The House I Want (Part One)

Planning for the Future Post #1

I may have told this story before, but when I first got to Atlanta many, many years ago, my brother used to do this thing to motivate himself. During his lunchtime, he'd go down to Lenox Mall, as his office was right there, and try on Rolex watches. The feel of it on his arm would encourage him to try harder, to think bigger. And although there were good times when things were unfolding as they should and he could have gone down and gotten one, he never did. I think it might have been our upbringing to some degree, in that we're not flashy people and though we dream about it we're really more substantive people.

So to motivate myself, get the old juices flowing as it were, I'm making my Rolex the idea of my dream home. It won't be my next home, which I hope to relocate to sometime in the next 24 months (God and the GA Bar Association willing), but it's coming. I will get there.

A template for a great home.

The kind of place where I'll have friends over to watch the game, dinner parties and drop-ins. A HQ from which I can jog, walk to the market for fresh fruit, or sit out on the deck with friends under a starlit sky and tell fantastic lies about how things used to be until we just can't stand it anymore. It's coming. I can feel it. I just have to keep going.

Odd Quotes

But when I get here! Oh boy, then....

Beware of Destination Addiction - a preoccupation with the idea that happiness is in the next place, the next job and with the next partner. Until you give up the idea that happiness is always somewhere else, it will never be where you are.

Ferguson, Missouri 2014 (2)

This is a political post.

I don't really go to the movies, because a) I really don't want to go alone and b) I be broke. But I do take a few minutes every few weeks to read up on the reviews, so that eighteen months from now when it ends up on cable, I'll know what I'm getting into. By the way, why hasn't the Avengers made it to cable yet? Even FX which is where Thor ended up for some reason. But I digress, this isn't about those movies, it's about a movie I read the review for, or rather a premise from that movie that I think could have been used...and still might be used...for something other than YA romance...stuff. 

The film is If I Stay, which is based on the novel of the same name and is about a young shy cellist who has been in car accident, falls into a coma and has a series out of body experience/flashbacks. She reviews her life where she's found the perfect teenage boyfriend who just gets her and listens to  pleas for her to just wake up.

My idea is to adopt the premise, the flashback/out of body experience part to the story of a young black man who has just been in an incident with the police and now is in the hospital or dying. To me, and I say this without having read the original story or seen the movie, but to me I think that properly used by another filmmaker this premise has the opportunity to show a conflicted character on all sides and tell a much more socially relevant piece of fiction.

Here is my idea. Open with the scene of the incident. It's all flashing blue lights, bodies moving in the dark, before we focus on the body of the black man in the street. Then the title comes up.

At the hospital, we get the cliche race through to ER, and we see the main character's face, and the camera then pans up to the same face, as the character's spirit watches the activity surrounding his body. We see him flashback to his first day of high school then to maybe to Sunday morning with his parents at church.

His "spirit" visits his mother and father who have gotten the news, and their expressions of rage and anguish. We flashback to see him arguing with mother. His father making suggestions at odds with his own plans for the future. The flashback continues to show him doing silly, possibly illegal things with friends - smoking, underage drinking. His "spirit" listens to his mother tell his grandmother what has happened.

He flashes back goes to his childhood, where you see him interact with grandmother and extended family, children at play, adults socializing. This leads into a seen of him socializing with friends now, then plays back to him at the playground as a child.

His "spirit" visits his friends, some of whom lament his situation, others who feel he deserved it. He visits the neighborhood, hearing how people he didn't even know thought of him. He flashbacks again, but this time to the start of this day. To moments with his girlfriend, with his friends. We see him basically living the life of an ordinary teenager. 
 

I don't have the whole thing fleshed out, there would be a lot more flashbacks, his spirit hearing the police officer describe the scene, hearing his friend talk about the same scene, etc. The idea just struck me earlier today as how to expand the original premise, but give both sides of the story in a generally palatable dramatic format. The whole idea of the film is to show the main character, a young black male, not as a thug nor as a choir boy, but as a whole person. And to show that one person's version of events can differ from another person's version, and that those differences are important when a life hangs in the balance.

And yes, this idea was prompted by my thoughts on Ferguson, which I'm having trouble expressing. Next week, I'm going with light stuff, not because this isn't relevant, but because my mind needs to be somewhere else for a minute.

Odd Quotes

 “The main thing you got to remember is that everything in the world is a hustle.”
— Alex Haley from The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Ferguson, Missouri 2014

This is a political post.

I don't quite know what to say. Too many stories not enough facts, but enough to know this isn't being handled properly. But then I saw this picture on Twitter/Tumblr. It struck me on a number of levels.

Ferguson, MO 2014

Has it come to this? Are black people not allowed to peacefully protest in America?

Go Gentle oh Ye Robin, Travel Well. You Will be Missed.

Drama is easy, comedy is hard. Very hard. A moving production of Shakespeare or Beckett are a walk in the park compared to making large groups of people howl with laughter. It's one of the reasons I've always found it hard to agree with the Oscars when riotous comedies aren't nominated. 

I remember hearing a story about Robin Williams years ago. That he'd once gone on stage and done two hours of stand-up comedy for the early show that had the audience in stitches. Then, for the second show less than an hour later he did another two hours of amazingly funny stuff, and NEVER DID THE SAME JOKE. That takes funny. Real funny.

Comedy is rare talent. Few have it. Robin Williams was one of them. His performances are right there at the top of the pantheon of comedic excellence. Good Morning Vietnam was falling down funny.  And I could watch him be funny in almost anything, even films I really had no intention of watching. I didn't think I would like The Birdcage, but because of Williams I watched it and was blown away. I really didn't plan to watch Hook, or Jumanji or Mrs. Doubtfire. Saw them all. His voice over work is legendary. He practically made the move Robots work. I saw Aladdin specifically for his performance as the Genie. I'm such a fan of his comedy I even thought he was good in Popeye.

The term "National Treasure" was once applied, and I actually got angry when someone questioned it.   

The world today is a little less funny. No, that's not accurate, its a lot less funny, than it was yesterday. He was just that damned good.