Holiday Horror Edition
December 31, 2007
Before I get started, I just want to wish everyone the happiest of holidays. I want to forget about all the debilitating stress that accompanies our year-end self reviews and those shitty cerebellar scars that resulted from receiving that pink reindeer sweater from grandma right about the time her dementia set in (as it was, in fact, a sweater for a reindeer that she had spent all year knitting). So, what do you think? Can we do that? Can we all just put down the sharp utensilary implements, pin-fired ballistic weaponry, hidden incendiary roadside devices and uranium-enriched anthrax envelopes and try and move past our collective rage to engage in a hand-joining, arm-swinging, difference celebrating, lung-topping, sing-along?
Look, all I’m asking is that we do our cyber-loving best to shake the age-old, time-tested, tradition-adhering traps of pre-year/post-year personal growth comparisons that lead to excessive binge-drinking and burning of the collected failures of our past like old love letters and agency rejection notices and rejoice in the brilliant fact that we’re all still alive and hopefully still functional enough to sit up and take nourishment. Nothing crass, brash or harsh right now, okay? I want to make this about the “now”, the “moment”, the “zero-point”, and consider things holistically, embrace the gestalt, ascertain the big fucking picture. Capice?
So please, if we could, for this brief blip in our oftentimes trying existences, as a group, a unit, in toto, focus not on the entropically leaden tangible, perceivedly valuated material, or existentially hollow mundane, but rather on the esoterically beautiful nature of our interwebically fantastical union – that would be just swell. Cool?
Okay, apparently not. But that actually is cool, cause we are who we are – amidst the halcyon and the horror – and there’s no reason to make anything more of these times than, say, the middle of June when we’re celebrating pit stains and pina coladas. But I do tend to think it’s important that we do it with the people we love. Or totally dig. Or tend to tolerate. Or kind of leave us alone. Cause that’s what it’s all about: stepping outside ourselves and giving it up to our homies, then harnessing that energy, taking a deep breath and starting the madness all over again.
And speaking of, I’m planning on taking the blog in a slightly new direction come 2008, with more regular entries and more focus outside of my private little realm of horror and otherworldly mystery. Surely, I’ll still have a burning need to reveal some more story stuff and pass along a few bits of fool’s gold I think I’ve found, but I want to steer my thoughts in a more universal direction as well. I want to reach out more, I think. I want to connect. I want to make my words a little more about your worlds, too.
So, all the very best to all of you. Oh, and do try the elf. I hear the frequent exposure to the freezing cold makes them very tender.
Holy Hell
December 21, 2007
Nothing sends holy water down the leg of a practicing Catholic better than a good old-fashioned, “Christmas tree burning”. And by that I mean any story that goes into the mythology of Christian faith and scrambles its foundations effectively enough to briefly lobotomize an audience who may have thought they had all their dieties safely in a row. The Exorcist, the most frightening film ever made in my opinion, did a masterful job of not criticizing Christian faith so as to alienate what is likely to be a predominately God-fearing , ticket-buying, movie-going public, but in many ways reinforcing the mythology of Christianity by making the existence of evil the most convincing it had ever been in American film history. Unlike today, where a “demon” has to breathe CGI fire and scale walls to shock the senses and shake one out of their disbelief, William Friedken’s Pizuzu, via the innocent intermediary of Linda Blair’s teenage Regan, kept our defenses off balance simply by breathing. Her performance still ranks top in my book for the way we, as an audience, were regarded with pure contempt for “our” beliefs. I’ve had evil angrily scream at me in movies and want to eat me for various reasons, but never have I felt such depth of hatred. It was excellent, and remains so.
I’ve had to shelve a story/screenplay I was working on recently, perhaps permanently. Come to find, the basic premise of the idea was already being used in a recently released straight to DVD horror film. However, the tone and treatment of the concept was predictably straight, with its major characters and elements predictably borrowed. It bored me as most horror films of the last five years do. But it was the evil spawn of a new production company that I had been courting, so I sort of felt like I’d missed out. My take on the concept was in a more darkly comedic vein and loaded with personality and what I considered affordable invention. I even had a tie in with the classic Universal monster catalog. It was going to be downright offensive, brilliantly funny, and designed to shake up the dry, straight-shooting fare we’ve now come to expect. Bah. I may write it anyway. For all its technical nous and occasional flair, I think they seriously cocked up a chance to do something pretty original.
Anyhow, the death of that journey almost immediately gave birth to a new one of which I alluded to in the previous entry. Only, it’s now taken on more flesh and careens more closely to religious mythology without waving any flags. I’ve got the same budget in mind, and the same approach towards irreverence – both to the holiday sentiment and an American film classic – that fueled my temporarily abandoned effort. Think of it as It’s A Wonderful Life meets Jacob’s Ladder. Yeah, I like that. And, gods-willing, if I manage to send it out before I see it somewhere else, so will you.
Have a great holiday whatever you happen to believe, and in whatever manner you choose to enjoy it.
I believe I’ll unleash holy hell.
Sickening Sweet
December 9, 2007
Too much “love” scares me. I’m not sure why, but it does. Maybe this entry is about figuring that out.
Naaah. Chill. I wouldn’t pull any soft-cock shit like that.
*coughs*
Over-acceptance, hyper-interest, uber-coddling, mega-warmth…it all points to something duplicitous, a hidden agenda. I guess the fear of seduction is as old as man, and how many of us have our own boxed-up stories of regret that paint a picture of the gluttonous fool who thought they’d pipped the fates to the pot o’ gold? There has to be at least one time in everyone’s life where they were stroked well enough to assume that they’d beaten the system, “arrived”. I’m of the constant belief that we must work for every moment of pleasure and cosmic forgiveness. I don’t think I deserve anything for free. I hope that doesn’t come off melodramatic, because in truth I like it that way. My heart lies all over this globe, swollen and sweating in one place in particular, but in my DNA I’m American and Americans like shit to be fair. Straight up. I’ll take something for nothing, sure, more easily something as innocent as a pat on the back. But if I haven’t earned it, here’s hoping that pat served a purpose outside of propping up my ego. Hopefully a mosquito fat with the zombie virus is quite flat.
I’ve dreamt up a new and creepy-ass story that I think I fucks with the concept of undeserved reward in a clever way. Maybe it’s because I’m a performer, but I love to fuck with the audience. I’ll draw my own blood if it means that an audience will get something that takes the air out of their lungs and sends a chill down their spines. There it is again: I need shit to be fair. Maybe even loaded on the opposite side. Cause that’s like credit, and if there’s one thing I believe in, it’s good, fucking credit.
Anyway, the story sucks you into the plight of a man who may not deserve anyone’s understanding or support, but finds it in a magical town that affords mad souls a second chance. My idea is to force the audience to struggle to get behind him, and maybe get a little angry. And then, I aim to slow-drip satisfaction into their veins while they tussle with their own private moments of undeserved reward. Conflict. I love it. Not in my personal life so much but on a grand scale dressed in a clever cape and like one of those teeth-rotting, tart candies you can find in the lobby of your local cinema, I want to pull you in several directions at once. If you don’t leave feeling a little disturbingly rewired, but ultimately kick-ass satisfied, I’ve failed. And I can’t fail if I’ve invited you in. I’ve got nothing but my story to pay you back and to skip town with precious minutes of your life is just not my style.
I can’t wait to fuck with you. That’s my driving force for this story. I’m going to stick it to you, you sorry motherfuckers. And if I’ve done it right, you’ll love me for it.
But not too much. Please?
