in the light. I’m talking about a deeper love; spiritual - like soul love.”

And at that, Tom Waits laughed. “Boy, what they been teaching you in that crazy, mixed-up college of yours? You’d think all that education would have knocked some sense into you.”

I looked at him. “I’m a romantic. So what? It’s in my nature. You can’t escape who you are!”

Tom Waits took a long drag from his cigarette. “Boy, you said it all!" Then he coughed. "Say, could you get me a glass of water?”

I returned a moment later with the beverage. Tom Waits sipped greedily. “Thank you, boy. Thank you. Say, I’ve been thinking. Maybe I was a little hard on you back there.”

I was taken aback. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, I mean…shit…life can get mighty lonely. And the transient comforts of a one-night stand can almost be worse than spending the night alone. I suppose we are all just searching for that special person; that person whose flaws can mingle with our own and turn two broken halves into a beautiful whole. I can’t begrudge you that. And as far as that other one is concerned - music - it IS God. I wasn’t lying to you about that. But maybe love is, too. Music is the God that fills in the cracks of life. Love is the God that makes life beautiful.”

I had moved to the edge of the bed and sat down. We were separated by the space of two pillows. I sat there silently for several moments. Slowly, I began to nod. “That makes sense to me. Thank you, Tom Waits. Thank you.”

Tom Waits smiled. “Sure, boy. Sure. But listen, that don’t mean it ain’t fun to wallow in the shadows every now and then. Shit, I’ve built a career on it.”

Suddenly, he looked towards the hall outside the bedroom. There was a knock at the front door. I left the bedroom and made my way to the front door.  When I opened it, there was nobody there. I went back to the bedroom, and Tom Waits was gone. On the nightstand, his second cigarette still smoldered in the metal dish he had pulled from his pocket. I held the dish up, and saw an inscription in the small basin. Scooting the ashes aside, I read the message engraved there:

This round’s on me.

I am the Keeper of Lost Dreams

When you are obsessed with flea market culture, sifting through the detritus of society looking for choice nuggets that somehow fell through the cracks, you end up seeing some pretty bizarre shit.  Not "oh wow that is so cool" bizarre shit, but the kind of stuff that defies logic - like, "who donated this, whose decision was it to put it on the shelf for sale, and who in the world would buy it?" bizarre shit.  Things like used underwear and used toiletries spring immediately to mind.  

I've seen a jar of used toothbrushes - 5 cents each.  Maybe the intention was that they be used for engine detailing?  That must have been it.  Right?  I've seen stained panties/briefs next to half-empty boxes of tampons so old the wrappers have yellowed.  Wigs are fairly common - the fake hair of dead women.  But I've also seen false teeth.  Less common.  

Are there really people so hard up for a (dentally intended) toothbrush that they would resort to purchasing one SO used that the bristles have begun to fan out?  Or so desperate for teeth that they'd buy a set second-hand?  And are these stores really so hard up for merchandise that they couldn't afford to just throw this sort of stuff away?

But all of these things pale in comparison to the family photos I have seen during my years of flea market bottom feeding.  Granted, they aren't literally disgusting in the same way that false teeth are, but they are, in their own way, more disturbing.  I get it that, when grandma dies, you give her wig to the flea market so that it may continue to serve its intended purpose, albeit on someone else's head.  But family photos are personal and the ones that end up for sale in a flea market come loaded with subtext.

Take the photo above, a recent acquisition of mine from a small church-sponsored thrift store just outside Eureka Springs, AR.  I was originally attracted to the photo because of the outdated styles of those pictured.  The date in the lower right-hand corner indicates the photo was taken in 1985.  28 years ago.

As I stood there with the photo in my hand, I started to run the math over in my head.  I could ball-park the ages of the women at (clockwise from top left), 40, 14, 16, and 18.  Which would mean that, today, they would be 68, 42, 44, and 46.  Chances are good they are all still alive, out there somewhere in the world.  So how did it come to be that their professional family portrait ended up a country flea market?  Would any of the women want the picture if it were offered back to them today, or did some horrible event shake and then break the bonds of blood forever?  Did it accidentally get dropped into a box of sheets marked "donate," or was it purposefully removed from its place on a wall and tossed into the garbage, only to be plucked from oblivion at the last moment and set on a new path that somehow ended with me?  Is it the last physical evidence of these women's existence?

I'll never know.  

But the questions kept coming, and I began to feel my own emotional connections forming with the women in the photo, and with the photo itself.  I questioned whether I could actually bring the photo to the counter and purchase it, like the woman who had been eyeballing me since I walked in would question my motives as much as I was questioning them.  But I decided that if they could sell it, I could buy it.  And it wasn't nearly as awkward as I had feared.  50 cents later, it was mine.  

I was going to scan it for later use as blog-fodder and then, since it seemed too unceremonious to simply throw it away, I was going to burn it after saying a few words.  But after I scanned it something compelled me to hold onto it.  It was no big deal to hang onto one photo, after all.  One measly little piece of paper.  After all, it really may be the last physical evidence that these women ever existed.  So I took the photo and put it in a box with my own family photos, claiming them by extension as my own.  And I shall bear the burden of their memory, and I shall be the keeper of their lost dreams.  It is the least I can do.

Yeezus? Pleezus!

 

 

The only thing Kanye West does better than building musical bridges is burning non-musical ones.  No rap artist has intrigued me more over the past decade by so cannily blending styles and sounds in the service of hip-hop than Kanye.  And no person has repulsed me so much by their incredibly high-profile temper tantrums. 

 

"Late Registration" was the first Kanye album I anticipated prior to release.  I have always wanted to love hip-hop, and Kanye was touted as a genre-bending artist of highest caliber.  My interest was piqued, and the album delivered.  The unstoppable Ray Charles/Jamie Foxx sample from "Gold Digger" hit me just as hard as it did everyone else in the world.  "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" built upon my love of James Bond movies and Shirley Bassey's haunting theme by building an exceptional hip-hop track around it.  

 

The problem with sampling in hip-hop, especially the sort used in "Diamonds," is that it undervalues the importance of the rap.  There's no doubt I enjoyed the track as much as I did because I already enjoyed the Bassey track.  Does that negate the worth of Kanye's version?  I don't think so.  I enjoy both versions of the song, but in a greater sense Kanye's track helped build a bridge between two disparate musical worlds.  I came to the album because I liked what he did with something I was already familiar with; I stayed because I checked out everything else he was doing and found I liked it just as much. 

 

But holy effing pancakes of Sodom the shit he has pulled in his public life.  Throwing huge tantrums, making an ass out of himself over and over (and always, seemingly chastised, apologizing for his actions, only to replicate them a few months later), and basically acting like, well, an unfathomably spoiled celebrity (read: child).  The kind of celebrity that makes "real people" like me fucking hate celebrities. 

 

Most of the time, I can separate an artist's work from their life.  It is how I am able to remain an ardent fan of Woody Allen, for example.  But with Kanye, the weight of newsworthy jackass antics slowly but surely became commingled with my perception of his work, and began to drag the entire entity that is Kanye West down the drain of my esteem, and even my interest.  By the time of 2010's multimedia corporate megablitz surrounding the release of "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," I couldn't have cared less.  The album, like everything Kanye has done, received rave reviews, but I was so over that fucking douchebag that I barely cast it a second glance.  

 

And then I heard "Yeezus," and suddenly things got complicated.  In all sincerity, the album is one of the greatest things I've ever heard (especially the brutal first half).  The maniacally self-promoting braggadocio and bluster is still there, as is the sexism, racism, and classism that is the sad backbone of most hip-hop, but the spartan production makes the whole thing come across like a horrifying glimpse into the freaky brainspace of a man tormented by his genius.  The words may celebrate the lifestyle, but the music makes it feel like sheer torture to actually have to live in that rarified space. 

 

When I read track titles such as, "I Am A God," I rolled my eyes, expecting another exasperating "I speak rhymes into a microphone - worship me!" delusional rap screed.  And while the track is that, it manages to be much more - almost an indictment of celebrity culture, and a tirade against the value we "real people" place on it.  Could it be that Kanye West actually gets why he turns so many people off?  Is there some actual introspection going on in there?   

 

On the same track, Kanye compares himself to Michael Jackson.  Meaning, I suppose, far more that he has attained the same level of fame, and not that he is disappearing down his own fantasy rabbit hole.  Indeed, MJ could never touch Kanye's level of boldness.  With each new release, Kanye dares you not to listen, challenges, and confronts his listeners in ways MJ never would have dared.

 

And that's what makes "Yeezus" so damned compelling.  It's some of the most acidic, jagged, bleak music produced in any genre.  My mind keeps making comparisons to Nine Inch Nails "The Downward Spiral," although "Yeezus" is a much more unexpected statement.  It has a unity of sonic texture and lyrical theme that transcends popular culture and the time of its creation, and approaches the level of art.  It's also highly addictive and the first album in a very long time that immediately hooked me from first listen. 

 

Kanye West is not worthy of worship, but he is worthy of forgiveness.  Maybe he really is a genius who sees the world differently than the rest of us.  Or maybe he really is just a douchebag.  But a damned compelling one and, once again, one of my favorite artists.  My only hope for the future is that Kanye and other musicians continue to make albums this concise and uncompromising.  I'm sure it won't happen, and Kanye will likely alienate me again sometime soon with his high-profile buffoonery.

 

But at least I'll always have "Yeezus."   



Forever the God of Fuck

 

1997 was Marilyn Manson's year.  He seemed to be on the cover of every single music magazine.  I swear Hit Parader (RIP) literally didn't have anyone else on their cover all year.  The more disturbing the image, the better.  Manson helped sell a lot of magazines that year, and he zonked a lot of young, impressionable minds - mine included.  Every Saturday at the grocery store I'd stand before the racks of magazines and stare slack-jawed at this mutant seemingly sent straight from the bowels of hell to the CD players of young America.  

"Antichrist Superstar" made him, well, basically that.  His follow-up "Mechanical Animals" was a bold step in a new direction (and my personal favorite of his albums).  An eloquent appearance in "Bowling for Columbine" and a legendary stand on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrent" made people realize that there was more to the man than mismatched eyes and a lack of eyebrows.  2000's album "Holy Wood" was his apotheosis, the final piece in a loosely plotted reverse trilogy that included "Antichrist" and "M.A."  

In the earlier days of his superstardom, outrageous rumors swirled: that he had had his lowest ribs removed so he could auto-fellate himself; that he regularly gave away free drugs at his concerts, and numerous reports of his upcoming onstage suicide.  He wasn't just fascinating to a white bread Missouri boy - he was fucking terrifying, but therein lay part of the appeal.  By 2001, he had developed a relatively serious reputation as a social commentator.  His music was no longer mere shock shlock, but a weighty diatribe against the hypocrisies of the world.

His 15-minutes of fame lasted around five years.  I don't know what happened - perhaps after 9/11 people were just too tired - too jaded - to really be shocked by a slender androgyne tearing pages out of the Bible onstage.  Subsequent releases seemed to lose focus - the first lyrics of "Holy Wood's" follow-up "Golden Age of Grotesque" are literally, "Everything's been said before.  Nothing left to say anymore."  That doesn't bode well for a man who had been a bottomless pit of words and opinions up to that point.  

Manson and his rotating crew of band members have soldiered boldly on through the 2000's and even to today, but the "magic" is gone.  Young people have moved on to newer, more savage antichrist idols, and his original fanbase are now minivan driving accountants.  

He has become an antichrist superstar adrift.

It should have been apparent that what he had wouldn't (or couldn't) last forever, and it's amazing it lasted as long as it did.  His impact and influence cannot be understated, but it seems his legacy gets washed further from relevance with each passing day.  I think often about those rock stars that went on to become legends after their sudden, shocking deaths.  What Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain still linger as potently in the public consciousness if they were alive today?  Can you imagine Jimi trying to placate the tastes of the 80's?  Or Kurt guest-judging on American Idol?  Death was probably the best thing that could have happened to their careers, solidifying legend in perpetuity.  

Whether it was all highly cunning rock-star posturing (likely) or not, Marilyn Manson flamed to his zenith, in my opinion, in 2001.  Had those onstage suicide rumors ("he's gonna do it onstage on Halloween...no shit, it's true!  I swear I heard it!") proven true, he would have martyred himself in the eyes of a generation of lost youth.  For a while there, it seemed his artistic resolve was so strong that he may actually be capable of such a thing.  

But in the end, the antichrist was just a man.  Of course he was.  And he will likely live a long life, fading away into the golf-playing "where are they now?" pop-culture back burner.  And he's rich and set.  And I'm glad for him.  I really am.  

I'm not saying Marilyn Manson's continued survival is an opportunity lost (even I am not that morbid), but it is a blow for rock and roll as a concept worth flaming out over.  The world is rarely changed by flashing lights and horror-show makeup alone.  I can see that now, and I suppose I could then, too.  But when you are young it's so much easier to believe. 

"Pitch It"

It's amazing the things you remember about a person, and when you remember them.  I was reading an article on litter when suddenly I was transported back to my childhood, riding around the countryside with my Grandma in her Ford Maverick, gleefully chowing down fast food and, when the food was gone, pitching the garbage out the window. 

This was done at Grandma's command.  We'd stop at some place with tons of wrapping - Sonic was a favorite - and order many different a la carte items.  I'd get a corndog nestled in a cardboard tray and wrapped in paper, fries wrapped in paper, with extra ketchup, and a soda in a paper cup with a plastic lid.  Grandma would get twice as much, and we'd start out on our zany spree up and down country roads, feasting to our heart's content.  When everything edible was consumed and we were left with an armload of trash, Grandma would smile and say, "Pitch it."  "Really?" I would always ask.  "Yes, pitch it!"  "But isn't it bad to throw trash out the window?"  "Oh, it's fine.  There are people who have fun cleaning up the roads.  This gives them something to do." 

So I would roll down the window as far as it would go, and heave a mountain of trash out into the warm country air.  Grandma would laugh, and I would laugh, and we'd head back to civilization, full and pleasantly clutter-free.  

My grandma's house, which she kept neat as a pin, had several trash cans of varying sizes, and I know she paid for trash service, because I remember helping her take the trash to the curb (or at least seeing it there) on a number of occasions.  What anarchist streak drove her to this one particular act of civil disobedience, I'll never know.

"Pitching It" became almost an unspoken in-joke between Grandma and I.  She never told me to keep it a secret, and I never thought to blab.  It was just one of those things.

Until one day, riding around with my Mom in her car, eating some hastily acquired fast food on the run from point A to point B, driving through our small Missouri town, I finished my food and immediately heaved all the packaging out the window and into someone's carefully manicured front lawn.  Mom looked at me like I had sprouted horns.  I immediately knew I had messed up.

"What did you DO!?!"

"I...uh...I pitched it!"

"You WHAT!?!"

"I pitched it!"

"Why would you do such a thing!?!"

"Well, Grandma always tells me to do it!"

"I don't care.  It's wrong.  Even if she tells you to do it, I want you to say no."

"Okay, Mom.  I'm sorry.  I won't do it again."

After circling back around the block and being made to collect the trash I had pitched, we completed the ride in stony silence.  Now I can look back, put myself in my mom's shoes, and realize she was probably more embarrassed than anything else, but at the time I felt like something someone would scrape off their shoe with a flash of revulsion and perhaps a few dry heaves thrown in for good measure.

It's a bizarre phenomenon when you are a child, attempting to live by the dictum, "respect your elders," caught in a situation where not just an adult, but one you are related to, who you are close with and who you love, suddenly throws out a curve ball and tells you to do something that you know is wrong.  In the end, if you are like me, you do it because (on the surface) they told you to, but also (deeper inside) because you know it's wrong and that makes it fun.

Grandma and Mom had at least one conversation.  I wasn't privy to the details, but I'm sure it had something to do with my Mom requesting that my Grandma no longer actively encourage me down the long, dark path of the serial litter bug.  A reasonable request, right?

One thing I remember about Grandma was her sensitivity and how easily she could sometimes get her feelings hurt.  I'm an awful lot like her in that regard.  Whatever her eventual calm reaction to the conversation with my mom, her immediate response was one of rebellion.  I'd get dropped off at her house for one of my weekend overnight visits, and we'd get ready to go get some dinner.  I'd get in her car and notice extra trash - household trash - like she had collected it and brought it outside expressly to "pitch it."  And that's what we would do.

It would be easy for me to lay the blame for this anarchy directly at my Grandma's feet, but knowing that I was breaking an expressly proscribed motherly rule ratcheted the entire enterprise into the realm of pure adrenaline.  I loved it.  I couldn't get enough of it.  I'd laugh and laugh and barely give Grandma enough time to find a suitable out of the way spot to pull over before hurtling armloads of garbage into the ditch. 

Perhaps my Grandma realized she was creating a monster, or perhaps I was eventually plagued by the guilt that has haunted me all my life.  Or perhaps pitching it just lost its luster for us after a while.  Whatever the reason, the adventure drew to a close without discussion or fanfare. 

As I get older, sensations of the past recede into the background wash of memory, gradually becoming fuzzier and less defined.  A few, though, remain etched so deeply into my subconscious that all I have to do is close my eyes and I am living them again.  Some of those events struck me so profoundly at the time that they became branded into my heart and soul in an instant and I knew they would be locked up inside me for the rest of my life.  Other things found their way in there more subtly.  Things such as my anarchist adventures with my late Grandma.

I was conflicted by these experiences as a child, and like so many such memories I enjoy looking back on them as an adult and trying to find an alternate perspective.  What could have led my gentle, straight-laced, church-going Grandma to such random acts of lawlessness?  Surely it wasn't for the sake of those unfortunate souls whose idea of a good time was to "walk up and down the roads picking up the trash," an explanation that now fills my heart with joy and mirth. 

Her biography is filled with tough instances of loss, and of a great number of fairly dramatic decisions in which she had little say and was forced to put up with situations as they presented themselves.  It was a different world in the 1950's and 1960's when she was around the age I am now, raising a family and trying to hold things together.  Women weren't liberated, yet.  Nobody had yet seen the adventage of burning bras in protest.  

In such a climate, one must capture the tiny bits of anarchy that float by and be prepared to act on them.  In the grand scheme of things, there are worse things than throwing trash out the window.  At the risk of twisting my words into pretzels in pursuit of justification - throwing trash out of a window DOES give an opportunity for the adoptive highway parent to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment for beautifying the landscape.  I suppose we helped them with that.  And, oh, the birds - think of how much potential nesting material was to be found in those paper hamburger wrappers!

Even without realizing it is happening, the people around us cannot help but influence the course our lives take and the people we become.  My Grandma was a book-loving Irish Catholic woman who lived squarely in the grasp of tradition while simultaneously remaining free-thinking and open minded.  She was articulate, sensitive, and funny.  And she was given to small acts of defiance, perhaps as a way to help balance her out and keep her sane.  

When she took me to the book store with her, she would not discourage me from the adult horror section, and she would always want to see what I had picked out, but never to censor - rather, she wanted to see if it was something she had already read, perhaps planning to borrow it from me when I was done with it.  She treated me like a grown-up well before I was one, and shared her little secrets with me.  In a world of madness and pain, she retained a joy and a gleam in her eye.  After all, there's only so much emotional baggage one person can carry before it all becomes too much.  Sooner or later, you have to pitch it.  

Rayette Breaks My Heart

The last time I watched "Five Easy Pieces" I was probably 15 years old.  I didn't like it.  I don't really remember any of the reasons why other than Jack Nicholson's character Bobby treated his poor, sweet, dim-bulb girlfriend Rayette so very bad that it made me want to reach into the screen and strangle him before giving her, I don't know, ONE compliment, about SOMEthing, just ONCE - would it have freaking killed him?

I get that I missed the much larger messages and themes carried by the movie based on my sappy heartbreak over (to me) one of the great tragic characters of 1970's cinema - Rayette, as masterfully portrayed by the great cult icon Karen Black.

I watched the movie again today, and I could certainly relate to it more than I did at 15.  I went into it knowing that Rayette was going to break my heart, but trying to keep an open mind.  The movie certainly is a masterpiece, and Nicholson's performance is perhaps the greatest of his career, but I still found I couldn't take my eyes (or mind, when she wasn't on screen) off of Rayette.  I'd think about her all alone waiting for some sign - some olive branch of affection - from her aloof, self-loathing boyfriend, understanding fully how impossible their situation was, their emotional and intellectual incompatibility staggering.

The little details are what get me.  In one scene during the long road trip north for Bobby to visit his ailing father, Rayette wears a negligee to bed and attempts, in her own (simultaneously grating and endearing) way to seduce a thunderously apathetic Bobby.  Only moments before in the movie, Bobby had attempted to end their entire relationship before caving to a sobbing, suicidal Ray and asking her to make the trip with him.  In the few minutes she had to pack her bag before they headed out, she composed herself enough to have the presence of mind to pack lingerie for some potential late night tryst.  After all, Bobby's her man, and she loves him.  That is so pure - so simple - so sweet, and so tragic because Bobby is none of those things, and absolutely unable and unwilling to try to become them. 

When he sticks up for her late in the movie it's more out of protection than love - perhaps he feels about her the way I feel about her, after all - but it changes nothing about the dynamic between them.  He reaches a small sort of resolution with his family and before he and Ray leave she asks his sister to take a picture of them in front of the house.  Bobby scoffs and doesn't slow down.  Ray grins sheepishly before telling Bobby's sister, "If any of y'all are ever down our way, know our home is always open to you!"  She is like a cork bobbing on a sea of great, unfathomable depths.

It's that buoyancy that lets you know, threats of suicide or not, Rayette will more than likely end up on her feet in the end.  If Bobby left, she would cleanse her emotions in a very honest way, pick herself up and go about her life.  The best I can hope for her is that she will meet a man somewhere on her journey who can treasure her sweetness, protect it, and nurture it.  Someone as sweet, stupid, and naive as her.  When I was 15, I thought that person could be me.  But at 29, I can see more of myself in the character of Bobby than I was prepared for, so I know that's not the case.  All I can hope is that she doesn't have to meet many more like us before she finds what she needs.  She's a good person.  She deserves that. 

Wide Eyed Wonderment

"The Wizard of Oz" is as much an American institution as apple pie or the 4th of July.  Dog on the movie in mixed company and the room is likely to go silent, everyone present looking awkwardly down towards the floor, one brave soul managing through gritted teeth and a pained expression, "Don't, dude...just...don't."

It's worth noting that the only people I've ever discussed the movie with who did not idolize it were people who didn't see it until they were older - teenagers or beyond.  I guess there's a certain childlike suspension of disbelief needed to see beyond the seams and paint and strings holding the movie's primitive illusions together.  But it's also worth noting that the millions of minds that have been blown by the movie as children tend to stay blown. 

Like many people, I can't remember the first time I saw "The Wizard of Oz," and I've lost track over the years how many times I've seen it since.  Dozens.  My adoration of it, rather than being dulled by age and experience, has only grown deeper.  It's one of the few things in the world I can always count on to make me feel like a kid again - when everything around me was amazing because there were so many things I didn't yet understand and which were out of my control.  I WAS Dorothy - every kid is - swirled up into the tornado of life, a situation utterly beyond our control. 

I've always been frustrated by the lack of "Oz" movies that have followed in the wake of "Wizard of Oz."  I though the dark, spooky "Return to Oz" from the 1980's was excellent, but other than that...nothing.  So my heart began to race with anticipation at the announcement of "Oz: The Great and Powerful," the new movie starring James Franco.  When it came to Berryville, I was sitting in the theater on opening night to drink it in.

All I can say is...wow.

In spite of some bizarrely leaden acting (especially from Franco) and a few moments and plot elements that felt more derivative than tribute, the movie manages to conjure up a hefty dose of magic all its own.  A prequel to the events of "Wizard of Oz," the movie tosses in some backstory about how "The Great and Powerful Oz" (the "man behind the curtain" in the 1939 movie) happened to make it to Oz in the first place.  Add in a trio of beautiful, scheming witches (one of whom undergoes a transformation comparable to the impact of seeing Darth Vader's mask get lowered onto Anakin's head in Star Wars Episode III and hearing that first iconic breath come rasping out), some amazingly rendered CGI supporting characters, and even a classic "finding the potential within oneself" underdog story, the movie is one of the most enjoyable I've seen in a long time. 

As I sat there in the darkened theater, letting the spectacular visuals wash over me, a peculiar transformation began to occur - I reverted back in time to the child I used to be, sitting in wide eyed wonder as the magic of movie worlds slowly sucked me in and zonked my impressionable mind.  I used to commonly experience a tremendous sense of disappointment after a movie was over that the world created in it wasn't real - the magic was so powerful that having to head back to "real life" was nothing but a letdown.  I hadn't felt that for a long time, but I felt it last night.  For two hours, I was utterly transported from reality into a world beyond imagination. 

There were times when I was overcome by emotion - not at the events onscreen - but at the effect they were having on me.  It was so wonderful to be brought back to that place...that place I didn't even realize I had lost sight of until I felt it come rushing back.  That is the magic of the movies as pure escapism.  I'm back in reality now, but my step is lighter and my mind is brighter, filled with optimism and wonder at the world around me - perhaps the most amazing place of all.  

It Will Contaminate Your Soul...

I love trashy movies.  Often they are boring, made with a minimum of ability in an attempt to turn a quick profit.  The really good ones - the ones I enjoy - are brash, campy, cheesy, unintentionally hilarious, and as far from politically correct as movies get.  Usually, trash cinema falls somewhere in between these two poles.  Sometimes, though, a movie gets made with trash sensibilities, playing to the market for such things, but features such devastating levels of depth and artistry that they transcend trash and become truly subversive.  Not just, "oh, haha, that was hilarious how that guy's head just exploded," but, "oh, shit, that guy's head exploding is such a powerful indictment of consumer culture I think I'm going to vomit."  Sometimes, these trash masterpieces achieve the level of art.

In my life, with all the trashy movies I've watched and enjoyed, there is a short list of titles that truly impacted me on a gut level, shook me up, upset and disturbed me, and by doing so, changed my world view.  These titles include, "Cannibal Holocaust," "Martyrs," and "A Serbian Film."  But still, to this day, there is one movie that trumps them all - the single most disturbing, subversive thing I have ever seen:

Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Salo: Or, the 120 Days of Sodom"

Pasolini had completed work on a trio of films that would be dubbed his "Trilogy of Life."  The films were based on works of classic literature, including "The Decameron," "The Canterbury Tales," and "Arabian Nights."  The films all celebrated a primitive, earthy humanity, including unbridled depictions of innocent, joyous sexuality.  Pasolini's aims were noble, and his films true works of art, but the overall message was lost on a public who couldn't see past all the bump and grind.  Countless pale imitators quickly sprang up, artless attempts to cash in on what Pasolini had wrought.  So disturbed and disappointed was Pasolini that he wrote a lengthy rejection of his trilogy of life - a rejection of the naive worldview they espoused that Pasolini could see was impossible, and set about work on a trilogy of death. 

Only one movie in the death trilogy was ever completed.  After completion of "Salo," but prior to its premiere, Pasolini was murdered by a young male prostitute in Rome - killed by being repeatedly run over by his own car.  As a result, "Salo," already one of the most devastating, bleak, and abrasively pessimistic films ever created, took on an even greater sense of ominousness and horror.  It is hard to imagine where further Pasolini could have gone in a trilogy of death after the excesses of "Salo," but the fact remains that it was never meant to be the artist's epitaph - his grand final gesture by which all his previous work would be forever judged (and contaminated).  And yet, that's what it has become.

"Salo" is based on another classic work of literature, Marquis De Sade's infamous catalog of sexual atrocities, "The 120 Days of Sodom."  It stands to reason that the work would have been considered unadaptable.  Indeed, a literal adaptation would be illegal, a sort of elaborately staged child pornography snuff film.  Pasolini took the basic setup, married it with Dante, and used it as a framework on which to lay his numerous attacks on the decaying cesspit of modern 20th-century Italian society as he saw it.

The story has been moved from 18th century France to WWII-era Italy.  In the tiny republic of Salo, four unfathomably corrupt fascists - among them a duke, a bishop, a magistrate, and a president - systematically round up a group of sixteen teenagers (eight boys and eight girls) and retire to a palatial villa where they shut themselves off from society and engage in an epic orgy of excess, cruelty, perversion, and degradation.  In the end, all of the innocents die horrible, graphic, gruesome deaths, and the monstrous fascists dance a little jig.

Along the way, the viewer is made complicit in all manner of nasty goings-on.  Perhaps the film's most (rightfully) infamous, notorious segment involves the entire host of the villa arriving to dinner in their Sunday best and feasting on a meal of excrement (collected from the victims chamber pots).  Of course, it was really chocolate - and by all accounts quite amazingly gourmet chocolate at that - and Pasolini was using the shit as a metaphor for the gluttony he saw in capitalist society (a reasonable, effective metaphor) - but the actual witnessing of it is something one will never forget. 

Just as the victims sit placidly by and wait for horrible things to happen to them - horrible things they all, for the most part, endure with mere whimpers and cries - Pasolini turns the camera on the audience as if in condemnation.  Not just in the world of the film do we sit idly by as atrocities consume the very existences of the victims, but in the world outside the film, as well.  In the real, actual, flesh-and-blood world.  The criticism is weighty - part of my reaction to the film always involves a heady dose of guilt (amongst many other things).  In the film the victims, out of desperation, eventually begin to sell each other out in hopes of saving themselves.  How many of us would do the same?  In the world of the film, the four fascists are representative of God - ultimate authority and power - and does not God get us all in the end?  So easily we sell out our fellow man for a few more microns of time on earth, only to have compromised our very humanity in the process.

Rarely has a film concerning the objectification, subjugation, and ultimate extermination of the human body carried such a bitter world view regarding life and humanity in general.  Pasolini so utterly and thoroughly undermines viewer expectations of titillation ("you liked my last movies?  Thought they were sexy?  Like to look at naked bodies?  Well try THIS on for size!") that the film could rightfully be categorized as anti-pornographic.  It seeks not to create heat, or desire, in the minds of viewers based on the erotic potential of the human body.  Rather it takes great pains to distance itself from what Pasolini apparently came to view as a mechanical act thoroughly destroyed by the exloitation and commodification placed on it by modern society.

Pasolini directing "Salo"

The subtext could go on and on.  In many ways, what "Salo" gives viewers depends on what viewers bring to it.  Pasolini famously includes a title card listing "further reading" for viewers interested in a greater understanding of Pasolini's inspirations and motivations while he was making the film.  I've never sought those books out.  I don't know if I WANT to try to get inside the mind of the person who could make a movie like "Salo."  For me, the film is enough.

"Salo" has managed, over its existence, to not only be condemned as one of the most notorious, upsetting movies ever made, but to be considered a masterpiece of cinema.  Indeed, its artistic merit is unimpeachable (even if they do all sit around and eat poo at one point), and therein lies its extreme power.  "Salo" shares many traits with classic trash cinema, but Pasolini was a consummate artist with the power to deliver whatever message he chose in clear, uncompromised ways.  Imagine Michaelangelo having painted a fresco in the Sistine Chapel depicting the corpses of disembowled babies being consumed by rabid dogs and you will have some idea of the power of Pasolini's "Salo."

I've never seen a movie (literally, never) that merely felt as haunted, evil, and doomed as "Salo."  That's totally subjective, and I can't explain it any better, but there's a sticky sense of malice over every frame of Pasolini's final work that is hard to shake.  Much of that is no doubt due to Pasolini's murder being forever linked somehow with the film's very existence.  But whatever the reason, "Salo" is what it is, and stands in the jaded eyes of this life-long fan of trash cinema as the single most disturbing movie ever made.  It is not horror in the sense that it makes you jump in your seat and laugh at yourself - it is horror that sinks into your bones and contaminates your soul.  It is horror that, once seen, can never be unseen, and will lie within you for the rest of your life.