My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

So, there’s a video clip of Kurt Cobain in concert, it’s a clip from Nirvana’s Lithium video. He’s in a crazy white lab coat thrashing around on-stage, just trashing everything in a totally manic fit. At one point, he’s on his knees holding a giant amp and banging his head against it.

To me, I think it’s one of the great visual metaphors for frustration and lack of control. It’s usually the absolute first image that comes to mind when the entire world seems insane. I see it plenty enough and I’m glad it’s there for me. I drift to lots of images like that, different things for different moods. I actually think about why I do it, and partly, I think it’s how I experience physical emotional outbursts. A fellow gets really upset, maybe he puts his fist through a window. I can’t put my fist through anything, nor can I even imagine myself doing so. There are certain things for which I just don’t have a frame of reference for myself, so I pick an approximation from elsewhere. Why bang my own head into an amp when Kurt Kobain does it so well?

I love it when something I’m reading reflects things that I often think on. I’m currently reading The Tyrant by Michael Cisco and last night I came across the following passage…

When Ella was thirteen, she realized she was going to die, and for a month she lay awake every night in terror, flat on her back afraid she might vomit, rigid, nodding and starting nearly jolting herself out of bed, finally she would fall asleep. Now she sleeps better but with no warning she is sometimes ambushed and paralyzed with terror of death … Looking around the car, she can see each of these faces in its casket, grey flesh limp, eyes fallen in, nightmare caverns of stiff nostrils black as pitch, sagging ears, slack cheeks drooping away from a wired jaw and permanently sealed, livid mouth … The opposite bench is empty, in the black pane of the window above it there’s a wan dewy frowse, Ella, and above all she can see that face in its casket, purple-black bruises make a wide ring around her eyes, her hair dry as hay, weirdly friable and clumsily gathered on the stiff cushion – “just fucking burn me” she says with cold lips sutured shut.  In her mind’s eye she’s searing, melting and shriveling in the flames, locks of hair flap here and there in gusts of fiery wind – and that would be something like life, it would be a decision – as if she had set the fire – instead of that passive acquiescence to rot away in a wet hole.

I’ve had that exact kind of experience. I remember as a kid, maybe ten or eleven, something like that, I’m in the van looking out the window when the idea hits me that one day the sky and the trees will keep going, but I won’t, I’ll be dead. My mom, my brother, they’ll die too, but even then I realize I’ll probably die first. Everything will keep going, but I won’t. Then I start to think about everything that happened before I was born, how I didn’t exist and time kept going until I did. I remember being absolutely terrified for a few minutes. I remember that experience vividly. Long before the last year or two, before tasting it so many times, I’d thought about death and time and existence.

Sometimes, especially at the mall, I look around at everyone with their cellphones and shopping bags, I think to myself that we’ll all be dead. People who are so young and stylish, texting their friends and drinking chocolate lattes, they’re all going to lose everything that seems so important right now and they won’t exist. I think how some will grow old and die quietly. Some will get sick and die in hospital, slowly, they’ll know it’s coming. Then, of course, I think of myself dying, how it’ll probably be some kind of acute respiratory failure. At least for a few minutes I’ll know what’s happening and I won’t be brave about it. Everyone in the entire mall will be gone, but the world will keep going and that day at the Macy’s and the Starbucks won’t matter at all.

I’m definitely not obsessed, but I do think about these things. Sometimes, like Ella, I don’t sleep.

Okay, there are things I didn’t like about The Dark Knight. I thought it ran a little long. I thought Harvey Dent’s CG disfigured face looked ridiculous. Christopher Nolan’s Gotham is very real, there’s not a hint of fantasy, it’s a look and feel that separates his Batman from the rest. It’s a style that is entirely consistent until Harvey Dent wakes up in the hospital. His disfigurement is rendered in CGI that just doesn’t fit within the context of the world Nolan so painstakingly built. Lastly, Christian Bale’s “Bat Rasp,” the voice he uses as Batman, is incredibly stupid. It ruins all of his dialogue, which is particularly unfortunate since he has far more dialogue in The Dark Knight than in Batman Begins.

However, the entire movie is absolutely worth seeing solely because of Heath Ledger. His Joker is entirely worth nine dollars and two and a half hours. The character is brilliantly acted and written. He’s so cold, so dark, but so driven. He truly enjoys mayhem and destruction. His entire purpose in life is to prove that chaos is the only true constant. The only thing that’s reliable is the fact that nothing is reliable. He’ll do anything to prove his point, even die. He’d gladly die for his cause. One scene in particular gave me the chills…

Batman’s moral code won’t allow him to kill, the Joker wants to prove that this code will break like anything. After an extended chase through Gotham, the Joker stands in the middle of the street with Batman quickly bearing down on him atop the Bat-cycle. He stands, not moving, not planning on moving. Being run down in cold blood would serve his purpose. He says, “come on, hit me…” over and over. In that moment, he’s ready to die, he wants to die, if it means completely destroying the part of Batman that is most precious. It’s my favorite scene in the entire movie, it’s why I’ll go again.

So, this is kind of a local to Tampa hate blog. On Saturday the 19th we’ll be host to the first annual Red Bull Flugtag. Basically, the event involves people building homemade flying machines and riding them down a 30 foot ramp in order to soar over Tampa Bay. However, most of them don’t so much soar as crash and sink. Yet, it’s THE BIGGEST EVENT IN TAMPA, it’s on the news every day, people are burning with Flugtag fever. Some cities get art festivals or renowned stage-plays, we get Flugtag. Oh, and to make the event even more classy, their web site has super awesome embedded audio which makes any site extra cool.

So, I’m back from the midnight screening of The Dark Knight, and honestly, I don’t know how I feel about it. I know that whenever Heath Ledger was on-screen doing his Joker thing I was entirely entertained. His Joker is entirely different from Jack Nicholson’s Joker. Ledger’s Joker takes absolutely no pleasure in anything but chaos. He doesn’t care about money, or power, or controlling Gotham’s crime syndicate, or even his own life. He burns things just to watch them burn. He also has no definitive backstory. No name. No previous criminal record. He doesn’t exist until he becomes The Joker. He tells different stories about his disfigurement, but they’re all probably lies. Ledger played the role perfectly. I could have easily watched two hours of the Joker being crazy and talking about chaos, but sadly, I suppose, they had to have other characters and such. Though, I was really happy to see Cillian Murphy back as the Scarecrow for a few minutes.

Maybe I have to see the movie again, under less hyped up circumstances. I know I should be raving about it, but something just felt off.

I read some pretty strange fiction. It’s dark, it’s surreal, it’s gorgeous. Whenever I read something like Veniss Underground or The Etched City, I always wonder who could take such truly bizarre works of the imagination and create them visually. Who could bring such strange creatures and worlds to life in movies? Anyone? Until last night, I didn’t really know. Until last night, I hadn’t seen Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

I’ve decided that Guillermo del Toro can take anyone’s wildest dreams and bring them to life on the big screen. He takes cold CGI and gives it warmth and vibrance. His imagery is so absolutely outlandish, yet utterly believable. I guess I should have realized it after Pan’s Labyrinth, but I didn’t actually see that in its full theatrical glory. Also, there’s such a sharp contrast between Hellboy and Hellboy II, the former being a fun, but typical comic book movie and the latter being a simple yet elegant fairy tale with absolutely stunning visuals. With the right budget, I think del Toro could bring any world alive.

Well, the Emmy nominations are in and This American Life is up for five, four of which are attached to my episode…

That show saved me in many ways, so I’m really glad to see it so recognized. I hope my actual life lives up to the episode.

So, I’ll be honest, I think that overall I’m much better at writing about bad things that happen. If zombies showed up tomorrow I’d definitely write something spectacular, whereas if the Rapture came and it turned out that God decided to just forgive and forget everything, I’d probably be inclined to ascend and not write about God being such a good sport. Still, I have to say…

I have had some really fucked up trache changes, especially the one in June. However, my last one, on Monday, was pretty spectacular. My anesthesiologist was Doctor Devenard Manger, an absolutely excellent doctor. I’ve had him before and he always treats me perfectly. He’d heard about my last astonishingly bad visit to the OR and said he’d make sure that nothing like that will ever happen again. He gave me his card and said to just let him know before I come in, he’ll make sure he personally handles every procedure. I fell asleep feeling safe and happy, which is all I really ask.

Well, it was a little harrowing, but we are up and running under WordPress 2.6! I’m really glad I backed up my old install because I screwed something up on my first two upgrade attempts. Had I lost this blog, I’d have walked off my roof, which would actually have been the most amazing suicide of all time…

The Father: Wait. What happened?

Jesus: Yeah, no shit, he walked off his roof.

The Father: Wait… What?

Jesus: He. walked. off. his. roof.

The Father: You’re shitting me.

Jesus: No, Father, I’m not shitting you. He definitely walked, off his roof.

The Father: Really?

Jesus: Sigh…

http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js