"Us" movie & the perils of genius

(674 words)

Val and I walked entertained, but bewildered from the movie theater. We’d just seen the highly regarded new Jordan Peele horror flick, “Us.”

The movie is a huge critical and commercial success with 94 percent of Rotten Tomato critics declaring it a solid winner.

Val said she was eager to get on her computer to read informed explanations about what the hell happened in the movie we just watched.

I was eager to get back to the bar and warn fans of coherent movies with logical conclusions to avoid “Us.”

Now is the time when considerate writers stop to warn: “Spoiler alert!” We do this so we don’t ruin what happens in the movie for those who want to see it without taint. They don’t want us to say what happened.

Spoiler alert! I have no idea.

It was artfully done and I was entertained, but I’m becoming increasingly irritated by what I consider lazy storytelling like I saw in “Us.” 

A truly great movie ought to have an ending that puts a bow on a compelling story.

For example, I knew at the end of “The Big Lebowski” and “Smokey and The Bandit” that bowling would remain an essential part of The Dude’s life and that The Bandit’s next mechanized mayhem would involve a trip to Boston for some tasty clam chowder. 

Spoiler alert! I often lapse into dim-witted facetiousness.

But my point persists. I didn’t need scholarly explanation and both films were highly satisfying. 

A better example is another well-regarded thriller by another director regarded as a cinematic genius. 

I could go into murky plot details but it would waste your time. And, really, I need just four words to to secure your attention.

“I see dead people.”

That’s it. That’s the whole plot. Most of you know I’m talking about “The Sixth Sense,” the 1999 best picture nominee by M. Night Shyamalan.

It’s a near-perfect thriller that succeeds in ways Peele’s “Us” does not.

First and foremost, it has a terrific plot that makes perfect contextual sense. It’s complex without being incomprehensible. It makes more sense after subsequent viewings. I suspect “Us” won’t hold up at all. When “Sixth Sense” is over, you feel more intelligent, not less.

In fact, the only question I had after watching M. Night Shyamalan’s “Sixth Sense” was did the M. in M. Night Shyamalan stand for Mid.

Spoiler alert! It does not. The M. stands for Manoj, which to me is too bad ‘cause I think MidNight Shyamalan sounds way cooler.

I suspect Peel’s next movie will be even more incomprehensible than “Us.”

Blame the perils of normal men or women being declared geniuses when they’re actually just about above average. Tell someone that he or she is a genius and colleagues and critics become apprehensive about challenging the genius’ views. 

Agreeing with the genius associates you with genius; disagreeing with the genius puts you opposite of genius.

That makes you an idiot.

Pretty soon, the careless genius is unable to even act with crucial self-doubt. That, I suspect, is why “Us” is so flawed. Here come the “Us” spoilers:

Because no one said, “Jordan, babe, why didn’t the girl just run away? Yeah, the spider kid adds creepiness to the film, but it’s just a senseless distraction. And the whole Hands Across America thread is utterly preposterous.

“Now, I’m no genius, but a nice tidy ending would be having these tethered whatevers climb into a black Trans Am and race up I-95 North on a quest for clam chowder.”

I suspect Peele is in for a scalding backlash and his career will follow the same rocky trajectory as Shyamalan’s has. It took him 15 years and a string of stinkers to resume his success.

You may wonder if I fear being on the wrong side of so much critical acclaim, that I fear my projections will lead many to dismiss me as a rube, a buffoon, a cultural boob ignorant of Hollywood's future as well as its past.

Spoiler alert!

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

Related …

“Lone Ranger,” “Grown Ups” & what’s wrong with Hollywood

1993, Hollywood’s best year

Oscar’s bore, movies suck

Tom Hanks: Actor, man, verb

Sandra Bullock & the laws if romantic “Gravity”

Optimist gets world's worst rejection letter

(702 words)

In my evergreen attempts to gauge my occupational results (pathetic) versus my potential (monumental), I think I’ve settled on what kind of following I have. It is thus:

I have a cult following.

That sounds presumptuous until you consider the kind of cult writing like mine inspires.

My cult is polite, proper, has good posture and excels at things like living room “Jeopardy.”

This is opposed to the kind of cults that indulge in drugs, random sex and stand on street corners and harass strangers as to why they should sell their possessions and follow me in ways that have nothing to do with my lame Twitter account (seeking followers @8days2Amish!).

But I’m always tickled when someone tells me how much they enjoy my blog or my books — and some of them are sober folk, too!

One of my favorite’s is my buddy Greg who’s told me, “You’re the reason I’m glad I have insomnia.” It’s true. He says when he can’t sleep, he goes back and reads in reverse order nearly all my 2,000 blog posts from the past 10 years.

He says he laughs out loud, which inevitably awakens his wife, who I must assume either hates my guts or at least wishes my blogs were full of things like golf or pottery tips or other LOL-free topics.

But he’s not alone. I’m always hearing the kind of feedback that buoys me into believing one day all this deliberate typing will pay off.

I keep thinking I’m on the verge of some breakthrough where literary agents and publishers see me through new eyes. A prestigious agent who was once indifferent to my book proposals replied to my latest idea to say just that.

I now make him sick.

The book proposal is “The Art of Living Suddenly: How to Deal with a Parkinson’s Diagnosis (& other things that suck).” It’s about how anytime we hear of anyone dying suddenly we need to commit to living suddenly.

Here’s what he wrote:

“Thank you so much for writing. Your book hits me too close to the bone: both of my parents had Parkinsonism-induced Alzheimer’s disease, and I watched them die from it. I’ll likely get it, too. More specifically, Robin Williams was diagnosed with Lewy Body dementia, a particularly nasty variety of Alzheimer’s that I’ve also seen up close and personal. I’m afraid it’s a pass from me. I do not think you should pursue a project that has the potential to upset readers the way this upsets me.

Frank

I swear I went back and read it twice to be certain I didn’t miss the part where reading my proposal made his penis detach.

Really, I think a guy like Frank would benefit from reading a book about sudden living. He seems haunted by a future that may or may not ever come to pass. Who knows? They may find a cure for what killed his parents or he may enjoy a symptom-free life.

Or he may get hit by a bus today on his way to the Friday bowling meet.

I mean, you always have to look at the bright side.

I without fail do. I mean, I was floored by the scalding desolation of what I consider to be among the worst rejection letters ever sent — and, by God, I’m something of an expert.

But I got up and am back up and at ‘em today, forever convinced I’m right and anyone who rejects me is wrong, wrong, wrong.

In that way, I’ve always considered myself the Lucas Jackson of rejection-riddled writers. Luke is the Paul Newman character in the peerless “Cool Hand Luke.”

“Dragline” (George Kennedy) beats Luke so thoroughly he becomes exasperated at Luke’s stubborn insistence on rising to rejoin a battle he cannot possibly win.

“Stay down, man,” Dragline pleads. “You’re beat.”

“You’re gonna have to kill me …”

In the end — spoiler alert! — they do just that.

I’ve for years tried to divine some profound lesson from Luke’s struggles and all I can figure is it’s "don’t buck the system or the system will kill you."

So I’ve perhaps learned the lesson.

I’ve just never applied it.

And I never will.

Related …

Reject me, please

Too self-deprecatory? Me? Here’s why …

My novel frustrations

Praise for “Last Baby Boomer”

Someone stole my book!

Giving our hearts to Mick Jagger

(751 words)

My face bore a grave expression Sunday when I summoned the 12-year-old to the kitchen table. I took both her little hands in mine and looked her straight in the eye.

What was she doing tomorrow?

“Nothing.”

“Very good. Then I want to take you to the hospital to see if you can donate one of your heart valves to save the life of Mick Jagger.”

She teeters mostly on the edge of that whole honor-thy-father-and-mother thingie, but her seething reaction leads me to believe any day now that Biblical admonition will mean as much to her as “Be kind. Rewind.”

“I WILL NOT! I DON’T EVEN LIKE THE ROLLING STONES!”

I swear, I’ve never felt more like a fatherly failure. Her visceral reaction caught me completely off guard. I was so certain she’d be honored I’d spent the entire afternoon standing before the bedroom mirror practicing introducing myself as the father of the girl whose heart part now beats in Mick Jagger’s chest.

Now, I don’t know if it’s possible — much less advisable even — for doctors to transplant a healthy heart valve of a 12-year-old female into the ailing ticker of a 75-year-old rock star. For all I know the procedure could endanger the donor, whom I love despite all her sassy tastelessness. 

Or maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe they don’t use human donors. Maybe today’s replacement heart valves are constructed out of scissored cardboard or old twist off bottle tops.

But it would have been just so cool to have contributed to the endurance of the greatest rock band the world’s ever known.

I wonder if Jagger is having to haggle with his health care provider over things like deductibles and if he gets to see his primary care physician.

He’s fathered eight children with five different women. His public announcements emphasized his rockin’ eagerness to get back on the road with the band. I wonder if his more private consultations about post-surgical activities involved his eagerness to get back in bed with supermodels.

It’s no exaggeration to say I’ve probably thought about Mick and the Stones at least once almost every single day of my life for most of the past five decades.

I can’t remember a time when they weren’t an essential part of my life.

Music has always been very important to me. And because I’ve worked almost my entire adult life in a small room all by myself I’ve chosen to play loud (mostly) rock music to soundtrack my long, lonely days.

And on the days when that didn’t involve Rolling Stones music, it always included The Stones as an option. I’d read the books, study the documentaries and concert films, and race to share the news of band turmoil and reconciliations with my like-minded friends.

The Stones are as much a part of me as your heart valves are of you.

In hindsight, the wisdom of these decisions is open to question. After all, few are the criteria by which I can be considered a success.

Who knows? I might have a raft of best sellers under my belt had I decided years ago that cerebral rigor might be best achieved by writing in tomb-like silence or to New Agey whale sounds.

But my days would be so much dimmer without so much Stones. 

It’s an interesting time for the band. I anticipate any day now the combined age of the four key bandmates (301) will finally surpass their combined weight.

They last went into the studio in 2016 to record an album of classic blues covers. “Lonesome and Blue” is outstanding, but leaves me hungering for another overdue album of originals, something they haven’t produced since the truly stellar “A Bigger Bang” in 2005.

But as the Jagger news portends, we’re coming to the end of maybe the most vibrant story in the history of music.

 The Stones won’t live forever. They are mortal.

Well, not Keith, but that goes without saying.

We’ve never seen a performer like Jagger and there will never be another. I feel blessed to have shared the planet with him at a time when mass media gave us access to all his indelible talents.

Given these soulful adorations, you might wonder why I’m not the one offering my valves to extend the earthly duration of Sir Mick.

That’d be impossible.

For as long as I can remember, The Stones have always had my whole heart.

Related (Does anyone ever read these?) …

Mick Jagger: An appreciation

9th graders learn who’s better: Stones or Beatles

Stones 50 best? FeRRRget it

Keith’s bio: Warts ’n’ warts

Roll on, Stones

April 1st not foolish enough (NOT a rerun*)

737 words)

America will be better off when people spend as much time preparing for April Fool’s Day as they do for stuffy holidays like Thanksgiving.

Everyone could take the day off. Instead of watching tedious professional football games we could watch reruns of shows like “Get Smart” and “3rd Rock From The Sun.”

We could still enjoy a big family feast, but mixed in amidst the cranberry and turkey would be dribble glasses and whoopee cushions.

America’s suffering from a laughter deficit — and I’m part of the problem.

It’s been years since I’ve pulled off a really great April Fool’s Day prank and even that record is tainted because the victim was a gullible 6-year-old girl.

It was 2006 and my wife was 6-months pregnant with the child who would in June become Lucinda Grace.

It was an exciting time, especially for Josie. She was infatuated with the idea of becoming a big sister. It was a cheerful mindset that would conclude about 8 days after the actual birth.

But prior to that she was positively enraptured about the idea of having a new baby in the house.

Val and I decided to use her enthusiasms against her.

So on the morning of April 1, I crept into Josie’s second floor room and gently shook her awake. I had big news, I said.

“Congratulations, darling! You’ve got a baby sister!” I told her the baby’d arrived in the middle of the night. “Do you want to come see her?”

She did. Holding her soft, little hand in mine, we together started down the stairs. On the couch cuddling a swaddled bundle was her mother — and to this day I can’t believe I got her to play along.

With awe-filled eyes, Josie pulled back a corner of the blanket to see . . .

Barney the Purple Dinosaur!

I saw her face race from wonder to pure rage.

“April Fool!”

It was incredibly cruel. I saw the confused hurt in her face and thought, man, if anyone ever does anything that mean to her again I’ll kill them with my bare hands. But it was okay that I did it because, hey, I’m her dad. And on the plus side, she instantly assumed an irrational hatred for Barney, a result hedge fund investors might call an unanticipated collateral dividend.

She raced upstairs and buried her sobbing head in her pillow. I ran after her and told her this was what April Fool’s Day was all about. Then I put her little tear-streaked face in my hands and said, “And now how would you like to get even with Mommy?”

The thought of humiliating revenge, the essence of this great holiday, was a transformative balm.

I knew right then our angelic little daughter would be as wicked as the rest of us, and thus able to navigate her way through the often stormy seas of humanity.

So I spent the next hour showing her how to rig a rubber band around the kitchen sink spray faucet, balance an egg on top the refrigerator door, and disguise your voice on a call to Nana so she might at least momentarily think it really was George W. Bush calling to say she’d need to get her wrinkled old butt to Baghdad.

And then when all that fun was over Josie went to her mother and began plotting how to get even with me in various painful and humiliating schemes that endure through this day.

I don’t think I’ve pulled off a truly dastardly April Fool’s Day prank ever since.

The most I do anymore is make about a dozen boring prank calls to secretaries for various city big shots, give them a made up name and ask them to call me at 412 665-3640.

It’s so lame.

I could probably try and concoct something devious here on the blog, but I don’t think I’d feel right using the blog for such shiftless purposes and, besides, everyone knows it’s wrong to tell lies on the internet.

Maybe you can do better. 

Either way I hope you’ll fight the repressive pressure to be pretentious and will instead try and savor the silly.

I’ll try and do the same, but first things first.

It’s just about time to call the Pittsburgh Zoo, as I do every April 1st, and say, “Hello! This is Mr. L.E. Funt. Been any calls for me?”

* April Fools! This originally ran April 1, 2014

Related . . .

Don’t believe anything you read, ‘cept this . . .

Fatherly fibbers stirs skepticism

A tale of turtles, pranks & Manti Te’o

Short but tweet; March tweets of the month

It was a paltry harvest this month, but a fairly nutritious yield. I don't know why I'm prolific some months (60-plus tweets) and others like this feeble (about 20). I am becoming more demanding. Yes, only the finest tweets make the cut at 8days2Amish!

• I may be wrong, but I have to believe there's at least one impostor '80's tribute band out there performing under the name, "Huey Lewis & The Fake News.”

• I used to dream I would become a great writer. And I ofter hear from readers who declare I am, indeed, a great writer. Advice to aspiring writers: Dream not of becoming a great writer. Instead dream of becoming a successful writer. 

• Questions I'm glad I never felt compelled to ask Arnold Palmer: "So what's Michael Jackson really like?”

• It seems utterly contradictory, but you can't be a true optimist until you come to terms with the fact we're all gonna die.

• "Use All The Crayons!" Colorful Living tip no. 973: "Spend a weekend willing yourself to blink more slowly. That way you’ll be better prepared to savor all the wonders everyone says go by in the blink of an eye.”

• As a student of history, I'm aware man has throughout time gone to war over land, women, pride, minerals and all manner of perceived injustice. As a student of breakfast, I am confounded man has yet to feel a need to go to war over bacon.

• My understanding of human nature tells me that many of the people striving to get to the land of milk and honey will once they arrive immediately begin complaining everything is too sticky.

• Proof of our collective child-raising failure is apparent in that if you ask 100 children what he or she would like to be when they grow up, not one will say, "I just want to be happy!”

• Because the angry word has the potential to be useful during this time of so much neighborly hostility, I propose today every one tries to create a situation where it makes perfect sense to shout "Nottafinga!" at someone with whom you disagree.

• Negative: Projections indicate entire planet will soon be 20-feet deep in discarded styrofoam. Positive: Airplane crash fatalities will be reduced to zero.

• Because it could make for riveting TV, I hope to one day hear a talk host announce to a panel of windy blabbermouths, "A landmark study reveals conclusively that the fewer words a person says on TV talk shows the more likely that they're a bonafide genius. Discuss.”

• The older I get the more appreciative I become of the wisdom of one old bartender who said, "Kid, count yourself lucky if the people who say they like you actually like you and the people who say they love you at least put up with all your bullshit.”

• Which seems sillier: a child believing in Santa Claus or an adult believing that Jesus Christ, a man whose ancestors were uniformly Middle Easterners, was a lily white dude. And would it hurt your faith if scholars revealed Jesus looked more like bin Laden than Ryan Seacrest?

• Pundits saying Trump entitled to a victory lap; Fitness experts advise he take it on a very short track.

• How much more challenging would it be for Christian believers to convince skeptics about the Resurrection if Scripture said it happened on April 1?

• How come I can eat 50 regular Peeps in one sitting, but the thought of sitting down to eat a steak-sized Peep turns my stomach?

• Val and I enjoyed "Green Book," but were put off by Viggo Mortensen's hammy performance & rapacious eating. We still love Viggo, but one more role like that and he'll to us be Piggo Mortensen.

• My life is a fulfilling one. My days strewn with challenge and accomplishment. So how is it I so often yearn for the days when my idea of true productivity was an afternoon when I could boast of acquiring six new labels for my beer can collection?

Related … (Does anyone read these?)

March ’18 Tweets of the Month

March ’17 Tweets of the Month

March ’16

March ’15

March ’14

March ’13