Guilty Pleasure #1 - Neil Frickin' Diamond

When I was doing a media blog (MediaJerk, now defunct), I started a feature called "Guilty Pleasures." I don't really know how well-received it was, but I enjoyed it. So I'm starting it again. Before I bring back some of those original Guilts, I thought I'd start here.

Neil Diamond.

Why? Because I was listening to it on my way home, and I wanted to, that's why.

I grew up listening to Neil Diamond. Well, oldies of all kinds, actually. But he stood out. My Dad was, and is, a huge fan.

Honestly, I'm not even sure why I'm listing this as a "guilty" pleasure, because frankly, if you don't like Neil Diamond, you hate awesome.







No, I don't know why I picked these two songs. I could have picked several. I could have filled this entire post with Neil Diamond videos. But that seemed like overkill.

Don't you forget about me

My brother and sister-in-law sent us an Amazon Gift Card for Christmas, and my wife and I have spent the last couple of weeks deliberating over what to spend it on. By deliberating, of course, I mean, both of us said we'd think about it, until we finally sat down, took a look at a couple options, and made some snap decisions. Among those decisions: The Breakfast Club, on Blu-Ray.

I love John Hughes movies. Hughes was a writer who knew his characters. He knew what each would say in a given situation, based on who they were, how they grew up, and what they wanted. He built them back stories, and used those stories to create rich, funny, and often insightful dialogue.

The Breakfast Club is a wonderful case in point. Sure, it got heavy-handed at times; occasionally melodramatic. But it was high school. This was, in my mind, the genius of this film in particular. The movie was about teenagers and, importantly, told from their points of view. So yes, some things that we as adults don't necessarily find important were, in the scope of the film, possibly the most vital things in the world. And, too, it raises an interesting question: why aren't some of these things more important as adults? In some cases, it is precisely because they were so important to our teenage selves. Cultural and personal identity. Friendship. Judgement. Healthy adults don't have to think about these things, because we worked them out while we were young. On the other hand, there are adults who never did answer these questions, and have simply -- and tragically -- forgotten why they were so necessary to ask.

Hughes also did something too few writers did when it came to teenagers: he asked about life at home, and what they felt about it. And then, in spite of the tragedies great and small evident in each of these kids' lives, he does something even harder for a writer: refuses to solve them. Instead, he looks at the questions, offers no easy answers, but allows his characters to become comfortable with them. It becomes okay to ask. In this, The Breakfast Club almost feels like a fantasy for teenagers: to be given permission from your peers to ask questions, and to cross-mingle outside your comfort zone. 

The narrative is tied together by the "essay" assigned by Mr. Vernon: to answer the question, "who do you think you are." The beauty is, in spite of himself and entirely by accident, he helps them discover exactly that.  And just as importantly, they discover something about each other as well. They don't leave the school with their lives changed. They still go home to the messes they left, but they go armed with a fresh view of their identities and perhaps a bit of understanding. 

Birthdays

Seven years ago...

Yesterday was my oldest kids' seventh birthday. Trey and Lindy, our only son and eldest daughter, the product of tears, and pain, and happiness, and love, and no matter what they do or how often they make us angry, the absolute joy of our lives.

Becoming a Father is, generally, easy. In the case of my little girls (who turn four in February), this was absolutely the case. Easy, and a little accidental. Less so in the case of our first- and second-born (Lindy was "born" two minutes behind her brother), but that's a story for another day. Still, even with the difficulties along the way, when you compare it to DADDYhood, fatherhood is a walk in the park.

One of the first thoughts I had when I found out I was having both a son and a daughter was, how on earth are we going to raise them? How do I raise my son to be a the kind of man who other men can look up to; the kind of whom I can be proud to point and say, "that is my boy?"  How do I raise a little girl who will understand and believe that she can do whatever she wants to do, and be whatever she wants to be; who knows that she is loved beyond anything she could ever fathom; who values knowledge and love and family?

How can I raise kids who will follow the Will of God, when I still struggle on a daily basis to do exactly that?

Becoming a father is simple. Any idiot with functioning parts can sire a child -- and many do. But being a Dad? Being in their lives and helping them to make good choices and become responsible members of the human race who will love God and their fellow man more than they love themselves? Impossible.

Except.

It's not possible to think of my kids' birthday without thinking of another, far more famous birth.

Yes, I know (in fact, most people know) that Jesus Christ wasn't born on December 25, 0 BC or 1 AD, or however it's actually labelled (I never really understood the system, to be honest). I also know that The Church co-opted a pagan holiday in order to give pagan cultures being integrated into Christian society something to celebrate other than nature and various other gods (and in fact, that this was also the basis for Easter).  Nevertheless, no other figure in History has made such a significant and lasting impact on global culture than has Jesus Christ, and you know, correct date or not, his birth OUGHT to be celebrated. All of which is to say, I don't care that He wasn't born on 12/25, so don't bother. I celebrate His birth on that day, and so do my wife and my children.

So, within the span of three days, we celebrate the birth of our oldest children, and of God's only Son, and I remember: I'm not the only man on earth who ever had to raise children. And, really, I have it easier than many. Look at Joseph: a guy who had to adopt the very Son of God! How inadequate he must have felt! I have to raise my Gifts from Heaven to live a life serving God; Joseph had to raise a Son who would save the world!

I don't know how Joseph did it; but I know now about the Hope that was born -- whatever day that was. And I know that, no matter how else I screw it up, if I can pass that Hope onto my own children, and remind them of the importance of that Holy Birth we celebrate right after their own, then they will be able to overcome whatever mistakes I make in raising them.

A Character in my faith-based novel just dropped an 'f-bomb.' Now what?

A couple things about me. I don't often talk about it here, but yes, I am a follower of Christ. The magazine I edit, the websites I administer, and the work I do as a publisher and as a writer, are all done with the goal in mind of Glorifying Christ in one way or the other.

I also use "adult language." Not merely in my writing, but in general. Probably more than I should. I don't have an issue with swearing, exactly -- I've debated at length on the subject, and that's not really what this post is about (so bear with me, please) -- but I do see the value in expanding my vocabulary, and limiting the less-than-socially-acceptable speech, at least to an extent.

And, yes, more than one of my stories has featured some fairly strong language. Which can be weird for people.

So when I set out to write the current WIP, I had two goals in mind, apart from the obvious goals regarding direction, plotting, and theme: I wanted to point, without preaching, toward the light of God, and, I wanted to try to cut back on the language for this one.

However, I also believe in being honest and True when it comes to the story and the characters. A fellow writer once asked her friends whether their characters speak to them. To a person, each of the writers she asked said, "all the time."

I have been surprised by characters before -- indeed, it's one of my greatest joys when it comes to writing. I once set to work on a fishing horror story. In the story, a father and son are going fishing as they try to reconnect in the wake of the younger son's death. He died, of course, in a fishing accident. It wasn't until I got about halfway through the story, and really started to like both men and sincerely hope they could work it out, that I discovered the fundamental truth of the story: The accident that killed the younger son wasn't an accident; he'd been murdered by his own father.

When I started writing that story, I didn't know that. As far as I was concerned, it was going to go a different direction entirely. The Father was going to save his remaining son's life. They were going to reconnect and live happily ever after. They were possibly going to catch the Monster of the story, and maybe even be millionaires. And even if they didn't. Even if the creature still lurked in the dark lake, at least this relationship would have been healed.

The old man had me fooled.

It made me angry. I didn't delete the story, exactly, but I did determine he wasn't going to take his own kids with him, the old S.O.B. I rewrote the story. Completely. I don't know whether it was the right thing to do, but I couldn't be true to the story and remove what he had done. So, like last of Grimm's Fairy's I altered the scenario and removed a small portion of the tragedy. There was no redeeming the codger, but for whatever reason, I couldn't let his kids go out like that.

So, back to the current story. The point is, characters will be characters. You won't always approve of what they do; and they'll occasionally surprise you. So, in the heat of the moment, during an argument with a friend, centered around a girl with whom he may be in love, this character swore. The Queen-mother, as Ralphie might say, of all dirty words. I hadn't intended for him to do so, certainly. And I certainly hadn't intended for him to use that one. But there it is.

Yes, I know. This doesn't seem like a problem. Either leave it in, or take it out. Decide on the audience you're looking to attract, perhaps, and let that be your guide. It doesn't need to be there, still others are saying, so just hit the 'delete' key.

And I could. The narration is just fine without it. The cadence is still there. The meaning and emotion still intact. Yes. I could simply get rid of it.

But will it still be true?

I Dream of Zombie

Weird fact: when I watch horror movies, I generally don't have nightmares. There is one exception to this rule, about which I'll probably post another time; but in general, the above holds true. Given last night's adventures in Dreamland, I'm beginning to believe the opposite also holds true: if I don't get a fix of one kind or another of the scary, my unconscious mind will seek any outlet it can find. Usually when I'm sleeping.

What's funny is, as much as I view and read (and, my wife would say, obsess) about zombies, I almost never dream about them. I've had nightmares featuring serial killers, demonic possession, a black-clad headless guy with a badly-dressed spokesman (seriously -- it's one of my most vivid childhood dreams; remind me to tell you about it sometime), fires, drownings... but almost never zombies.



Strange: Usually it's Mario
Lopez who gives me
nightmares.

And then last night happened. For reference, The Walking Dead has been on a seasonal hiatus for two weeks now, and I spent the two hours before bed watching a Christmassy romantic comedy with my wife. In spite of where you think I'm going with this, I actually really enjoy watching sappy romantic comedies with my wife. Still... it's a weird coincidence.

Actually, neither Zac Morris nor the blonde on the right were in my dream last night. Unless they were zombies, which I suppose is possible. There were an awful lot of those wandering around.

In my dream there was a school. I think it was a school. It was large, nondiscript, and sterile. Empty. It was maybe the least interesting building I've ever seen. As I remember it, there were no banners, no posters, nothing to identify it as anything other than a ... building. I know there were at least two stories, and possibly a basement level. Stairs in the clean, white entryway. Come to think of it, there was a distinctness in the lack of markings of any kind on the floors and walls. Here was a building of few survivors, and rank upon rank of hungry, walking dead -- and yet no smears of blood, no bodies -- not even the telltale scuffmarks of dragging shoes. A blank canvass which my subconcious mind couldn't be bothered to decorate. 

(This is actually more frightening in my memory than it was during the dream itself. Dreams, after all, are built upon suspension of disbelief: it is the very unreality of the Dreamscape that becomes a part of the mundane backdrop to whatever story is playing itself out in your subconscious. I begin to wonder if this veneer of unreality is the mind's way of allowing you to cope with the substance of the dream: a subtle reminder that it's all in your head.)

Where was I? Right. There were survivors. A group of them, stuck in this school/hospital/whatever building, but who knew the Living Dead could be behind any door. The gist was, they wanted to leave, and not just because it was a creepy, blank building. At some point, before my daughter crawled into bed with us, the survivors had come up with a brilliant plan: use themselves as bait to lure the zombies into into an entryway, where most of them would exit the building, one would hop the stairs (entry blocked for your standard shuffling undead) and close the back door before exiting out a window. Great plan. If my subconscious may say so itself.

Plan set, my daughter woke us up, crawling into our bed. I went back to sleep, and something that never happens, happened: the dream continued. Only, this time, though the setting was the same, I was following a new cast of characters: The Walking Dead survivors. Rick and Co., as it turned out, had a similar plan in mind, and followed it, only added shooting. Some peripheral "characters" died getting out. Some made it.

Then came the real problem: turns out, while this second cast was doing its thing, Dream-cast #1, who knew nothing about the second crew, had been biding their time. They -- about 50 men, women, and children, made their way to the entryway... only to find that the previous group's excursion had attracted a large group of zombies to the front of the building.

Trapped. Flesh-eating dead in front, and slowly dragging in from behind.

And the alarm went off.

After about 20 minutes of hitting snooze and trying to solve the dilemma faced by my dream survivors (I was literally unable to sleep without figuring it out -- I was simply not willing to go back to sleep and put those dream kids at risk without having a way out), I finally gave up and turned off the alarm.

Incidentally, my daughter also informed me, after I hit snooze that first time, that she'd been having a nightmare. I'm honestly a little afraid to ask her about it.

Lesson learned: a lack of horror movies will make me lose sleep. Or, in this case, give me a nearly two-hour semi-waking nightmare.