Mystery and it’s bearing on my life

What is the next big mystery? What is the thing that will make us strive for the better in humankind, against our own? What is the thing that will let us see our true potential?

For the first time in my life, I am in sight of….whatever I want. What if Kelley does what we want. and provides for us in a way that I can go back to cschool and major in whatever I want? What does that mean for me?

In the past, I have said an English degree is what I want, because it was easiest. At my 7th or 8th Rum of a pretty celebratory day, I asm you: what will bring the best out of me? If I could go back to school, and major in, or do whatever my future wife thought I was best for, what would it be?

What is the passion that drives me? Is it to be a medicore scholar of the stories that bind all humans? Is it to teach the unwritten code of what makes Americans Americans, or what makes Humans Human?

Or is it to seek out that great adventure, that great mystery that astounds us all? What will bring about the Becoming of the Christopher Duncan I know and long for?

What will be my lifes great adventure?

Surely living and raising a family is a great adventure. Already, there are many chapters that chronicle my rise to being, my great Becoming.

But what lies before me? A Great mystery? A grand adventure? I think so.

What if Fate/God is creating me for something more?

Comments?

Yep, I Disagree With Fanboys

In the past 48 hours, I have read several reviews and heard several comments about X Men Origins: Wolverine. Things like:

• “They’ve ruined Deadpool!”
• “They didn’t make Gambit’s eyes glow! And where’s his accent?”
• “This is in no way representative of the greatness of every other X-Men movie which we hated then!!”

These are the kinds of things that kept people from making comic movies between Superman: The Movie and X-Men.

Now, this may sound overzealous and like a betrayal of the Nerddom that I champion…But any complaints about a character’s eyes not glowing like they do in the comic book seem to be made by people who have not seen the genetalia of the opposite sex.

What gets me is this idea that fanboys have that, not only should the best parts of a comic be mined for a thematic throughline and cinematic sense, but also their PERSONAL favorite moments. It brings to mind a comment I once read on IMDB about the Producers remake, the musical.

See, in the original movie, made in 1968, one of the characters is a strange Beatnik-Hippie who, at the time, was a very topical and biting satirical look at the teenagers of the time. (Mel Brooks is a genius, I’ve always said so.) In the musical, in keeping with the times, the same character is sort of replaced by a flaming (but lovingly portrayed) homosexual.

The comment from one “fan” on IMDB was “How could you lose the hippie Hitler? He was THE BEST PART of the original.”

Really? The best part? You’ve got Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, a musical about Hitler, Mel Brooks at his finest, and THE BEST PART was a hippie?

Isn’t it entirely possible that that was your FAVORITE part? But maybe not everyone else’s? Do you see the distinction?

Look, my point is that the X-Men movies, the Spider-Man movies, the Batman movies…none of them were meant to be absolutely faithful, by rote, reproductions of what you see in the comic book. Taking art from one media into another never is. That’s why they are adaptions.

Comic book fans, and comic book movie lovers, need to learn that we give these filmmakers an almost impossible job. “Take this 40 or so years worth of material, that millions of people have grown up on. Now, while keeping every single person’s favorite attributes of every character and story, condense this down into a single film. But don’t make it overly actiony. Make it a good story, too. Also, don’t obviously leave it open for a sequel, I hate that. And keep everything I liked. Spandex may look FUCKING SILLY to everyone beyond the age of 12, but I like it. So keep that.”

You can’t ruin a story. If you liked it as a comic, or as a movie, nothing will change that. The comic will still be as readable as you think it is.

In the meantime, I like comic movies because they give us another interpretation of our favorite characters. I like how all of the Marvel heroes and villains weren’t created by radiation. I like how Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed after the opera as opposed to The Mark of Zorro.

Some people should learn how to like something for what it is, not hate it for what it isn’t. Isn’t that how we should like each other, too?

Rob Zombie Should Try More

You know what my problem is with Rob Zombie’s movies? He’s a tease.

The set up is divine. Casting is good, sets are good, ideas seem fairly new and exciting to a horror movie fan. Even the idea of HE, ROB ZOMBIE doing horror movies seems cool.

But the execution is SO disappointing. It seems like the movies get caught up in themselves. “LOOK! It’s the seventies! Girls like acting like whores! Even the good ones are slutty inside! Did I mention it was the seventies? Listen to that! It’s Three Dog Night! Look at my wife’s ass!”

None of those things, though, are as jarring as the sheer lack of…Art. In his remake of Halloween, which I was all excited about, the first 35 people are killed in vaguely the same fashion. I’m not saying I need Freddy Krueger’s inventiveness, necessarily, or Jason pummeling naked teenagers with other naked teenagers in sleeping bags. But after the third victim is repeatedly pushed into a wall until blood is everywhere, it’s just not scary anymore.

And therein lies the final problem. Whenever you see a potential victim, they will be killed. Whenever someone is stabbed, you will see a large amount of blood. There is generally a splatter.

So much of horror, even silly horror, is being scared by what might happen. When Frankenstein leaves the blind man alone, you see that he isn’t just going to casually murder every character in the film. He has pathos, and a soul.

 

You know, I realize I ramble on here, and this is kind of Literature 101. You wouldn’t think I had to explain it to fucking ROB ZOMBIE.

A Salute to the Hardcore

Shown: Moxie.

I have been accused before of using the exclamation “HARDCORE!” too often, but for me, it defines a quality that not too many other words can define: The almighty moxie. The chutzpah. The BALLS.

For instance: Michelle Rodriguez, of Lost and The Fast and the Furious, was picked up for DUI a few months ago. During sentencing, she had the choice between doing a couple months of Community Service, or five days in jail. She chose the jail time. HARDCORE!

For instance: Chef Mario Batali is getting some flack for putting duck testicles in his latest pasta dish. “They’re delicious, they don’t taste like anything you’ve had before. They’re whole and they’re white,” Batali said. HARDCORE!

For instance: Snoop Dogg is writing his first novel, to be published in October. HARDCORE, Biatch!

For instance: A rapist who won lottery buys mansion only to have rich neighbours offer to kill him. “You are a dirty, vile rapist and residents of this estate don’t want you here,” reads his fan mail. “We have hired someone to harm you” HARDCORE! (this is of course aimed at the neighbors.)

For instance: In a popular MMORPG (look it up, kids), one player has grown a species of plant that grows twenty feet high if you pray to rain gods enough to water it. Hook: Its a pot plant. HARDCORE!

So here’s to you, all you hardcore people. If I could think of a funny and apropo salute, Id give it to you.

Special Mention: To anyone who has told someone “Suck it”, in a non-ironic fashion, you are my hero.

Older Posts

As you may have noticed, gentle readers, I have reposted a few old blogs from older places. Since Ive been blogging for about 5 or 6 years now, I feel like I have a fair amount of wordage out there that I hate to go to waste.

(Mostly, like a few of us, I like to look at what I’ve written lately, what I had written then, and like Hunter Thompson, declare my older stuff the best I have ever created.)

So, on occasion, I’ll throw up something from the old blog archives of The Local Nutcase, or Topher’s Page. I’ll try to keep these marked so as not to confuse anyone.

But hey, once again, thanks for reading at all. Cheers.

A Blog From A Different Time

Current mood: disappointed

Ya know, I thought that the absolute, blank-minded patriotism in this country was easing off. I felt there for a second that people were starting to come out of this shell of blindly supporting their country and government, supporting the war just because we were in it, and supporting the President because he was President during a national tragedy. (Im dumbing things down here a bit, so just go with me for a sec) I thought people might begin to THINK, maybe not up to the standard I really want, but up to a standard of some intelligent beings. Then I saw this today:

((EXTREMELY OLD LINK)

This is a webpage MSNBC put up, where you can go and vote on the Most American Place in America.

I know Im being overly sensitive. I know its just a cute little thing to do, post Memorial Day, to feel good, to bring up feelings of a Norman Rockwell-type Americana. We can give ourselves a big-ol’ pat on the back for being born in a place where we are fortunate enough to have ancestors who died for us. But the language, and a few other things disturb me about this.

The Most AMERICAN Place? Dudes, its all in America. The reason Im being anal about this is people have been, for far too long, fiercely defensive of their patriotism and their love for the country. Ive heard someone say, recently, “These Mexicans? They aint American. I was BORN here. I got more right to lay claim to American rights.”

In a time when people are debating how American some people (races, cultures, sexual orientations) are, I am EXTREMELY uncomfortable debating how American some PLACES are. What if Dallas were up there, and we got a really low vote? Would people read this, and have an instant dislike for Dallas? Perhaps Texas?

If you said “Chris, ya moron, no one has those kinds of feelings right off the bat, from looking at a simple poll on MSNBC”, then you obviously have no idea how stupid people are.

And you know another reason Im sensitive about this language and how this thing was put together? Because I have a feeling that the marketers and designers thought the same things I do. I think this was worded and designed in such a fashion to appeal to the blind faith that people have for this country nowadays. It feels very lowest common denominator to me.

Why do I feel this way? One of the places up for Most American Place is the French Quarter in New Orleans. Do you think it would be there if they hadnt just survived Hurricane Katrina? Before Katrina, when someone, with a dreamy look in their eye, said “Im going on the road to see me some America”, was the first thing you thought of the FRENCH Quarter? Wasnt for me. What speaks America to you? French Quarter. World Trade Center. Oklahoma Federal Building?

Again, Im probably being overly sensitive. But you know what, that’s my duty as an American. As a citizen, I have to (should, anyway) get up everyday and think about where my country is going, how my people are feeling and behaving, and the way we are being represented to the world, and to ourselves.

And, furthermore, I know this shit happens every damned day. People see a store run by a Pakistani, but feel more comfortable going in because of an American Flag sticker in the window. People still shell out the dough for those yellow ribbon stickers (which I also feel are kind of intimidating), and tell me you havent thought ONCE “I wonder if they got that just so they werent the only ones without one.”

Now, Ive rambled on and on, here, but my point is this: I think, deep down, in a way no one is talking about much, some people are feeling like they aren’t American enough. Or Patriotic enough. Or proud to be an American, each and every day. Its these people I feel for, and worry about. I dont know if you’ve noticed, but I tend to root for the underdog.

People who dont know if their opinions are heard, who dont feel represented, in government or other ways, who dont feel good enough. These are the people we have to worry about. Because, cynical or no, we cant just have life be about the strong. The weak (or the meek, if you prefer) are people, too. I hear some of them are even Americans.

An Open Letter From 2006

 

Dear Joan Cusack,

I regret to inform you that you have been replaced as one of my top five people I will marry one day. Its an amicable split, and I wish you well in all your future endeavours.

You should definitely be proud; the list of the people I graduated high school planning to marry is a pretty short one. Jeaneane Garafaolo is still holding her spot, even though the last couple times Ive seen her, she has been playing a drug addict of some sort, and not looking as nice as she usually does. Debbie Gibson still holds her spot as well. As long as she can sing “Lost In Your Eyes”, I will love her. Pretty much the same for Tiffany (“If shes got no last name, by god I can give her mine.”)

Understand, I dont want you to assume that this is because of any aging you may have done since I graduated.

In my eyes, you always have been and always will be the cute, plucky but anxious girl in the neck brace from Sixteen Candles. (Not to say that I always envision you with a neck brace, but surely, after all these years, you can “pick up what Im laying down.”)

The question is more one of availability. Ive waited and waited for some sort of sign, in my heart or in the world around me, that we were one step closer to married bliss. I feel that, with your marriage to another, and the motherhood that stems from it, we are instead drifting apart. Plus, I havent seen you in anything since, like, School of Rock. Are you out there? Thinking of me? Probably not.

I cannot stress enough that there are no hard feelings. I still admire you as an actress and a general personality. I further would never want to queer the deal between my friend Victoria, and your equally talented brother John. That’s a match made in heaven, and I would hate to think it may be weird at their wedding or the holidays thereafter. Would I want to spend Thanksgiving sitting across the turkey from someone who thought I disliked them? Certainly not.

So, to make a long letter short, I bid you farewell, and hope that you realize all you have meant to me.
Cheers!

PS: Please remit the ring I have given you, as Sarah Silverman will be wanting it posthaste, Im sure.

 

An Explanation For The Drinks I’ve Had This Evening

From 06/2008

HERE is to the people we share a connection with, however brief. The ones we only know for a few seconds, who we laugh with, or smile and nod at, and the ones we know for years and know the hearts and minds of. This is for the ones we meet on occasion, randomly, and recognize a fellow human being, and share a laugh. The ones we have a nice conversation with, and never see again.

HERE is to the people who feel everything. Whether someone’s faults or strengths. We are the ones who remember every awkward moment, every time someone has irked or hurt us, has made us feel loved and welcome, who must live with all of these feelings, even though it usually means we find pain and heartache in everything, until hope is so mixed in with what we wish for and what we dread that we don’t know whether to cry, kill ourselves, or wait it out.

HERE is to the girls that bewitch us. You will never know how much you do to us (frankly, at this point, the idea of someone knowing their true worth and value is as foreign as a frictionless universe or a world without air). You girls are beautiful, all of you. Whether in the way your hair falls, the brightness of your eyes at a sad or happy moment, the smile and giggle at a bad joke that we share. You have the power to break our hearts and make them come alive in the same moment (not “or” but “and”, do you follow me?)

Finally, HERE is to survivors. We accept the idea thar the world, our lives, and our very souls are not what we want them to be, Yet we go on, waiting or hoping or wishing or working or lamenting the life we believe we should be living, or should be granted to those we love.
Someone said to me tonight, as we parted, “Keep on rockin in the free world”. You might think that means “Keep on truckin’”, or “keep on that the path you are on”. To me, it meant survive as long as you can, period.

More to come.

Happy Days Are Here

From Election Day, 2008

Tonight, even though I haven’t blogged in a LONG time, I’m going to not give you an update, but comment on the events of tonight’s election. (I’m fine, though.)

You know what bugs me? What really got my goat, grinded my gears, stuck in my craw, and jumped up my ass about this election?

Every time I would answer to someone at work (a gas station in a small Texas rural community) when they asked who I was voting for. The responses were never the same.

“Oh, god…”
“I guess you like paying high taxes, huh?”
“What, the muslim who hangs out with terrorists?”
etc.

The annoying part was not necessarily that they disagreed with me (I’m not a genius or anything, and have a lot of room to be wrong on a great many issues). It wasn’t that I felt like a lot of them were thinking with their baser instincts, ignoring facts for rhetoric by Right-Wing loudmouths. It wasn’t even that a vote for the other party would be a vote for someone (not John McCain, mind you) who basically stands for everything I hate about people- willful ignorance, mainly.

The annoying, overwhelming feeling I got was a sense of fatherly (or motherly) reproof. As if they would pat me on my head and say, “You poor lad. Bless your heart. Someone should’ve taught you better.”

I hate that attitude, as I’m sure all of you do. I’m no genius, but at a gas station in a small Texas rural community, I don’t think it would be out of line to say I might be one of the MORE intelligent people. I’ve lived in a few places, some not even here, and I’ve worked in many industries, doing many things. I’ve learned a lot in my short time on Earth. It would upset me that, because I supported another candidate, I was felt to be inferior, or mistaken, or at least ignorant of the real facts.

Wasn’t it funny how every time the opposition declared that Obama was fiercely liberal, or wanted to raise taxes, or redistribute wealth, some of us were like, “Those sound like good ideas!” Did you keep it to yourself sometimes? Did you sit in a room full of Republicans, your family, or coworkers, or close friends, and either remain silent or aquiesce to things you didn’t really agree with? I know I have.

Today, we got to share our voice with the world.

Today, our generation, one long labeled with “the myth of apathy” (God, I love Barack Obama), showed the cynical earlier generations that we DON’T just want to be lazy, take the easy road, make the easy decisions and leave the hard ones for actual adults.

Today, we stood up and said “This is MY country. This is OUR time. We DEMAND our voices to be heard.”

Today, we made a step towards showing the people who would pat our heads and say “We know better” that their time is over.

This country does not belong to those with wealth, or without it. This country belongs to each and every person who lives for it, fights for it, dies for it, and those people are everywhere, not just in small towns, or big cities, or across seas fighting for us.

Every voice matters. Remember, wherever you are, in every situation where you feel like it may be prudent to keep quiet, remember this night.

It’s going to be a strange tomorrow, at work. People will come in bitching, talking about how we are going to be a populist nation by February, how we will be supporting terrorists in the White House, how we will be paying 70% of our taxes to the government.

I can speak now. I can tell them, for instance, what my buddy Trey (and fellow gleeful Dem) told me tonight (which I’m sorta paraphrasing):

“You KNOW I don’t want to pay higher taxes. But if I can walk down the smoothly paved street and see a kid playing ball and know that he can go to a good school, get affordable healthcare, and not be sent off to fight in what seems to be an unwinnable war, then yeah, I’ll shell out an extra couple of hundred bucks a year.”

This is our time, people. Our generation is taking the reins. Let’s get to work.

How I Met My Future Children’s Mother

Reedited for WordPress.

Word up, peeps. (Haha, my girlfriend taught me to be hip.)

So this fiance of mine, whom you may have read about here …Who is she? Where did she come from? How does she tolerate my incessant giggling when people use the word “unit”, the number “69″, or “That’s what SHE said”?

Well, here and now, is the unmitigated truth from my perspective.

Kelley and I met in June, through email and over eHarmony.

I got on the site for about 4 days, saw Kelley’s profile, and was…intrigued, to say the least. She was beautiful, funny, and yet had the same intelligence behind her mischievous smile that I hope I have on my better days.

We contacted each other, emailed a few times, talked on the phone a few times, and I went and had a date with her on July 4th. There were fireworks…anyhow, after that, I kinda blew her off for a bit. We would chat, but she didn’t have my ear like a girl I was dating.

Basically, I was on a quixotic quest to find the better life. Trying out new things, going outside the box of the normal girls I’ve dated, being a new guy for a while.

Being a major asshole, basically, and being rather cavalier with a few people’s hearts. (But then, I alliterated with q’s back there, so maybe I have some sort of value to the world.)

Anyhow, after my period of searching was over, I met with Kelley again for dinner and a movie, and I’ve been in love ever since. She is everything I thought she was at first, and more. She IS funny. She says things with such wit, she shocks me into laughter sometimes (and a few of you know, I don’t laugh at everything). She is hard working, smart, strong, and all of the other things that make women the more fascinating of the sexes.

We are also very attuned to each other’s hearts and minds. We often make the same points, or jokes, and yes, as disgusting as it sounds, we often finish each others sentences.

More than all that though…she makes me happy with…me. I wake up every morning (or afternoon), and if I get to see her smile, I know, deep down in my heart, that the world is spinning, and the sheer energy of our hearts is helping to keep it on the proper axis.

She is…

Not to be sappy, but through all of my searching, since I was a heartsick teenager calling girls I liked too much, since I was just learning to be a man on my own, I was looking for her. She is my everything. And she makes me feel things I’ve never really felt before. Safe. In control of our destiny. Lucky. OMG, Lucky.

And I told her so on New Year’s Eve. Well, I had kinda told her already, but on that night we had that conversation where I explained that I hadn’t been being cutesy or kidding. I told her that from the bottom of my heart, the thing that would make me happiest is spending the rest of my life with her.

And, for a shock in this crazy world of ours, she said yes.

So that’s my story. We’ve had a few runarounds on the date (damn reception place is going to be the bitch of the whole thing), began the first of a few steps to getting married in the catholic church.* In essence, we’re kind of in the period of deciding what we want before we have to put it in writing.

We’re also spending the first part of 09 getting prepared to live with each other forever. We’re budgeting, dieting, and I’ll be quitting smoking at some point. We are taking things slower than you might think….well, scratch that. We are taking things carefully.

If you haven’t gotten the chance to meet her, you should. She’s pretty friggin’ awesome.

*I will be converting at some point, not because she wanted me to (she honestly wants me to live the religious life I want to), but because I feel like the time has come to realize the love affair with Catholicism I’ve always had. I’ll tell you why later. For now, Happy Easter.