Short Story: His Best Friend's Girl

The underpass which connected the sidewalk next to the big office block and the back way that lead into the shops had became such a common meeting point that the gang of four knew it only as "The Underpass". The Underpass was like any other, the walls covered in obscene graffiti and the floor in used packets and wrappers. The meeting time for that Saturday was 12 noon; the first one there was Violet - the only one on time. She stood looking at her phone and trying not to make eye contact with the people walking past.

Jack had been in the proximity of The Underpass since before 12, but he spent a long time just walking around and wasting time. He knew Violet would be the only one there and didn't want to wait with her. He liked her in a way; she had long smooth hair and big roaming eyes - both brown. She seemed nice enough, but their friends were always saying they should date. He didn't really want to go out with her, and he had eyes for someone else; although really it was the chance she might say "no" that made him too scared to just ask.

Jack arrived at The Underpass at exactly 12:14. He thought that was ample time for the others to arrive but he still ended up standing and talking to Violet. They talked about people at school and funny stories they'd heard. Eventually a blurry silhouette of Tom came into view. A sociable guy with bright ginger hair who'd been Jack's best friend for years. Tom's girlfriend was wrapped around his side, swinging around and using his arm as a gravitational pull. Her name was Lola. She had bright brown hair that bounced around as much as she did. She gave the impression of always smiling even when her face was blank. Thusly she seemed happy with someone's presence even when those who knew her better knew she wasn't. Jack was in love.

"Sup, broskeees" Tom said in that exaggerated voice of his. "We've been waiting here ages" Violet said as if they weren't always late. "Hey, we should go to Cafe Nero, I've got loads of coupons" said Lola. As they made their way they split into two groups - the girls and the boys - occasionally someone asking questions that broke this divide. The girls talked about a trip they were going on next month and the boys talked and music and what nerds they were and everything that spiraled from that. It wouldn't take long - definitely wouldn't take any expert - to work out how, after their initial meeting as children, Jack and Tom's relationship had turned out: after the brief time they spent where they shared in all the same likes and dislikes, Jack started to like video games and the occasional piece of literature and rarely liked going out, yet was dragged to every social engagement Tom, who had found more solace in hanging out with groups of girls and frequently updating social networking sites, went to. They were that paradox of childhood-into-teenage friendships: if they met now they probably wouldn't be friends, would probably hate each other, but as it stood it was their differences that seemed to keep them together.

The day was a pretty normal Saturday for the gang of four. First they talked while they powered up on caffeine, then went around an assortment of very niche-targeted stores, browsing but not buying anything, and eventually getting pizza before being at the cinema for six, which they'd planned for weeks. Three of them seemed to be having a good time, but Jack's day could be described as mixed at best. He started the day on a roll, he felt, making jokes and announcing anything he wanted to say loudly to the group. But every time he spoke his mind instantly went to Lola. Did she find him funny? Would he have even spoke to her if it wasn't for Tom? He tried to strike up conversations with her, make her laugh and engage, but he didn't know what he was hoping this would lead to. Nothing could happen. By the time they got to the cinemas he felt drained, he was hardly speaking at all now. He was glad to get to hide in the darkness of the cinemas.

The movie was the sort of cheap horror schlock that both boys had always enjoyed seeing, girls or not. They sat in the cinema, which was moderately busy. From right to left they were sat: Tom, Lola, Jack, Violet. The last two were sharing a popcorn and the other two had seen this as some sort of romance blossoming between the two, they'd even cracked some jokes about it. But sitting there, all Jack could think about was Lola. He didn't even dare glance over at her, right next to him, in the fear that it would all be written in his eyes, just how crazy about her he was.

On the screen the killer, a fairly two dimensional lunatic whose unique physical attribute was a splurge of face paint, put an axe through a teenage girl's head. For a few seconds there was mass activity among the audience. Jack knew that Lola grabbed Tom's hand tight when it happened; he either saw it out of the corner of his eye or simple sensed it. He felt hurt by this, as if she was somehow cheating on him. But thinking this only made him feel bad, and feel worried that he'd become so attached to her that maybe his brain considered the two of them going out even if he knew they weren't.

While they sat there, the lights on the screen all but a blur to Jack, he slipped into fantasy. It was one of those half-dream half-fantasies, in which your still conscious but you only have limited control over what's going through your mind. Jack couldn't tell if what he was thinking was direct thought or was his brain just running off. He imagined Lola getting up to go to the toilets, even whispering this lie to Tom, then getting up and, with the slightest of facial movements, signaling to Jack. He would also excuse himself to the toilets around a minute later, somehow Tom not being perplexed by this at all (his imagination afforded Jack this one suspension of disbelief). He would get outside to be hit by panic that she wasn't there. Would she be waiting for him in the guys or should he risk it in the girls? Then the door of the guys would slide open and she would be there, dragging him in by the belt - itself quickly removed once they got into one of the cubicles. They'd start kissing and making out while they chucked their clothing off. Then she'd fling her arms around him and they'd start screwing. They'd both be groaning so loud that people would walk into the toilets and then leave immediately. Then she'd give out a gasp, and she'd lay her head down straight into Jack's chest. Buckets of sweat would be pouring off the both of them. He figured this was as good a guess as any for what sex is like. What was strange was that at the end of every one of these fantasies, Tom always walked in on them. The movie came to an end.

The sun was fading by the time they came out. They went straight to the bus stop, finishing off the popcorn and making funny references to the movie. At the bus stop they spotted a school friend of theres, Max. He had his hair spiked up, like always, and he was wearing a sleeveless shirt. These were the best ways he had managed to personify his live-everyday-like-it's-your-last attitude into his physical appearance. He invited them all to a party at his house that he and all the people he was with - complete unknowns to the gang of four - were headed to now. They all agreed to go. Jack and Lola made phone calls home to see if this would be alright; Tom and Violet didn't bother.

By ten the party was well under way. People were fairly drunk and lounging around. Jack was most drunk of the four, sitting on a couch with Violet and one of her friends, a funny girl, Jack thought, called Abbey. Jack was feeling pretty content just to sit with them, the beer making the occasional moments of nothing to say not matter. Tom and Lola sat on the opposite side of the room, on two chairs near a table of food. Jack didn't mind at all until they started kissing. Jack felt frozen, like everyone was looking at him and reading his mind even though he knew no one was. They seemed to kiss for a really long time. Eventually they stopped and Tom got up to go talk to someone in a different room. He was a lot more drunk than Lola was.

Jack looked at her, sitting there alone. He started hoping that Violet would start getting off with him and that he'd look over after and see Lola trying to hide how upset she was about it. He doubted even one of those things would happen and very much doubted that if it did happen it would lead to the other. By this point Jack felt restless. Such constant thoughts of this girl and nothing else had turned his head inside out; his mind now registered Lola as being important to the universe as a whole. Maybe his life wouldn't be able to continue if he didn't get her. His subconscious secretly feared that all the growth hormones in his body would shut down and he'd be trapped in the body of a 17 year old boy forever. He'd still be in this body when Lola was 80 years old, and he'd still be chasing after her. He couldn't have her yet he feared his feelings would never pass. He stood up and marched across the room to the seat that Tom had been sitting in next to Lola. He looked at her face. He was drunk and probably wobbling into too-close proximity to her face. Why had he sat down? He had nothing to say to her. He just looked at her and went in for a kiss.

Bookshelf: Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs by Jim DeRogatis

"Biographies are, for some idiosyncratic reason, practically my favorite reading matter. I've read 'em all, from Malcolm X, to Tennessee Williams, to Joan Baez" - Lester Bangs, 1976

Jim DeRogatis opens his Lester Bangs biography with "Sometimes Lester was full of shit". The same sort of jolt reaction Lester himself used to lure readers in with. Bangs' influence on DeRogatis' writing is clear from the off - he spins his words with the same passion. And with the same feeling of disregard for the rules in favor of the reader.

Of course one might ask what worth is in a biography of Bangs who spent his career in rock journalism. The last few years stuck in it and trying to get away. Bangs' never really started on his novel - despite the title All My Friends Are Hermits becoming synonymous with his unfulfilled ambitions - beyond scribbles and notes. If you read a musician or filmmakers biography for the stories behind the art, then what is to be made of the man who comments on the art?

Bangs' story is an interesting one. Very depressing, but essential if you've already been through the two published Bangs collections. DeRogatis follows Lester's life from outcasted kid in the nowhere town of El Cajon to his time as a published writer - 1969 to 1982 - in which he built up a body of work that frequently gets him called the greatest rock critic of all time.

DeRogatis, although a lively author, does little analysis of Lester. Instead he lays all of Lester out, allowing you to scan for what it is you want. I imagine if you've bought this book you've probably romantasized Bangs to the point of hyperbolic hysterics, which is exactly what the man was doing to himself. If so, you'll end up scanning for some explanation to Lester, what allowed him to write with such life and passion and react to stories so quickly. And why he could scan the music landscape and come up with answers while everyone else was so blind they had no choice but to buy into the hype. Of course there's no explanation. It's worth the ride though, demythologizing his persona; giving backstory to the more personal pieces Lester wrote.

The actual influences that DeRogatis brings up aren't particularly unique for a writer of the 70s. Lester loved the beats, devouring the twisted imagery of William S Burroughs but focusing his writing around the "spontaneous prose" of Jack Kerouac. In the early 70s Lester managed to get his writing, a beat style novel titled Drug Punk, to another beat - Allen Ginsberg - who liked his writing and said it was full of "Salingerisms". Another way of complementing Bangs' conversational style, very unique for the times and pre-dating the personal blogging style it so closely resembles by a few decades.

I won't lie: there was a shred of hope that the journey to Lester's talent would be written out here in a simple step by step guide. DeRogatis makes it clear I'm not the only one: people would travel to the offices of Creem - the first real output that seemed suited to the Bangsian style - and quiz Lester on how to write like him. DeRogatis himself was a young disciple, and while still in high school he hunted Lester down for an interview in 1982 - excerpts of which appearing throughout. None of the people wanting to be Lester, not even those who spoke to him and got his advice, seemed able to mimic his style. Lester's first advice was usually not to copy him.

Lester's life story is an explanation, though. He was a Jehovah's Witness as a child, which he hated; and after that how could he give blind faith to anything again? His father died in a fire when he was just a young boy; how could he go back to life day in day out and not question it? Let It Blurt makes the case that the term "writer" isn't at all too broad; not when something like "rock journalist" is so restrictive. At least to Bangs. If you read this book then you'll find out a lot about Lester, a lot of it depressing, some of it inspiring. But just reading his work will let you know a person as well. A persona maybe, but a one that lived and breathed nonetheless. He wrote about everything, about feminism and racism and solipsism and relationships and culture at large. It's all under the banner of rock journalism but maybe that just makes it even more genius. That's why he's loved by so many: because to read him is to see a new view of the world from someone else's eyes.

True Detective: Season One

True Detective is the first show of the apparent TV "golden age" that I've watched without ever feeling obliged to watch. Even despite the critical acclaim I didn't feel like the show was making the case for a medium, more that it was having fun with it. And what fun it is. In an unheard of production move all nine episodes are directed by Cary Funkunaga, giving an auteurist branding to the show. The story is stand alone - the already confirmed season two apparently replacing the detectives and moving onto a new case.

The story follows two detectives in the deep aired south: Woody Harrelson as Marty and Matthew McConaughey as Rust. Of course their personal lives take up as much space as the case, and of course they don't really get along. The case here is a series of killings, mostly of young girls. Marty seems to have the role of family man sorted: wife and two kids. Yet he cheats on his wife, isn't dad of the year and sometimes abuses the power that being a detective gives. But he also seems well intentioned and his flaws are realistic. Plus he's played by Woody Harrelson so we're inclined to like him. Rust is a nihilist who's found a better output for his depressing world view in solving crimes than poetry blogging. Like Marty he's well intentioned but flawed. He fights hallucinations while on the case, along with bouts of alcoholism and drug abuse. The two obviously grind off of each other like old cranky gears, but the chemistry of Harrelson and McConaughey make it good fun to watch.

As the show starts we're told the pair hasn't talked in years. In the present day of 2012 the two detectives are in the process of giving interviews to police, which works as narration for their first cases together in 1995 and their last together in 2004. The show dips in and out of the three time periods freely. For obvious reasons this structure works perfectly for a mystery story; the writers revealing and withholding information as they see fit. I'll admit to getting lost within the case. But the details aren't really important, just where they lead to.

Where do they lead in True Detective? After the first few episodes - solid if what is more or less expected from high quality detective fiction - the show really hits its groove. The huge time jumps, creating gaps in the story's timeline that go on for years, could have made the show feel too light footed - not grounding the story enough - yet the show jumps in head first. What we get is all the most interesting elements from a single case, leading to a splurge of violence and moral dilemma.

I guess there is a message here, or a general pondering, of what makes a "true" detective. The writers are smart enough to let this hang in the background, though. You should know from the off that such a thing won't involve playing by the rules and making detailed police reports that make deadlines. Neither detective escapes the show with hands clean. Yet that's the point: the show's point is that justice is about catching the bad guys, and not how you catch them. It's obviously up for disagreement, but that creates debate nonetheless (always a good thing). But there's one thing that makes this show a cut above. I could praise a lot of things here: there's the cast, for which Harrelson is expectedly likable and McConaughey expectedly intense (I'd say it's his best although I'm yet to see the role for which he recently won an oscar), not to mention one of the best showcases of Michelle Monaghan, playing Marty's wife. I could praise the production design, which has the heat of the southern country constantly weighing down on the hunt for the killer. I could even single out the show's tracking shot - 6 minutes long - which I'm sure people'll be bigging up for a while. But really the best thing about True Detective is that it's a thriller about something. McConaughey's struggle with the universe hangs over everything. In the background of the case is his constant staring into the endless, dark void. It's a crime show about much more than two detectives trying to solve a case. One of the best show's I've ever seen.

*The following is mostly a reworking of the my last post, based on feedback I've received. Hence the similarities.

Poem: For Someone I Love

She sends me to my destination
zooming past unknown constellations
into the wilderness of the night
I happily go without a fight

She locks me in and throws away they key
but when she does I'm left thinking "why me?"
she doesn't know what she does to me inside
the wires connecting my brain already fried

Her love is like the aftershock of a monsoon
swept away so far I wake up on the moon
a million love letters wouldn't be enough
she'd still tear them up and treat me rough

She has the moves, my tiny dancer
she says I'm a joker and a prancer
and she tells me I make her laugh
then walks away from my door and down the path

And when I sleep I sometimes scream
because I've found she isn't in my dream
and I start to wonder if she lied
it makes me so scared I run and hide

But then the next day I see her face
and it's like going from the starting block to winning the race
and outside it might be storms and rain
but it doesn't matter because inside she's what's keeping me sane

Caustic Love by Paolo Nutini

Caustic Love is being sold as some old time sexy r'n'b to get down and jiggy to. I listened thinking Paolo Nutini was the new electric warrior only to be disappointed that there was no baby making music to be found. At least no good baby making music. The best tracks here are all long and melodramatic, which may lead you to the conclusion that Nutini is having a bit of an image problem.

This is nothing new for Nutini: his last album release was in 2009 and I doubt even back then I was the only one a little confused at what the guy was going for. He had the tuneful sense of fun of a pop star only stuck in the body of a folk singer playing rock and ska songs. His best songs were always enthusiastic pop but even that didn't seem worthy of his talents. Neither does the r'n'b on Caustic Love: album opener Scream (Funk My Life Up) feels like a build up that doesn't go anywhere. It's certainly smooth but lacks the lightning precision of the guitars that backed up Marc Bolan.

As I said: it's the longer more ambitious numbers that are the highlights here. I originally mistook these for lil Pauly Nutini going all pompous on us - like 6 minute Iron Sky, a melodramatic rocker which opens (not un-modestly) with the line "We are proud individuals living on the city/But the flames couldn’t go much higher" and even drives its revolution-on-the-mind message with a mid-song recording of a British war time broadcaster. It certainly wasn't what I went in wanting from the album but after a few listens it became clear Nutini's real talent lies in these bigger numbers. The slowly building guitars and fairly complex arrangements are given a chance to breath in these songs.

On the emotional highlight of the album One Day, an old time soul number, Nutini stretches his vocal cords out more than anywhere else. He shrieks lines like "I'll be gone in a while" with enough power that you almost believe it. Later, on playful but forgettable track Numpty, he sings "now that I'm young", aging backwards just one sign of the Hendrix-esque otherworldliness that hangs over the album. Songs spiral onto the speakers as if from some sort of chemical void.

Nutini sums up his own album at one point with the line "there's more to life than sex appeal/but sometimes it takes an angel to remember it". The Nutini on Caustic Love seems more masculine; compared to on his previous albums this Nutini seems older by a few trips around the world and at least one life re-evaluating heartbreak. Nutini really has found something here: a world-weary purpose in the music. If only he'd made the whole album without the sex appeal.

Diary: Awakening

The shelf in my living room was like a gateway into the world I missed before I was born. It housed my parent's collection of VHS tapes, albums and video-games (all Playstation One). At the time we're talking about the shelf was taller than me.

Obviously most of the stuff on this shelf was out of my reach. I wasn't old enough to watch many of the movies so instead, during morning walks to school, I'd ask my mum to explain the plots to me of movies I'd seen on the shelf. I knew the plot the entire Scream trilogy long before I came to watch them. By the time I was old enough to view most of them they had been chucked out in favor of the DVD revolution, while on the hand the video games fed an unhealthy childhood obsession. Neither gave me anything I could call my own.

No, it was the music that spoke to me. I can't recall the first time I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit, it was one of those songs that's always been in my music vocabulary due to its constant rotation on music channels during the early naughties, along with the likes of Hey Ya by Outkast and Bad Day by Daniel Powter.

Teen Spirit was my favorite song at the time, so I checked out my family computer for more Nirvana. The only track my dad had downloaded was Lithium. It freaked me out. "Foreboding" doesn't begin to describe the opening riff of Lithium, quickly building to something mischievously evil. Like a troll from a children's cartoon pulling out a sub-machine gun. MTV hadn't prepared me. And the lyrics too, like the fractured scrawl recovered of a disgruntled teenager written days before going on a high school massacre. I turned off the computer telling myself the track was terrible. Put it out of my mind for days. But eventually I had to go back: I listened again and it turned out to be just as great as my mind has been trying to persuade me it was.

After that I went to the shelf and found what I had hoped would be there: a box with a completely black cover other than silver lettering spelling out the word "Nirvana". I didn't love everything on their greatest hits straight away. About A Girl sounded too sappy for what I was looking for at the time. And Where Did You Sleep Last Night? was what I believed to be country or folk, sounding like an older, wiser version of the soul who had given me Teen Spirit. It would take time for me to appreciate the broader sides of Nirvana. But the disk did have what I was looking for. In Spades. I wanted to hear Cobain's agonized scream towards the end of trailer trash nightmare Silver, and hear his quiet musings burst into feedback in You Know You're Right.

All in that moment I knew who I was. The world outside was the same but finally I saw it different. There was a part of it for me afterall. Those poor fuckers at school, clamoring over Steps and Nickelback, I finally knew something that none of them did.

I took guitar lessons in my middle school. They were held in a tiny store room at the very back of the school. My teacher asked me what sort of music I wanted to play and I said something like Nirvana. None of my friends there motioned that they'd heard what I'd said. They didn't know what I was talking about. But this girl - smeared in make-up and black hair dye, the furthest a person could go for a rebellious look while at a school that enforced a uniform - knew what I was talking about. She told me she liked them too, not that she needed to, it was written in her makeup and the fact she was probably the only non-male person who had ever entered this neglected, spider-web covered area of the school. She got it.

One night I was trying to play Teen Spirit on my family computer to no avail. I turned the sound dial right up but nothing. Then I saw the plug wasn't fully in and (without noticing what I'd forgot to do) plugged in. The speakers fucking exploded. A few doors down must have heard Kurt Cobain's guitar. It woke my mother up in the next room. The "visual" of the music on the screen turned into an indestructible block of sound while I scrambled for the volume. It was so loud it hurt my ears, blasted them into tinnitus. But what the fuck did I care? It sounded beautiful. That ugly mass of distorted noise was what I knew should be on the radios. It was the frequency my brain had been waiting for. 

Supermodel by Foster The People

Marc Foster dubbed Supermodel a concept album (a queasy-at-best term when applied here) about "the ugly side of capitalism", a strange claim when you see that the only lyrics here dealing remotely with the horror of capitalism aren't even here at all but are on pre-order bonus track Tabloid Super Junky. Foster's (much more modest) claim that Supermodel is like "a talk with god" is a more believable claim, making the case that this album is at least a spiritual escape from money and advertising.

The most telling tracks are 30 second throwaway The Angelic Welcome of Mr Jones which is simply the whole band doing scream-to-the-mountain style religious cheering, and the slightly better "Nevermind", which recalls a less aggressive version of the guitar riffs of Radiohead's Airbag. Both share an eerily foreboding mundanity. Radiohead's song was about a car crash survivor who becomes a born again Christian, and Foster treads on similar messianic territory in Goats in Trees, singing "Well I was caught inside the wreck never found my way out/I was filled with indifference/The animals they were getting tired/So I sang them a song". It's an escape from consumerism through spirituality.

Before Supermodel I knew Foster The People only from their synthesizer heavy stoner lay-about hit Pumped Up Kicks, and despite the big ambitions the best moments of Supermodel are still the synthesizer heavy pop. This time the band add guitars to their repertoire, sounding like the understated indie-pop of current bands like Vampire Weekend put through a blender with the chrome finish of early MGMT productions. The worst moments on the album are when the instruments take over: the guitar solos on Nevermind give the band time to meander and bore, while final track Fire Escape goes for the slow mournful album-closer despite Supermodel not giving any hints of being this sort of album at all. Foster's cries of "save yourself/save yourself" feel misplaced after ten tracks of pure enthusiasm.

The simpler arrangements make for the most fun. Opener Are You What You Want To Be? combines the sort of "na na na" choruses with the African music-inspired chants and drum beats that pop up in all the best tracks. Foster's best moments as songwriter come out when he's dealing with heavy themes: if you think he has any big answers your very obviously barking up the wrong oak, but throwaway lines become awash with emotion when isolated. On the best track, Best Friend, Foster sings "When your best friend's all strung out/You'll do everything you can/Cause you're never gonna let it get 'em down". On Pseudologia Fantastica, a vast and adventurous (if a little overlong) track, Foster throws out gems like "I promised I would rid the world of feral animals" and "Another weekend massacre of opinion".

The album feels like a dud because of its own ambitions. It's the best case yet for Foster The People being a good band, being great with tight arrangements and addictive pop, and with Foster having the skills to be an impressively poetic lyricist. Yet the band strives for too much, Foster himself gets bogged down by big questions, and the album itself, considering its strong points, offers too little pop and too much darkness.

Do The Right Thing (1989)

In a moment of directional quirk half way through Do The Right Thing, Spike Lee has the camera impose quickly towards many of his characters, one at a time, while they rant out all of the racial slurs that have been building up inside of them. It's this sort of quirk that gives us the film's opening dance number - scored to Public Enemy - and even a stylized sexy scene, one of the few non-awkward ones I can think of.

It's fun and playful stuff like this - along with the film's floaty camera and hip hop soundtrack - that oppose what you might expect from a "hard hitting" movie on race relations in America. It thankfully lacks the very blatant view associated with Lee's celebrity persona and lacks the aggressive edge, and focus on violence, of the "black cinema" wave that followed Right Thing - headlined by Boyz n the Hood and Menace II Society in the early 90s.

Right Thing takes place on the hottest day of the year in a mostly black neighbourhood in Brooklyn. No single narrative - just a relatively large cast brought together Altman style by a big event near the film's end. If there is a main character it's Mookie (played by Lee himself), a pizza delivery boy for Italian American joint Sal's Pizza. Danny Aiello gives the best performance as Sal, proud of his homegrown family business and proud to be part of the neighbourhood. He runs the place with two sons, the older of the two - Pino (John Turturro) - hates the neighbourhood and is openly racist. It's from here that many tensions start to arise.

There would be no point in going through the whole cast. The actors do well and Lee's script creates a cesspool of conflicting forces clanging against each other. Among the most interesting: Radio Raheem, a juggernaut of a man hauling around around an anger-inducingly loud radio and who does a great rendition of Robert Mitchum's famous good vs evil hands scene, here with golden brass knuckles. There's a jittery man, walking the streets and trying to spread the message of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X despite a stutter. A good hearted old drunkard named Da Mayor who utters the film's title line. And DJ Love Daddy (a pre-Fiction Samuel L Jackson) to tie everything up.

The immense heat is an easy metaphor: that Lee isn't showing racism brought on by revenge or personal reasons. Pino isn't on a vendetta. The bigotry in the air here is the stuff just beneath the surface - the stuff Lee seems to believe is everywhere (whether you believe it's there or not is a different matter). And all brought out by something as primal as high temperatures.

Francis Ford Coppola's influence looms large over Lee, nowhere more clear than in Right Thing. In the 70s, while most directors were taking influence from the careful arrangements and strive for artful shots of the French New Wave, Coppola was looking back to the the Hollywood studio golden years in the 40s and 50s. Coppola copied and Lee took notes. It's why every shot of Right Thing has a grandness to it. The mise en scene is obvious, like in a scene where Sal sits with palm to face in disappointment while outside the window behind him his son gets into a much unneeded argument. It's a style that offers a lot less in analytical possibilities, but gives less the impression of a film being staged than a bold camera luckily walking in on important events. It's a style that works wonders for capturing the mesh of disgruntled thoughts one's mind turns into under sweltering heat.

The big question that hangs over the film is, in the end, does Mookie make the right choice? It's not yes or no. There's not a single issue raised here that's black and white. Lee has been called a racist by many, and very well may be one, but it would be impossible to make the case for that here. No radical, blindly fighting against racism that it turns into a form of racism itself, would show the scenes that Lee does. Of a gang of mostly blacks trashing up and destroying a store for reasons you probably feel are unjustified. There's conflict in almost every frame of this movie, but if we're talking about things solely from the view of race: there's a fairness to the film's unflinchingness.

My Writing Influences

I grew up not reading. You never hear that one when you ask for someone's influences. But that's me. Remember those reading circles in primary school? Everyone would sit in a circle and read from the same book. Reading aloud, but not loud enough to disturb others. I would skip sections whenever I thought no one was paying attention. I wrote far more than I ever read. Wanted to write novels and fan fictions but had no interest in reading them.

One day, after a parents' evening, my dad came out and, after the usual good and bad, said "your teacher says you always skip parts when your reading". I thought he would yell at me. "I used to do that too" he said instead. No one I know, bar my mother, reads anything. And she confines herself to murder mysteries and certified Dickensian classics. No one at my school reads. Not even, strangely, the people of my English Lit class beyond a few young adult fictions.

Why did I start? I don't believe it was to help with my own writing, those ambitions came later. As a fanatical - possibly worrying - film fan, I read Stephen King's The Shining under the guise that I was testing the old "the book is always better" argument, but gave up half way through (returning later). The first "serious" book I read was Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice. I wanted to start big so I went for "Pynchon-lite". It was great: it was my proof that there were fictions out there worth braving. 

My real "awakening" though, bought on a hunch that turned out great, was Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, a collection of writing by the late rock critic Lester Bangs. It was writing that didn't just translate back to me some far off world, as interesting as those can be, but spoke my language. Here was someone I felt connected to. Long dead but I had the words he wrote down. Since then I've made it a point to hunt down these souls. They don't explain the world, because they don't understand it themselves. But they're that rare breed who aren't afraid to admit it.

Below are the biggest influences on my writing:

Lester Bangs

 Relating things to music: Jimi Hendrix didn't just gain his reputation from making technical mastery look easy, he made it look like a natural part of him. Bangs' sentences don't feel like the ink of a typewriter but the stream of energy straight from someone's brain. He showed even something like a record review could speak about the world and the things that are important to the writer. I'll flick through the two books of his work sometimes and just read a random paragraph: it's exhilarating and daunting. 

David Foster Wallace

I've heard the best writers invite you into a new universe of sorts. A way to put words together that you'd never thought about before. And beyond that: a new perspective on life. It's fun just to roam around inside Wallace's head. At least the bits he made us privy to. And like all great writers, and great influences, he showed me that can do it your own way, your own weird way, and fuck it if you'll let it be any other way.

Kurt Cobain

Writers shouldn't just look to writers for influence. Cobain's an obvious choice for - the Nirvana fan I am. But as an influence? Cobain transmitted something on from the beats. That fragmented, non-linear style of writing. Wrapped in his own pornographic fantasy of a world view. I would write out lyrics as a kid - god knows who I expected to sing them - and all took more than a few pointers from Cobain.

Sheila O'Malley

I'll just put it simply: the best blogger I read. O'Malley's is the whole reason blogs were made in the first place. Writing about everything: books and films, important events, personal matters. I return to her site often, not just to read, but as a guidebook to good blogging. 

John Cheese

A writer I rarely check out now, but who couldn't slip past without a mention. Cheese is a writer for Cracked, the comedy website. It was an article he wrote about taking his girlfriend to the hospital which I remember as the first writing to truly make me laugh. Have me howling at my computer screen. He has many others like it that come highly recommended.

Jimmy Chen

A writer you'll probably have some problems tracking down. He was once a writer for alt-lit site HTMLGiant (the only of his output I'm familiar with) until an argument with some of the site's other writers caused him to leave. His is a stream of conscious style. The stuff he writes, crazy views on art, makes me want to look closer at everything I do.

Jim Jefferies

Frequently offensive Australian stand up comic. A line like "I've never enjoyed a single moment of existence" should never be uttered at a comedy show, yet Jeffries weaves something hilarious out of it. Like he does everything. His routines sound like drunk ramblings of someone down the pub, not routines. There's no set up then punchline, just funny stuff like in real life. And big points, essayist-style stuff, condensed down into low-brow stuff. Inspiring.

Jim Emmerson

I mentioned before I was a film fan. If you're one starting out then I recommend, before anything else, Emmerson's no-longer-updated blog Scanners. I spent a long time working my way through the archives of this one, finding everything the man had ever written. It's as insightful as a film school scholarship (or so I hear).

The Catcher in the Rye  

This isn't my favorite book, not even one of them actually. It did set something off in my brain though. The warmth of the writing, of another human being actually spilling this yarn onto the page. It was the most conversational thing I've ever read, and made me want to connect to my readers in the same way.

Post #1

Are people rating me on my opening line? Is it all downhill from here? Hopefully not. Are these the liner notes to my future writing success? I pledge allegiance to... sarcastic cultural witherings and painful vulnerability? And to daily blogging, as hard as that one's been in the past. And to made up words and purposefully difficult opinions. To blogger traffic bait and unneeded idolization of figures far out of reach from I. And to half-baked bedroom musings and well intentioned lies. Daydream Fantastica.