American History X

If you haven't seen American History X... see it. But if you don't want to hear spoilers, don't read.

I saw this movie soon after I got my driver's license and it was one of the most amazing and frigtening movies I'd ever seen. I have been talking about wanting to see it for about a month, so finally last night I aquired a copy of the DVD and gave it a watch. I know this movie has been out for a billion years and everyone and their mother has seen it, talked about it, etc, but I was impressed and dissapointed at the same time seeing it again.

First off, the good parts that STAYED good for me. I enjoyed the subject matter. I loved the character of Derek (Ed Norton). Derek Vinyard is the leader of a skinhead movement called DOC. I loved his acting, but only as adult Derek... I'll get to that. Derek wasn't made a hateful son of a bitch without having the intelligence and charisma that made him a born leader and an interesting character to watch. He's athletic, proud, cares about his family, well spoken, physically intimidating, and covered in tattoos of HATE. He's focused on what he believes in and does not waver... well... until he realizes he's the only one... again, I'll get back to this.

I loved how his little brother Danny carried himself throughout the film. It was a very real look and feel to a character we have all known at one point in our lives. He's the skinny punk kid smoking in the bathroom who isn't afraid of anyone and has an air of being a tough guy even though 99% of the people around him could pound him into a pulp. You don't fuck with him because you know the people he runs with. When you get to know him he's confident, but has a touch of confusion. Perfectly played from the first scene to the last. I've never seen a child who was traumatized and took on a belief system to cope with what he's seen played better than Danny in AMX.

The other family members really can be lumped together. The father is a racist fireman who's murdered putting out a fire at a drug dealer's house when Derek is a teenager. The mother is an open minded person who doesn't care about race or religion. She only cares about her family. She's sick with something... probably cancer. The younger sister is an outspoken liberal who gets straight As and wants to go to college. She's the exact opposite of Derek when it comes to her politcal beliefs. Of course, you have to throw in the baby sister who's only in the movie to make the brothers look loving. She brings nothing else to the movie. There really isn't anything else to say about the family but what role they play because they are all very one dimentional and if you understand where they are coming from, you know what they do.

Well, As I'm sure you know, the movie starts out with Derek knocking the bottom out of his skinhead girlfriend in bed and danny waking up to a couple black dudes breaking into Derek's truck (a gift from his murdered father). He alerts Derek who shoots them both and curb stomps the one that didn't die instantly. The cops show up, he does nothing to resist, smiles at Danny, who sees the whole thing, and gets locked up for 3 and a half years.

The way this movie works is everything that's a flashback is in black and white... the current stuff is color. The whole first scene is a flashback and the current events start with a jewish teacher going to Danny's black principal about a paper danny wrote about Mein Kampf. This scene is amazing when you understand the context, but even though I was paying SUPER close attention to the movie and had seen it before, I didn't realize it until I went back and watched the scene a second time in a row. The principal says "I can guarantee you his brother did not put him up to this." That's because he visited him in prison after he changed, but you don't realize that unless you can recall it 2 hours later. It's unfortunate because the principal is really a cool character if you realize where he's coming from early in the film.

They also don't make it clear that the first "color day" (present time) is the day Derek is getting out of prison. It makes the next scene of the Principal talking to a committe on skinheads seem out of place until... again... you watch it a second time. The only reason I skimmed through the film again was to try to understand why some pieces really seemed to be building to something and not go anywhere. The committee being one of them. The whole reason that scene is in the movie is to explain why they believe Derek went down the skinhead path. He is interviewed by a reporter who is PERFECTLY COMFORTABLE discussing the race inplications of a fireman being murdered. If you watch that news clip and you feel it's believable, turn on the evening news. If that reporter really existed, I'd watch the news every single night. Derek gives him a little, and he follows up with a hard hitting question that Derek answers with more fuel which builds the fire higher until they are having a discussion about social problems facing California when the original story was talking to a boy who's father was killed. IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN. He would freak out and kick it back to the studio.

Most of the interesting parts of this story and ALL of Derek's skinhead days are shown through flashbacks. The skinhead stuff is told by Danny, the prison stuff by Derek. Danny witnesses a white kid being beat up by black dudes in the school bathroom and goes into a few different stories about how when Derek was around, they weren't afraid of minorities because he helped them stand up against them.

When Derek comes home, he's no longer a racist and doesn't want his brother involved with the skin heads. He tells Danny about his experience in prison and why he changed his mind (which he really doesn't make very clear. To me, you can almost discount a conversation he had and write it off as someone who was hurt by people and turned on them if you aren't going to let the film get away with simple answers). Derek and Danny go home and there is a scene of them taking down all the nazi posters and flags and throwing them away.

The "central driving plot piece" in this film is the paper Danny has to write that night. The principal makes him write a paper about his brother. By the end of the night (the whole movie takes place in about 24 hours) he has finished the paper and the movie concludes with his voice over reading the final paragraph about peace and getting along with people... that is after he's shot by the same black dudes we met beating up a white guy in the beginning of the movie.

Now that I've pretty much told the story, here's my take on what happened:

This movie is amazing writting coupled with really awful lazy writting. Derek was made into a full and amazing character from the very beginning. The problem? He was made that way. He learned to be the way he is from others, but what does the writter decide is the best way to show that? Is it a string of events over time that slowly turned him into what he is today? Is there a build up to where he turns? Nope. We get perfect scenes. When something has to be told about the past there is a 5 minute clip of the perfect situation to illustrate the problem. For instance, when Danny is writting/talking about where it started he mentions that it wasn't his father's death, it was his father's life. Derek is a teen sitting at the dinner table talking about a book about black history that his black teacher is having him read and how much he enjoys it. His father makes some argument about "black literature replacing the traditional great literature he WOULD have read if the black teacher wasn't there." The conversation goes downhill about as fast as one can go. Mr. Vinyard goes from "what about the other books you would have read?" to "Don't trust niggers." in about 30 seconds. Derek is like "I'll keep my eye out" and buys right into his shit without even arguing.

The problem with that scene is that a few minutes before we had another scene at that table showing how well spoken, deeply opinionated, and intelligent he is. He gets in an argument with his mom's new jewish boyfriend about the Rodney King incident and is amazingly eliquent. Great points are being thrown out on both sides and by everyone involved. He doesn't show even an ounce of giving in. He is not threatened by points that make sense for the other side. He has answers for everything. I've never seen someone debate anything that powerfully. But that's the same guy, sitting in the same chair, at the same table as the teen that takes everything at face value and begins to hate everyone but whites because his father says "Don't trust em."

I was actually uncomfortable. I was embarassed that such a great movie took such a cheap and meaningless way out of a situation that could have been handled in a million different ways. Why a discussion with dad? Why make it so simple? Why not make it action instead of words.... especially with someone who is so unbelievably persuasive throughout the film? I wanted to look at the writer and just shake my head and go "how could you? I'm ashamed of you."

Then we see Derek in prison. The first scene of him walking out of his cell and looking both ways down the line to only see black inmates and wondering if he's even going to make it through the day was amazing. Then we meet the goofy black guy who turns him around. He's paired up with a black dude who's yappy and silly in his laundry job. The goofy black guy finally gets him to laugh and the next scene they are talking about the lakers vs celtics. WTF? You didn't think there was a way to make him learn the problems with his perception without throwing in a fucking clown black dude who he bonds with? This is going on as he's learning that the skinheads in prison get along with the mexicans and that they don't believe in things as clear cut as he does. What a fucking idea! What a powerful revelation. What an amazing piece of writting... but he had no clue how to make him turn but to have some corn ball make him laugh over a pile of laundry? Come on now.

Then comes my biggest problem with the movie. Derek gets raped in the shower by the skinheads after he befriends the black dude. I still think the huge white guy that bangs him is Meat from Porky's, but I can't find him on IMDB. Anyways, he's in the medical ward after receiving 6 stitches to his ass and the black principal shows up. He sits down next to him and Derek puts his head down and starts crying. He asks the principal for help. And then the change happens. The single line that makes Derek realize that his life of hate and destruction has been a waste of time? What do you think it was? Here goes, folks... get ready to have your socks knocked off... "Has anything you've done made your life better?" To which Derek shakes his head.

THAT'S IT!!!!!!!!1111111 OMG I never thought about that. I have been killing people and terrorizing minorities for my whole life but never thought about that point!

Bullshit. The Derek we met for the past hour would have had something to say in return. He would have talked about scaring off the korean convenience store owner who hired illegals instead of the white friends of his who were fired because he could pay them less. He would have talked about being able to walk around the streets without fear because he formed an alliance of like minded individuals who protect each other. He would have talked about a lot of things... but does he? Is there a time when the two most powerfully intelligent characters in the movie get to exchange blows and bring about the most amazing dialogue ever written? Nope.

That scene, to me, felt like two undefeated teams playing in the superbowl and one team going up by 100 in the first quarter. These two characters... Danny and the Principal are both AMAZING but they settle everything over one stupid fucking retorical question?

Very dissapointing.

Now for the big old loose end. In one of the last scenes the principal and a cop show up to talk to Derek. Allegidly, somehow, through a mob of violently loyal followers, Seth and the leader of the DOC Cam, had their asses severly kicked and were in the hospital. The cops wanted Derek to talk to the skinheads to try to stop them from retaliating. Derek agrees, but wants to drop Danny off at school first. Of course, Danny gets killed by a young gang banger, and the movie ends with him holding Danny's dead body in his arms in the bathroom. So what does Derek choose? Does he go and talk to the skinheads and try to bring peace? Does he use his brother's death and his acceptance of the fact that his hate brought about his death to bring credibility to his words? Does he realize that this personifies everything he was fighting for and go back to being the leader of the skinheads?

WHO KNOWS? They don't wrap this up. I guess you're supposed to believe he's cool with his death, blames himself, and moves on. Only problem with that is that he made an agreement that he'd stay in town and work for peace if the principal would speak on his behalf to the parole board, so he's not going anywhere.

Acording to IMDB: "The script's conclusion had Derek shaving his head in the bathroom of the school, transforming back into a naziskin after the death of his brother. However, this was never filmed and dropped from subsequent re-writes of the screenplay."

Well, there's a plot twist for you. There's an interesting way to end the movie and tie up the loose ends. There's something to think about. The circle of violence lives on. It makes you think about society. When the darkest of hearts changes only to be swept back into it by the violence he was no longer interested in, what can be the solution? It's thought provoking and powerful. What if he had went to the skinheads and told his story? What if he had been killed by skinheads? What if they agreed and followed him? What if they looked elsewhere for leadership? What could have been? Christ... I wanted more out of this movie. I think that the director basically read the book, took the parts he thought were the best for a movie, filmed them, and then filled in the gaps with SHIT.

The film was not nominated for Best Film. When you watch it young, you can't figure out why not, but as an adult, you see the big gaping holes in the story and have to feel cheated. Though I love this movie, it needed a whole extra hour to work with. It's unfortunate that money drives everything. If they could have sold a 3 hour movie about nazi youth and actually filled out the plot I can basically guarantee that this would have won best picture... oh, if it weren't for one more thing...

Ed Norton is the WORST crier EVER. The only time it is believable is when you can't see his face. When he's supposed to be decimated by his father's death I just dont' buy it. He looks like he's trying to hard and his acting STINKS as a kid. Even when he's trying to agree with his father. It's like he actually IS Derek Vinyard the adult and he's trying to act like Derek Vinyard the child but doesn't know how to be weak and impressionable. That sounds like what you actually want, but he is supposed to be a hardass racist because events in his life turned him from a good boy to a violent maniac. You shouldn't see an actor trying that hard EVER. If it doesn't look natural, it just doesn't work. These were other moments when I felt uncomfortable for the director/writter/whoever was in charge. Just get a teen that looks like Ed Norton and let HIM be a teen. Don't settle for him doing it himself when he obviously blows at it.

Again, I love this movie. I think it's really fun to watch is amazingly written at times, and really makes you think. I couldnt' wait to come on here and post after seeing it, but that was because I wanted to hash out the holes, not discuss the content.

Finding Meaning

Ever since football went away and the girl I decided to focus my efforts around left me I've been struggling with the question "Why?" Why should I care about my job? Why should I care about where I'm going? Why am I here?

It's been a long road to a new career. I've been interviewing EVERYWHERE and have not found anything that made me really pumped to get started...

until today

Before I get to my mini revelation, I have to mention that wednesday was awful. I went to my dream job interview and was bait and switched. I had a 10 minute conversation, was told I wasn't qualified, and was offered a really shitty job. No dice. The young lady I met made me smile, so all was not lost, but that was a crushing blow.

Today I got a call from my grandmother "call J. He can help you out." I called J, and what he was helping me out with was a job with the fire department. I wasn't really excited about it at first because I was still frustrated from wednesday, but after speaking with J a bit he told me to check out their drill session tonight at a local school. I went over, met with the volunteer fire chief, and he said he'd love to have me on his team. I watched them set up the hoses, ready the engine and truck, and go through some practice with an older volunteer who talked to me about what it was like to be a fire fighter for about an hour. He kept using words like "team" "family" "unit" and a lot of words I was used to hearing. They count on each other and expect the man next to them to be going 100% all the time. They deal with life and death shit and everyone has to be in peak physical and mental shape to handle everything they need to handle.

That's what I want to be. I want to be a part of a team working towards soemthing bigger than my bank account. I want to help people and be a part of the community beyond a taxpayer. I want to make a difference and do good in this world.

I used to be a part of a team working towards a greater good. I used to be a thankless work horse with nothing to show for my work and I loved it. It felt great to be a cog in the machine. I had purpose, meaning, drive, love, and determination. Now, I can't even get out of bed to get to an interview because I have no excitement about the position AT ALL.

As a volunteer I won't be getting paid, but J feels that this is the single best way to get in and they are going to be hiring again real soon, so if I can get the bartending thing going, I'll be fine until I'm a career fire fighter. J says it will be sooner than later if everything goes well, but I won't know the details until sunday.

Tomorrow is a new day with a new focus and a fresh outlook on life. I'm excited for the first time in years. I have a girl that I want to spend time with, and a focus towards a career that will mean something to me.

Tomorrow starts my running regimine. I can't lift without paying gym fees, but I sure as hell can run. You know what? I'm excited about running. I want to get myself in shape because I want to show the fire chief that I can run a mile, smash down a wall and be alert and sharp in 300 degree heat because I used to be like that, and I will be again.

Cousin fil is actually stopping by, so I'll say more later, or I won't and you'll like it. Goodbye

lolercoaster

Every day my direction changes. I get good news here, bad news there, and things change.

I basically forgot to sign up for the praxis, so I'll be waiting until I think... september if I want to make that test. Not real excited about working towards a teaching cert. I was hoping that it would be much easier, but I guess the world has plenty of teachers.

Have had great news on the relationship side of my life. Let's hope things keep working out.

I also have one hell of an interview on Wednesday. I'm nervous because it's the only job I've been contacted about that really excites me. It pays a lot, has a great commission structure (on top of the pay), and has great hours (9 to 5). I was going to avoid sales at all costs, but this is something very unique.

I'll get more into that later.

I am worried about my cats. Dropped them off at the vet to get "fixed" tonight. They will be done tomorrow morning and then observed until wednesday night. This is the first time I've dropped them off with strangers. I also have this nightmare where they give them a shot to put them out for the surgery and they make a mistake and put them to sleep. I'm sure they'll be fine, but it makes me nervous none the less.

I was cooking when I started posting, just ate about 7lbs of food, and now I have lost motivation, so goodbye

Energy Saved!

I figured out a pretty solid way to save electricity over the past few months. What was bothering me was that my fridge was running non stop. I'm talking running to the point where it sounds like it's straining to keep going. It's a brand new fridge with "energy saver" written all over it, but it just would not stop running.

I tried turning the temp up to see if that would stop it... no dice. I turned it up and up and up until the motor clicked off, but then it wasn't keeping the food very cool at all. I had a gallon of milk go bad on me in about 3 days when I finally got the fridge to stop running non stop, so that idea went out the window.

I sat down and really thought about WHY it would run non stop. I have been broke forever, so if there's a handful of stuff in there, that's a lot.

I was thinking out loud and I said, "you know, maybe if I put some ice in here to help this stupid piece of shit cool down then it would stop running." Then I realized that air transers heat faster than liquids or solids and that just opening a fridge that consists of a box of cold air would dump all the coldness out and it would have to start over again.

The solution.

What I've been doing is saving my gallon milk jugs, filling them with water, and putting them back in the fridge. With 4 gallons of water in the fridge my electric bill went from $80 to $19 with a $15 monthly surcharge included in both numbers. I was seriously sitting in the dark and taking cold showers for months because I was trying hard to bring that number down. As it turned out, it was just an asshole fridge.

Over the next few months I was using other things to see what affect they had on my bill. Running my PC nonstop all month really had no affect, the dishwasher wasn't a huge affect, running a fan did nothing, watching TV did nothing. What I mean by nothing is that I'm keeping my bill around $20 a month reguardless of what I do just because the stupid fridge is full of water.

Of course it's summer now, so the AC has been on non stop... so goodbye savings, but at least I'm not wasting $$$

Time goes by

Howdy, it's been a while. OK, I have no idea where to start, so I'm going to start with a little info on where I've been, move on to some tricks I've learned, and then give a heads up on what I'm doing.

I have this thing I do. It's a type of defensive reflex when things aren't going as well as I expected. I just stop existing for a while. I don't answer the phone, I don't reply to emails, I don't go on AIM, I just don't do anything but focus on what needs to be fixed until it's done. Now, normally that's just a day or so. If I'm feeling sick, I'll just lay around until I feel better. This time it was because I lost one job, quit another, and have been on unemployment for several months. I figured that I'd be back on my feet and making some money much faster than I have, so I thought going into hiding for a week or two wouldn't be that big a deal... that was in February. It's the 4th of July and I'm still semi hiding. I have been on 70 to 80 interviews since I left NMFN. Unfortunately, they have been for jobs I either did not want or ended up "not being a good fit" for.

To clarify that last point, the jobs I've been offered ranged from 10 to 15 thousand dollars a year and all of them have required a significant ammount of cold calling. On top of that, these jobs have been in lousy locations, in shaky industries, have been traditionally high turnover, and low chance for growth.

I'm looking for something. I think I know what it is, but I don't know where to find it. I'd like a job where I am a representative for the company who goes out and meets with clients and is a go-between for the labor and management of my company and the management of the client. It's basically a project manager position, but I don't have a pile of qualifications to work with.

Outside of that magical job where I'd get to work with people, solve problems, travel a bit, and have responsibilities that do not include bringing in new clients, I know I'd be good in a research oriented position of sorts. I'd love to be able to go and be someone who goes deep into the numbers and comes out with everything someone else needs to know. I do that now anyways with all the shit I enjoy doing. If it's EQ I am reading everything I can about new encounters, new mobs, new skills, parsing fights, giving out detailed information to people so they can self evaluate and improve. If it's my cats, I'm going to message boards and vet web sites to read and understand everything I can about their behavior and needs. If it's my old life at AGE I was calling up wholesalers and asking them about the details of their product and having them run hypos about how it would fit into a current allocation, fund cost analysis, projections for just about everything that could happen, etc. I love doing that kind of stuff. I love giving people information and letting them make their own decisions. I also like supporting teams of people who need someone to be the goto guy for information.

I like to think I'm creative, but I don't know how I'd even use that.

So, the bottom line is, I'm still unemployed, and I realize it's just going to take some time for me to get my ass squared away. Being unemployed now that I live on my own means a hell of a lot more than it did when I was living at home. I have bills to pay... LOTS of them. I don't get enough from unemployment to even cover them all at once. I have to miss one this month, and then pay this month's past due ballance next month. That kind of crap. Speaking of, I need to pay my cell phone bill this week or they are going to turn off my service! Yay! What it means beyond having bills to pay is that there are not a lot of things you can do that are free. I enjoy hanging out with my friends, but if they are driving down to the shore to see a concert or hitting the bars, or doing any number of things that I used to love to do... I simply can't go. I don't have any available funds to play with. If I go to the bar and spend $20 then that's $20 less I have for food, gas to get to interviews, bills that will get paid, cat food/kitty litter, and basically anything outside of air that I need to survive.

I have never cared if people know how much I make, so here's a brief description of bills and checks that I've had over the past 2 years:

AG Edwards negotiated salary: $43,000
AG Edwards actual money paid (1 year): $20,000
Unemployment: $1,200 a month
Rent: $1,000
TV/Phone/internet: $100
Cell phone: $50
Car payment: $215
Cats: $70
Food: $50
Gas: $70 (I only fill up once every other month or so and try to walk to whatever I need)
Electricity (aka heat/ac/stove/dishwasher/lights): $50
Furnature: $100

So you see, I've been on the edge of my seat wondering what's going to happen next for the past 4 months. I've been sitting here sending appologies to my land lord, fighting with indian telephone opperators from 3 companies, and watching my rate on my car loan go through the roof due to late payments. Goodbye spotless credit. I had the most amazing credit rating ever up until I started at AGE. Now, I have no clue. I don't even want to know.

So, instead of trying to be social and keeping my spirits up, I sit around here watching TV, reading, playing video games, and seaching all the internets for job postings, openings in my area, jobs in states where I have friends, and sleeping.

What's odd is that the feelings of anxiety and frustration are basically gone. I have been rolling with the punches and just trying to figure out a way to not get evicted. I got a call this weekend from my buddy AJ. I missed it, but I knew exactly what it was about. Every single year since we could drive he's had a party on the 4th of July weekend. I have made a fool of myself, become super drunk, had great times, and shitty times, but they were all with the friends of mine who've stuck with me the longest. People who I look up to for their ability to survive this whacky post educational world and keep their priorities right where they belong. While I'm sitting here with a BS in business from a prestigious private university unemployed and broke, some of them didn't even go to college and they are home owners and having the time of their lives. They work harder than I do. They work longer than I work. They are better employees. Some are following dreams, others are doing what they have to, but they are all still the same people I've always known them to be. I respect that more now than I ever have. When I was sitting in an office with a suit on, my face freshly shaven, and a respectable haircut I felt like a phony while they were on their street bikes and riding their hotrods around town.

In a nutshell, I really look up to these guys.

So, I was also dealing with the best friend moving to California thing. His father throws a BBQ every 4th as well, and they were on the same day. I went over to my buddy's place to spend the day with him and his family and wasn't going to even go over AJ's because I was basically a little intimidated to be seeing my friends while my life was busted up into little pieces, but I just took a deep breath and called AJ back, told him I'd be there, and went.

I didn't get over AJ's until late because Brad's father puts on a fireworks show that dwarfs the firework shows in most towns. When I got there, everyone was happy to see me, and that feels great. I had an awesome time. I simply cannot miss that party, so even if shit sucks for me, I will be there. It's become tradition.

Saturday was a great day for me. I met a man who works for a great local company... a HUGE company... I'm talking M A S S I V E... who was really cool, an old coworker of Brad's and who told me to send him my resume so he could see what he could do. I figured I'd never happen, but I got home and there was the email from him asking me to reply with my resume. I did so, and now I have another in with a "not small" company.

At AJ's I learned a Mutual Friend of ours works for a staffing firm. I am calling them tomorrow to set up an interview. On top of THAT, AJ has multiple connections in construction, so even if it's real hard work, I should have something soon.

The result of this weekend? I am trying really hard to get out and not be such a loner. As I said, I'm not really "depressed" per say... I'm just concerned. I've become numb to the past due notices and understand it's going to take some time for me to get my rent/bills/etc up to date. Well, check that... I'm another month late as of tomorrow... fuck. Now I'm getting worried about that.

Anyhoo... I'm feeling somewhat better, I just need WORK and I need it NOW!