Courageous Icebergs And Bad Manners

I have an image blog today. Enjoy!

Vengeance Has A Really Weird Name

I have something different today. It's a bit of a writing exercise in the first person. I don't know if she'll end up being an antagonist or perhaps a protagonist. Her voice came across strongly as I wrote though.

You wonder what they were thinking, naming me that.

For years on end when I was a child, whenever I would complain about it, my parents would just sigh, roll their eyes, and then tell me that they had no choice. They would say that they were bound by the terms of the bet and had to go through with it.

A bet? Seriously? You expect me to just accept you couldn’t tell the bastard who won the bet to go to hell?

No court would make you go through with the bet to name your daughter that. It’s not enforceable.

Oh, but no... my parents were too buddy-buddy with the bastard to go back on a bet. Dad was fishing buddies with Charlie, after all, and in Dad’s mind, you stay buddies with the guy you go fishing with. Uncle Charlie, as he liked to be called. Uncle Asshole Charlie, as I tended to mutter under my breath when I was in my teens. I mean, if he’d actually given a damn, he would have never insisted on the terms of that bet. Instead, he happened to win a Super Bowl wager when Mom was pregnant with me, one that resulted in Mom and Dad naming me whatever Charlie wanted when the time came.

Between us, I was glad when, at I was fifteen, Charlie met a bad end when a great white shark decided to take a bite of him off the Carolina coast when he was on a fishing trip. I like to think he died screaming in agony.

Dad and Mom went to the funeral, said their condolences to Charlie’s wife and kids. Obviously it was a closed casket sort of funeral. Kind of hard to have an open casket when you haven’t recovered the deceased’s leg, and there’s only so much a mortician can do to hide the visible scars of a shark attack. I was too busy in school to attend, but I remember thinking that day- Shark: 1, Charlie 0.

A morbid thought. Maybe it makes sense with the path I ended up following.

So yes, I resented my parents growing up. Saddling me with that name. You’d resent it too.

Who the hell names their kid Misery?

Oh, Mom and Dad would say, “well, dear, think of it this way, Stephen King gave that name for the character who was a book within a book. Isn’t Stephen King cool?” Well, maybe he is, but naming me for a fictional romance novel character created by the writer protagonist in a fictional novel by a horror writer isn’t why you named me that. You named me that because you lost a bet you made over a stupid football game with an idiot.

Do you have any idea how much I was hassled as a kid? Other kids teasing me over my name. They were merciless. You try going through elementary and high school with the name Misery and see how you like it.  Little wonder that I tended to be a loner, isolated, anti social. I had my goth stage, my emo stage, the whole nine yards. Black clothing, death metal, sullen stares. I got into my fair share of fights. Won them too. It got to the point where other students were starting to get the hint: don’t piss off Misery Frost. They stopped hassling me, but started calling me the Ice Queen. Totally cold, totally hostile, can’t be defrosted... I’ve heard them all. Hell, maybe that was right.

So yes. I did resent the hell out of my parents. Naming me that. Subjecting me to years of teasing over a bloody name. Which probably explains why I wasn’t exactly choked up first year of college when I got word that they’d been killed in a car accident. Drunk driver. He died too, otherwise he might still be in prison today.

Sure, I attended the funeral. Looked all suitably sombre. Didn’t feel much of anything. Oh, people say, “I’m so sorry, please let me know if there’s anything I can do.” But it’s not as if any of them really cared less. At that point I was so socially isolated that I could have dropped off the face of the earth and none of my parents’ circle of friends would have ever noticed.

So I moved on. Inherited a pile of money. One side benefit of coming from wealth. I consider it a severance payment for years of putting up with a bad name. Returned to college, kept at that, ended up finishing my degree, more for the sake of just getting it than anything else. With all the money to my name, it wasn’t as if I needed to work.

Then one day I decided to go through legal proceedings to change my name. Simple, right?

Not so.

I went in front of a judge in a courtroom, and said my piece. Told him why I wanted to change my name, said that years and years of heckling over a lousy name had taken its toll, and I wanted to change it.

What did he do?

Laughed in my face.

He was practically falling off his chair laughing. He went red faced, laughed so much that he was practically teary eyed. Then he composed himself, smiled, and refused. He told me I should just learn to live with it.

That’s the first time I ever killed anyone.

Didn't see that one coming, did you?

Oh, I didn’t do it right there. I mean, come on, there were witnesses, after all.

I was smart about it. Acquired a gun. And a silencer. Taught myself how to shoot. I stalked him for a few days, learned his routine, scoped out his neighbourhood. Who’s likely to be out and about? What are the sightlines? What are the fastest ways out?

Then one night, when he was coming home, I watched from the shadows as he stepped up to his front door... and shot him from behind. Two bullets in the head.

Down he went like a brick. The silencer worked nicely- barely a hint, sounded like a cough. Nobody heard a thing. No barking dogs, no neighbours putting out their trash for recycling. Nothing. I just walked away into the night, pleased with myself. That was the last time he’d ever laugh at anyone. And no one saw me do it.

Or so I thought.

A day later, with the news still covering the investigation into his death, I got a visitor at my door. He was a few years older. The sort of face you’d look at and forget. Short hair, pale eyes, dressed casually. He introduced himself just by his surname. Lawson. He told me that he saw what I did.

And then he offered his services to teach me.

It turns out I wasn’t the only one out to kill the judge that night. Someone had contracted Lawson to do the same.

Lawson, it turned out, was a professional assassin.

He’d been hired to take out the judge by a contract employer over a tax case. He’d been doing the same thing as me, stalking the judge, choosing a time. He was better than stalking than me- I never saw him. He noticed me though during those nights of stalking the judge. Wondered what my game was. He said he learned that very day that the judge had laughed me out of his court room. That night, he was prevented from moving in on the judge simply because I did it first.

He told me my instincts were good. I was careful about it, methodical. Covered my tracks nicely, did everything I could to confound the forensics and the cops, and that the old bastard had it coming. He said watching me kill the judge left him impressed. Asked if I regretted it or felt ashamed. Truth is I felt nothing more than satisfaction at a job well done.

Lawson took me under his wing. Showed me the ropes of professional assassination. Methods of taking a life, methods of covering your tracks. Weapons techniques, police response, laundering your money when you get paid. How to get contracts- I mean, hiring yourself out as a killer is not the sort of thing you list on Kijiji. How much to charge- or those cases where you did it pro bono. Lawson pointed out that there are certain people in life who are just so awful that taking on a case for free is a good thing. He taught me well. Even suggested that I can take a certain pride in my name. Misery can bring misery into the lives of others, after all. He could relate to disliking his name- his parents saddled him with the name Hugo, after all, so that’s why he preferred being called by a surname.

Lawson was a good teacher. He’s still out there, still taking contracts like I am, still holding to high standards in the assassin game. I’ve developed a rep in my shadowy world in the years since Lawson taught me the tools of the trade. I’m good at what I do. A professional with a strict eye on being methodical and getting it done right. And it’s paid off- my wealth has grown and grown time and time again. Assassination pays in dividends. You can be offing a wealthy stock investor in London one day, and sipping a margarita on a beach in the Caribbean the next day.

The Ice Queen, I’m called by my colleagues in the world of professional hitmen. A dark and murky kind of world where you keep your secrets close to the vest. But they call me that with respect. I can live with that.

Call me Frost. Just don’t call me Misery. Trust me, sweetheart... you don’t want to irritate me.

Nineteen Years And 500 Yards

“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it.” ~ Red

“The funny thing is, on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.” ~ Andy

“I believe in two things: discipline and the Bible. Here you’ll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord. Your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank.” ~ Warden Norton

“Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” ~ Red

“Couldn’t play somethin’ good, huh? Hank Williams?” ~ Heywood 

“They broke the door down before I could take requests.” ~ Andy

“You’re that smart banker who killed his wife, aren’t you? Why should I believe a smart banker like you? So I can end up in here with you?” ~ Captain Hadley

“There’s not a day goes by I don’t feel regret. Not because I’m in here, because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone, and this old man is all that’s left.” ~ Red

“Remember, Red, hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” ~ Andy

In 1994, director Frank Darabont released The Shawshank Redemption, a prison drama based on a novella by horror master novelist Stephen King. It is a character study featuring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, and deals with themes like hope, the meaning of freedom, the depth of despair, and the power of friendship. The story, which for once was not a horror tale by King, nonetheless follows the writer’s tendency to set his narratives in Maine. The film opened to great acclaim, getting numerous Oscar nominations, but was a box office disappointment. However, in the years that followed, home video and cable viewings fuelled a second life for the film, which has become a beloved film among audiences, regardless of its dark subject matter.

In 1947, Maine banker Andy Dufresne (Robbins) is convicted of the murders of his wife and her lover and sent to Shawshank State Penitentiary for life. He seems certain to break- some of the convicts place bets on which of the newcomers will be the first to fall apart on their first night behind bars- and yet he doesn’t. Andy makes friends with other convicts, chiefly Ellis “Red” Redding (Freeman), who knows how to get just about anything smuggled into the prison. Heywood (William Sadler) and Brooks Hatlen (James Whitmore) are two more convicts that Andy befriends. Life in prison is hard, and the brutality is not glossed over- Andy is initially the target of a gang, while the warden (Bob Gunton) and the chief of the guards (Clancy Brown) are both corrupt and ruthless. And yet in his own way, Andy’s spirit and integrity aren’t imprisoned, and he comes into his own.

Hope is a strong theme throughout the film- in a status where one is surrounded by the hopelessness of spending life in prison, particularly wrongfully, the story strongly plays off the concept of maintaining a person’s sense of self worth. Where Red is cynical about the idea of hope, Andy believes that hope is something that can’t be caged up, that can’t be taken away, and that theme strongly underlies the entire film. Even in moments of seeming despair- Andy being at a low point nineteen years into his sentence and speaking of a dream of a Mexican coastal town- that sense of hope prevails. As harsh as a film about life in prison is, the story is uplifting, with an ending that just brings out a smile every time.

 Darabont secured the film rights from King for the story, and wrote the screenplay, investing the themes of the story into the screenplay. It turns out that Rob Reiner, who had adapted a King story into Stand By Me, had wanted to helm the tale, with Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford in the leading roles. I could see Ford as Red, but Cruise as Andy Dufresne would have been a disaster. Darabont filmed a good part of the movie in an Ohio reformatory, which does a good job of conveying the bleakness of prison life. Other sequences were done on soundstages, but the locations and staging all come across as authentic in detail, evoking a twenty year period in the mid-twentieth century, as well as the harshness of life in prison. This extends to things like props, clothing, and vehicles, all of which are of the time, and particularly to the movie pin-up girl posters which end up providing such a vital plot element as the story unfolds. Darabont also chose the ideal composer for the score; Thomas Newman’s music for the film has taken on a life of its own, infused with themes that are strongly character based, filled with humour, and celebrating freedom.

The cast is one of the best you can think of assembled for any film. James Whitmore, the late character actor, gets the part of the elderly convict Brooks, a prison librarian who’s spent most of his life behind bars. There’s wisdom and frankness in the character, a friendly sort of man who’s become institutionalized behind bars and doesn’t know what to do with himself on the outside. Gil Bellows appears as a young convict, Tommy Williams, a brash talker who joins Andy and Red’s circle of friends and as it turns out has prior prison time and information that proves vital to a great turning point in the story. As cocky as the character comes across, there’s an underlying sense of principle in him too. William Sadler has a terrific role as Heywood, a convict who tends to be rougher around the edges than Brooks, but also an inherently decent man.

Clancy Brown, who’s spent a good part of his life as an actor playing villains, gets a good role as the nasty Captain Byron Hadley, the chief of the guards at Shawshank. He’s brutal, sadistic, corrupt, and sees nothing wrong with administering beatings (or worse) to convicts to keep them in line. The character’s a bully and a thug, a thoroughly unpleasant person. While he’s entirely unsympathetic, Hadley’s a memorable character for the actor to play. Bob Gunton is another character actor who’s spent his career playing various roles, including strict and authoritarian people, which certainly factors into his role as Warden Samuel Norton. The character presents himself as a pious, devout Christian, but the man is deeply corrupt, ruthless and vindictive. He’s a sanctimonious, self righteous hypocrite, and one of the great joys of the film is watching things go completely upside down for him.

Morgan Freeman plays the pivotal role of the convict Red, who narrates the film and gives the audience their point of view character. It’s the perfect casting for the role (aside from Ford, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford were also considered for the character’s casting). Freeman gives the character authority, warmth, and authenticity. Red has a richly developed voice, a bit of cynicism in his outlook on life, and a whole lot of depth. Because he serves as our point of view, his worry at a critical point in the film- he believes Andy to be suicidal- becomes our worry as well, and Freeman plays into that, bringing the character so strongly to life.

Tim Robbins is perfect as Andy, a laconic man through much of the film. He doesn’t know if he’s a murderer- the night of the murders he got himself so drunk he doesn’t remember- but he comes across as what he is- an inherently decent person who doesn’t lose hope or his own integrity as he faces life behind bars. His defiance is expressed more in a subdued way. There are moments that he seems to be drifting into despair, and it’s a wise thing as it turns out to not really see Andy’s inner thoughts- the payoff late in the film is all the better this way. He expresses his thoughts in his behaviour and his words, and so we get to know him more at a distance than we do with Red. When we see that payoff play out, in an ingeniously crafted way, it becomes all the more satisfying. Convict or not, Andy is a man whose spirit can’t be caged, and Robbins brings that throughout his performance.

While The Shawshank Redemption brings across life in prison in its brutality, with the language and violence one would expect of that, it is ultimately an uplifting, tremendously satisfying film about the power of the human spirit, the strength of friendship, and hope in humanity. It’s become a favourite of viewers after the fact, and has taken on a reputation as one of the best films ever made.

Which would have never happened had Tom Cruise been cast as Andy Dufresne, so we really dodged a bullet.

Pet Peeves And Random Thoughts

Every once in awhile, a thought or a complaint runs through your head that you might like to blog about, but it really doesn't seem to be enough for a blog in and of itself. Hence it does seem to be a good idea to gather these ideas all together into... well, a pet peeves and random thoughts blog. And so without further ado, let us begin...

There's a certain shop in a certain downtown mall (oh, why bother being evasive? It's the BOSE electronics shop in the Rideau Centre) that I've passed many times. It sells electronics, home entertainment systems, you know the type. The largest screen in there is a big one, and every single time I pass that store, the Adele concert film is on. I've heard some of her music, and it's okay... but playing it over and over again must drive the store employees bonkers. And I feel like I've seen the whole concert already.

Erotica is an eyebrow raising genre, but what do you suppose would happen if a big name author who wasn't known for writing it gave it a go? Dan Brown, the fellow behind The Da Vinci Code, has written sex into his previous books, but would it end up having his main character describing the inner secrets of the Kama Sutra while in the middle of reaching their... happy place?

By the same token, military-techno nut Tom Clancy (back before the quality of his writing took a fast plunge off a cliff) is best known for his spy thrillers, not to mention stopping the narrative so that he can explain precisely where a piece of military hardware is built, how it's made, and so on and so on, frustrating the reader to no end. He's written sex into his books from time to time (and comes off as something of an adolescent when doing so).  Would he end up writing a solo erotica scene where the heroine decides to pleasure herself with a vibrator, and would he feel compelled to describe exactly where it's made, the amount of time it takes for one vibrator to be made, the shift worker putting it together, and what said shift worker thinks about their job and the moral implications of putting such devices together? By this point, of course, the readers would have tossed the book away out of frustration and disgust at how the author isn't getting anywhere...

And while we're at it... would Stephen King, writing erotica, be unable to get away from his horror influences? Would such a passage come across in this way?  She groaned as he plunged into her, thrusting deep. Clarisa dug her fingernails deep into his back, arching her own back in pleasure, driving her body against him. He cried out, but not in the way she expected. The scratches she cast on his back had drawn blood... and fire erupted out of the scratches. He screamed and howled as his body set ablaze...

See what I mean?

We need to round up all of the Elvis impersonators in the world and have them dropped onto a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific so that we won't have to come across a guy with bad sideburns singing Love Me Tender in a really cheesy jumpsuit on the street. Who's with me?

I want to go back in time, find the person who coined the phrase baby bump, and smack them. Then go further back in time and prevent them from being conceived, thus preventing that idiotic term from ever being coined.

Is the sole purpose of a high ranking officer in a Dirty Harry film merely to look like he's about to blow a gasket every time Harry gets to sending a crook on the fast track to hell?

Just what does Ryan Seacrest actually do? And how much blood did he have to shed to become famous? And to whom did he sacrifice said blood to?

The emotional depth of the Kardashian family reaches an astonishing one eighth of a millimetre total.

Is Kathie Lee Gifford secretly a Looney Tunes character (Lady Drinksalot)? Would calling her that be an insult to Bugs, Daffy, and the rest? Would they drop an anvil on me? Hit me with an Acme sledgehammer? Launch me out of an Acme cannon?

What is it about public libraries that draw in morons who like having conversations that others can hear over the music they're listening to on their headphones? Were these morons raised by Neanderthals? No... Neanderthals had better manners.

Memo to Hollywood: please stop adapting Nicholas Sparks novels. And just for good measure, don't let Michael Bay direct another movie ever again.

Since Stephanie Meyer has decided against continuing the infernal Twilight franchise, will she start up another series called The Noon Saga, about immortal succubi? And then would that be followed by  The Afternoon Tea Saga, which would, of course, be about immortal teenaged afficionados of Earl Grey tea?

Often we see videos for sale in a convenience store that we've never heard of, featuring actors who are long past their prime. One of these days I'm expecting to see a film starring Steven Seagal, Vanilla Ice, Pia Zadora, and Carrot Top called Dear God, Buy This Movie, The Loan Sharks Are Coming To Break Our Legs.

Someone needs to muzzle David Foster. Celine Dion wasn't nearly so obnoxious in her early years, then she met Foster, and all of a sudden, every song had to be over the top, over done, and breaking wine glasses. I swear, the man has never heard of being subtle and understated. In his world, a song must have a thousand voice choir and a thousand-violin orchestra accompanying the lead singer, and must outdo every song before it...

Speaking of Celine, I'd like to thank the city of Las Vegas for taking her off our hands. I'd also like to apologize on behalf of all Canadians for unleashing her on the world. Same goes for Justin Bieber. And Nickleback. And Drake. For the record, we do have good musicians.

 If Wizard of Oz were remade with members of the Bush administration, would it work out to the following casting? Dubya as the Scarecrow (no brain), Laura Bush as Dorothy, Dick Cheney as the Tin Man (no heart), Michael "Brownie" Brown as the Cowardly Lion (no spine), Karl Rove as the Wizard, and Hillary Clinton as the Wicked Witch of the West?

Why does Jason Statham insist on playing pretty much the same character over and over and over again?

Finally.... why is a raven like a writing desk?