No. 492: Scurvied Leo Falsebreath

Someone once asked me what was the saddest thing I could think of.

After consideration, the first thing I thought of was someone crying and masturbating simultaneously.

What’s the saddest thing you can think of?

(note: the title of this entry was arbitrarily picked from a list of 700 Hobo Names that can be found in expert John Hodgman’s book, The Areas of My Expertise. You can actually listen to John recite this list here, for free. I didn’t believe it at first either, but well, there it is.)

The Window.

I used to jump through this
Window without care. In and
Out at my will, without looking,
With abandon. I knew that
The window would always be open.

Now I sit in a daze, a slight ringing
In my ears and blurred vision, as
Blood trickles out of my freshly
Broken nose.

A Killer Queen, Indeed.

There are many milestones in a man’s life: Learning how to shave, to drive, to rap, throw a football, and lie to the police are but a few. This past week marked one such milestone in my life, and a rather unexpected one at that:

I attended my first drag show.

But not only was I in attendance, I was also part of the evening’s entertainment.

You see, this all came about when my friend Kate, a musician and world-class lesbian, asked me if I was interested in being a part of a rock/ska ensemble that she was putting together for a gig. I was so ecstatic that my lifelong dream of being asked to sing for a band had come true, that I didn’t bother even asking what said gig entailed.

So we met for our first rehearsal, when we ran through our set list of peppy covers of “Walkin’ on Sunshine,” “Take on Me,” and of course, “Love Shack.” The songs, of course, sounded impeccable, especially for five people who had not played any of them before. Riding the high from the smooth run-through, I asked Kate when our performance was. She replied, “Friday night, at the drag show!”

Awesome, I thought. Kate asked me if I was going to get made up for the show, and I replied with a kind of scoff that was indicative of an ‘uh, obviously’ response, relaying my excitement that I would finally have an excuse to wear makeup in public.

In addition to looking as one friend put it upon seeing me, “pretty,” I wore a purple tanktini with Animal from The Muppets on it along with a hot pink quarter-sleeve button-up. Needless to say, I looked slammin’.

The performance was, of course, impeccable. Every cross-dressed ass in the house was on their feet, dancing away for all three songs.

I haven’t felt like a rock star in a long time.

If I may be allowed a brief burst of bragging, it suits me.

*UPDATE* Here are the pictures I know you’re all clamoring for. Taken by my roommate, explaining any poor quality (click for larger versions).

There you have it. I’m sure you’re kicking yourselves for not being there, but with these pictures, you can feel pretty close.

Sobering?

Now that all the haze has cleared from St. Patrick’s Day, I can look at any and all photos of myself to assess the damage. Most are the standard fare, goofy smiles, beer bottles, and half-open eyes. But one picture stood out from all the others and is evidence of something startling:

This is me on the right.

 

After 19 hours of drinking myself stupid, I still look like a fucking bad ass.

Holla.

A Full-Fledged Addiction.

I can’t stop.

Once I get started, I get such a rush. I feel fulfilled. I feel alive.

I am speaking, of course, about Guitar Hero.

For the ignorant, Guitar Hero is not so much a video game as much as it is the video game. It is played using a controller actually shaped like scale model of a Gibson SG guitar, featuring five colored buttons on the “fretboard,” a strum bar that is flicked as one or more buttons are held down to achieve sound, and a functioning whammy bar. The game is played much in the fashion of other rhythm/music-based games such as Dance Dance Revolution, where you hit buttons in correspondence with on-screen prompts, but without as much of the palpable shame one may feel after a round of DDR. Because the songs featured in Guitar Hero 1 & 2 are, for the most part, universally beloved classic rock and fucking roll tunes,it is a game that nearly everybody can get behind and enjoy.

The first game begins simply and straightforward enough, commencing with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’”I Love Rock & Roll.” There is a sloping curve of difficulty; the songs get harder by nature as you go, touching on White Zombie, Black Sabbath, Incubus, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, just to name a few, and culminating finally with Ozzy Osbourne’s “Bark at the Moon.”

In the college environment, Guitar Hero proficiency is looked on with almost as much reverence as a beer pong champion. If you strap on a guitar and defeat an opponent in a face-off, you truly are a Hero. However, as with all things, a line must be drawn. A line between game and addiction. For you see, I fear that I may be, in fact too good at Guitar Hero.

Standing there, guitar in-hand, I become the guitar man. Tightly clutching my pick (yes, I use a guitar pick to play a video game) I hit the first sustained note with a Pete Townsend-esque arm windmill. My opponent merely stands, slouching slightly, as he tries to hit the buttons and strum at the same time. I, on the other hand, am not even looking at the screen, and am playing nearly entirely from memory. Rocking back and forth to Wolfmother’s “Woman,” I am pulling out every rock star move in the book as I hit chords with a surprising accuracy rate considering I’m barely paying attention to the actual game.

It is at this point that I wonder: have I crossed that precarious threshold? Have I leapt from the realm of enthusiast to that of nerd? The thought sends shivers down my spine. Could my skill actually be costing me respect? I am actually hesitant to respond when people ask “How often do you play Guitar Hero?” because, well… “At least an hour a day, every day,” is not an answer I am particularly proud of. But, I suppose I cannot hide who I am. I am an addict. I am a guitar hero.

You’re Not Your Fucking Khakis.

My best friend called me this evening. He lives in Chicago now, and since he doesn’t have a ton of friends out there, we correspond pretty regularly. Most of the time it’s the same old “What’s up with you?” “Nothing, what’s up with you?” rigmarole, but every once in a while, we will converse on a level that is above normal conversation. We cross into mindfuck territory.

This evening he called me with a quandary in mind. He had been feeling like everything was created for him, as though he were living in some kind of Truman Show. He then proceeded to blow my fucking mind with insights about reality  and the nature of death. What if, he proposed to me, what if when you die, that’s it? What are you supposed to make of this? What’s valuable? Things are as valuable as you make them, I responded. This three-hundred dollar iPod I have here could be nothing more than a paperweight if that’s the only value I attatched to it. That led into all this talk of religion, and afterlife, and subjective morality… it really made my head spin.

Then I watched Fight Club later on. That got me thinking again about what we as a culture value and what we condition ourselves to strive for. Do we truly need the Ikea apartment? Is it necessary for our survival to pursue this fantastical notion that possession begets fulfillment? The answer, I feel, is a resounding nyet. A cultural shift in priority is in order. Personally, I have never been enamored with the “American Dream” of a suburban house with a sporty sedan in the driveway with kids that have to go to practices and rehearsals and meets, working a job I at best tolerate while my wife weighs the pros and cons of going back to work after maternity leave. I’m not even sure I want a wife and kids at all. As long as I have a roof, something moderately cushioned to lay on, the means to write, and the ability to play music, I wouldn’t complain about my life.

I think we’re too focused on accomplishing what we think other people want us to accomplish. We convince ourselves that our parents, or our bosses, or society in general want us to do this this way, and that that way, and then we’ll be respected members of said society. No one focuses on what they want. How to achieve the simple contentment that we all subconsciously desire but suppress lest we disappoint our vicarious observers.

Do whatever the fuck you want. Don’t work a job you have no passion for because it’s been dictated to you that it’s what you should be doing. What you should be doing is figuring out what makes you content. Not even what makes you happy; happiness is a fleeting, temporary emotion that comes and goes constantly throughout the day and throughout your existence. I’m talking about contentment.

Because at its basest level, that’s what success truly is: Doing something that does not make you want to do something else.

Making Noir.

Daunting is the task of making a mark on the film noir genre as a filmmaker. Creating something original in a style that’s been done so much and so well is far from easy. To avoid the poisonous label of “cliche,” it becomes necessary to push the envelope, to test the boundaries of the genre, and take it to places none would think to bring it. A noir set in the wild west, for example, or a noir about clowns and their horrifying world. My vision for a noir is more abstract. My idea is an introspective and personal story about a young man in the throes of an addiction.

With regard to the matter of “when,” I’d like the film to have a timeless quality about it, so the time period won’t be specified. It will have a contemporary setting, but feature various anachronisms, such as the protagonist wearing modern clothing, but having a hi-fi record player and a black & white television.

The location shouldn’t be specified, either. The setting should feel like “Anywhere, USA” in that this could be taking place in anyone’s hometown. Most of the action will be taking place inside the addict’s room, where he will face his internal demons, as well as other characters who come to visit him, be it to comfort or to reproach.

Using established actors would, I think, be a misstep. Because I want this to seem new and unfamiliar, using unknown actors would go a long way. I would love to play the protagonistic addict . Most of the other roles are minor; the only other important character is the addiction itself, personified by a gorgeous femme fatale.

Here’s the plot development: The action predominantly takes place in the addict’s room, driven by his internal monologues. Whenever he feds his addiction, though, he goes to another place: a world of black & white, or suits and fedoras. A world of classic noir, where he confronts a gorgeous and dangerous woman, the personification of his addiction. After a time he is snapped back to reality to lament his predicament.

The narrative will be driven by internal monologues, as well as speeches from visiting characters directed at the addict. The only dialogue will occur in the black & white addiction world. My ultimate goal is to have the real world to seem more surreal and dreamlike than the addiction world.

Aesthetically, as I’ve said, part of the film will be monochromatic, but the rest of the film, while in color, will be very washed-out, having a bleak feeling about it. On the other hand, the black & white scenes will be in very rich shades, with dark blacks and intense whites, so that they seem more vivid than the real world.

Being the fan of anachronisms that I am, I would love to have contemporary alternative rock playing in the classic-looking addiction world, and perhaps even in the real world. The music, in fact, could tie the worlds together; the same song that’s playing in his room would as he sates the addiction would be playing in his Packard when he goes to his other world.

These are the ideas that came to me. I can’t explain exactly why, but I can say that I want to do something different, push the perceptions of what noir can be. I want to make a film that hasn’t been done a hundred times already. The dramatic “man vs. self” conflict is one I’ve always found most fascinating, and a chance to play with that idea is one I’d love to take.

I have to hand in this pitch to my film professor. If he likes it enough, I may ask him to help me expand it. Who knows, I may even punch up a screenplay. Stranger things have happened…

Briefly Revisiting 300

It has come to my attention that 300, which I had written a review/reaction to last night, has had a mixed reception, critically. Apparently it’s detractors cite it’s stylized violence and bombastic, bellicose dialogue as well as the black-and-white nature of the story as their reasons for their displeasure, while those who positively reviewed it did so left-handedly; calling it “simple fun” or the kind of movie that “turns 14-year-old boys into hardcore movie buffs.”

This isn’t sitting well with me. I feel as though their focus is misguided.

I’ve been trying to gather a stronger case as to why 300 is not just a good movie, but a great film, but my own words have had little avail. However, Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian and classicist who was asked to pen an introduction to the book accompanying the film, had this to say about its critical reception:

“Ultimately the film takes a moral stance, Herodotean in nature: there is a difference, an unapologetic difference between free citizens who fight for eleutheria and imperial subjects who give obeisance. We are not left with the usual postmodern quandary ‘who are the good guys’ in a battle in which the lust for violence plagues both sides. In the end, the defending Spartans are better, not perfect, just better than the invading Persians, and that proves good enough in the end. And to suggest that unambiguously these days has perhaps become a revolutionary thing in itself.”

 

 

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Eat Heartily, for Tonight We Dine in Hell.

In the year 480 BC, Xerxes, king of the Persian Empire, invaded Greece. His army was ludicrously massive, yet he was met inevitably with defeat. Defeat at the hands of a handful of warriors under the command of Spartan king Leonidas. The battalion blocked the pass of Thermopylae, the only road through which the Army of Xerxes could pass, and after four days of battle, they were betrayed by a local resident who revealed the existence of a mountain path around the Greek forces to the Persians. Dismissing the rest of the army, Leonidas stayed behind with 300 Spartans. Though they knew it meant their own death, they held their position, ensuring the retreat of the rest of the Greek forces. In the end, the Persians succeeded in taking the pass, but sustained heavy losses, extremely disproportionate to that of the Spartans. But thanks to their ultimate sacrifice, The Greeks were able to plan a successful counterattack on the Persian Navy, turning the tide of the Greco-Persian War permanently in their favor.

Now that the history is taken care of, it’s time to talk about the film that honors those warriors who stood against insurmountable odds, who stood as free men in the face of tyranny, 300.

First and foremost, 300, like Sin City before it, is based on a graphic novel by Frank Miller. Using Miller’s art as a template for visuals in a film, if done properly, can have mindblowing results. Aesthetically speaking, the film is staggering. I cannot even find words to do it justice; it must be seen to be believed.

Gerard Butler, who plays King Leonidas, hits it out of the park. Every word that comes out of his mouth is inspiring and blood-pumping. Every performance in the film is fantastic, actually. No one performance sticks out in a negative way.

The music was at once both classic and modern, but always, always epic.

The story is, of course, inspirational. Despite it’s glorified violence, 300 is about freedom and defending it, and standing up for what you believe in.

I loved 300, but I’m not entirely sure why I loved it. It wasn’t because of the violence, cool as it was; It wasn’t because of the story, of which I knew the outcome going in; I really think that it was the message that got to me. There’s no way you can watch this film and not feel inspired.

In summation, if you’re a fan of awe-inspiring filmmaking, run out and see 3oo. Just try to keep your shirt on afterwards.

Not Comfortable Discussing Things Amelodically.

Everyone likes music. This is a rather obvious explication that must be aired out, not unlike musty bedsheets, before we get underway. Everyone likes music. There is not a single person alive who has never heard at least one musical composition that they enjoyed. Everyone, at some point, has tapped their toe, stomped their heel, bobbed their head, or snapped their fingers to the beat of some song.*

*Note: a large exception and apology to the hearing impaired, as well as quadriplegics, for whom the previous statement unfortunately does not apply.*

Moving on, there is a line of distinction which must be drawn at some point. A further clarification has to be made, for surely the fellow sporting the blowout haircut with the “wifebeater” undershirt-as-outershirt ensemble who is assaulting passers-by with techno-industrial noise coming from his comically overhauled Honda Civic cannot be placed on the same team, or even the same sport, as the scraggly-haired young man spending his evenings hunched over a notebook, guitar in-hand, scribbling a dazzlingly indecipherable mixture of notes and words with near religious fervor. Both, obviously, like music. However, there is a nigh-impassible canyon of difference apparent.

And here, gentle reader, is where the distinction must be made: between those who like music, and those who get music.

Those who get music are often musicians themselves, but that is not necessarily the rule. To truly get music, one can’t simply know just what notes are being played, but why they need to be played. And there lies the distinction. The understanding. The understanding of the emotion, the passion that is palpable beneath the music.

My brother made mention of music that moved him to tears. He is someone who gets music.

Crass as it may sound, sometimes it is, in fact, a matter of taste. For example, the 24-year-old Insane Clown Posse fan does not, in all probability, get music. That subtly cute girl wearing the thick-rimmed glasses she doesn’t need who can be seen going to show after obscure show just so she doesn’t get laughed out of the coffee shop for not being scene enough does not get music either, though she does not know it. Conversely, the groom-to-be who spends days sorting through his cavernous record collection to find the song to which he and his new bride will share their first dance together, taking into consideration each choice’s ambiance, lyrical content, melody, tempo, danceability, and a gamut of other criteria just to make sure his bride will cry with joy in his arms as they dance not only gets music, but is going to make one hell of a husband to boot.

I lost where I was going with this. In short, I get music. and I hope you get me.

Ever-crescendoing,
Christopher.