I've been enjoying a few days of doing absolutely no writing. When I go through these (intentionally) fallow times, I always remember Harlan Ellison's conviction that real writers HAVE to write. I guess he's on to something, since I'm taking a break from sorting my music collection to bang out this blog entry... does that count?
It's probably just a mental thing, but I love the sense of peace that sinks in over the holidays. I took a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway last week, just doing some errands, and it was an absolutely perfect day. Sunny. Not much traffic. I stopped for a cup of coffee and the folks at the shop seemed smiley-er than usual. As I left, a lady wearing a Santa cap looked over at me and smiled. Dropped by a magazine stand, picked up the new issue of "Mojo" and thought to myself, well, isn't this grand? I can bitch and moan and whine up a storm when the gloomy feelings hit, so it seems only fair to acknowledge and appreciate the world when things are actually okay.
Of course, after my drive, I made the mistake of watching the NRA's unctuous spokesman pontificate on "Meet The Press." There went all those good feelings. This guy's idea of dealing with the ridiculous proliferation of guns and high capacity ammo magazines remains to a), put an armed officer in every school in America and b), create a national database of "the mentally ill" (whom he generously refers to as "lunatics" and "monsters") which will allow the always unidentified someone to do the always unspecified something which will theoretically end these shooting sprees. If this medieval list ever does come to pass, I look forward to the squeals when the clinical paranoids who think more guns are the solution to our nation's gun problem find themselves classified among the "lunatics."
Nothing more to do after that than to thread up director William Friedkin and writer Tracy Letts' "Killer Joe", a fine picture that I'm sure fits onto the NRA guy's third to-do list, which is to clean up all the violent movies and video games. I've said my piece on that particular subject in an earlier blog post, and anyway I rather doubt "Killer Joe" will send anyone out on a murder spree. Rated NC-17 for reasons I don't quite understand, "Killer" tells the sad story of a family of Texas cretins who hatch a plan to kill "Mom" for the insurance money. They make the mistake of recruiting "Killer Joe", a Texas cop who moonlights as a hit-man, played by Matthew McConaughey. Joe takes the family's sweet little daughter as down payment for the murder and things go downhill from there. If you get the feeling this entire clan would wind up on Mr. NRA's "Mentally Ill" list, you'd be right. But despite the description, "Killer" is an extremely black comedy that actually generates some genuine laughs from the grotesque situation(s). If you ever wondered what it would look like to be bashed in the face repeatedly with canned pumpkin, this movie is for you!
Now back to doing nothing... except enjoying the holidays!
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