Viva La Revolucion
In keeping with the quest to bring you a new and better Oscar, I joined a gym on Sunday. Tonight, I went in for my second workout and learned some things.
First of all, I am now Public Enemy #1 as far as my body is concerned. There’s a revolt going on amongst all of my different muscle groups. Yes as it turns out, I have muscle groups. Thanks gym!
The abdominal muscles are the main agitators. They’ve been making placards with markers and poster board. They say ridiculous things on them like “Stop Workplace Abuse NOW!” and various other slogans. They’ve begun urging some of the other muscle groups to chant absurd slogans. My hamstrings have been screaming some nonsense about “the ruling class controlling the means of production”. My biceps have tattooed pictures of Che on themselves. The real irony here Biceps, is that I remember when you fell asleep during The Motorcycle Diaries. Fucking poseurs.
So I’m thinking of hiring the Hell’s Angels to run security. It worked for the Stones right? I’ve got to do something to get all of these rabble-rousers under control. I don’t want to wake up one day forty years from now and catch myself saying something like “Mr. Abdomen, tear down this wall.”
10 Famous People That I’d Like To Meet
This is my response to the “10 Famous People That I’d Like To Meet” theme that Paul from Fuzzy Typewriter suggested. I’ve broken it into two lists; one with five dead people and one with five live people.
Dead People
1. Kurt Cobain – Kurt Cobain was the person who made music real to me. His lyrics were the first that ever really touched me, ever really made me feel like someone else understood. Before that, I didn’t really care all that much about music. It absolutely wrecked me when he killed himself (or was killed by Courtney Love depending on who you talk to 
). I was in really bad shape for like six months. I know that sounds stupid. I know that I shouldn’t be so affected by the lives of celebrities, but he wasn’t a celebrity to me; I felt like I knew him. I felt like him and if he couldn’t deal with life anymore then how could I? It sucked.
2. Ernest Hemingway – Love him madly and who wouldn’t want to go on a bender with Hemingway? I think I could hang with him.
3. Jesus – If you know me, you’re probably scratching your head right now… and that’s cool, I get it. I don’t want to meet him for some pissy little born-again reason like I want to kiss his ass. I have a couple of Monteforte-esque reasons for wanting to meet him. First off, I’d like to see if it’s true – any of it really. I honestly don’t think it is, but hey I’ve been wrong before. Secondly, I’d like to ask him a question: “How the hell did you pull that off?” I mean honestly… he’s redirected two thousand years of world history. I’d like to do that someday.
4. Ben Franklin – I’d like to pick up some of those awesome small pox blankets from him.
5. Hillary Clinton – She’s not dead? I wish that she were. Can she still be on this list? I think I’d like to ask her two questions:
1.What the fuck is your problem?
2.How does it feel to know that your husband would rather have sex with just about anyone than you? I mean really… Monica Lewinski? ewwww
Live People
1. William Shatner – I’d … like… to… meet… him… just… so… I… could… talk… to… him… like… this… and… see… how… he… likes… it.
2. Shakira – I’m incredibly attracted to Shakira. No really I mean like senselessly attracted to her. You know how people use phrases like “I’d give my right arm to <fill in blank>” … yeah, I actually would. She makes me have dirty, dirty thoughts. It wouldn’t be enough to bang her, I’d have to figure out how to climb into her with my entire body and do jumping jacks.
3. Al Pacino – Fucking love this guy. Seriously. He’s an amazing actor. He seems cool too. I’ve been a fan of his for as long as I could remember and he still manages to surprise me. That he can still do that after all this time boggles my mind.
4. Ani DiFranco – I absolutely love her music. It’s also the same as it is with Cobain – I feel like I know her. She puts so much of herself into her music. She has this life and vitality that comes through that’s absolutely fucking infectious.
5. Johnny Depp – Look – I promise that I won’t harass him about those stupid fucking Pirates movies. Really though, he’s great and I’m a huge fan. I even watch movies that he only appears in for one scene – I’m looking at you Before Night Falls.
Paul And The Steamroller
“Did I ever tell you the story about Paul and the steamroller?”
Ted let out a low chuckle and replied: “Paul? Steamroller? No, I don’t think so. Did you know a guy named Paul that got flattened by a steamroller?”
“No smart-ass, that was Bugs Bunny. It wasn’t that kind of steamroller.”
“OOOK then.”
“Anyway … when I was sixteen my friends and I all hung out with this guy named Weirds; Uncle Weirds actually. His name was actually Dave. Being a weird guy, the name just came. Even my friends’ parents called him Weirds. It was his thing. He was Uncle Weirds to us because he was my friend’s uncle.”
Ted laughed to himself and smiled because he knew this was going to be another of Tom’s stories. Tom was always able to amaze Ted with crazy stories from his life.
“Weirds was a really great guy once you got to know him, but it was easy to see how he earned the nickname. He was very slight. He was easily less than five feet tall and I’d be surprised if he weighed 125 pounds. He was always drunk. He was prone to falling on the floor after removing his pants for no discernable reason.”
Ted was laughing really hard. “You’ve got to be making some of this up.”
Tom looked him right in the eye. “I’m not making it up AND I’m not done yet.”
Tears were running from Ted’s eyes.
“The pants thing? It happened to me once. He fell on the floor, dick in the wind of course, and looked at me and said ‘Woah … look what I done now.’ He was shit-faced. It was like eleven in the morning. As I said before, there was more. He had a giant porn ‘stache. Really … it would’ve put anyone from the ‘70s to shame. He had a voice that sounded like seventy-one kittens being drowned in a bag while it was being hit with a bat. He sharply mewled more than spoke. The other thing about his voice that was weird was the cadence of it. His words would seem to get lost on their way out of his mouth sometimes. It was like they were too drunk to float out or something.”
Ted was grinning ear to ear. He loved the story.
“He used to call me at like eight in the morning occasionally to drive him to work … because he was too drunk to drive. Now if that’s not weird enough for you, just imagine how my parents felt. Their sixteen year old son was getting early morning calls from a piss drunk forty-five year old man. Yeah, that was pleasant to deal with.”
“I’ve heard so many crazy stories from you that I’d almost imagine that they’d expect it.”
“Yeah, I’ve had an interesting life. Yes, let’s say interesting.”
“So what about Paul and the steamroller?”
“You have so little faith in me. I’m getting there. I had to set the scene.”
“Sorry.”
“No problem. OK, so anyway, my friends and I hang out with a forty-five year old wino basically. We used to go over to his house all the time. We’d drink (obviously), get high, listen to music – that sort of thing.”
“He got high with you too?”
“You’re honestly surprised by that? Jesus man, what story have you been listening to?”
“Well I thought that maybe….” Ted trailed off. He’d been dumb. He knew it.
Tom went on. “So one day we decide to go over to his house at lunchtime. We used to get out for lunch every day because the school that we went to didn’t have a cafeteria.”
“ I forget sometimes how small the school you went to was.”
“It was pretty crazy. We shared books.”
“You did not!”
“Yeah, you’re right. We didn’t. It was a really small school though.”
“So anyway … Mr. Distraction … we went to Weirds at lunch because we had weed and wanted to smoke it. We climb the stairs and knock on the door. We hear someone inside cough. Weirds voice breaks the silence. He softly mewls ‘come in.’ I walk in the door first and see Weirds sitting on the couch. He smiles at us and turns the stereo back up.”
“What was he listening to?”
“Marley, of course. Look man, you don’t get to be that weird by being afraid of clichés.”
“Yeah, I should’ve known.”
“I look over at the other couch and recognize the guy sitting on it. He’s holding his breath. I can tell that they were getting high when we knocked on the door. It was so funny, it was like he thought that he could hold his breath until we left or something. Weirds slapped him on the back when he started turning purple.”
“Who was it?”
“It was this guy Paul that I’d known since I was in the third grade. The amusing part though is how I knew him. He was my little league coach. “
“No shit? You caught your little league coach getting high?”
“Oh the story isn’t over yet. It gets a bit more bizarre. Paul was an odd character. I have no idea how anyone decided to leave this man in charge of a group of young kids. First of all, he didn’t have a kid on the team. He just coached for the fuck of it. He’d been doing it for a while. Hell, he’s probably still coaching. Secondly, he invented a kind of uniform for himself. He always wore shorts. I never saw him in pants once. That’s not that weird right? Yeah but, they were silk Richard Simmons style booty shorts. Very fucking bizarre. His balls would fall out like three times each practice. One of us would say “hey Paul, your balls are hanging out” and he’d just yell “thanks” and tuck himself back in.”
“Wait, your coach’s balls were constantly hanging out?”
“Yes, Terrible Listener, they were. But back to what I was saying… he wore sunglasses ALWAYS. Sunrise or sunset, Paul was rocking the shades. He also wore our team’s hat EVERYWHERE. You could see him going into the bar in the dead of winter (in booty shorts of course) and he’d have the hat cocked oddly to an angle on the top of his head. There may have been a bulb that lit up over my head as I saw him exhale the smoke. It all suddenly made sense. Paul was high all the time. Feeling relieved, I finally smiled.”
Tom paused for a second. He was waiting for the anticipation to fill well up to Ted’s eyes. It always did. Seeing it, he moved on.
“So Weirds asks me if I’ve brought my steamroller.“
“What’s a steamroller?”
“A steamroller is similar to a bong, but there’s no water and typically it’s a straight pipe.”
“Oh. I’ve seen those before.”
“Yeah, I had a feeling you would’ve Hunter S. Thompson.”
“Whatever dude.”
“I’m just busting your balls. Ok, back to the story. I turned to Weirds and said: ‘of course I did.’ Paul got this really sad look in his eyes. I watched his heart break… or it seemed that way until he realized that we could match him.”
“You smoked pot with your little league coach?”
“Of course I did dude. He had really good shit.”
The Doctor Will See You Now
The prompt for this story came from P.F. Montgomery at Fuzzy Typewriter. It was simply the word “bell”. So thanks for the prompt and the editing help. I really fought with this one. I hope that you like it.
“The Doctor Will See You Now”
My head has been pounding since I woke up. I’m blindfolded and handcuffed to a chair. There’s a gag in my mouth. It tastes terrible and smells like chemicals. My screams are muffled by the gag. I’ve been struggling to get free. I think that I’m alone; nobody has responded to my screams or reacted to the noise of the chair shuffling and slamming into the floor.
I’ve been trying to piece it all together for the last fifteen minutes. I left work around seven after a long hard day at the newspaper. I’ve been working very hard lately on this exceptionally involved piece that could end up making a lot of waves if I play it right. I’ve hardly seen Penelope in weeks. I was walking down Fifth Avenue talking on the phone to her. We argued a little. This story has been tough on both of us. I promised her that it would be over in a few days. As a compromise, I was going to take her to our favorite Italian restaurant tonight. At the moment, I’m sure that she’s sitting at home dressed to kill and thinking that she might kill me if I should ever arrive home. The hope that I have that stands above all of the others is that I’ll get to see her again.
I remember crossing White Street. I love this city in the fall. It’s so nice to feel the cool breeze on your face as it cascades down off the tops of the buildings. Even the rain isn’t so bad most of the time. It comes down softly and slightly cold, but cold in a way that makes getting out of it feel so much better. This was not one of those nights. Tonight, the rain was coming down in sheets. It ran down my face and dripped from the end of my nose as I crossed White Street. I could smell another round of bread baking at the bakery on the far corner. It must have been a busy day at Marino’s.
I noticed a disheveled man standing between two buildings as I left White Street behind. He watched me coming closer to him with an odd smile on his face. The smile almost made recoil. I tried my best to keep the winces to myself. He was menacing. He was wearing a filthy, tattered lab coat. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you told me that it was made out of puppy skin. The rain kept me from seeing the dinner bell in his hands until I was only ten feet from him. The last thing that I noticed after the bell was the strong smell of peanuts and urine. He smelled like an elephant trainer that had a bad day. I realized who he was just a second too late.
Maybe most people wouldn’t have noticed the bell, or at the very least wouldn’t have thought much of it outside of “that crazy guy has a dinner bell in his hand.” Many would’ve made a little joke to themselves about it and moved on. I wouldn’t have noticed if I weren’t for Dr. Mitchell. Mitchell took the joy of bells from me forever. I nearly piss myself every single time I pass by a church when the bells are ringing. I use a service that calls me in the morning rather than an alarm clock. I just can’t deal with bells anymore.
I’ve been like this since college and Dr. Mitchell. My parents weren’t able to bankroll me, so I put myself through college. I was exceptionally poor. One semester, I lived almost entirely on sunflower seeds. I managed to get a raise at my job just in time to avoid ricketts. I would’ve been the first non-pirate in 150 years to suffer that fate. You get the point though: I was broke as hell.
I did something really stupid. My college actually paid volunteers for experiments done by the Psychology Department. I know that it’s like some crazy thing that you see in a movie, but they actually did it. I signed up. I should’ve known better, but I didn’t. I was young, I trusted people, and figured that these people ethically have to look out for you. I’m sure that most do, but Dr. Mitchell sure didn’t.
The first few studies were really minor, simple experiments. The money was so easy that it almost felt like stealing. They’d pay me twenty-five dollars an hour to answer questions and interpret ink blots. I was lulled into complacency. Then Dr. Mitchell recruited me for a study. It would be my last.
Dr. Mitchell’s experiment was odd and disquieting. Mitchell conditioned me to respond to a series of bells. It was essentially like what Pavlov had done, but with people. I stopped going back after one particularly disturbing incident. I think that I knew, on some level anyway, that he was trying to hypnotize me. I definitely knew that the danger of that was there. I didn’t want to acknowledge it to myself though because I needed the money and thought that it was ultimately harmless.
I should’ve quit. I really should have. I dropped out after my friend Carl told me that he woke up and the doctor was running his fingers along his inner thigh. Dr. Mitchell had put him under and removed his pants. Anyway, it didn’t matter how much I needed the money; I wasn’t going to let some creepy molester hypnotize me.
Carl reported Dr. Mitchell to the police. During the course of the police investigation, Carl ended up uncovering more things that Dr. Mitchell had done to him. He went to a regression therapist who used hypnosis to help Carl uncover the repressed memories. It turned Carl into a basket case. He always insisted later that he would’ve been better off not knowing. Carl developed all kinds of problems because of it. His memories came back slowly at first and then in a torrential fashion. He even recovered sense memories. He couldn’t eat anything with peanuts in it anymore; it made him throw up.
The police discovered that Carl wasn’t alone. Dr. Mitchell had molested or raped at least forty-seven students and I was among them. The university pressured me to go to Carl’s therapist and I caved eventually. The therapist helped me uncover horrible and terrible things that I really don’t like to even think about.
Dr. Mitchell was eventually charged and tried on dozens of counts of sexual assault and related things. He never went to jail though. He acted really erratically during the trial. There were a lot of rumors that he was losing his mind. He stopped bathing and changing his clothes. He began wearing slippers and a bathrobe all the time. He even wore them to court. I had a friend who claimed to have seen him sitting in the park dressed as a duck. I don’t know if I believe that or not; it seems a little too sensational. His lawyer tried an insanity plea but fell short. He never showed up on the day that the verdict was announced. He had disappeared. There was a manhunt, but the police never found any sign of him.
Now as I lie here blindfolded, gagged, and handcuffed to a chair, I can’t help but remember two of the last things that I noticed: the bell and the putrid smell of urine and peanuts. I can’t help but think that the disheveled man was Dr. Mitchell.
I jump with a start as I hear the sound of a door closing behind me and the heavy footfalls of a man approaching me. I’m shaking as I plead with him to let me go. He rings a bell.
I wake up to a bell ringing once more. I’m standing. The blindfold, gag, and handcuffs are still on. My hands are alternating between numbness and intense pain. My wrists are beginning to swell. I can hear a man breathing behind me. He smells horrid; I’m immediately alert. I realize that the smell is urine and peanuts and my heart sinks. He takes off my blindfold. I’m standing in front of a mirror wearing a wedding dress. Dr. Mitchell smiles menacingly. I begin to cry.
Postcards – A Response
This concept originated with PiscesPaul. His concept was that songs remind of of people and time periods. Given this, he put his iPod on shuffle and wrote about the first few songs that came up. I’m following suit.
1. “Not So Soft” – Ani DiFranco – Live at Carnegie Hall 04.06.2002
This song reminds me of the period right after high school when I finally moved out of my house for good. I had moved out a few times during high school, but they never really stuck. I met my wife shortly after I graduated from high school and we were living together after a little bit. Anyway I’m rambling and I need to focus. The song really reminds me of that period in my life and how I came to understand what real difficulties in life are. I didn’t have a really good time of it growing up. I thought I knew how much things could suck. The first year after you move out really puts all of that into perspective though. I wasn’t worrying about the same dumb (but still hurtful) stuff anymore that I had been going through. It wasn’t my parents skipping my birthday or one of my parents choosing their abusive spouse over me or my dad just not being around – it was ‘where the hell is my food going to come from?’. That’s real shit. You’ll never forget the times that teach you things like that. I lived on strawberry yogurt for like six months. It’s cheap and tasty!
2. “It Follows” – Minor Threat
The song reminds me of the time in my life that I used to go to hardcore shows. I went to at least six or seven a month. There were a bunch of places around here that my friends and I hung out at. As background, I have fetishistic love for anything that’s “real”. Honestly, if your music, writing, tap dancing, whatever … is “real” then I’ll love it. I developed this tendency during this period of my life. I saw, and loved, so many bands that honestly weren’t that musically gifted. They did have something though: their emotion, their rawness, and their anger drew me in like a moth to a flame. It was genuine and I love them all madly for that.
3. “Lithium” – Nirvana – With The Lights Out
Is it really that difficult for you to figure out what this one reminds me of? It reminds me of being depressed (of course). More specifically though, it reminds me of being fifteen. We had just moved to this horrible ghetto neighborhood. I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t want to make any friends. I just wanted to go back to where I’d come from … which I also hated. Ah youth – it’s so decisive.
4. “Lose Yourself” – Eminem – 8 Mile Soundtrack
This song reminds me of a huge mistake that I made. I took a really big chance on something and I fucked up. I’m still paying for it. You ever wish more than anything that you could go back in time and undo something? Yeah, I really do. I really fucked up. It taught me a lot about myself and the people around me though. A lot of the people that I thought were my friends … they weren’t. Big surprise. Right?
5. “Baba O’Reilly” – The Who – Who’s Next
This is the song that everyone knows, but seemingly no one knows the name of. “It’s only teenage wasteland” – everybody with me now? Anyway … this song reminds me of being in high school. I remember how I thought that I knew everything, but I didn’t really know anything. It makes me laugh now; I’m not really sure what other possible reaction there could be. I was so incredibly arrogant about it. I guess that it’s normal when you’re a teenager to think that everyone around you is an idiot. I took it to a whole new level though.
6. “Napoleon” – Ani DiFranco – Living In Clip
This song reminds me of college. I wanted to write … like for a living and stuff. I had all these dreams and goals. I was actually kind of idealistic (for me anyway). It didn’t work out that way. I had kids. I had to eat. They have to eat. You know how it goes. So now I’m a whore by day, but a fed whore – so that’s something.
Jesus Christ! My iPod is goddamn depressing. I quit for now.
A Scale Of Awesome Review – Super Paper Mario
Super Paper Mario (Wii)
3.5 stars
Overall, Super Paper Mario for the Nintendo Wii console is a great game. The positives far outweigh the negatives. There are negatives though and they are significant enough that it loses one and a half stars. I was really looking forward to playing this and to this point I’m pretty happy with it.
The Background
Super Paper Mario is the Wii console’s follow-up to the N64’s Paper Mario. The original Paper Mario was a Mario game with a bit of a twist. Nintendo incorporated RPG elements into the standard Mario side-scroller fun that we all love and know. There were more story elements. You collected things like characters and attacks. Attacks took place in turns, which was weird but you got used to it. So rather than jumping on a Goomba as soon as you saw it, you’d go to a fight screen and then take turns attacking one another. It wasn’t the very simple run while holding turbo and then jump onto things Mario game that we were used to.
The Good
There’s a lot of good in this game. These are only a short list of the best points.
1. The best thing that they’ve done is a direct improvement on the original. Fights have gone back to being open format. You don’t have to take turns anymore. It was a cool concept in the original game … at first. It got rather annoying as you moved through the game. You’d have to go to a fight screen and take turns every single time that you wanted to kill a goomba or a turtle. It was a great idea that ended up being kind of silly in practice. Thankfully that’s gone. I was kind of worried about that coming into this.
2. The 3-D. This is another improvement. The Paper Mario games have always been based in 2-D. The characters look very flat; they’re like paper dolls. You spend most of your time in Super Paper Mario in 2-D, however you can press a button to flip into 3-D. It’s really cool because it allows them to hide entire boards, paths, and items outside of your regular view. It makes the game a bit more difficult which is nice. It obscures your line of sight to the logical steps that you should take to complete an objective. As a matter of fact, many of the boards are laid out nearly identically to boards from earlier Mario games and the 3-D allows new things to be inserted into the boards that you know and love.
3. There’s a lot to it. The game is massive and everything takes a really long time to do. It’s cool. I’ve been playing it for a week and a half or so and I’m only 25% of the way through. It’s a very good value at $50.
4. It’s engrossing. I’ve lost time a few times now while playing. It’s easy to just lay on the couch and play for two hours while feeling like only 15 minutes have passed.
The Bad
1. It’s a little too … ‘on the nose’ shall we say. Much of the dialogue and story elements seem to alternate between being intentionally hokey and metatextual. I know that it’s common for the Mario and Zelda games to do this. They seem to make fun of themselves a bit. In Super Paper Mario, it’s just too much. I understand that I’m nearly thirty and that I’ve been playing Mario games for over twenty years, and that maybe … just maybe … that’s worth poking a little bit of fun at. I don’t expect the poking to come from Nintendo though.
2. You fight alongside a series of helpers known as pixels … erm sorry I mean ‘pixls’. Yeah, they really spell it that way. They all look like odd colored bits thrown together. Calling them pixels is a clever joke that’s neither clever nor funny. Everyone knows that images are made of pixels. It’s not necessary to point it out in your character class naming.
The Ugly
There’s really only one thing that falls into the Ugly category. It’s really Ugly though. The game lost an entire star for it.
1. There’s way too much story. No really, there is way too much story. There are points in the game where fifteen minutes pass while you’re staring at dumb cut screens and reading dialogue. It may be a generational thing because I know that many games today are like this, but I’m not into it. I want to save the princess, I don’t want to read War and fucking Peace. I play video games because I want to turn my brain off for a little while rather than to be fed an overcooked hacky backstory. I’d be watching a movie or reading a book if that’s what I felt like doing.
And In Conclusion….
It’s a great game. There are a lot more positives than negatives. Admittedly, the negatives aren’t all that negative either. I’m just a bit picky. It’s a great game and you should check it out.
Why Are We Still Talking About This?
Why are we still talking about the democratic nomination? Why hasn’t Hillary Clinton dropped out yet? I don’t understand. At this point, Obama has a comfortable lead and nearly enough delegates for the nomination anyway. I haven’t heard anyone come up with a theory that shows Clinton having a path to the nomination that doesn’t involve undemocratically getting the nomination from superdelegates.
There are hardly any primaries left. What’s next? West Virginia. CNN is reporting that Clinton has a 43 point lead in the polls in West Virginia. SO. FUCKING. WHAT. We trust West Virginia to make decisions like this now? I don’t trust any state whose principal export is sister-fuckin’. One of the big issues on the campaign trail there is the price of coal. Yeah, really.
Seriously though, Obama has a delegate lead of about 150 or so. West Virginia has twenty-something delegates. It’s not going to make a bit of difference. The other remaining contests are Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, and Puerto Rico. There’s no way that she’s going to make up the difference in delegate count. She needs to quit. I need to not see her on my television.
And one more thing while I’m at it … Puerto Rico and Guam … why are they voting? We are all aware that there are fifty states rather than fifty-two? I thought so. Perhaps we should make them states or stop this nonsense.
Why Darabont Succeeded Where McCarthy Failed
This essay contains spoilers for both the Frank Darabont movie “The Mist” and the Cormac McCarthy novel “The Road”. The spoilers are not subtle. Please don’t proceed if you care about either and haven’t experienced them yet. Additionally, there are many other themes and things in play in each of these works. I’ve chosen to explore but one commonality between them.
It’s an often used phrase: “where there’s life there’s hope.” The concept basically expresses the human desire to hope and believe that there’s a chance for improvement of some kind as long as you’re still alive. Throughout the years, many writers have tried to illustrate this in their writing. Two contemporary writers, Frank Darabont and Cormac McCarthy, have played with this idea to differing degrees of success.
Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” is a post-apocalyptic novel about a man and his very young son. They are two of very few people left after some kind of end of civilization event that McCarthy never specifically names. The man and his son take to “The Road” in the hopes of finding a place where they can be safe. “The Road” and the countryside itself are patrolled by zombie-like cannibals and rapists. There aren’t many of them, but every person that they meet (excepting one) on “The Road” is of this ilk.
McCarthy goes to the trouble of writing elements into the story that describe just how utterly horrible conditions are. There’s a sequence in which a group of people roast a baby on a spit for something to eat. Where did they get the baby? One of the women in the group just gave birth to it. The sole reason that they don’t eat the baby is that the man and his son scare them off. The baby is still dead; it just doesn’t get eaten.
There’s another sequence in which they discover a man locked up in a house. The man is missing several limbs. Cannibals are hacking his limbs off piecemeal while keeping him alive presumably so that the meat stays fresh longer. Clearly, he’s going to die anyway, and he’d be better off if death came quickly.
There is another sequence where the man and the boy finally reach the sea. They reach their goal and discover nothing positive for them there. As they walk along a street near the water, people in the surrounding buildings shoot arrows at them and steal their stuff. Their proverbial last hope sputters and dies.
There are a great many other incidents and sequences in the book that also show just how bleak and terrible life is in the world of “The Road”. There are cannibalism, rape, theft, and fear as far as the eye can see to read. There is truly no hope in this world. As the father lay dying at the end of the book, you’re forced to realize, or at least consider, that the boy has no hope. There is no chance that there is any kind of positive outcome waiting just around the corner for him. The summary of the plot to this point is admittedly sparse, but I think it’s plain to see that the kid is in some serious trouble.
How does McCarthy handle this? What does he do? The man knows that he must kill the boy. He knows that it’s his duty. He’s shown the boy how to use their gun in the event that the father is killed. He’s instructed the boy not to be captured. So … he follows through, right? No. He can’t bring himself to do it. He abdicates the single most important responsibility to his child that he has at that moment because he’s weak. The boy is inexplicably saved by sane, rational people soon after his father’s death.
“The Mist” is a movie based on a story by Stephen King. The screenplay was adapted by Frank Darabont. The movie spans the course of a few days after a disaster of immense proportion has taken place. The majority of the movie takes place in a supermarket that a group of people are trapped in after the military accidentally opens a portal to another dimension. Everyone who tries to escape the supermarket is killed.
After a few days, the man and his son, who attract most of Darabont’s focus throughout the movie, decide to leave the supermarket and try to drive to safety. They’re going to die anyway. They decide to at least die trying.
The movie ends with the man killing his son and the other three people that escaped with them. The man plans to kill himself too, but he’s out of bullets. He gets out of the SUV and screams for the giant bugs (from the other dimension of course ) to come and kill him. The army caravan begins coming through with trucks full of survivors as he stands there waiting to be killed by the bugs that will never come.
“The Mist” is a bad situation. It’s not however, McCarthy’s situation. In “The Mist”, the people that die do so horribly. They die quickly though. Darabont’s use of “where there’s life there’s hope” works because the people that the man killed had a chance. Even if they had died, they would’ve done so quickly while running. Darabont showed us that they were able to periodically run short distances safely. They could’ve gotten another car from those on the road after their SUV ran out of gas. They gave up, and the man’s choice was proved wrong. They had life. They had hope.
In contrast, it’s not reasonable to believe that the boy from “The Road” had any hope. His death might have come slowly and horribly – that is if he were lucky enough to die. He may have become a slave of cannibals. He might have been slowly eaten over the course of weeks while they kept him alive. I understand why McCarthy ended it that way. I understand why he chose to employ the “where there’s life there’s hope” theme. He chose it so that he could end his story on an up note; the boy is saved and McCarthy has theoretically proved his point. He hasn’t actually proved it though. He’s managed to destroy the impact of his point (assuming it was his real point and not just a crass cop-out to avoid ending the novel with the man killing his son) with the horror of the world that he’s created. He’s convinced us that there’s no hope. How can it end with life?
The Pseudonym
I’m strongly considering adopting a pseudonym. I’ve got a few good reasons for doing it.
1. I don’t like my name. I know that sounds like a silly reason, but given the opportunity I would’ve called myself something else.
2. I write some wacky shit that I’d rather not be personally linked to. It’s not that I’m embarrassed of it or anything; it’s that I still have to work a day job at this point. It would be easier to not have to worry about that.
3. I have the same name as my ‘father’. I’d just rather not use his name anymore.
You all have a unique opportunity as readers of my blog. I’ve decided to ask you all for help finding a name. How very ‘Web 2.0′ of me! You can be a part of history, my history anyway. I’ll give you some that I’ve already considered.
1. Mercury Monteforte
2. Alvin Thomas
3. Oscar Sumner
4. Ernest Betrand
5. Melvin Flowers
6. Al Smith
7. George Miska
8. Harold Johnson
9. T. Jasper
10. Jasper Lyons
11. Chester Copperpot
12. Harris Finkelbaum
As you can see, I really need your help. Let me know what you think. Do you like one of the ones listed above? Do you have another suggestion? I’m all ears.
There are a few ways to respond.
1. Leave a comment
2. Email me at fredpseudonym@gmail.com
3. Hit me up on Twitter. My username is fred1979
I look forward to hearing.
The Search Terms Part Deux
I recently wrote an article about the search terms that people use to find this blog. It was called “The Search Terms”. I’ve already gotten enough new odd searches one short week later to justify a second article. Like I said, the internet is a strange place. Please feel free to refer back to the original article for the previous ones and my general search engine preamble.
The New Hotness:
1. “Tom & Magdalena” – yes. This one came up again. This refers to my story “Tom Finds and Loses His Way”. I’m still certain that they couldn’t have been looking for my fictional account of fucked up people’s lives.
2. “magdalina and tom” – It seems to be getting harder and harder to get away from these people. Who are they? Who is this real life Tom? Who is his real life Magdalena? I have no idea. As an attention whore, I’m glad that they exist.
3. “i´m an asshole i love magdalena and i left her” – OK. Are you guys just fucking with me on this one? Did one of the regular readers here search for this solely for the sake of amusing me? You rock if you did. But anyway … tragic. I guess.
4. Wii – Apparently, the Nintendo Wii is the internet’s new Ron Paul. It would seem to me that you only have to mention the Wii to get bombarded by traffic. I posted a review of the Wii last night. I now have at least half a dozen blogs and sites linking to me about it. Also, this search term has come up four times already. Really. I wonder how many of these are marketing people at Nintendo. Hookers. I can’t wait to see how many searches for “Nintendo+hookers” I get based on that.
5. “michael jackson” – Yeah, not sure why. This is from the first article. I can imagine that the only person still searching for Michael Jackson is Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson’s nose? That’s another story entirely. Nobody is ever going to find that. It’s the holy grail of the internet.
6. “angela paman” – This is too funny. Someone posted in the comments to the last article that all they get are searches for angela paman. Now they’re finding her on my blog. Nice Angela. The whole world is out to find you apparently. It couldn’t happen to a nicer girl, unless it was me. Wait … I’m not a … nevermind. I misspoke.
7. “bronson pinchot” – Balki is the motherfucking man. I, for one, am proud to be found under his name. You do kind of have to wonder who was searching for it though. Don’t get me wrong: I love Bronson (he’s 4 Stars on The Scale of Awesome™ after all), but I realize that the Balki in-crowd isn’t quite what it once was. Hmmm … interesting.
8. “baseball bat scale” – Your guess is as good as mine. I have no idea what this ass-clown was searching for. I have no idea what they found. It could’ve been the Wii review. I’m not sure. It raises interesting questions though. Were they searching for a scale that was shaped like a baseball bat? Perhaps a scale for weighing baseball bats? Possibly a rating scale that involved baseball bats? I have no idea, but that doesn’t keep me from being amused.
9. “pies in his face” – Really? Again? This, of course relates to the “Pie And Mortal Kombat” flash fiction that I wrote last month. Predictably, I’m shocked that people are searching for it AGAIN. Is there a huge resurgence of ‘pie in the face’ humor that I’m unaware of? Is the internet populated entirely by clowns? These are questions that I’d certainly like the answers to.
10. “gta-iv review disappointing”, “gta iv”, “gta iv is ok” – I grouped these three together because they’re all basically different spins on the same search. I’m almost certain that they got my (fake) review of GTA IV. It’s kind of funny though when you look at their different positions. There’s someone who wants to hear good things, someone who wants to hear bad things, and someone who just wants to hear anything. Sadly, I’d bet that my review didn’t help. Look, I was bored and it’s annoying that it’s all over the place. I got it off my chest.
People are odd. I’m amused by it. There will be more later I’m sure.
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