Raising Arizona (feat. Nicolas Cage)

There is a certain brand of humor, most prominent in 80s adventure games, which parodies the human condition, highlighting the absurd within the mundane. It is with this sense of humor and a stark infatuation with Americana, that the Coen brothers bring us Raising Arizona (featuring Nicolas Cage).

Cage plays a recidivist named H.I. (Hi for short, Herbet for long), who falls in love with his booking officer Edwina (Ed for short), played by Holly Hunter. While Cage’s acting is a somewhat flat departure from his usual mind-bending performances, Hunter really shines in this film. She even has a musical number, beautifully performed like the mom you wish you had.

Let’s face it. The Coen brothers are just great at making movies. They pay attention to the details we don’t immediately come to care about, like the couch in H.I. and Edwina’s apartment. And haven’t you always wanted to hear a story about guys who actually did manage to tunnel themselves out of jail? The violent parts of the film are both bad ass and funny. Aside from the goofy nature of the film, I felt moments of severe tension and tender warmth. It really makes you miss the salad days.

Dude.Cool.25 told me I would be hard pressed to find a Cage film better than City of Angels and worse than The Croods. So I suggest we watch Raising Arizona, which turned out to be very much my thing.

Let’s see those numbers:
1. Raising Arizona
2. City of Angels
3. Matchstick Men
4. The Family Man
5. The Croods

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

 

Larry Brooks's book on story engineering, advised me to read a book on self-help or pop psychology to help me find and define character motivation.  As a writer, it seemed like a no brainer and who knows?  Maybe for the first time, I could participate in a little bit of self-help.  

I googled "pop psychology books" and Gladwell's topical titles pertained most to my personal interests.  Outliers doesn't ever tell the reader what to do or how to be "better".  Instead it highlights the unique, remarkable circumstances attributing to the successes, strengths, and weaknesses of others.  It is a study of hugely successful people and how, incidentally, they took full advantage of their own unique circumstances, using their own inherently unique qualities.  The outliers in their lives.  

So I took a look at my own unique circumstances and felt somewhat empowered.  Outliers probably swayed my decision to record some songs of true midwestern emo, under the moniker of Menards.  

Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell

I actually first read this when I was 19 and, for the first time, living in what I considered poverty. It was so liberating to be on my own, living the life of what I considered to be that of a starving artist. This was in 2005 in Decatur, Illinois when the economy wasn't actually so bad.

My friend Tyler gave me the book and said it reminded him of me. For the longest time, I wasn't entirely sure why. Keep the Aspidistra Flying somewhat satirizes a decided starving artist in a late-stage capitalist society. Only our protagonist, Gordon Comstock, is miserably obsessed with money. He is annoying, tacky, and likely not cut out to be a poet.

Gordon couldn't very well write, when distracted by the need for cigarettes he couldn't afford. While it's a relatable situation, I know know that's not why this book reminded Tyler of me. In a way, I do believe when people have an excess money, they endow themselves with a certain level of importance. Why not? On the clock, in terms of dollars, none of us are equally valuable. And many adults lose sight of their value outside of their employment.

Of course, Gordon Comstock needed a job of some kind. Not a good job, as he determined. The money gods couldn't rule him. I haven't thought a lot about money in my own adult life. Does that make me lucky? My early 20s were pretty rough. Productivity was difficult when I couldn't actually afford to survive. Still with money, there's either enough or not enough. If there's, then I should less spend time at my job. Not an especially good job. It seems late stage capitalism here in the states is not so dehumanizing is it was in Britain in the 1930s.

Gordon had a love interest, though. Considering the risk, she wasn't prepared to go all the way with him. She couldn't make him give up his chosen lifestyle for a child, should one be produced. If he wanted to be broke, then he should be broke. Gordon blamed the power of money. He couldn't get laid because he didn't have money.

When I was a teenager, I didn't have a car. I didn't drive. My parents were neither generous or trusting. So I was not very date-able outside of holding hands at school. Of course I was a hopeless romantic. And RANDY. I was like Beavis, freaking out on the bus over the concern that he may never score. My mind was twisted by my obsessive need for romantic affection.

At times I took out my frustration on the idea of money. It seemed like romantic relations were denied to me simply because of my circumstances. And I realize, this pattern of need and blame has applied to so many aspects of my life. That is why this book reminded Tyler of me.

The Family Man (feat. Nicolas Cage)

As a young man, Jack Campbell parts ways with the love of his life to pursue an internship. Later on, Jack is a rich executive at a big holding company on wall street. He makes everyone work on Christmas, but that’s okay. Work is important and at least he gets to have eggnog. So he goes to a jiffy store to buy said eggnog and prevents a robbery. The robber gives Jack a glimpse at the life he never had.

Jack wakes up in New Jersey with the love of his life, and two kids. He’s freaked out because he has to get to work and he’s mad that his Ferrari isn’t out front. Instead, he owns a fairly new Dodge Caravan. Not so bad, but I get it. It’s about the money. Living the life he never wanted, Jack Campbell proves himself to be more of a Jack Ass. Somehow, Jack comes around and learns to prefer the more meaningful life of a family man.

The Family Man is a mind bender and a heart warmer, exactly what you want in a Nicolas Cage film. Cage also has a musical number, which is reason alone to tune in. Aside from the greatness of Cage, I think The Family Man is a bit of a turd. Jack’s never-existent daughter believes him to be an alien impostor. To me, Jack’s life-that-never-was is formed by a Jack that still never would have been.

Let's rank some Nick Cage films:
1. City of Angels
2. Matchstick men
3. The Family Man
4. The Croods

The Demon Awakens by R.A. Salvatore

I read it for the first time when I was in 9th grade.  My friend Levi had it in the church van and showed me the scene of Elbryan and Jilseponie's first physical (romantic) encounter.  The sensuality and imminent danger hooked me.  So I picked up The Demon Awakens at my local library and read it quickly, each morning after my paper route.  I vividly remember laying on our couch, sunken and salmon-colored, propped on my elbows, listening to a normal bias cassette of Mudvayne's L.D. 50 in my headphones, and reading The Demon Awakens.  

Salvatore's Demon Wars series lasted seven volumes.  The last was released when I was a senior in high school.  Sadly, I only made it through book five.  So I tried to start the series over again in 2009 and only made it through book three (The Demon Apostle).  

Maybe this time I'll make it through to the end.  I could probably read just part each a year.  My third time through The Demon Awakens took a lot of patience, despite regular waves of nostalgia.  Aside from The Hobbit, this was my first true fantasy book.  I wasn't quite ready for the highly informative nature of Lord of the Rings.  I was idealistic, adventurous, and overall interested in fantasy and DEMONS so Salvatore's books were perfect for me.  Not perfect for everyone.  

Have you read any stories, in your adult life, with heroic centaurs who skin and eat whole deer with their bare hands?  If not, I do urge you to check out this book.  It is probably definitely at your local library.  

Thanks again for taking time to join me in The Zone.  

I'm in this music video

My friend Matt Jenkins made this, using one of my old jams (from 2007).  I think the track was actually recorded here in Bloomington, IN.  The video illustrates a lot of things from Saint Augustine and that era of time.  So it's pretty special.

Check out Matt's other stuff at his website: https://www.mdjenkinsart.com

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

 

I decided to browse a list of Nebula Award winning books, hoping to mix some stellar reads into my research of fiction.  I'd already heard of this one and knew it was about a man who is mentally handicapped and has an operation, making him eventually the most intelligent man ever.  

I thought maybe Flowers for Algernon could make a nice gift to those of my friends and family who like to throw around the word "retard".  It's not that they're bad people.  In fact, they're too good to be passively insulting those who are less fortunate than them.  These are people who are reactionary to political correctness; so fragile whenever anyone questions their morality.  They are the good people.  You can't tell them they're wrong or else they'll respond by being extra wrong.  

You know the type.  I don't understand why we can't normalize admitting our mistakes and helping each other to make things better.  

This may not be the book you want to give as a gift, as if people do read the books they're gifted.  It's a "hard read".  It sucks you in and makes you feel the dark emotions, achieving what so many authors only dream.  As an aspiring writer, I couldn't trust myself to narrate from the perspective of the most intelligent man ever.  Daniel Keyes knocked it out of the park.  

It's sci fi but there are no robots, gadgets, aliens, or zombies.  Rest easy, nerd haters.  Even the most insensitive of woke-reactionaries can get into this book.  I might dare to say they should get into it.  

City of Angels (feat. Nicolas Cage)

 

In Los Angeles there are a lot of Angels. Mostly they haunt the library and creepily look at people. Sometimes they are angels of death. Angel Seth Plate (played by Cage) develops a fondness for a doctor named Maggy (played by Meg Ryan).

Most of the movie feels like a Meg Ryan film. That's all right. I'd put all of her movies in the top 50% of all films but non are in the top 10%, judging from what I've seen. I haven't actually seen most films. Either way, I like a good romantic comedy.

City of Angels really amps up the drama. So it's half super natural drama and half romantic comedy. There's even a little blood, so it's got something for everyone. The soundtrack is really good. This is the film that brought the Goo Goo Dolls into the mainstream, with Iris. The ambient musak is all good. There's even a somber jam from the great Peter Gabriel.

This is the 3rd Nicolas Cage film I've seen this year. This is how they rank:
1. City of Angels
2. Matchstick Men
3. The Croods

This is the 2nd film I've seen this year about Angles in Los Angeles. This is how they rank:
1. Angels in the Outfield
2. City of Angels

"Fear Nothing" by Dean Koontz"

At Half-Priced Books, I bought Seize the Night by Koontz, only to later find out it was part two in the Moonlight Baby Trilogy. So I read the ebook of Fear Nothing. It’s my first Dean Koontz novel and in time, I’m going to read at least two more of his works. I never know how long to wait when reading a series of books. Half a year seems good. I don’t want to face the injustice of burning out.

Fear Nothing takes place over the series of two nights. Not very much time, stretched over 448 pages. Many boring events are detailed, probably for the sake of suspense. It seems unfair: writers using first-person perspective to withhold information. While Koontz uses this method wonderfully, I think the method often deprives the story. Should I have to finish part two of the trilogy just to find out whether or not there are going to be any character arcs?

This is the story (no spoilers). Bad things happened. Everyone could die. Not everyone dies.

"Attack of the Killer Ants" by Betsy Haynes

This is another one I read as a kid. I’m looking for a feeling I got one time. I was reading a book in 4th or 5th grade. The characters were on the playground. The boy protagonist and the crush were enemies and eventually each other’s only friends. They got lice or something. I want to find that book.

Attack of the Killer Ants is not that book. It’s supposed to be a “bone chiller” but I don’t know about that. Two young boys mercilessly kill a bunch of ants and end up getting imprisoned in the ants’ colony. So you get a pretty good lesson in biology. You know I wasn't allowed to read Goosebumps. This is what I read instead.

"Misery" by Stephen King

For October, I did my best to read a maximum number of spooky, scary, thrillers. Before then you may have not invited me into the fan club of books, because I had never read anything by Stephen King. I was going to get around it. I’ve always been more of a fantasy kid anyway. I'd say most of his fans are his fans because they don’t read anything else and they don’t know better. He’s probably overrated. I had all the excuses.

Misery was horrific, punishing, and page-turning. Disturbing to complete satisfaction. I want to do it all over again. I saw the Misery film and I’m trying to tell everyone how the book was better. The movie was so happy and gentle. I want to keep feeling the way the book made me feel. I want to press ahead into further darkness.

Exactly How We Planned by Dakota Floyd

Even though he thinks I have a British accent, Dakota Floyd is one of the best things I know about Georgia. Maybe tied with his dog, Soda. Both are better than Waffle House. Dakota’s 2016 album Localities spent a few months in my Caravan’s cd player, so I pretty much knew what to expect. Exactly How We Planned has only 3 songs and two of them are really short. Maybe there’s also a 7” version somewhere. I didn’t do any research. Exactly How We Planned makes you feel at home even when being at home makes you sad. It is a sadness you are comfortable with.

You might call it acoustic pop punk or emotional folk punk, never without that special bit of sass that colored everything in the mid 2000s. The overdriven guitar and back-up vocals add an air of rowdiness and whimsy that never feels stilted. Rosa Song features a super talented tambourine player that doesn’t get any credit on the cd sleeve. I could definitely imagine this song being played in the background on Dawson’s Creek, especially if they move the show to a different streaming service and have to change all the music.

Dakota sings “This house smells like a Rosa Song” and I try imagine what a Rosa song does smell like: hand-rolled cigarettes wafting in from the front porch, a box of half-rotten dumpstered food, a bagless trash bin filled with the drippings of a thousand crushed beer cans, a mixture of patchouli and body odor, a toilet that hasn’t been scrubbed since the lease began, a family of cats that all live behind an occasionally cracked door in the back of the house. Am I getting warm? I wonder if the day of the punk “punk house” has passed.

The title track has one of those lo-fi/phone singing intros before the song kicks in, like it’s 2003 all over again. I’m so glad Dakota remembered to do one of those intros. I always forget. Maybe right after I schedule this post, I’ll go ahead and fix one of my mixes. We’ll call it a shout back. Lyrically, it hits you just right. I love the anti-solo, delayed guitar in the second half. Maybe it’s for the best that life never goes as planned. Sometimes people surprise you in the best ways, like with the lo-fi/phone singing intro. Thanks Dakota. You're better than Waffle House.

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks

 

This was recommended to me by Philip Athans's blog on writing fantasy and science fiction.  Larry Brooks spends a LOT of your time, touting how crucial it is to follow his guidelines (especially if you want to ever get published, ever).  Still he gives us a lot of good info.  I learned the difference between "pantsing" and "planning" and how to do the latter.  As expected, most writers use a custom combination of both methods.  He probably.  

I felt like I couldn't confidently begin my current novel until I finished Story Engineering.  By the time I was done, I had a pad full of notes, a beat sheet, and clear plans to execute each of my plot points.  It got me interested in watching movies, as a study in storytelling.  I look for Larry's core competencies in every movie I watch and every book I read and, according to him, most of them should have never been made.  

The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction by Philip Athans

 

I think when writing my first novel, I must have googled "How to write a fantasy novel".  As it turns out I had a lot to learn.  Not just about syntax and plot formation, but in world building and the paradigm of fantasy writing.  So before each writing session, I would read a few posts from Philip Athans's supplementary blog until I read every one of his posts.  For some reason, I never brought myself to spend $10 on a used copy of this paper back.  

It's a good read, especially if you have any interest in writing these specific genres.  It gave me a lot of authors to put in my "to read" list and a lot of films to my "to watch" list.  Also, the blog is regularly updated and still holds up.  Check it out!

https://fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com/philip-athans/

"Quaternary Panorama" by Lucius Fox

Lucius Fox is a two piece instrumental band from Michigan. Often they are severely energetic. In short bursts, they are soothing and ambient. Usually they are a frantic mix of both worlds. When I saw them live, their guitarist Jeremy was playing out of two amps. I’m pleased to hear the guitars doubled, panned, and sometimes tripled on Quaternary Panorama. I bet you’re wondering. Does he use an octave pedal? You tell me.

Quaternary Panorama sounds home-recorded in all of the best ways. The drums are natural and heavy. The playing is tireless and clean. The guitars sound like they were recorded with real amps instead of vst plugins. Actually, maybe I can’t tell. There are a lot of tones going on but I think I can still pick up that signature Fender twang frequency. Aside from the fuzzy fenderiness of the guitars, I get some Satriani vibes. I could see myself surfing in the sewers of the future with a Lucius Fox cassette in my vintage walkman. I could even skate to this music if I felt especially suicidal.

There was a riff in Carved by Glaciers. They played it twice and then it was gone. It made me feel such emotion for a moment and proceeded to punish me with blistering noodleage. I don’t know if there is a name for mathy riffs that are just too fast to call riffs because you can’t bang your head to them. I felt like I was on molly and it wasn’t going so good but then… the riff came back! Better than ever.

The build up in Laurentide II: Birth is nearly unforgettable. I wouldn’t mind if most of their set was more digestible, like Growth except for one song just to show how much they kick ass. Maybe when they get really old they’ll mellow out a bit. A hundred riffs later, my heart softens for the proggy synth tones in Sunset/The Straits Ablaze.

Please don’t snooze on this album. Even if math rock isn’t your thing, you will still find moments of inspiration. You will hear sounds that aren’t recorded anywhere else. Do you ever lay in bed at night, fatigued from the work day but your mind still will not shut up? I think you should listen to a few tracks of Lucius Fox and try again. I’m pooped.