Life-Mission: Possible

          My parent's living room on Tanglewood Drive had two regular-size bedroom windows instead of a picture window.  When Mom closed the big curtain over the wall, I could pretend it covered a picture window (like every living room was supposed to have).  In the corner was a gray plastic Zenith black-and-white television with a gray plastic briefcase-handle on top.  It sat on a little, flimsy, aluminum, TV-cart.  The antenna, mounted on a forty-foot metal mast in our back yard, looked like an old-timey outdoor clothes line.

          When my sister and I played safe-cracker, I'd turn the volume knob down to where if turned any more it would shut off; then I'd set the top dial to "U" (between the 13 and the 2) and ratchet the bottom dial, cranking it around and through its hundreds of channels with my ear pressed to the “safe.” Whenever my peripheral-view caught some hint of reception breaking into the static, I'd whisper the next digit of the “combination” for her to write down.

          One day, Mom interrupted before I could get to the jewels.  She shouted from the kitchen, “What are you two doing?  Stop that, you’ll break it!  Go to your room until you can learn to take care of other people’s property as if it was your own.  Some day, after you decide what you are going to be when you grow up, you’ll have to buy a television with your own money and THEN you’ll appreciate it!”

          Sitting on my twin bed, watching my hamster—Spooky II—running on his little wire-metal wheel in his little wire-metal cage, I contemplated my punishment as she demanded: In the couple-hundred times I’d been in a room with a TV and a grown-up, channel U was never used and the bottom dial was never turned.  If I broke the dial pretending to be IMF Agent Jim Phelps from Mission: Impossible would anyone ever know?

          Sitting on my single bed, watching my hamster—Spooky V—jogging in his little plastic wheel-room attached to his extensive yellow plastic warren of tubes and compartments, I contemplated my young-adult life to date.  Three years and three drastically different college majors, from Pre-Veterinary Medicine (too stupid in science) to Landscape Architecture (stupid waste of tuition) to Architecture (too stupid in math).  I needed to re-aim my sights for a fourth time...what was I not too stupid for and was not a waste of my money?  What did I enjoy (besides watching Captain William “Buck” Rodgers of the 25th Century and his robot Twiki)?

          Sitting on my mattress, watching my first cat, Popcorn, trail around behind my new hamster, Spooky VI, as he rolled around on the floor of my studio apartment in his plastic ball, I contemplated my so-called preparation for life.  Two years of Fine Art school, on top of the three years that I was “measuring my stupid” and I was no more ready to earn a living than when I was watching Spooky in his wire cage!  The artistic kids on Fame were happy and scrappy in their leg-warmers and spiky hair. They didn’t need money, why did I?

          Sitting on my queen-bed, watching my first son, Bram, play with Popcorn on an area rug, I contemplated the life I found myself inhabiting.  A Private in the Army earned just enough to afford a microwave oven.  Mine had a dial which you turned to the number of minutes.  It “dinged” when it was done (just like the counter-bell at the dry cleaners where I had my uniforms extra starched).  Am I Wembley, on Fraggle Rock?  Shouldn’t I be more like Drillbit Dozer?

          Sitting on my bunk, watching a Betamax video of my two sons, Ian and Bram, play with my ex-wife/their mother in an unfamiliar backyard, I contemplated the selfish existence I was dragging around behind me like a rotting-shadow.  An Army Spec-Four earned enough to replace the microwave oven he lost in the divorce.  Now, mine had two dials: one for time, one for power.  But as far as I knew, if I broke the power dial (which never got turned from its 100% setting) while pretending to be the still safe-cracking but older Agent Jim Phelps on The New Mission: Impossible my roommate would never know.

          Sitting on my futon, looking out the open window at my cats, Budroe P. Wilson and Louie, playing on my next-door neighbor’s tile roof, I contemplated the resilient person I’d chosen to become: A Sergeant earned enough to replace the microwave oven that had been damaged in the move to Korea.  My new one had buttons and a LED information display window.  Occasionally, if my Korean wife used it (she thought they were dangerous) she’d exit the kitchen until it beeped.  It was rare.  That she left the kitchen, that is.  Johnny Carson—a familiar-constant in all my previous decades—is retiring.  His last show is tonight!  But that doesn’t mean much to you, does it?

          Sitting on my thrift-store-mattress, watching my new kittens—the brothers Spencer and Lloyd—grooming in the patch of sun at the foot of the bed, I contemplated 'resiliency' being just another word for wishy-washy.  A Staff Sergeant earned enough to buy a new microwave after giving the last one to his last-ex (who'd learned all about convenience).  My new ones had turntables and Probes—the microwave’s was a revolving tray and a heat-sensor; the wife’s was a Zenith record player and a Ford.  Hey, Mission: Impossible with Tom Cruise is on HBO tonight.  Wanna watch it together?

          Sitting on my sleigh-bed, watching my dog, Cody, and new cats—Lloyd, Missy, and Moe—all trying to draw some warmth from the electric blanket, I contemplated the dichotomy of my perceptions with my past performances.  A Warrant Officer earned enough to buy a new microwave if the old one was gifted to his step-daughter when she moved out.  My new space-efficient microwave attached under the counter.  Wait a minute...you don’t want to see Mission: Impossible II in the theater, because it means two hours without a cigarette?  When did this happen?

          Sitting on my air mattress, watching my Siamese cat, Gus, stalking a fly through my 5th wheel trailer, I contemplated the end of my career and third marriage, as well as the beginning of an old-new me.  A retired Chief Warrant Officer still could afford a new microwave to replace the broken one.  My new one was a combination convection-microwave with racks and scrolling data.  The built-in remote-controlled Zenith over my bed (the size of my first Spooky's metal cage) was playing an old Mission: Impossible on Cinemax 3 or Showtime Extreme.  I didn’t care.  Why didn’t I care?  Should I pretend to care?

          Sitting on my king-mattress, watching older and maybe not wiser Gus stalking our new cat, Aggie, I contemplated happiness.  This artist still received enough pension to buy another microwave when the one that came with our new apartment needed to be trashed because it smelled like ten years of grease and curry.  The new one was just as good as the one in my 5th wheel. Sure I’ll go see Mission: Impossible III with you tonight...even though we’re both positive it will suck balls, we don’t care.  We.  Don’t.  Care!

          Sitting on my Temperpedic, watching my new kitten, Cecil O. Zonky, and Aggie frolicking with each other up, over, under, and around the bed, I contemplated aging.  My girlfriend and I each have enough to be comfortable (love, money, time, common sense, history, patience).  The house we moved into didn’t have a microwave; so I got a cheap one (for less than a night at the movie theater) and installed it myself.  Hey, I hear they're going to make a Mission: Impossible IV in a few years.  You’ll go with me? Great, it’s a date.  Even though J.J. Abrams is doing it...do you think it’ll still suck balls?  Yea, me too.

          Did the day come?  Was it the day I was able to afford my first one...maybe it was the day that I appreciated the expense of replacing that-which shouldn't have needed replacement so many times...maybe it will be the day I decide what I'm going to be when I grow up.  May.  Be.  Never.
   
I've got a peculiar weakness for criminals and artists—neither takes life as it is.  Any tragic story has to be in conflict with things as they are. — Stanley Kubrick

Juana Molina

A film is—or should be—more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later. — Stanley Kubrick

The Denouement of Tomes I've Borrowed or Own

As I walked through the open doorway of Theodore-call-me-Ted’s office, he cut his eyes at me (sufficient for intuitive Laban-shape-movement identification) and continued his screen-reading.  That was permission to sit; if he didn't have time, he'd have immediately shot me a question.

Of his three client chairs, I decided on the Haratech because I’d just finished a difficult night-shift and it was the most comfortable.  Pistons wheezed when I sat.  Additional hydraulics gasped as I leaned. Theodore-call-me-Ted could get his hackles and ire all fumed together in a ball up his ass if people popped-in-to-shit-with-the-bull and adjusted his Haratech's ergonomics.  So the other reason I sat there was (as feeble a power-play as it was, it was all I had) if he left me sitting for more than the 17-average-seconds it takes to finish a paragraph, he’d have to come around that desk and re-default-position the chair’s settings after I left.

After 25 seconds I stretched and rolled my shoulders and scapula.  A dampener in back of my spine shushed. I shifted an elbow off the armrest and allowed my arm to hang along the outside of the chair.  I wiggled my fingers near the adjustment levers like a gunslinger over his holstered Colt .45 while Ennio Morricone's guitar from the end of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly strummed in my head. 

Theodore-call-me-Ted slid his chair to center-desk, took his hands away from the keyboard, and then (begrudgingly-slowly) drug his focus from the screen and looked at me. His mouth hung partly open.  The glare from his monitor washed-out the right side of his face giving him a half-zombie look.

I wanted to say, there's two kinds of men in this world: those with loaded guns and those who dig, but I doubted Theodore-call-me-Ted would recognize the last line from the film.  Instead, I asked myself the same rhetorical question as always—how much professionalism could I expect from this mouth-breathing poster child for the Peter Principle, especially at an end of shift morning briefing?

He closed his mouth and tightened his lips. Anyone who didn’t know him would think this exaggerated-bottom-lip “frown” of his, indicated he was a scowl and two tears away from bawling. But I knew him. This was his way of smiling.

I said, “The denouement of tomes I've borrowed or own.”

After pausing to absorb the phrase for a full-second, he said, “That’s a fantastic one. Maybe the best yet. I love the vowelly way it lumbers over the tongue. Wait a minute...someone used the word denouement?”

“Yep.”

“Ancient French dude in Piccadilly-tweed with elbow patches?”

“No. Youngish. Californian. But he pronounced it wrong.” I shrugged and brought my right ankle up to rest on top of my left knee.

Theodore-call-me-Ted and I had played this game for several years—ever since we learned of a shared Drew Barrymore affinity. Her best line in Donnie Darko was: This famous linguist once said that of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words in all of history, that Cellar Door is the most beautiful.

So...whenever a beautiful word combination lands in the bottom of one of our boats, we share it with the other.

“How’d he pronounce it?”

“Dee.Noun.Mint.”

“You correct him?”

“Nah, he was a month-past-pain-tolerance Green. Destitute to boot. Medical records checked out.”

“He pronounce it tome, or do Californian dickweeds say it like tomb?”

I smiled enough for him to see my eyes wrinkle and pushed a little breath thru my nose with my diaphragm. This was Theodore-call-me-Ted trying out his morning funny. I crossed my arms and jiggled my right foot (I hoped my let’s-move-this-along message was clear).

He looked back at his screen and said, “Twenty-two from your shift.” Then returned his focus on me and asked, “Any of the Greens I need to look at with any weight?”

“They’re all routine. One could become a Yellow, but I already tagged it for legal to check-out first thing.” I said with a slow head shake.

“What's the source of beyond-tolerance-guy’s pain?”

“Well...that’s obviously open to interpretation. Could be the weight of the information in all the tomes he read. Maybe he was referring to the culmination of lifting an entire library one book at a time. But I suspect his statement was simply a neologism.”

“You asked him to explain the cause of his pain and his response was: ‘the denouement of all the’. . .”

“Not all, just . . . ‘tomes he'd borrowed or owned’. Yea.”

Theodore-call-me-Ted rolled his eyes, lifted his hands off his desk and said in a hushed pseudo-shout, “Insolvent Greens are people."

I pretended ignorance and jiggled my foot a little faster.

He continued, "Synopsize the Blue ones.”

“Only two. First one came in just after midnight. Woman, 68, local, NRS. (An acronym for Negative Relatives or Survivors, even though everyone knew No Responsible Siblings was more appropriate.)

I personally oversaw the exam: no deception indicated. The sticker price went on her card. I figure two-three days. She estimated high seventies, but I think it will go closer to a hundred—she’s got a reverse-mortgage on a 1939 bungalow in the Oakbrook District that’ll kick it up at least thirty, I think.

Second one was about a hour ago: guy from Idaho, 29, stage four. Records go back two years. I registered him in. Rough estimate is two-fifty. He has no will yet. The other half of his estate’ll go to a girlfriend.”

“How much went on his card?” He asked.

“Standard Med-Room Rate for the seventh floor.”

“Oakbrook bungalow’s SR?”

I knew he hated these. The law requires we formally document every Stated Reason—SR—but we are only permitted to discriminate against applicants for legitimate medical or legal reasons. . . .

“Hell. She’s a Skanker isn’t she?” He exclaimed.

I nodded. Shrugged. Emulated his pout. Raised my eyebrows. Looked out his windows at the tops and sides of the waiving trees, their leaves being nudged by wind until they showed their lighter undersides.

Years ago, Doctor Emily Maalsquanq designed a simple quiz—available to anyone with access to the web of internets. It supposedly measured a person’s level of senility, Alzheimer’s, or dementia affectation (which she called their sAd score). If a person’s Maalsquanq score declined, repeated testing allegedly determined the optimum moment to come to us. Since the law prevented us from accepting applications from anyone mentally incapable of completely understanding their actions, we received a handful of people a week who—when asked why they were electing to terminate their life—answered with: because my score is still high enough.

“Fuckass. Suck-a-Fuck.” He said as he tucked behind his screen and began aggressive key-pounding.

I nodded some more, then I racheted a lever and the lumbar area of the chair got noticeably more comfortable, so I twisted a knob and the seat cushion moved my butt cheeks slightly wider apart.

“Go home Pommeroy.” Theodore-call-me-Ted said from behind his screen.

As I stood, turned and exited his office, I said, “See ya tomorrow, Theo.”

He said, to my back, “Call me Ted.”

I don't think that writers ... function because they have something they particularly want to say. They have something that they feel. And they like the art form; they like words... — Stanley Kubrick

Counting Countries

The amount of time I've spent in each country increases-decreases on a diagonal axis from top left to bottom right (mouse-over for country names, mouse-click for Wiki page).


Update 2010:  Belize would now be appended in the mid-low-right quadrant (one week).



There's something in the human personality which resents things that are clear, and conversely, something which is attracted to puzzles, enigmas, and allegories. — Stanley Kubrick

Fresh Old Adage

For the last few months I dissected the act of viewing film trailers as a viable means of determining a film's worth (at first-run ticket prices). I even wrote a post or two decrying film trailers. I've now decided to trot out an old adage, because it has—once again—proven to be the most effective way to determine if an upcoming film will be good, bad, or ugly.

Base your decision—whether or not to pay first-run theater ticket prices for a film—solely on the director's past performance.

If you thought all of a director's previous films were good, you will consider his next one worth the price of admission (now extrapolate those you disliked and hated to fill in the bad and ugly spots). If a single person writes, directs, produces, and edits, this is an outcome magnifier. Conversely, a creative committee is an outcome dilutor, (if the director works with producers, screenwriters, and editors he has less to say about the final product).

As an apocryphal-test of this adage:

I really liked Richard Kelly's previous films Southland Tales and Donnie Darko, both of which he wrote and directed. So I wasn't taking much of a chance on his latest: The Box (which he wrote, directed and produced). Even though the preview made me not want to see it and the film was loosely based on a poorly-written story by a bad author, I liked the film.

The adage was easily reaffirmed when a director's previous films were ones I had a strong opinion about, but what about a director with a less-than-stellar résumé?

I thought F. Gary Gray's 1998 movie The Negotiator was mediocre; his 2003 caper movie The Italian Job was nicely above average; but his 2005 un-funny comedy Be Cool (which he also produced) was dismal. I saw his latest: Law Abiding Citizen. It's a mystery-thriller, which was not as bad as The Negotiator but not as good as The Italian Job. I only paid matinee prices, and wasn't too disappointed.

So...the adage still holds up—average directorial-performance in the past, results in average future performance. What about a film made by a non-director or by someone who's never directed before?

Grant Heslov has been a bit-actor on TV for over 25 years; he helped produce the interesting bio-pic based on a true story Good Night and Good Luck; as well as the un-interesting and sour historical-comedy Leatherheads (both of these producer-credits were with his friend, George Clooney, in the director's chair). His first film as a big-screen director The Men Who Stare at Goats was very disappointing. A muddled, poorly scripted/created/imagined, mix of great actors doing what-all and what-ever. Grant Heslov is not a good director; I imagine every decision on his set being made only after he consults with all his actor buddies and the producers and the screenwriters.

So, if this adage is to become my Ouija Board—deciding what films I see—what upcoming films does adhering to this adage predict I'll enjoy?

Roland Emmerich's new film 2012? He his a writer/producer/director kind of guy. Although I don't like most his films (Universal Soldier, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla), two of his (Stargate and 10,000 BC) were not terrible-to-average. But, based on these statistics, I will not see 2012.

John Hillcoat's new film The Road? I've only seen his film: The Proposal, which I liked. So, I'll probably take a chance on The Road.

Wes Anderson's new film Fantastic Mr Fox? Another man-of-many-hats. I really liked, (loved) four of his five films, so I'm confident I'll enjoy Fantastic Mr Fox.

James Cameron's new film Avatar? And yet another WrDiPrEd kind-of-craftsman! I greatly enjoyed about 50% of his films. The ones I disliked were the sequels and historical dramas. Since I like his sf/fantasy, I'll try watching Avatar.

Peter Jackson's next film The Lovely Bones? I didn't like the first film I saw of his (Heavenly Creatures) but his next four were good-to-great and he produced this summer's District 9 which I enjoyed immensely. He is on a roll, so I'll see The Lovely Bones when it comes out in a few months.

Brick Eisner's remake of The Crazies? He directed 2005's Sahara (a convoluted mess of sf-thriller-comedy-action). He's also been hired to direct a re-make of The Creature From The Black Lagoon, as well as a re-make of Flash Gordon over the next few years. He seems to be someone you hire to direct re-makes of failed films, which means (to me) that he has no creative talent of his own. I won't see any of his coming films, including The Crazies.

Joe Johnson's 2010 release of The Wolfman? These two films of his: Jumanji and October Sky, were OK. I thought his three films Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer, and Hidalgo were blah-middle of the road-blah boring. I hated his Jurassic Park III. Based on these statistics I don't think I'll see The Wolfman.

You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it's really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas. — Stanley Kubrick (film director, 1928-1999)

(November will, now, be split between Oprah and Stanley quotes, because it's ramping up to be a post-heavy month.)