More Important Than Sarah Palin

“This is not a [book] to be taken lightly. It should be thrown aside with great force.”

Dorothy Parker

If Dorothy Parker were alive today, she would more likely have cited another quote of hers in relation to meta-celebrity-cum-politician, Sarah Palin: “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.”

About a week or so ago, perusing one of my local independent bookstores with my camera in hand, I came upon the book Sarah Palin didn’t write sitting amidst the biographies of other important figures in history.

The book was almost ironically sitting there next to two authors; champion of manners Emily Post and “Goddess-of-the-Right” and conservative intellectual, Ayn Rand.  Both of these women wrote books. To date, we still haven’t been informed of which books Sarah Palin has read.  But Mrs. Palin assures us that she is looking forward to a long and vibrant career as a writer.  I am sure Lynn Vincent appreciates the work. . .

As I looked at the books around me, it was all-too-easy to find interesting juxtapositions which left the half-term Alaska Governor looking fairly pathetic.

Virginia Woolf wrote her own book. In A Room of One’s Own, she considered whether a woman given the same gifts for writing as a man, would have the same opportunities as a man to be heard and even listened to. Woolf did this in 1928 when the opportunities for a woman weren’t the same. Sarah Palin tried to have books banned from public libraries while serving as mayor of Wasilla, AK.  Does it make you wonder even for a second, what Virginia Woolf might have thought of a woman like Sarah Palin?

Of course being in a book store and being surrounded by many books, some of which were written by women to much acclaim and literary quality, it was easy to line up book after book which framed Palin in a rather pallid light.  Isak Dinesen, Doris Lessing, Ayn Rand, Dorothy Parker. . . Whether or not you agree with any of these writers ideas or philosophies, they are still women worthy of respect.

But Sarah Palin has never claimed to be a writer, I hear the arguments. . . On this we can agree.  But a leader. . . Past and future!  That’s where she is an inspiration!

Ah yes, Sarah Palin looks shining as a half-term Governor of Alaska and lest we forget, Mayor of Wasilla, AK. The Governor who took time out of her busy schedule to run for Vice President of the United States of America, despite her own self-proclamation months before that she wasn’t even sure “what the V.P. did”.  She looks really good when you set her alongside Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor who through the Social Security Act, helped establish pensions for elderly Americans, child labor laws, and the unemployment benefits you very well maybe thankful for today.  Yes, well it is true that Palin did spend $400,000 of state money to keep aerial wolf hunting legal in Alaska, and it’s true that’s good sportsman-like, you betcha!

Aw shit, and this guy, despite being held in jail for twenty-seven years in jail as a political prisoner of his own country, went on to lead his nation for five years AND write his autobiography? Hell! He’s not even American!

A Short Walk in Manolo Blahniks

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I began to think about writing this piece even as I took these photos, knowing that the ideas would eventually exist somewhere outside of my camera, my heart or my head.  I began to start thinking of the piece as a lamentation (go ahead Sarah, look it up) not simply about the quality of individuals thrust into the spotlight.  In this case as a tool by a desperate political candidate seeking to lend himself further legitimacy and gender credibility. For me personally, I saw this an attempt to understand the sort of ideal of women that exists in our modern American and even more importantly, global culture.

I do realize it in my mind that this is largely a construct of our corporate media culture, but there were two things in my mind when the idea of this essay came about: A nameless woman on television shown in a crowd at a Sarah Palin rally, and my own mother.

The woman was holding up a sign which indicated her support of Sarah Palin in some manner.  She was a middle-aged woman, in all likelihood older than Mrs. Palin herself.  She was not one of the women who you would find in the crowd that Mrs. Palin was addressing, but amongst those behind her who had been put in place as background material.  If you weren’t looking at Sarah Palin, you were supposed to look at people like her and see how Sarah Palin was an inspiration.  What I couldn’t get past was this look in her eyes, as she hung on each and every one of Mrs. Palin’s unintelligible words.   A look that I can only describe as wistful adoration. . . And that look, for this woman; all I can say is it made me sad.  Quite honestly, it’s hard not to get cynical when I think about the celebutard culture that we are fed in the world of Politics and Leadership, Culture and the Arts, and Spirituality.  I have to remind myself on a regular basis that there is more than the Sarah Palins and Lady Gagas of this world.

And then there’s my own mother, who raised me ably by herself with the loving support of her parents.  It wouldn’t be until after I was an adult living on my own that my mother would remarry.  Being raised by a single mother, with a strong grandmother influence and a grandfather with equal respect and honor for both of these women, I have come into the world with an indelible mark left by women.  There is no accident that I have a large tattoo of a bare-chested Goddess on my left arm, and it has to do with the influence that women have had on me my entire life.

As a reminder of the good news in the world, and my further belief in the power, influence and capability of women I want to end by saying that we don’t have to cheapen our ideals of what it means to be a man or a woman, nor should we let a warped media do it for us.  Because it is so important that we protect all women’s rights, both in this country and abroad, I suggest starting with an organization like The Girl Effect.

If you don’t know about the organization or the significance of just what “The Girl Effect” is, you can click on the image above to learn more.  In addition, you can help spread and be a part of the movement on Facebook by clicking here.

Finally, I would like to list just a few of the women that I think of when I think of important women:

• Rachel Maddow
• Lisa Gerrard
• Rep. Barbara Lee
• MeShell Ndegeocello
• Neda Agha-Soltan
• Rachel Correy
• Kimberly Peirce
• Senator Barbara Boxer
• Amy Goodman
• Natacha Atlas
• Michelle Obama
• Dr. Helen Caldicott
• Majora Carter
• Benazir Bhutto
• Alice Waters
• Cosi Fabian
• Katrina vanden Heuvel
• Nigella Lawson
• Katha Pollitt

And to the women in my life past, present and future. . .family, teachers, friends, and loves who I have known, this piece is dedicated.

“Carry with you at all times, your sense of caring and your concern. But put it into the mouths of flesh and blood people. If not, write tracts.”

This easily could be one of the more arguable sections in the Writing for Television series of talks.  One must of course remember the historical context that this discussion came from: the early 70′s and the Viet Nam era.  Serling did his most recognized work closer to the era of the HUAC hearings.

I’ll be the first one to admit the pitfalls of speaking of “causes” in any work, and perhaps that’s not the job of a writer whose job it is to “entertain”.  But in our generation, much of what we call entertainment seeks to do more than simply occupy our time, and many writers seek to move beyond the constraints of sheer entertainment.

This is not to say that speaking to controversial ideas, or dare I say it “a cause” is something new.  Dalton Trumbo was not exactly dancing a soft shoe when he wrote his novel, followed by the screenplay and directing his opus, Johnny Got His Gun. Serling himself isn’t exactly shy to tackle ideas of fascism in Seven Days in May.

But when he speaks of putting the “words into the mouths of flesh and blood people”, one could argue that he’s suggesting that better your characters carry the weight of an idea, rather than the author mounting her own soap box in a work.  After all, Serling was smart enough a producer on The Twilight Zone to know where he could take an idea, or how far he could push subject matter.

Flash forward to our modern era and we have shows like Battlestar Galactica, Six Feet Under, films like Syriana, The Constant Gardener and Milk which excel in dealing with controversial ideas in an open and thoughtful way.

So what has changed? Audiences?  The skill of the modern storyteller, or story craft itself?  To this day, there will always be some who will cry foul at films “with a message”, no matter how well or even handed a writer might deal with the material.  But I think the opportunity to tell those stories, for those who with skill enough to weave a subtle and engaging story tapestry, are present closer to today’s mainstream than ever before.

I wonder what you think about Serling’s perspective, and how things have changed since then.  How does a writer successfully speak toward a certain idea without mounting his soap box? And what ultimately makes a film successful or unsuccessful?

“Isn’t there a risk you run if you pre-occupy yourself with audience reaction?”

In this, the second part of Rod Serling’s Writing for Television, the conversation goes toward writing to please an audience.  What happens when we write at a certain level and with a certain expectation?

I think the question is most definitely a valid one, but I might further the question by wondering out loud, does the answer vary across artistic mediums? Is it different for a screenwriter than it is for a novelist?  A songwriter?

I think the difference between writing toward an audience today, versus Serling’s era, is the way marketing has become not only a significant aspect of how a story might be told, but whether your story is told at all.  This isn’t to say that in television and cinema in particular, there haven’t always been craftspersons who have created works with the ultimate goal of profiting from them, but now in our modern era, it has become more and more the case that “story is product”.  If story starts out as “product”, does it not by nature become derivative as stories are created for the sole purpose of creating the by-products of merchandising, sequels and other modes of commerce?

Does it not degrade the craft and art in storytelling to create a story out of a marketing concept, rather than actually figuring out ways to market great stories?

Part I: Where Ideas Come From

Serling’s thoughts immediately reminded me of another writer’s viewpoint on the source of ideas and the nature of genius.  Bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) gave an inspiring talk at the 2009 TED conference in Long Beach, CA.  Her “TED Talk” almost immediately became a web sensation.  If you haven’t heard Gilbert’s talk, and you count yourself as a writer, artist or creator, you owe it to yourself to consider her ideas. . .

It was December of 1968 when Serling was asked to speak at Moorpark College in Moorpark, CA.  1968 was obviously mired in the turbulence of the Civil Rights movement, the war in Viet Nam, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the Chicago Police’s clash with anti-war protestors at the Democratic National Convention, and the political and cultural instability that was part of the social fabric in the 60′s era United States.

Rod Serling, to those who were paying attention, was as much a social critic as he was an entertainer when it came to his writings (if not more so).  His perspective was most clear in the numerous episodes of The Twilight Zone he wrote, or in films such as Seven Days in May or even in Planet of the Apes released earlier that year.

For those of us who only came to know him through the syndicated episodes of The Twilight Zone that were run in marathons during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays of our childhood, we weren’t privy to know this man outside of the caricature of American pop culture.

The following speech lends a great deal of insight into the man away from the cameras, and well represents the thoughtful, opinionated and passionate man I would have imagined him to be.  Reading this speech some 40 years later, it is interesting to consider the things that have changed since then, and those things which seem just as fresh as if he had been speaking today.

–D.

If you want to prove that God is not dead, first prove that man is alive. — Rod Serling, December 3rd, 1968

There seem to have arisen some complications relevant to my appearance here this evening that should be clarified before I begin.  Plainly and simply.  I refused to sign a loyalty oath which was submitted to me as a prerequisite both for my appearance and my pay.  I gather that your local newspaper and some of its readers read dire and menacing implications in this refusal of mine, and I broach the whole thing only by way of a kind of personal disclaimer.

Number one, I have no interest in overthrowing the government of the United States and number two, to the best of my knowledge I have not or am not now a member of a subversive organization whose aims are similar.  I know there are many of you out there who’ve put me in a genetic classification of someplace between a misanthropic kook and an ungracious dope.  Actually, I’m neither.  I did not sign the loyalty oath and I waived my normal speaking fee, only because of a principle.  I think a requirement that a man affix his signature to a document, reaffirming loyalty, in on one hand ludicrous—and on the other demeaning.

A time-honored concept of Anglo-Saxon justice declares that a man is innocent until proven guilty.  I believe that in a democratic society a man is similarly loyal until proven disloyal.  No testaments of faith, no protestations of affection for his native load, and no amount of signatures will prove a bloody thing—one way or the other as to a man’s patriotism or lack thereof.  The concept of the loyalty oath is a new one in the United States—in its present form it dates back less than twenty years.  It’s been around for a number of decades in different countries under decidedly different forms of government.  It was a requirement in Nazi Germany and in Fascist Italy, and is currently a prerequisite for the status of citizenship in the Soviet Union.

Under dictators, the so-called loyalty oath is a necessary adjunct to a relationship between man and his government.  Both the Fascists and the Communists have a pathological distrust of their own people.  To require a signature under an oath of allegiance seems to me or presume guilt and an attendant disloyalty.  I simply can’t honor that kind of premise—and I won’t honor it.  And it’s for that reason that I did not sign the oath required of me to speak here for pay.  But parenthetically it might be noted that if indeed, I were hell bent to subvert the government of the United States, I would certainly have no qualms about signing anything.

But so much for my own idiosyncrasies.  I’d like to talk to you tonight about the generation gap as it applies to what’s going on.  I find myself in the uncomfortable and almost untenable position of a man in the middle—the so-called moderate liberal whose roots go deep into the American soil, pounded there by immigrant parents who fled Eastern Europe during the nineteenth century because that peculiar breed of flag-wavers on the other side had taken upon themselves to the prerogative of choosing who should survive and who should not.

Because of this particular background there are certain gut-deep philosophies and attitudes that are a part of my bone marrow—unshakable and unswervable.  I will salute our flag and stand for our anthem and feel an affection for my native land with the kind of fervor and admitted emotionalism that would be peculiar especially to a fat-cat Hollywood writer whose father was an uneducated butcher.  This, on the face of it, removes me from the pale of the new left.  It sets me apart—and I suppose in their view, places me dead center in the basement of the establishment.

But I’ll tell you something.  Reserving certain criticism and negative judgment as to methodology, I nonetheless subscribe to and support what are the goals and aspirations of America’s young.  I am much more prone to embrace their causes that I am any cause which would see the perpetuating of certain aged and no longer applicable concepts of ethics, mores, moralities, more peculiar to my own generation.

I would rather have a son or daughter of mine march through the streets of Chicago protesting injustice—than I would siring a Chicago policeman who’ll club anyone who’ll get in his way—and that includes sixteen-year-olds, newspaper photographers, and senior citizens.

And if anyone wants to raise the spectre of “provocation”—I say this categorically.  There is no provocation extant short of a motive of self defense to excuse as representative of law and order wading in with a billy-club under the pretense of saving the sovereign city of Chicago.  Of the four hundred young people currently held under arraignment for so-called assault and battery, half of them are under eighteen and half of those under a hundred and twenty pounds.

Suddenly we are a nation whose new battle slogan is law and order.  Last year it won countless numbers of elections.  It’s the great new American euphemism.  Law and Order.  It is now interchangeable with God, Motherhood, the Constitution and the Holy Grail.  But how empty and how suspect is this sloganry when it points up the incredible selectivity on the part of America’s citizenry—how picky and choosey they are when it comes to moral outrage.

There was no hue and cry for a re-examination of American conscience when four little Negro girls were bombed to pieces in a Birmingham church.  There was no collective gasp of offense when three young civil rights workers were slaughtered in Mississippi.  There were no slogans at all attending the bombing of over a hundred churches in the south in the past five years, or the fact that there have only been two lawyers, available to defend civil rights cases in the state of Mississippi until last year—or that juries were all white—or that a white man accused of first degree homicide has never, in the history of the south, been given a sentence commensurate with the proven charge.  Or we could go down the list of flagrant violations of law and order as they have existed for the past hundred years—beginning with the five thousand lynchings.

These assaults on conscience we live with, and nobody cries out for law and order.  For a quarter of a century, in the Congress of the United States, we tried to get passed an anti-lynching bill.  A simple law to protect the lives of black citizens below the Mason-Dixon line.  This was not legislation, as our protesting brethren so often take us to task for—the legislation of brotherly love with they say is impossible.  It was a law making it a federal offense to hang a human being from a tree, cover him with kerosene and cremate him.  But the loudest cheerleaders of our current law and order rallies—the Eastlands and the Strom Thurmonds—were the very gentlemen who fought against that legislation until it was ultimately passed.

It’s hardly a revelation to me that the young people in this country take a dim view of our current up-tightness when it comes to street rioting.  They believe, and I think quite properly, that on the scale of misbehavior the black man who takes a torch to a building or breaks a window to loot, and does so out of passion, is less the criminal than the white man who puts his torch to human beings and does so with a cold, calculated, predatory pre-planned blueprint of destruction.

The black man, because he’s suffered this for over a hundred years, looks upon us as a convocation of lizards—a cold blooded species of being who will call out the national guard to keep a ghetto from being burned down—but will raise no finger, let alone an octave of voice, to protest what has been done to him over the past century.

Look across that generation gap now and see it as they see it—the young.  Thirty two billion dollars into a civil war ten thousand miles from our shore to protect the freedom of the South Vietnamese and keep the Viet Cong from attacking San Francisco.  That’s where we are told is America’s destiny—in the rice paddies of DaNang.  And America’s youth—or at least a sizeable share of them—find this to be patently unbelievable.

America’s destiny, in their view, lies on the streets of Newark, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and Harlem.  That’s where we keep alive the dream.  Not in Saigon.  And certainly not at the cost of twenty-thousand dead American boys with a hundred-thousand wounded and a half a million civilians put to a torch.  Again, the inconsistencies.  The Hawks who bleat most loudly for our continuing participation in this war—these are the ones who’ve passed the propositions 14—and woe be unto the oriental who has the temerity to put a garbage can next to his.  Again inconsistency.

Those who shout loudest for fiscal sanity—an end to so-called federal handouts.  Stop this nonsense about Federal Aid to education, federal housing, aid to cities.  These are the gentlemen who watched us throw two billion dollars to help prop up the French Colonial Government whose good offices are indistinguishable from the North Vietnamese.

What don’t we like about the enemy?  They imprison people without trial.  They stifle free speech. They close down newspapers.  They rig elections.  Every objective and dispassionate view presented to us by bona fide journalists, historians and intelligent observers, are uniformly critical of all the governments of Vietnam—the North, the South and the French.  So what, indeed, are we defending there?

If it’s simply as Dean Rusk would have us believe—that the north should return to their side of the fence and the south remain on theirs, it might be pointed out that Premier Ky and President Thieu are both northerners and it points up again the fact that this is a civil war.  And if precedentially we must leave our native soil to attack any government that displeases us, we have opened ourselves up one helluva can of peas.  We’d best load up the ships for South America, Greece, Eastern Europe and elsewhere—where governments exist without the sanction of their people.  And we will have embarked on an international adventure that has no end and at a cost that is incomprehensible.

What turns that younger generation off?  Examine, if you will, the candidacy of George Wallace.  That political stalwart who made a public quote that he would never be out-niggered again.  This from the man running for the highest office in the land.  And though a fraternity of wishful thinkers tell us he’s been discredited, the young are much more realistic. They look at his ten million votes.  They look at his thirteen percent share of the ballot, one out of seven.  And they realize that had California gone to Humphrey—we might on this very day still not have a president-elect.

Let me, at this juncture, play devil’s advocate.  I’ve reserved my criticism for my generation. Let’s examine both the pot and the kettle.  The campus of San Francisco State University, for example.  I’ll say this unequivocally.  For students to disrupt classes, to shout down opposing voices of argument, to tear up public property and to foist their will—however just their cause and legitimate their grievances—is an act of criminal, stupid, self-defeating insanity.

The very things they seek: equal education, equal voices, a decent regard and respect for the rights of all—these are the things they throw aside when they practice their own special thing—the introduction of anarchy.  And they do something else that is almost suicidal.  They dissolve whatever possible support and understanding that might be forthcoming.  And no—repeat—no social pressure can succeed on any level without support.  We’ve seen this phenomena before—when you cannot argue with a man, you either belt him in the mouth or shout him down. That may be an emotional cathartic but it does nothing to advance a cause.

Now where does it all end?  The generation gap that looks with jaundiced youthful eyes at the war, the draft, deeply embedded social inequality and the worship of anachronisms which have become more ritualistic than real.  There are two quotes that I think applicable, albeit abstract, and I ask for your indulgence when I march out quotations.  This is the double syndrome of men who write for a living and men who are over forty.  The young smoke pot—we inhale from our Bartlett’s.

The first quote is on the tombstone of Martin Luther King, Jr.  It comes from the book of Genesis: “They said to one another, Behold, here cometh the dreamer…let us slay him…and we shall see what might become of his dreams.”  Scott Fitzgerald said, “In the dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning.”  During this long night of our souls there have been other dreamers and they, too, have been slain.  John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Medger Evers, King, and others.  Each had his dream and each paid his price.  And I’ll tell you what this dream is.  It’s pointed up by an apocryphal story.

When Goethe lay dying he was supposed to have opened his eyes in the last moment before death and said, “Light.  Please give me more light.  A hundred years later, the Spanish philosopher, (Miguel de) Unamuno, upon hearing what Goethe said, said, “Impossible, Goethe could not have said that.  He would have never asked for light.  He would have said, ‘Warmth…let there be warmth.’  Men do not die of the darkness…they die of the cold.  It is the frost that kills. That’s what the dream is.  That’s what it’s all about.  The oneness of men.”

What is the generation gap?  It’s the plaintive and desperate cry of the young that men should be one.  If we can ever accomplish this, understand it, assimilate it, act from its premise—that elusive dream might take on form.

That, my friends, is what I think it’s all about.  I think the destiny of all men is not to sit in the rubble of their own making but to reach out for an ultimate perfection which is to be had.  At the moment, it is a dream.  But as of the moment we clasp hands with our neighbor, we build the first span to bridge the gap between the young and the old.  At this hour, it’s a wish.  But we have it within our power to make it a reality.  If you want to prove that God is not dead, first prove that man is alive.

Wording of the Oath

“I solemnly affirm/swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America, the Constitution of the State of California, and the laws of the United States and the State of California and will, by precept and example, promote respect for the Flag and the statutes of the State of California, reverence for law and order, and undivided allegiance to the Government of the United States of America.”

“It is now I see and feel that calling once again. To be part of a music that will not just connect but, make all feel one. One in joy, one in pain, one in love, one in service an in consciousness.”

–Michael Joseph Jackson

We should all be so lucky not only to have achieved that sort of vision, but if more of us, humans alike carried with them that sort of vision, the world would be an even better place.   I do believe however, that sort of vision lies ahead for all of us.

I am not the first person that one might imagine waxing poetic on the night of Michael Jackson‘s death.  In fact, in the past I have joked about, derided, and thought and heard heavily critical things of the man.  But I found myself really hit by Michael’s passing today.  The only other passing that I have similar remembrances of, was that of Jim Henson.

I’ve never idolized the man. Nor have I ever looked at him through rose-colored glasses. I have never believed that he was anything more or less than human.  Whether he was responsible for any of the things that he was accused of, I can only say that he, like any of us as fragile humans had the same capacity to fall down.  Hard. . . And yes, to hurt others.

These past few years, as the media has fueled the sick fire of fascination in all of us, I came to feel sad for the man.  Not pity, because that somehow brings a thought of being somehow above this man. We have all been damaged in this life, and as the coming days will show, there will be both soft and kind thoughts of this man, and there will be hard, angry and hate-filled words that will emerge.  The energy from both of those sentiments prove our damaged-nature as individuals and as a collective.  It is not our original nature, but to this day we suffer as a result of this damage.

I chose today, led by the sense in my heart, that the right thing to do is to look on him, and the legacy of his art, craft and philanthropy, with a soft heart.  Not simply for the promise of cleansing his memory (and ours), but to help begin the healing of everyone’s hearts.  For if not now, when? And for whom shall we decide that it’s the right time to start healing our own hearts and memories?  Shall we do it for ourselves upon our own passing?  It doesn’t take a lot to see the conundrum in that idea.

Like so many ugly and hurtful things in this world, whether it be child molestation actual or alleged, the downing of planes, buildings or a single home, we as humans have come to a place where we react with anger and fury, notions of justice only thinly veiled vengeance.  We do know in our hearts how to forgive.  How to soften our hearts.  Many figures and teachers from different faiths have not taught us, but reminded us of the divinity of forgiveness.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu, called for truth and reconciliation after Apartheid;  Martin Luther King, Gandhi, believed in forgiveness. Even the often unfairly demonized Malcolm X found softness in his heart toward all after he made his pilgrimage to Mecca. And no differently, each of these figures suffered their own significant human frailties.

Michael through his art called for healing, and cried not simply for himself, but for us all and this planet we live upon. Can we take a moment of peace if not to find softness in our hearts for him, but for ourselves who lost a unique and consummate entertainer?

I hope we can.

June 23rd, 2009 marks the U.S. release of The Mars Volta’s fifth studio release, Octahedron, an album which lead guitarist and album producer, Omar Rodríguez-López has called the band’s “acoustic album”.  Every serious TMV fan should know to take these words with a certain grain of salt, as just about everything the band does is not what it seems.

The sense that this is the band’s most accessible album since the band’s definitive album Frances the Mute, is not without merit.  Many fans over the years have been divided over the artistic success of Amputechture as an album.  While a significant amount of their fans stand by the album as one of their masterworks, few will argue that appreciation of its Zappa-esque and heavily Jazz-inspired riffs take some work to appreciate.  Its follow-up, 2008′s The Bedlam in Goliath is likely to stir even more controversy amongst listeners.  Hardcore fans alike will call it everything from garbage to genius.  In my opinion, Bedlam lacks a cohesion certainly over Frances, but even the at times disparate  Amputechture.  Bedlam is much more academic in nature.  It’s the album you put on realizing that you should, and upon re-listening you rediscover why you should listen to it.

Octahedron comes in at an economical 50 minutes, and one might complain it does so in short bursts averaging in five minute lengths.  It does so however, with an artistic cohesion much more akin to the all-around brilliant Frances. While songs like “With Twilight as My Guide” and “Copernicus” are amongst the album’s most mellow, songs such as “Halo of Nembutals” bridge the divide nicely to create an overall engaging song-scape.

Perhaps more than any other band, The Mars Volta are a band that records different albums certainly when they are in the studio, but as anyone who is familiar with their live repertoire, performances of even their most signature of songs can vary greatly.  From album to album, lead singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala uses his voice differently, often having more in common with a shredding guitar or percussion instrument (very much to his credit), than a finely honed vocal instrument.  Octohedron presents in Cedric’s voice, an instrument of greater precision and for some, accessibility.  Just as much as this album deserves a certain level of attention to really pick up on it’s finest moments, it’s also most likely to be the album easiest to play in the background.

Lead guitarist and once again producer, Omar Rodríguez-López offers up a rock solid foundation of guitar work and dense production value.  The production value, and to a certain extent the contemporary taste for digital clarity and compression, leaves me wishing that I could hear an analog master.  If I had any complaint about the sound of this album, it’s a lack of warmth and space even within the most wide open sounding of pieces.  Despite that, there continues to be a level of melodiousness that can be found in the most chaotic cuts such as Cotopaxi and Teflon.

Octahedron, nor TMV are not likely to start show up in the easy listening bin, nor have they started to put out offerings which diverge from their sound, or worse yet, feel like they are selling out.  And while continuing to chart their own territory, listeners will find sounds and themes reminiscent of bands such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd or even the guitar work of Mike Oldfield.

The music and work of The Mars Volta will likely continue to challenge it’s most ardent fans, or confound it’s biggest critics, but the most serious of music listeners will continue to find a level of musicianship well above average, leaning into flashes of genius.  The Mars Volta to their credit, still have better albums in them.  What is often most promising about them as musicians and performers is that they don’t simply go in to the studio to record the next album, but instead to focus on the next piece of a larger body of work.  It’s for that reason that I defy deriding any of their work even when it has been less satisfying; their least successful work is still better than the average mainstream release today.  There are albums which are more successful than others, some more accessible to an audience unaccustomed to listening beyond a superficial level.  And as polarizing as their work and sound can be, they continue to produce work that matters.

Octahedron feels to me like work on the verge of something bigger, and even more epic.  Not just the next Frances the Mute, but an even more challenging and thrilling level of sound and performance.  This is what defines them as one of the few truly progressive bands to be called “Progressive Rock”.

The lion’s share of bands carrying the “Prog” label continue to be of a singular sound which has not progressed one iota in thirty years.  Staid, safe and exceedingly similar.  This is largely due to TMV playing well-outside the genre, and venturing well into the realms of progressive forms of Jazz, Psychedelic Rock and Latin music.  They expand the genre by shattering it.  The day that they come to record an album that fans will expect, is the day that their music becomes safe and the thought of “selling out” becomes a possibility.

Cedric Bixler-Zavala has said in reference to the album: “We know how people can be so linear in their way of thinking, so when they hear the new album, they’re going to say, ‘This is not an acoustic album! There’s electricity throughout it!’ But it’s our version. That’s what our band does — celebrate mutations. It’s our version of what we consider an acoustic album’.”  It’s those mutations of genre expectations, sounds and performance landscape that listeners to continue to expect.  I don’t pretend to imagine that all fans of The Mars Volta will like Octahedron, but perhaps it will introduce new listeners to the band.  And as long as the band continues to push themselves and their listeners, they will have ardent fans, and the fans will have something to look forward to.

By MICHAEL CIEPLY

LOS ANGELES — The movie world has been fretting for years about the collapse of stardom. Now there are growing fears that another chunk of film architecture is looking wobbly: the story.

In league with a handful of former Hollywood executives, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory plans to do something about that on Tuesday, with the creation of a new Center for Future Storytelling.

The center is envisioned as a “labette,” a little laboratory, that will examine whether the old way of telling stories — particularly those delivered to the millions on screen, with a beginning, a middle and an end — is in serious trouble.

Its mission is not small. “The idea, as we move forward with 21st-century storytelling, is to try to keep meaning alive,” said David Kirkpatrick, a founder of the new venture.

Once president of the Paramount Pictures motion picture group, Mr. Kirkpatrick last year joined some former colleagues in starting Plymouth Rock Studios, a planned Massachusetts film production center that will provide a home for M.I.T.’s storytelling lab while supporting it with $25 million over seven years.

Arguably, the movies are as entertaining as ever. With a little help from holiday comedies like “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey and “Bedtime Stories” with Adam Sandler, the domestic motion picture box office appears poised to match last year’s gross revenues of $9.7 billion, a record.

But Mr. Kirkpatrick and company are not alone in their belief that Hollywood’s ability to tell a meaningful story has been nibbled at by text messages, interrupted by cellphone calls and supplanted by everything from Twitter to Guitar Hero.

“I even saw a plasma screen above a urinal,” said Peter Guber, the longtime film producer and former chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment who contends that traditional narrative — the kind with unexpected twists and satisfying conclusions — has been drowned out by noise and visual clutter.

A common gripe is that gamelike, open-ended series like “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Spider-Man” have eroded filmmakers’ ability to wrap up their movies in the third act. Another is that a preference for proven, outside stories like the Harry Potter books is killing Hollywood’s appetite for original storytelling.

Mr. Guber, who teaches a course at the University of California, Los Angeles, called “Navigating in a Narrative World,” is singularly devoted to story. Almost 20 years ago Mr. Guber made a colossal hit of Warner Brothers’ “Batman” after joining others in laboring over the story for the better part of a decade.

But in the last few years, Mr. Guber said, big films with relatively small stories have been hurried into production to meet release dates. Meanwhile, hundreds of pictures with classic narratives have been eclipsed by other media — he mentioned “The Duchess,” a period drama that foundered last month as potential viewers were presumably distracted by the noise of a presidential election — or suppressed by louder, less story-driven brethren.

“How do you compete with ‘Transformers’?” asked Mr. Guber.

Ultimately, he blames the audience for the perceived breakdown in narrative quality: in the end, he argued, consumers get what they want.Bobby Farrelly, a prolific writer, and director with his brother Peter of comedies like “There’s Something About Mary” and “Shallow Hal,”concurred.

“If you go off the beaten path, say, give them something bittersweet, they’re going to tell you they’re disappointed,” Mr. Farrelly said. He spoke from his home in Massachusetts, where he is working on the script for a Three Stooges picture, and said he missed complex stories like that of “The Graduate.”

At the Sundance Institute, as it happens, other deep thinkers tend to think that film storytelling is doing just fine.

“Storytelling is flourishing in the world at a level I can’t even begin to understand,” said Ken Brecher, the institute’s executive director. Mr. Brecher spoke last week, as his colleagues continued sorting through 9,000 films — again, a record — that have been submitted for the coming Sundance Film Festival.

The festival, set for Jan. 15 to Jan. 25 in Park City, Utah, will have story as its theme. The idea, Mr. Brecher said, is to identify film stories that have defined the festival during its 25-year run, and figure out what made them tick. (Mr. Brecher said the final choices had not been made and declined to identify candidates.)

If anything, Mr. Brecher added, technology has simply brought mass storytelling, on film or otherwise, to people who once thought Hollywood had cornered the business.

“One of the most exciting things I’ve run into is a storyteller who’s been texting his stories into the urban centers of Kenya,” said Mr. Brecher, an anthropologist by training.

The people at M.I.T., in any case, may figure out whether classic storytellers like Homer, Shakespeare and Spielberg have had their day.

Starting in 2010, a handful of faculty members — “principal investigators,” the university calls them — will join graduate students, undergraduate interns and visitors from the film and book worlds in examining, among other things, how virtual actors and “morphable” projectors (which instantly change the appearance of physical scenes) might affect a storytelling process that has already been considerably democratized by digital delivery.

A possible outcome, they speculate, is that future stories might not stop in Hollywood all. “The business model is definitely being transformed, maybe even blown apart,” said Frank Moss, a former entrepreneur who is now the media lab’s director.

Mr. Kirkpatrick is not completely at ease with that prospect, partly because his Plymouth Rock Studios, a $480 million enterprise, will need scores of old-fashioned, story-based Hollywood productions to fill the 14 soundstages it plans to build.

In a telephone interview last week, Mr. Kirkpatrick said he might take a cue from Al Gore, who used a documentary film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” to heighten concern about global warming. Mr. Kirkpatrick is now considering an alarm-bell documentary of his own, he said.

Its tentative title: “A World Without Story.”

technorati tags: story, entertainment, film, filmmaking, storytelling in filmmaking, massachusetts institute of technology, center for future storytelling, david kirkpatrick, peter guber, navigating in a narrative world, ken brecher, sundance institute, virtual actors, morphable projectors, digital delivery, plymouth rock studios

Hope’s piece takes a different tone and perspective from Mark Gill‘s 2008 key note speech at the Los Angeles Film Festival‘s Financing Conference, that Yes, The Sky Really is Falling, but both should be mandatory reading for anyone now or aspiring to a career in filmmaking and media. And while Hope’s piece is definitely the most upbeat, both pieces I believe are reasons for optimism.

The future for all of us means expanding our fields of expertise, and depending on each other for their input and expertise.  As filmmakers, many of us tend to laud “The Auteur“.  I know when I was in school I thought about “what Stanley Kubrick would do”.  But as I moved into the field professionally, I soon realized how far from a solitary art filmmaking is, and that even the lauded auteurs were seldom truly alone.  This is the wave of the future for our industry, and really, our society.

Optimistically,

–Stefan Rhys

In case you haven’t heard, our business is in the midst of a transformation from a limited supply gatekeeper entertainment economy based on impulse buys to a new paradigm based on creator-controlled content and an ongoing dialogue with the audience. This affects all of us: filmmakers, exhibitors, distributors, and film lovers.

It once was that distributors generally only made available films that fit their pre-existing marketing model. Their marketing spend was not based on the film’s content – but their acquisition or production of a film was based on justifying that pre-set marketing spend. We (both the filmmaking and film exhibiting community) are now just learning how to determine, and to access, what an appropriate marketing spend—based on the film that was actually made – is, and in the process, we are learning how to prepare for, access, and exploit what have far too long been under-utilized tools and practices: community, collaboration, and appreciation.

Community, collaboration, and appreciation. These tools are the new tools. These are the good old tools. These tools are where our marketing money also now needs to be spent.

But let’s ALL step out of The Hell Of Now, and instead let’s imagine the future. Let’s imagine next year. Let’s imagine what the production/distribution/marketing/exhibition alliance could be like in a very short time. Let’s imagine what it would be like if we established a “Best Practices” for filmmakers and exhibitors alike and thus clarify what audiences can expect. These three entities—filmmakers, exhibitors, audiences—that want to create, exhibit and appreciate diverse high quality specialized work to the fullest.

Let’s imagine that next year is actually right now. So what does this present (formerly the future) look like?

• Each side recognizes each other as a partner – a critical partner – a partner that wants to inspire the other to the highest level of work and experience.
• Filmmakers recognize that completing their film is only half the work.
• They recognize that the other half of the job is both marketing their film and maintaining a dialogue with their audience.
• The filmmaker is taking responsibility for their work through the end (aka forever).
• They no longer entertain dreams of riches exchanged for rights.
• They no longer anticipate surrendering control of their film to distributors.
• The filmmaker now thinks of their ultimate creation as what will be their body of work. They no longer look at each movie as a stand-alone entity. They recognize it is all a continuum.
• They no longer see themselves contained with a single form of medium. They make long and short form work for different platforms and different audiences.
• They look at all their work as an ongoing dialogue with an evolving audience.
• The filmmaker has already established at least one platform from which to maintain an ongoing dialogue with their audience(s). This platform will be: Blogs and/or Social Networks. They maintain regular – daily or weekly – contact with their audience. They reward them, and visa versa.
• The filmmaker is no longer an isolated individual who only looks out for his or her own singular work. The filmmaker is a curator, championing others’ work. And others champion their work in return
• The filmmaker is an “expanded” collaborator who encourages audiences/fans participation, both or a richer dialogue and to mine their desires. She considers exhibitors’ needs in terms of reaching an audience.
• The filmmaker thinks for the long tail and they ask how their film will be discovered in ten years. They ask how will their film be relevant in ten years.
• The filmmaker recognizes that their action affects others, and they will either build on success or be burdened by others’ failure. They recognize that financial outcome is one measure of success but that audience and infrastructure building is another. Mostly they want to encourage good behavior in others.
• The filmmaker knows that power is a collective experience not a private one. They believe in an “open source” culture. They share information with others who share information.

How does this filmmaker work? Before the filmmaker shoots a frame, before she raises any money, this filmmaker identifies the audiences for the film and where those audiences can be reached. This filmmaker finds where the discussion of the issues within the film are taking place, identifies possible promotional partners for the film, be they brands or advocacy organizations.

Again before the camera is turned on, this filmmaker builds:

• A team of passionate soon to be experts
• A website specifically for the film;
• Blog(s) addressing the issues within the film;
• Blog(s) addressing the audiences for the film

And this filmmaker prepares to build the film beyond the 90 minute border by creating shorts, ARGS (Alternative Reality Games), a Graphic Novel, various books, IPhone Applications and Casual Games, truly anything and everything to drive audience’s attention to and their appreciation of the film at every step.

During production, the filmmaker is looking for new ways to expand the audience ad the audience’s participation. This filmmaker provides the audience with access to production particulars, be they production information or location specifics. They grant true fans access to the script and encourages them to go shoot their own version. The filmmaker tries to increase the audience’s rewards for their appreciation, and provides for them exclusive behind the scenes footage or maybe the filmmakers’ journal. Really what ever they can do, the filmmaker provides their true fans with access to the process in an unprecedented manner.

After the film is shot—and before it is ever publicly screened anywhere—the filmmaker has:

• Listed the film everywhere online (IMDB, Wiki, Databases)
• Tested the film themselves before audiences
• Cut a trailer and put the trailer on their website and elsewhere. This filmmaker is even prepared to refresh that trailer upon release.
• Designed a poster (or several) and put the poster on their website and elsewhere/
• Designed a collectors’ edition DVD complete with lots of additional material
• Manufactured unique merchandising items
• Written a film clubs’ study guide
• Selected a stills collection and put some stills on their website and elsewhere.
• Selected clips and put the clips on their website and elsewhere.
• Manufactured DVDs and offered them for sale personally at early screenings.
• Locked a DVD manufacturer and fulfillment center.
• Locked a Digital Download partner.
• Locked an Online Streaming Partner.
• Built a highly selective festival strategy and is prepared to both execute it and support it.

After the first festival screening, in order to facilitate and grow positive word-of-mouth the filmmaker has:

• Set a pre-release publicity building speaking tour.
• Built a chain of Living Room Theaters through non-retail DVD sales.

During the release of the film, the filmmaker is prepared:

• To travel to anywhere that covers their expenses, even in part.
• To collaborate with other filmmakers in a traveling festival road show.
• To provide an I-Chat dialogue with audiences.
• Maintain dialogue with the audience throughout the release.
• Release new short-form work to heighten interest in the long-form.

What does this filmmaker want? The same thing as the exhibitor, the same thing as the audience. This filmmaker wants to make movies an event again. And you know what? This isn’t the future. This isn’t even next year. This is right now. This is how filmmakers are currently thinking. And the question we all need to ask is how do we collaborate with them?

******************

So let’s look at how can the filmmaker and exhibitor collaborate? The exhibitor should redefine the theater in the audience, filmmaker, and industry’s mind that it is not just for exhibition any more. So what is it?

• An Indie Merchandise Store selling T-shirts, collectors DVDs, and indie film specific publications.
• The Theater is a gallery displaying traveling exhibits on indie history, and film-based artwork.
• It is a Preservation Center, leading the charge for preservation of indie and digital film. From this platform, the theaters will facilitate the vote for indie works in the National Film Registry.
• The theater is the community’s Media Literacy Center forever asking how can filmmakers further contribute?

What new practices will earn exhibitors the filmmakers’ love?

• Data-mining & transport. Filmmakers want to learn the details: Who comes to the theater and why? What gets an audience at a particular theater. Exhibitors who share this data back and forth with the filmmakers will be rewarded with the filmmakers’ loyalty.
• Throw out the old way and bring more filmmakers in earlier for shorter terms. Book your own “festival”. Utilize Filmmakers pre-release publicity tours. Set a subscription model with your audience freeing you to pursue the distributor-less film on your own.
• Recognize that your audience, your community, is your greatest asset, but respect their indivuality and recognize their loyalty to you. Facilitate access to and dialogue with your audience by the filmmakers. After all, you can’t keep them secret or hidden. Sooner or later, everyone will eventually find each other.
• Create your own social network. Supply it with new information regularly. Share it with Filmmakers. Share it with other theaters. Build this network that the Art House Convergence has brought together.
• Establish A Third Party Collections & Remuneration Agency so you don’t have to deal with filmmakers on payment and other back room issues.
• Establish best practices on what Exhibitors want from filmmakers and then get that word out to them (I would be more than happy to help).
• Establish an info on your community’s film tastes so filmmakers know what won’t work at your theater.
• Filmmakers are like any other entity. Dialogue with them does not have to be painful or intimidating. Good fences make for good neighbors, right?

What additional exhibition practices will filmmakers reward?

• Think Big. Don’t internalize the last two decades of neglect and despair. Share your dreams of growth.
• Think Differently. You don’t really need to screen the same movie all week long, no matter what the distributors say. Build audiences for the classics. Ask local notables to program. Give them what they can’t get at home.
• Focus on community building. Can Monday be dedicated to Community programming at all the art houses. Share your mailing lists with filmmakers if they share theirs. Encourage others’ choices, reach out, and mobilize.
• Design for the audiences needs with flexible screening schedules. Shouldn’t the moto be: “What they want, when they want”?
• Communicate with the filmmakers and let them know want you & when.
• Accept the mutual responsibility to build the new infrastructure. Be willing to test the new infrastructure.
• Find new and build new alliances, be they Advocacy Groups or Corporate Sponsors. Use them for or Screening series and for Specific Films. These groups come with their own audience and a desire to build further upon it. Every theater should have ongoing media alliances so when a filmmaker visits they expect that they will go on radio show and record a podcast for a local website.
• Whatever you can do, invest in technology. Whether it is digital production or Digital Delivery everything points to that the physical will soon be gone. Costs will come down and new opportunities like more flexible programming and booking policies will become expected.
• Whatever can be done to wean oneself from Specialized Distribs Hit menu represents freedom. It is not healthy for anyone to be so dependent on a singular supplier.
• Fight to preserve Net Neutrality. It will soon come to a vote and an open internet is necessary to source, inform, and aggregate audiences.
• Educate and encourage people to make a choice, not an impulsive decision in all they do. Isn’t that one of the definitions of art film? A film that people must decide to view ahead of time.

With all that has occurred, all that has gone wrong, with the devastation that has been wrought on this country and our culture, WHY DO I REMAIN HOPEFUL?

Last month as the year ended, I asked myself that question, and in one hour came up with 52 reasons, one for each of the weeks to come (and all are available on TrulyFreeFilm.blogspot.com). And truly, the main reason, is right here in the room, at the first meeting of the Art House Convergence. It is all of us. It is we who have come here and it is the reason why we came here. We recognize the potential we hold. And now that potential is becoming a reality.

I believe in – and I know you do too, or else you wouldn’t be here now:

• The power of organization.
• The influence of collective action.
• The incredible results of collaboration.
• And all that entire great cinema inspires.

I know there is a great new era of art film on the eve of occurrence. I know this because I have met the new generation of filmmakers and I know who they are. And I can tell you that these filmmakers are:

• Individuals with far more diverse stories to tell than we imagined.
• Artists with a commitment to quality and innovation.
• Not just feature orientated.
• Recognizing that making the movie is only 50% of the job and that the other half is marketing.
• Early adopters of new technology.
• Committed to Social Networks.

And I know these filmmakers want to work for YOU, the exhibitors.

And I know we aren’t going to run out of great movies. Last year was the best year ever for American film made for budgets of under $1M. Internationally, new directors produced exciting new work and established auteurs expanded their range. Not only are these great works not currently reaching audiences, but now with the major corporations stepping out of the specialized space hopefully will give a chance for this harvest to really bloom!

Theaters are often said to be our place of worship – but they are really our community centers. Theaters are where we all come together to share our dreams, to experience what it means not to be defined as a demographic but to be recognized as the expansive, passionate, engaged, and connected individuals we are. As far as I can tell, exhibitors have been left to their own devices for all these years – and so maybe there’s hope for indie film because you have managed to survive, even prosper. And now you are working together. You are working with filmmakers. Wow. What’s to come?

I love movies. Obviously.

And: I love making them, but even more: I love watching them, but even more than that:

I love talking about them, sharing them.

Let’s stop thinking of theaters in terms of exhibition and instead recognize them, you, the theaters, for what they truly are – the heart of our community and our life line to the audiences.

Thank you. I can’t wait until next year.

technorati tags:ted hope, entertainment, film, filmmaking, new era thinking, new era, mark gill, collaboration, paradigm shift, film business, distribution, sundance film festival, art house convergence, indie filmmaking, social networking, media, community, audiences, appreciation, partnership, driving audience attention, dialogue with audiences, net neutrality, trulyfreefilm.blogspot.com, coffeecartproductions.com

Forrest J. Ackerman inspired a lot of people who love movies, movie monsters and the Science Fiction genre.  The editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, he was friend and influence to many.  Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi (he’s wearing one of Bela’s Dracula rings in this picture, and will likely be buried with it, as I remember him saying) Rick Baker, Ray Bradbury, and Vincent Price.  He was also friend and advisor to Sci-Fi (Ackerman was widely credited with coining the term, Sci-Fi) writers such as Robert Heinlein, Charles Beaumont and Marion Zimmer Bradley.  A look at his wikipedia page will show the wide impact this man had on many generations of creators and dreamers.

When I was a fifth grader at Triunfo Elementary School, I had Alan Grossman for my teacher.  Mr. Grossman was definitely one of my favorite teachers.  One of the things our class did as a group was to do a large mural of E.T. The Extraterrestrial which we ended up sending to Steven Spielberg.  One lucky kid later that year got that mural back autographed and dedicated by Spielberg himself.  Grossman did a lot of things like that to capture our imagination.

Mr. Grossman himself was a friend of Ackerman’s.  In fact, both of them were in John Landis’s movie, Schlock (Ackerman had a cameo, Grossman was an extra in a movie theatre).  He also had an open invitation to the Ackermansion in the Griffith Park/Los Feliz area of Los Angeles for all of his students.  I remember hearing about the trips even in 3rd and 4th grade.  So when I was finally lucky enough to have Mr. Grossman as a teacher, I couldn’t have been more excited.

We went sometime in the fall, somewhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Mr. Grossman had mentioned that it was close to Forry’s birthday and that he loved pumpkin pie.  So my Mom helped me to purchase a fresh pumpkin pie that we took to him for his birthday.  In fact, my Mom was there with me and the rest of the class on that day as one of the field trip chaperones.

The “Ackermansion” was certainly a good-sized home, but this wasn’t some sprawling mansion you’d expect to find on some star tour.  When we arrived there, his Cadillac with the license plate “Sci-Fi” was parked out in the drive way.  We were greeted by Ackerman who told us we could call him “Uncle Forry”, and he led us inside to the foyer.

We were led inside to what I remember to be a sprawling, but cramped space filled with all sorts of things.  Memoribilia.  Latex masks, books and miniatures.  There was so much in that house, that much of it is just impressions remaining from a ten-year old’s wide eyes.

I remember handing Forry the pie, and the way his eyes lit up.  He was quite thankful, and surprised.  Forry really looked like the sort of person who belonged in a place surrounded by all of these magical items.  He had a sort of Vincent Price way about him, and often mugged for us as he walked the group of us around the house.

We spent a couple of hours there hearing stories and looking at artifacts from Hollywood Science-Fiction, Fantasy and Horror movies.  Pictures of Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr, and Bela Lugosi.  He had a standee of Lugosi as Dracula which wore one of the actual Dracula capes.  I remember my thrill at seeing a pair of Leonard Nimoy’s “Spock” ears from the Star Trek television series (at this point, there had scarcely been TWO Star Trek movies).  We also saw a collection of life casts, among them Peter Lorre, Vincent Price and Lon Chaney, Jr.

The image that probably has stayed with me the longest, was being a little boy standing toe-to-toe with Maria, the robot from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

One of the last stops on the tour was Forry’s basement which he called “Grizzlyland”.  The basement was laid out like a graveyard for movie monsters, and movie miniatures that had gone to their final resting place.  We ended up leaving out the back door where a model of the Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was sitting on the lawn.

When I went there, it seemed like a singular special event never to be repeated again.  For me, I suppose that was the truth, but Forry opened his house to lots of people over the years.  He was a warm and generous man who inspired many even after Famous Monsters Magazine had closed its doors.  Do an image search for the “Ackermansion” and you’ll see where I missed many, many photos by many people who toured the house over the years.

The beginning point in my love of film was at age 3 when I first saw 2001: A Space Odyssey with my parents in a drive-in theatre probably somewhere in Northridge, CA.  I often say that that was the event that “ruined” me for anything else.

My trip to the Ackermansion was probably the event that helped to form a concrete belief in what was possible in cinema.  His repository of the fantastic gave it all shape to me.  It’s probably a good reason why my heart tends to favor the people behind the camera, those that created the fodder of cinema.  People at typewriters, craftspeople creating items and artifacts to make dreams real.

About a month ago or so, we heard the news that Forry’s health was failing him now at age 92.  My Mom had the good notion of sending him a card expressing the love and gratitude she and I had for that tour some 26 years ago.  I think it likely that he would have read it, or had it read to him.  Forrest J. Ackerman was well-loved by many, and I am yet another filmmaker whom he touched and helped to inspire.  My thanks to him for the gift that he shared with us all.

And of course, thanks to teacher Alan Grossman, who helped fan the flames for one very memorable year in my life.  And to my Mom who has always inspired me.

–Stefan Rhys

technorati tags: forrest j. ackerman, uncle forry, movies, movie monsters, science+fiction, sci-fi, famous monsters of filmland, alan grossman, triunfo elementary school, Ackermansion, life casts, schlock, inspiration, spock’s ears, movie memoribilia, maria the robot, grizzlyland, metropolis, movie memoribilia, stefan rhys