I'm just getting started

OMG! For the first time in seven years, I've finally completed a new #horror short story. I don't even know what do to with myself anymore. :-) Wanna read it? Stay tuned...

Miss me?

 

heh.

Announcement coming. Stay tuned.

Afraid of the Dark, or some thoughts about my novella, Nite-Lite

As an engineer, I'm sort of turned on by complexity, which is both a blessing and a curse when you're a writer.

When I first started working on my MFA at the American Film Institute, the first screenplay I wrote was a big, sprawling modern fantasy piece with multiple layers of reality and a deep secret history.  It was pretty trippy.  When I presented it to my writing group, I remember my instructor pointing out that my classmates who loved weed were the ones who appreciated it the most.

The major piece of advice that my instructor gave me consisted of one word: "Simple."

It took another script before I really began to take that advice to heart.  And, as most of us in the film industry know, the simplest kind of movie to get made is a horror movie.

Now, you know I love horror.  So I set about to work on the most direct, straightforward horror story I could imagine.

Which, of course, led me to think about my childhood, where, let's face it, just about everything is scary.  Dogs are scary.  Strange people are scary.  Weird looking food is scary.  Clothes are scary.  Plants are scary.  TVs are REALLY scary.

But the single scariest thing of all was the absence of light.

I'm not sure how old I was before I stopped requiring the hall light to stay on to ward off the darkness before I went to sleep, but it was definitely a while.  So I started to mine that base fear to find a simple story to tell.

And, since I'm a research nut, I started looking up the history of things that scared children.  And I started talking to friends and family about their experiences.  As it turns out, for many of them, that fear of the encroaching darkness didn't end with childhood.  If anything, for some, adulthood only crystallized it into something hard and fast and unrelenting.

But it wasn't until I started writing an outline that I started having night terrors.

Imagine lying in bed, suspended in a sort of waking sleep, where my mind, and, in some case, even my eyes are aware of the room around me, but control of my body has left me.  I can't turn.  I can't move.  I can barely breathe.

Now, imagine being in that state, and sensing, no, KNOWING that there is something else in the room with me.  And, let me be clear: not someone else.  SomeTHING else.  Something so awful that its very presence made me tremble.  Something that, if I were to find the strength to roll over and meet it face-to-face, I knew, at the core of my soul, it would result in the end of me.

And now imagine being in that state, KNOWING that is there, and trying to scream.  Trying, and failing.  Trying, where the only thing to come out of your mouth is a faint, breathless whisper that doesn't even amount to the only word with any meaning at that moment.

"Help".

So, that happened to me at least three times, maybe more over the course of writing the first iteration of what is now my first horror novella, aptly entitled, "Nite-Lite".

I'm sure those with sharp eyes will catch some of my influences, which I'll talk about at a later date.  Let's just say, of everything I've ever written, this is the one piece, after all these years, that I've never tried to re-write.

I'm not sure that IT would let me.

I don't have night terrors anymore.  I actually sleep pretty well.

As long as all the doors are closed.  No need to look the darkness in the eye,

Click the link or the image yourself, then.  Read.  Enjoy.  And sleep tight.

Why all Fantastic Four movies fail

It's very simple: the idea of Reed Richards is just completely alien to most of the people who can greenlight something in Hollywood. A renegade science genius so smart and crazy that he'd steal a spaceship and ask his girlfriend and her kid brother to be his co-pilots, but is still a dedicated husband and father who just loves to explore and occasionally saves the world? I mean, the guy named himself "Mr. Fantastic". 

He's not motivated by greed or lust or ego, but curiosity and joy of finding new things. They can't handle it. They don't even understand it. It's the same reason why Mark Zuckerberg is allegedly driven by rejection in The Social Network. 

So they make him an awkward geek or a nerdy kid because the notion of  a good, smart, honest, loving man seems devoid of drama. These movies fail because they don't accept the basic premise of the book. It's an adventure story, like a Scifi Indiana Jones. Marvel studios would get it right. But until Fox or whomever else holds the rights accepts the central conceit, these movies will always bomb. 

for Leonard, or The Most Human

It's my brother's fault.

Since he's a baby boomer, his formative years were in the wake of Kennedy's New Frontier, when being an astronaut was considered the pinnacle of individual human achievement.  So, within that context, a television show about The Final Frontier couldn't help but be his favorite.

Needless to say, since I didn't come around until 4 years after the original "Star Trek" had been cancelled, we pretty much watched whatever my brother wanted to watch.

Which, frankly, was fine, because that show is still, probably, my favorite of all time.  I'm sure can practically recite entire episodes by heart.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that, when I was 9 years old, the whole family, cousins and all, went to the theater to see "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan".

As I've said before on this blog, I cried my eyes out at the end of that movie, when Spock died.


 I mean, we went home, and had dinner, and I was still crying, to the point where my father had to take me from the table, sit my down on the living room couch, put an arm around me, and say "I'm sure Mr. Spock is going to be alright."

Which, was, of course, true, all the way up until today.

Now, as I mention in my book, The Savior Inside You , I absolutely wanted to be Captain Kirk.  I mean, who wouldn't, right?  He was the hero.  He was in charge.  Everybody looked up to him.  He was smart and cool and brave.  He got all the girls.

But everybody knows that Captain Kirk needs his best buddies, Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock.  Now, most people have someone in their lives who can provide the folksy, down-home, irascible wisdom that DeForest Kelly spun each week as the ship's chief surgeon.  But no one had ever met anyone quite like Mr. Spock.

 Mr. Spock was the true soul of "Star Trek".  If the mantra of the show was to seek out new life and new civilizations, we, as the viewers, could literally do that every week just by tuning in and spending time with Spock.

The weird thing about TV characters is that, you see them week after week, you inhabit their fictional lives, you are compelled to care about them, to the point that some of us lose the ability to distinguish between the character and the actors that portray them.

So, beyond "Star Trek" reruns, I also spent a good chunk of my early 70's TV watching with Leonard Nimoy being my guide to the mysteries of the world through the old TV series "In Search Of."
In short, Leonard Nimoy, a man I'd never met, came to feel like a true family friend.

That is the beautifully weird alchemy that happens when you mix writing with performance to create a character that moves you like the living, breathing people in your life.

Oddly enough, on this day, when the world mourns Leonard Nimoy's passing, I find myself  filled with more wistful gratitude than sadness.   I am so very grateful how Mr. Nimoy's skill as an actor helped open my mind and heart to so much over the years.  In a very weird way, I'm grateful for his virtual companionship, as I suspect are so many others.

Thank you, Leonard.

#LLAP

Getting Saved

My apologies for the long absence, dear readers, but, to make amends, here's a very brief excerpt from my latest, a non-fiction book entitled "The Savior Inside You: 18 Daily Essays on Hollywood, Self-Help, and Other Illusions."

There’s a minister in Nigeria whose personal net worth is presumed to approach $150MM.  

Money from nothing.  

I guess I was wrong about there never being a class of people who could reasonably expect to acquire wealth without having done any real material work to attain it.  After all, mass media wasn’t invented with radio and TV. 

 It was Gutenberg with the printing press, and the first product was The Bible.  

The irony is that, like so many other money making products, as soon as something is successful, people immediately set out to copy it.  After Hunger Games, the market was flooded with young adult actioneer novels.  After Karloff’s Frankenstein, the theaters were filled to the brim with monster movies.  

And, for better or for worse, after the success of the Christian church, everyone and their mother wanted to sell you on salvation.

 If you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll probably recognize some familiar themes, but I think it's safe to say that I've gone a bit deeper and, frankly, even more personal than usual.  As always, if you're a fan of my writing, I definitely encourage you to pick it up.  And, if you like it, please share it and add your voice via comments and reviews on Amazon.com.

Thanks, as always.

Returning to Twin Peaks

I graduated from high school on June 11, 1991 and as important as that milestone happens to be in my life, the date has double significance because the next most important thing I had to do that evening was camp out to watch the series finale for Twin Peaks.

The logline is simple enough: an investigation into the brutal murder of the local homecoming queen in a seemingly idyllic Pacific Northwest town draws in esoteric FBI agent to uncover all of the mysteries, seen and unseeable, hidden within.  

Landmark for both its cinematic style (when most tv was still being shot like theater) and it's completely original tone (how can one show be both the most hilarious and most terrifying thing you've ever seen in your living room?) nothing really compares to the impact that show has had on pop culture. 

So I nearly jumped out of my seat to learn that David Lynch and Mark Frost are bringing back, just like Laura Palmer promised, 25 years later to Showtime.

I love this show and these characters, but I hope my nostalgia doesn't blind me to the high wire act this could be. Mixing old and new casts in revivals rarely works ("Dallas", "Get Smart", "Star Trek: Generations", and soon "Star Wars"?) And as much as I would love to see Sherilyn Fenn return as my high school crush Audrey Horne, I hope the creators realize that the vibe and the atmosphere is what made that show work. Audrey and Cooper and Dr. Jacoby and Bobby Briggs can't be who they were 25 years ago. But that doesn't mean new characters can't fill those roles and that these old characters don't have a place beside them. 

Keeping my fingers crossed 

Midnight Riders

Since I met my wife nearly five years ago, my life and social circle has taken on a decidedly more global and international slant.  I often find myself as the the only American in the room, which, frankly, has become much easier to handle when Barack Obama was elected president.  But when I'm in a room of international folks, especially lots of Africans, I find myself realizing just how uniquely American we African-Americans are.  Despite our (to put it lightly) troubled history with this country, we still have cultural traditions that are unique to our experience in America that we should rightly feel proud of.  For instance, I come from a family that, for years, has taken deep pride in military service, and that is a strain in African-American culture that weaves itself through American history all the way back to, I suspect, Crispus Attucks.  And at every step of this long experiment, in every corner of every story that is part of the American epic, African Americans are there.

I absolutely love all of the cultures of Africa that I've encountered, particularly exploring the differences and similarities between Ghanaians and Nigerians and Ugandans and Kenyans, et. al.  I share in their irritation when someone ignorantly speaks of "Africa" like a single country and denies their distinctiveness.  But I also bristle a bit at African-Americans who speak wistfully about "returning" to Africa.  Africa, the continent, and the 50+ nations within it are about as new and different to the average African-American as Europe or Asia.  We can immigrate there to join our extended family in the diaspora, but the only African-Americans who can return there are recently naturalized visitors and our long dead ancestors.

Anyway, I've been recently a bit obsessed with modern Western culture after stumbling across a rodeo event on cable - which was quiet thrilling, btw.  It's a side of America that I think is most considered and imagined outside of our country, but exists as it's own world within our world, often hidden from the broader American media discourse.  So, this video I found on Vimeo really grabbed me, both for its cinematic beauty and its content.  Enjoy.


Wildcat from WHAT MATTERS MOST on Vimeo.

What's equally interesting to me is that the cowboy tradition is really just the most recent version of the Vaquero trade that was brought over to the Americas by the Spanish, so even something as uniquely American as the cowboy has his roots in a culture of color.

The Fruit of Our Dreams

Nearly six years ago, I wrote a post called "What Happened To The Future?" where I cried and moaned about the lack of imagination in much of what passes for modern sci-fi. Basically, we're all just retreading ground already laid by Ridley Scott and Philip K. Dick instead of introducing and proposing new worlds, new frontiers, new questions, etc.

Now, my complaint was born largely of boredom and artistic longing.  But engineer/entrepreneur/would-be NYC mayor Jack Hidary suggests something deeper in this great little video from The XPRIZE Foundation (the people who sponsor competitions for innovations that can provide solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems).  Hidary suggests that science fiction serves a social purpose beyond mere entertainment.  And, frankly, I agree with him.


There's a line in the pilot for David Goyer's new show "Da Vinci's Demons", where the fictional Leonardo says that anything that can be dreamt of can eventually be built by someone.  But you have to have the dream first, and it's the responsibility of artists of all stripes to seed our imaginations so that there actually are dreams to harvest in the autumn of our worlds.

After all, winter is, in fact, coming.

Brothers on Trayvon

High-Profile Black Actors pay tribute to Trayvon Martin: "Little Black Boy Wonder"

Tumbling into movie trailers

So, I just started a Tumblr blog that's dedicated exclusively to one of my not so secret guilty pleasures, movie trailers.  You can check it out at www.trailerfeast.com, but, to give you a taste, here's the latest post I made regarding the trailer for the abyssmal "John Carter":

John Carter Teaser Trailer
#johncarter This was the best trailer I'd seen in years.  Why? Because it made me want to watch a movie I had to turn off after the first ten minutes.  They get around the big explosions problem by finding a piece of music that perfectly captures a FEELING that's at the heart of this story (after all, the original book was called "A Princess of Mars"), and then they cut the highlight scenes to match the building pace of the music.  It effectively hides the horrible cgi characters that overpopulate and kill the movie. You feel like you get hints of something sweeping and romantic.  It feels like David Lean doing a sci-fi film.  Which says to me that there is actually an opening in the marketplace for a film just like that: something epic and grand and passionate set on other worlds. But, frankly, it hasn't been made yet.  Star Wars: Episode II wanted you to think that it was it.  Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune could have been that (if he'd made it a 4 hour movie w an intermission, where the first half was Dune, the 2nd have was Dune Messiah, and the love story is about Paul and Chani).  But no one has done it yet.

What Baby Cambridge has taught me about The Press

KI'd written a long screed about how the media frenzy around the birth of the latest royal baby was just another example of our decadent culture when I suddenly had a moment of clarity. 

I realized I was only writing it because I thought it was provocative enough to get people to read it. Moreover, I realized that the content I was putting into the atmosphere was venal and had no redeeming value other than to boost views for my blog. 

Just like the very culture I was condemning. 

And all of this shallowness over something beautiful and profound. 

Much like this very post. 

I guess I can only get so far outside of this particular box yet.  But recognition is the first step to resolution for any problem. 

So, for now, let me just say this. 

To the Duke @ Duchess of Cambridge, you have my congratulations. 

A Prayer for George Zimmerman

For anyone who's been reading my blog recently, I'm sure the title of this post is a bit surprising.

But it's Sunday.

I have so many thoughts and feelings going through me right now.  But let me start with the Black Panther Party.

Most people don't know that the full name of the organization was "The Black Panther Party for Self Defense", which was originally conceived as a response to police brutality.  In addition to using California's open carry laws to defiantly confront law enforcement with their own weapons, people forget that the Panthers also feed the hungry, clothed the needy, and even organized schools for the children in their neighborhoods.

They forget because the sight of Huey Newton walking into the California State Assembly brandishing a shotgun overpowers any story about school lunches or clothing drives.

Guns have a tendency to do that.

If you'd like to know what happened to the Black Panthers, don't look at these impostors who are occasionally trotted out on Fox News as if they were Emmanuel Goldstein from the book "Nineteen Eighty-Four." According to the documentary "Bastards of the Party", you should look at the Crips, the notorious LA street gang, which, after years of sabotage from law enforcement, violence, arrests, political pressure, and the introduction of the drug trade, is what the Los Angeles Panthers devolved to in the late 70's.  Most of the prominent leaders of the party are either dead, in prison, or in exile.

Guns have a tendency to do that, too.

In "Bastards of the Party", the filmmaker, a former gangbanger, lamented the cycle of violence, where you feel compelled to kill the people who killed your friend, just like they felt compelled to kill members of the gang who killed their friend, and so on, and so on, and so on.

In the end, he said that the only way he could help brake the cycle was if he chose NOT to seek revenge on the people who'd murdered one of his family members.

As one of my friends, an AME minister, once pointed out to me, mercy is where you give someone something they don't deserve, but GRACE is where you don't give someone exactly what they deserve.

It's Sunday, and despite the pain and fear in my heart, grace is on my mind, because it's what Christ would ask of me in this moment.

My old film school instructor once said that, according to Catholic canon, the definition of a miracle is any moment where fear is transformed into love.

It was fear that led that jury to say George Zimmerman was justified in stalking and killing an unarmed Black teen.  It was fear that led Zimmerman to arm himself and appoint himself protector of the neighborhood.

And as angry and as fearful as I've been since the verdict, as much as I've imagined being Trayvon  (I can not tell you how many times I've walked home at night from the store wearing a hoodie) and, being someone who hopes to be a Black father one day in an affluent and largely white suburb of Los Angeles, as much as I've imagined the unspeakable pain of his parents, Christ calls me to also imagine being George Zimmerman.

This is a man who wanted to be a hero, a small man who dreamed of pride and respect from being a protector and defender.  Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he would become one of the most hated men in America because of his own prejudice and fear. Ironically enough, his unspoken fear of African Americans has transformed into a very real and, sadly, justifiable fear after this whole business.

There will be plenty of time for lawsuits and recriminations and acrimony.

But today is Sunday, and so, in addition for praying for Trayvon's soul, I'm also praying for George Zimmerman and his soul.  I am digging deep into my heart to find, if not love, a measure of empathy for a man who has rightly earned my rage.   In the same way, I pray for the jurors.  I pray that my heart and my prayers can reach out to those who would fear me, my sons, and those that look like us for no reason and feel justified in our murder.

I'm sending them love to cancel out their fear.

I'm praying for them because America needs a miracle.

For George Zimmerman, I can only say what the priest said to Jean Valjean: "I've bought your soul.  No go forth and be a good man."

For Travyon's parents, I'll ask for their forgiveness.

And for Trayvon, well, he's with God right now, so he already knows what's right.

The Only Thing That Should Matter about Trayvon Martin

Before an armed stranger stalked him in the middle of the night, Trayvon Martin had committed no crimes.

None.

Up until the moment a man with a gun started chasing him.

For no reason.

Let me repeat that.

A complete stranger with a GUN was stalking him at night.

Not a cop or a security guard.  Not even a man who owned a property where Trayvon was trespassing. A total stranger with absolutely NO authority of any kind whatsoever was STALKING HIM WITH A GUN.

And Trayvon had committed no crimes.

A court of his peers may decide that George Zimmerman did not, according to the letter of the law, murder Trayvon Martin (and, sadly, that does sound like the direction we're heading).

But I guarantee you that George Zimmerman knows, in his heart, that he is a murderer.

And that thought either makes him feel remorse or it makes him feel pride.

Consider that for a moment.

Burning Questions for "Pacific Rim"

As much as I am a Trekkie and a comic book geek, I have to say that the movie I have been the most fired up to see all summer isn't "Into Darkness" or "Man of Steel", but Guillermo Del Toro's giant monsters vs. giant mecha battle royal, "Pacific Rim".

Movie Trailers: Pacific Rim - Trailer 2


For anyone who's ever loved Voltron - lions or cars, take your pic - or old Godzilla movies, or even that crazy show Tranzor-Z, this movie has got to seem like a dream come true.

Pacific Rim - "Under Attack" Featurette

But the Lovecraft fan in me has these questions.

For instance: given the size of their brains, are the Kaiju (the giant monsters) actually intelligent?  Like, can they strategize in combat?

And, most importantly, who, or what, is on the other side of that interdimensional rift at the bottom of the Pacific ocean that is mass producing these kaiju to exterminate the human race?

Any way, my hope is that this is finally a film that is really worthy of the 3D Imax experience.  With a guy like Del Toro at the helm, my faith is very strong.

Should be a blast.

A thought on Game of Thrones

You all know that I've been a fan of professional wrestling ever since I was a little kid. And what most don't realize is that, beyond the violence and the spectacle, pro-wrestling is serialized storytelling broken down to its most basic elements. For a time, in the 80's, in the midst of Bruno Sammartino and Hulkamania, you had these long stretches of good guys, or, as they call them "babyfaces" or just "faces", holding the world championship and vanquishing bad guys (aka "heels").

But the usual trajectory of wrestling story lines have always been much more subversive. Historically, the heels have held the championships and constantly thwart the efforts of the faces to unseat them - partially through skill in the ring, but more often through cheating and the manipulation of the rules and incompetent refs.

See, the problem with most faces is that they think the most talented grapplers should be champion. But championships are won in multiple dimensions, where pure wrestling skill is only one, and possibly the least important.

Which is why Ric Flair is able to call himself a 16 time world champion. He mastered all aspects of the game. Not just in ring skill, but a mastery of ref manipulation, psychological warfare, timely alliances, and just straight up cheating.

Ric Flair & The Four Horsemen bragging, before getting called out

The storytelling genius of Ric Flair is that he was so arrogant and smug, audiences hated him so much because if it. They would pay over and over again on the hope that this time he might lose.

The very definition of the man you live to hate.

Which brings me to Game of Thrones, and, more specifically, the ruling family.

The Lannisters are The Four Horseman of Westeros.

They play the game better than anyone else. We admire and loathe them. And, as noble as the Starks are, they are overmatched. In this world, their very nobility is a liability. And the Lannisters are the real stars.

Tywin Lannister educates his son Jamie while slaughtering a deer.

The Starks played a great game of checkers. But Tywin Lannister is playing 3D chess.

That said, having not read the books, I think this next generation of Starks have learned the hard lessons that can make them competitive. But I think it shows the genius of George R. R. Martin that he's made the world so karmically unfair so far because our hearts keep hoping against hope for at least a just ending, if not a happy one.

But I would say don't count on it.

Wayne Brady is right

So, first, a tiny bit of context, in the video link below.

Wayne Brady on Bill Maher on Obama's Blackness

For hundreds of years, Black slaves in this country were denied the chance to even learn rudimentary reading and writing skills. The ability to articulate was crime, often punishable by beatings, mutilations, and even death. Articulation was literally the next step in evolution and denying this to blacks was a key to maintaining the falsehood that we were less than human.

Articulate African Americans were literally not allowed to be Black by the racist structure that had enslaved them.

There was a time that eloquence and grace were attributes to be valued. Think of Paul Robeson, or Harry Belefonte, Jackie Robinson, or Dr. King, or Malcolm. Respect and poise were never confused with weakness. Far from it: they were signs of strength, self control, and maturity.

Anyone who hoped that voting for a Black president meant you'd be putting a thug in the White House really ought to re-think their understanding of what it means to be an African American.  And I mean that even more for the African Americans who happen to read this than our Caucasian brothers & sisters out there.

On Charles Ramsey

I don't think I can do much better than the man himself. Charles Ramsey, in his own words.

YouTube - Charles Ramsey recounts heroic day



 The word "Hero" gets thrown around a lot.  It's rare that we get a clear, pure instance of heroism.   And I love the fact that he claims that he did what he did because he's a man AND he's a Christian AND he's an American.  Talk about buying into the ideal!  For that alone, Charles Ramsey is an inspiration.

But there are two things that bother me:

First, I'm really irritated by all of the people who claim this man is an embarrassment   To me, the real embarrassment is that there are literally millions of decent, every day people like Charles who are dehumanized because they have not been given the opportunities those of us with the means to complain about him have had.  More to the point, if we're uncomfortable laughing at some of the things Mr. Ramsey has said, take a moment and really listen to him.  Is there a single untruth that, so far, has come out of his mouth?

Charles Ramsey is funny, but, most important of all, Charles Ramsey is REAL.  As we used to say in college, he is real as a heart attack.  Maybe we should stop making jokes or blushing and actually think about some of the more uncomfortable truths he has to say.

But the other thing that bothers me is the same thing that bothers Mr. Ramsey.

Girls are snatched away into the darkest corners of the world all day every day.  One of the women Charles rescued had been friend's with the kidnapper's daughter.  And the accused seemed like every other guy in the neighborhood - making ribs, working on cars, listening to salsa, etc.

I'm reminded of Josef Fritzl, who kept his own daughter trapped as a sex slave, along with 3 of the 7 children he sired with her, in a dungeon beneath the house he shared with his wife for 24 years.  I'm reminded of Ted Bundy, who kept the bodies of many of the women he'd taken and murdered in the same secluded wooded areas so he could continue to engage in unspeakable acts, dressing up and applying makeup to the cadavers, until decay made it impossible.    Let me not even get into Jeffrey Dahmer again.

There are monsters out there.  And sometimes, they live right next door.

This is why we all need to be ready to answer the call.  If someone like Charles Ramsey can rise to the occasion, why can't we all?

Review: Federal Jazz Project

The border between San Diego and Tijuana saw a different kind of xenophobic fear in in the early 1940's than what we're currently used to here in America.  Back then, according to Culture Clash alumus Richard Montoya and New Latin Jazz Quintet band leader Gilbert Castellanos' new stage show, Federal Jazz Project, the color of your skin seemed to matter much less than the color of your party affiliation.

Federal Jazz Project April 6 - May 5 at the San Diego REP

And with one of the original founders of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky, having lived in exile for years, preaching the gospel of the workers to the Chicanos around him before his assassination, the mix of poverty, ambition, and the Red Scare are a powerful combination that serves as the dramatic engine for this fantastic period play that is, officially, about a pair of talented sisters named after the two border towns.

But a closer look reveals that the heart and soul of the story is The Kidd, played by my good friend, Joe Hernandez-Kolski.

A cursory glance would have you believe that The Kidd is, at first, just an bright-smiling overeager promoter for the two Mexican sisters.  He's a character you would expect you could easily dismiss as just a plot device to showcase the amazing singing and tap dancing talents of Claudia Gomez and Lorraine Castellanos.

But as the story deepens, and the Second World War begins, the global fight against totalitarianism finds its way into the jazz club at the center of the show and smacks The Kidd's hopes and dreams right in the face.

As beautiful as the music and hilarious as Richard's own comic cameos are throughout the show, The Kidd's story helps unpack both the not-quite-unspoken Black and Brown racism of the time as well as the profoundly damaging legacy that political and racial climate has on some modern Mexican American children to this day.  And just as the sisters San Diego and Tijuana dazzled with their performances, The Kidd's raw emotional power is both a pleasure and a revelation.

Here's a bit from Joe himself about his relationship with Richard and how he came to be involved with this project.

"Federal Jazz Project" - A word from Joe to my Friends

Honestly, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from the show, but, between the music, the dance, the drama, and the history, I was more than pleasantly surprised by how full and satisfying a meal Federal Jazz Project is.  This is their final weekend in the San Diego Repertory Theater, so I highly recommend anyone make the trip to the Gaslamp District and celebrate your Cinco de Mayo with this excellent show.  You won't be disappointed.

Review: Fox's The Following & NBC's Hannibal, or NSFW Videos of the Moment - 04-16-13

There's a very interesting conversation going on just beneath the surface of network TV about the blurred lines between imagination and reality.

It began in a very heavy-handed yet still entertaining way with Fox's new hit show, The Following.  In it, Kevin Bacon plays the stereotypical FBI burnout Ryan Hardy, who's called out of the mothballs to recapture his old nemesis, literary professor/author turned Edgar Allan Poe-obsessed serial killer Joe Carroll, played by the very underrated James Purefoy, and his growing thrill-kill cult.  While the serialized Rube Goldberg-style plot really stretches your ability to suspend disbelief in a way that only the craziest shows like "Lost" and "24" could in the past, the really interesting aspect is how Carroll sees himself as the actual author of the story playing out before us on the show.  For Carroll, each crime he and his minions commit are all chapters in a book he is literally writing in the show about Ryan Hardy, who he's chosen as the protagonist.  I'm reminded of something I think I read from John Byrne that, in the best stories, you take characters that you love and you torture them.

So, we have these fascinating moments where Carroll, without actually breaking the fourth wall, is forced to negotiate between his hatred and profound desire to just kill Hardy and his narcissistic need to keep Hardy alive so he can give him a good and satisfying ending in the story.  Yes, it's crazy, but it's occasionally funny and always entertaining.

Check out The Following, Season 1, Episode 12 - The Curse - on Hulu.
 
Let's just say, I'm waiting to see how packing a mansion with a bunch of homicidal maniacs on holiday eventually works itself out.

But, the far more interesting side of this conversation about imagination and reality is happening in NBC's new series, "Hannibal".  In this prequel to "The Silence of the Lambs", Hannibal Lecter (played masterfully and completely separately from Tony Hopkins Oscar-winning performance in the film version) is merely an extremely cultured psychiatrist called in to counsel Hugh Darcy's Will Graham, an FBI profiler who is credited with the talent for "pure empathy".  Graham is able to walk into a crime scene and instantly and accurately imagine how the murderer felt as he committed the crimes based on the evidence in front of him.  In these moments, Graham tells the story of what happened to the victims from the killer's perspective, much like how slasher movies back in the '80's forced the audience to literally see the teenage camp counselors through the murderer's eyes.

Check Out Hannibal: Pilot on Hulu.

Graham has such an amazing imagination that these horrific things cling to him long after and, of all people, it's Dr. Lecter's job to keep him sane throughout.

While they deal in very similar subject matters, Hannibal is a noticeably more sophisticated show than The Following in virtually every detail - performances, production, and, most important of all, writing.  But, in this instance, instead of a character trying to get control of the reality around him to suit his own ends, like Joe Carroll, Will Graham is desperate to get control of the increasingly deadly alternative realities inside of him, and, frankly, Hannibal Lecter is just adding fuel to the fire.

I just thought these were interesting dichotomies - using fictitious serial killers to explore how we interface with the worlds both within and without (and the price that comes with both).  They're both quite good, and neither is for the faint of heart.

Frankly, I'm still stunned by what's getting past the network sensors these days.