Huntington is, for reasons that have not yet made themselves clear to me, a town in which many, many people drive on the sidewalks. This can sometimes make me, as a career pedestrian, a little bit uncomfortable.
But I'm adjusting to it. I can tell I'm adjusting to it because last night we went out walking and got a little bit worn out, so we just stretched out together on the pavement at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Twelfth Street, across from the Union and whatever ridiculous name Mango's is currently trying to be known by.
Someone called the cops on us, and the cop that showed up was the brother of my best friend. He screeched to a stop just below our feet and called to me out of his window: "Hey, Rick!"
I sat up. "Oh, hey, Adam, what's up?"
"What are you doing? Are you guys okay?"
"Oh, yeah. We've been walking and we're relaxing a little bit."
"Okay. We got a call that someone had passed out on this corner."
"No, just hanging out. We haven't even been drinking."
"Well, alright, then. I'll see you later."
"Sure thing, brother. Love to your sister, okay?"
This was late in the evening, around eleven or so. Earlier in the day I'd worked. Well, "worked" isn't right. I'd been at work, but I didn't actually get much done yesterday. It was one of those days where nothing goes right, a reverse-Midas situation and everything you touch turns to dross. So I gave up on accomplishing anything at around noon and just wandered aimlessly through the stacks, dancing to music on my headphones and thinking dark, moody thoughts and hoping no one would see me and notice that I was doing a whole lotta fuck-all.
After work I went home briefly, and then to the Union to see Katy, who was working. I had a glass of rum, which was lovely and settled me down a bit. And Herbie's anniversary party was last night. He opened the Union (his second bar) exactly fifteen years, one month, and three days ago last night. I'm not sure why the anniversary party was last night, actually, instead of on the anniversary. But there was free food :) so I don't care that much.
I called Amy to tell her about the free food, and she came down. Afterwards we went for the walk that took us on a circuit from the Union to campus, up to Third Avenue, down to what used to be the Plaza, and back around to 4th and 12th, where we sacked out.
We were there, I don't know, an hour or thereabouts. I lay on my back and sang a little bit, and listened to her talk, and made suggestions for future stories, and stared at the changing traffic lights. And in the silences, I thought quite a bit.
I'd watched the first bit of Tim Burton's Ed Wood before coming out. I'd never seen the movie before, but I know quite a bit about Wood, widely regarded as the worst director in Hollywood history. In fact, I've made a bit of a study of him: he's one of my heroes, actually, and the movie had nothing new to teach me about him.
He is very different from my other heroes. Eugene Debs, for example, was an eloquent and driven leader of men, an important figure in the political history of this country who managed to receive more than a million votes for the Presidency two times, once while in prison for opposing US involvement in WWI. He was one of the major reasons that the US labor movement won the victories it did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victories the fruits of which we are all still enjoying (at least until the current Congress is done destroying them all). He faced down strikebreakers, the captains of industry, and the United States government, and he overcame them by sheer will and personal magnetism and determination.
Debs, or "Gene" as I call him, was a titan of the left, a man whose life affected (and continues to affect) those of millions of his countrymen. Wood, needless to say, is not like that. I doubt seriously that anyone's life has ever been significantly altered by seeing one of his pathetic movies.
Actually, most heroic people are considered heroic because they overcame obstacles and accomplished something, demonstrated in the face of doubt and derision that they had the skills or the talent or the willpower to reach their goals. Which, that's fine, but most of us aren't like that, you know? Most of us will never be world-class good at anything at all, and a few of us will never find anything at all that we'll even be acceptably good at.
Wood was one of those people. His lack of skill is appalling. He was a terrible director, and no force on Earth, no sudden insight, no intervention by a more talented and experienced mentor, no gift from God even, could have made him a good director. Sure, his movies were low-budget, but they'd have been even worse with decent backing. He's the guy that a low budget actually helped, because it meant he couldn't afford to put but so much stupid bullshit into his films. He was profoundly, atrociously, phenomenally, openly and dramatically awful.
And you know what? He didn't care. Making movies was what he loved doing, and he was convinced that he could do the job better than anyone else. He made an awful movie, and then without a pause he dove into the next movie, which would turn out to be even worse. And by the time that one, too, bombed, he'd be hard at work at the next one.
He directed 18 films (more than Kubrick) and was involved in some capacity in nearly a hundred. And it's gotta be said: they all sucked. Every goddamned one of them. Do you know why it's so easy to choose Wood as the worst director in Hollywood history? Because no other bad director left such a body of work. No one else with his lack of skill could have continued in the business for so long. Anyone else would have given up and gone off to be a car salesman.
The point is this: ANY idiot with talent, skill, vision, and determination can face and overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles; but it takes a special kind of idiot to overcome obstacles without any of those qualities. That is far more rare and precious.
Ed Wood, every day of his life, was confronted with the incontrovertible fact that his dreams could never be realized. Not the opinion of naysayers, not the machinations of competitors, but obvious, cold, hard, fact.
He just refused to believe it.
Ed Wood, the patron saint of mindless optimism and a bull-headed refusal to face the facts.
It was mostly him I was thinking of, lying on the pavement next to Amy, who was within arm's reach but very distant, and really I might as well not have been with her at all. And after she left I, rather than reconstructing a thoroughly unsatisfying evening in my head, went home and watched the movie all the way through, and then all the special features, and then the movie again, and drank sangria, and then slept very soundly. And now, today, I'm back where I started, refusing to acknowledge all the evidence which overwhelmingly points to the fact that I'm trying to claw through a brick wall and will never make it.
Ordinary heroes are of no use to me in this situation, and don't you tell me about yours 'cause I don't wanna hear it. You can keep your Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. and Margaret Mead and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Ed Wood, he's the man for me.
But I'm adjusting to it. I can tell I'm adjusting to it because last night we went out walking and got a little bit worn out, so we just stretched out together on the pavement at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Twelfth Street, across from the Union and whatever ridiculous name Mango's is currently trying to be known by.
Someone called the cops on us, and the cop that showed up was the brother of my best friend. He screeched to a stop just below our feet and called to me out of his window: "Hey, Rick!"
I sat up. "Oh, hey, Adam, what's up?"
"What are you doing? Are you guys okay?"
"Oh, yeah. We've been walking and we're relaxing a little bit."
"Okay. We got a call that someone had passed out on this corner."
"No, just hanging out. We haven't even been drinking."
"Well, alright, then. I'll see you later."
"Sure thing, brother. Love to your sister, okay?"
This was late in the evening, around eleven or so. Earlier in the day I'd worked. Well, "worked" isn't right. I'd been at work, but I didn't actually get much done yesterday. It was one of those days where nothing goes right, a reverse-Midas situation and everything you touch turns to dross. So I gave up on accomplishing anything at around noon and just wandered aimlessly through the stacks, dancing to music on my headphones and thinking dark, moody thoughts and hoping no one would see me and notice that I was doing a whole lotta fuck-all.
After work I went home briefly, and then to the Union to see Katy, who was working. I had a glass of rum, which was lovely and settled me down a bit. And Herbie's anniversary party was last night. He opened the Union (his second bar) exactly fifteen years, one month, and three days ago last night. I'm not sure why the anniversary party was last night, actually, instead of on the anniversary. But there was free food :) so I don't care that much.
I called Amy to tell her about the free food, and she came down. Afterwards we went for the walk that took us on a circuit from the Union to campus, up to Third Avenue, down to what used to be the Plaza, and back around to 4th and 12th, where we sacked out.
We were there, I don't know, an hour or thereabouts. I lay on my back and sang a little bit, and listened to her talk, and made suggestions for future stories, and stared at the changing traffic lights. And in the silences, I thought quite a bit.
I'd watched the first bit of Tim Burton's Ed Wood before coming out. I'd never seen the movie before, but I know quite a bit about Wood, widely regarded as the worst director in Hollywood history. In fact, I've made a bit of a study of him: he's one of my heroes, actually, and the movie had nothing new to teach me about him.
He is very different from my other heroes. Eugene Debs, for example, was an eloquent and driven leader of men, an important figure in the political history of this country who managed to receive more than a million votes for the Presidency two times, once while in prison for opposing US involvement in WWI. He was one of the major reasons that the US labor movement won the victories it did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victories the fruits of which we are all still enjoying (at least until the current Congress is done destroying them all). He faced down strikebreakers, the captains of industry, and the United States government, and he overcame them by sheer will and personal magnetism and determination.
Debs, or "Gene" as I call him, was a titan of the left, a man whose life affected (and continues to affect) those of millions of his countrymen. Wood, needless to say, is not like that. I doubt seriously that anyone's life has ever been significantly altered by seeing one of his pathetic movies.
Actually, most heroic people are considered heroic because they overcame obstacles and accomplished something, demonstrated in the face of doubt and derision that they had the skills or the talent or the willpower to reach their goals. Which, that's fine, but most of us aren't like that, you know? Most of us will never be world-class good at anything at all, and a few of us will never find anything at all that we'll even be acceptably good at.
Wood was one of those people. His lack of skill is appalling. He was a terrible director, and no force on Earth, no sudden insight, no intervention by a more talented and experienced mentor, no gift from God even, could have made him a good director. Sure, his movies were low-budget, but they'd have been even worse with decent backing. He's the guy that a low budget actually helped, because it meant he couldn't afford to put but so much stupid bullshit into his films. He was profoundly, atrociously, phenomenally, openly and dramatically awful.
And you know what? He didn't care. Making movies was what he loved doing, and he was convinced that he could do the job better than anyone else. He made an awful movie, and then without a pause he dove into the next movie, which would turn out to be even worse. And by the time that one, too, bombed, he'd be hard at work at the next one.
He directed 18 films (more than Kubrick) and was involved in some capacity in nearly a hundred. And it's gotta be said: they all sucked. Every goddamned one of them. Do you know why it's so easy to choose Wood as the worst director in Hollywood history? Because no other bad director left such a body of work. No one else with his lack of skill could have continued in the business for so long. Anyone else would have given up and gone off to be a car salesman.
The point is this: ANY idiot with talent, skill, vision, and determination can face and overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles; but it takes a special kind of idiot to overcome obstacles without any of those qualities. That is far more rare and precious.
Ed Wood, every day of his life, was confronted with the incontrovertible fact that his dreams could never be realized. Not the opinion of naysayers, not the machinations of competitors, but obvious, cold, hard, fact.
He just refused to believe it.
Ed Wood, the patron saint of mindless optimism and a bull-headed refusal to face the facts.
It was mostly him I was thinking of, lying on the pavement next to Amy, who was within arm's reach but very distant, and really I might as well not have been with her at all. And after she left I, rather than reconstructing a thoroughly unsatisfying evening in my head, went home and watched the movie all the way through, and then all the special features, and then the movie again, and drank sangria, and then slept very soundly. And now, today, I'm back where I started, refusing to acknowledge all the evidence which overwhelmingly points to the fact that I'm trying to claw through a brick wall and will never make it.
Ordinary heroes are of no use to me in this situation, and don't you tell me about yours 'cause I don't wanna hear it. You can keep your Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. and Margaret Mead and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Ed Wood, he's the man for me.
