Underrated Batman Movie...Batman Returns

I'm still without a computer, so I'll keep this short. However a very underrated Batman movie is Batman Returns. It has a great look. Three great villains. And a solid story.

Lack of Updates

Hi all,
I apologize for the lack of updates here. My trustworthy companion of the last 5 years, my Macbook has departed from me. There was a slight issue of the battery expanding and interfering with the mouse track pad, and my rolling over the power cable and severing it.

So I will be purchasing a brand new Macbook pro in the coming days. I hope to be able to make my goal of 4 updates a month.

It Could Happen to You

It was nothing out of the ordinary, what our protagonist was planning to do. It was an usually cool and comfortable summer evening. Stunning in fact, and far too nice to stay indoors. So he contacted a friend and they made plans. Just a quick dinner on Chicago's north side. Something he had done at least 100 times before. And every time, nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. Until this night. For what happened this night was an event small in action, but large in consequence.

It was rush hour and traffic was heavy. He was stopped at a stoplight, located at Ashland and Fullerton. Just a few more minutes, the light would change and he would be on his way. He loved this part of Chicago and was always intrigued by it. He saw this portion as a sort of a gateway to the "high fidelity/well to do" neighborhoods of Chicago's north side.

While sitting at the light, he noticed something that surprised him. It was a homeless women, walking in between cars, asking people for spare change. It wasn't the fact of seeing a homeless person that surprised, but seeing a homeless person in this area of the north side, is what caught him off guard. Her face was weathered by the elements and yet there was a quiet dignity about her. She held her head up, making sure she made eye contact with all of the drivers she spoke with.

The protagonist reached for his wallet, and took out a couple of dollars. He called the women over to his car. As he handed her the money, she held onto his hand firmly but gently. She looked at him, and said "People always assume that this will never happen to them. But we're people too.We just had a harder time of it. Thank you for your kindness."

And with that, she walked away. The encounter only lasted a few seconds, but those few seconds profoundly impacted our protagonist. For days he re-lived this simple encounter over and over again in his mind. And one thing kept coming to the forefront. We don't see the humanity of homeless people. Instead we see them as burdens and problems.

He would put the television on and hear talking heads discuss how "America is a Christian nation". They call  themselves Christians, yet they don't follow Christ he thought. He would read the paper and see how Congress wanted to cut funding to food stamps...again.She was right, we assume that homelessness would never happen to them. We truly don't recognize the humanity of the homeless.

But all hope wasn't lost. For he realized that he had received a gift from this homeless women. It was the reminder to see the humanity of the homeless. That with every encounter with the homeless, there is a story. And that story is important. From then on, he vowed never to forget this valuable lesson he had received.

A Slight Comment on Flimmaking & Continuity Errors....

I don't want to be one of those people, who writes blogs about how this movie or that movie is terrible because their own personally preferences weren't met by the movie. Being creative is a difficult process in and of itself, without the Internet jumping on the writers back criticizing the smallest thing. That being said, I saw The Wolverine this past weekend, and there is one issue I have with the movie that I would like to address.

The plot of The Wolverine is a person named Yukio, whom Wolverine saved during World War II from the Nagasaki atomic bomb drop, is dying. But before he dies, he wants to give Wolverine a gift. The gift of morality. So Wolverine flies to Japan and meets Yukio, and proceeds to have a conversation with him as if he remembers him. No problem, right? Wrong!! The previous Wolverine and X-Men movies established that Wolverine does not remember his life before he received his Adamantium claws. Again, according to the continuity established by the previous movies, this would be around the 1980s/1990s.  So how does Wolverine remember saving Yukio during World War II?????

It's just a small pet peeve of mine, but when filmmakers don't watch their previous movies they inevitably make simply continuity errors. The Star Wars prequels are a prime example of not watching your previous films thus causing massive continuity errors. And the killer with The Wolverine is it is a simply fix. Just have Wolverine say something like "I don't remember you", or "Whatever you say, or even "My memory is slowly coming back or I've been here before, I think". These simply phrases would of completely solved this continuity issue.

That being said, because I don't have to have a completely negative posting, The Wolverine is a very fun movie. Solid storytelling, fun action sequences, and a great setup to the next X-Men movie. You will just need to ignore this minor continuity error.

A Short Story Idea

So for the past year or so, I've been dabbling my hand at writing short stories. I was really inspired by J.D. Salinger and his collection of short stories called Nine Stories. If you have never read them, I suggest you go and check them out. They are fantastic. Anyways, while I've been writing, it dawned on my that I had no real way of "publishing" them to the public. Of course I have this blog here, but in the past, for some reason, I didn't see this outlet as a viable option.

Then an idea struck me, I could turn them into short radio monologues. I really like this idea, and so I've been re-visioning some of my stories into radio monologues, while others I've decided to keep as a written piece. One story idea I've been toying around with for about six months, involves a local cemetery. When I was little, my dad and I would ride our bikes through this one cemetery on 111th street. We would go there to visit his parent's graves. As we would ride our bikes, I would look at some of the grave markers and see people who were World War I veterans, or individuals who were born in the 1880s/1890s and they then lived into the 1970s or 1980s.

I would think about the history these people had lived through, and I would begin to imagine what their stories were like. What their experiences were, things like that. I also began to create a life story for them in my mind, and how they reacted to the big world events of their days. (I hope this doesn't make me sound weird...) So I'm trying to write a story about a struggling writing who goes on a bike ride through a local cemetery, and they end up writing a fictional story about someone they pass.

Would this sound like an interesting tale?

Hey It's My 100th Posting

Hard to believe it, but this post, the one you are reading right now, is my 100th posting!!! I would like to thank you for sticking with me. I went back and reread some of my first posts...boy were they bad. (I like to think I've improved, but I leave that to your judgment) In these past 100 posts, we have talked TV, music, movies, Superman, terrible movies, The West Wing, and so much more.

I have really enjoyed writing this blog. I feel like writing this blog has helped strengthen my writing abilities, and disciplined how I approach writing and publication. Since we have made it this far, I think it is time to shake things up. I'm debating changing the name of the blog, design, and topics I write about on here.

One idea I have had is to include some of the short radio monologues I've begun writing. For the past three years, I've been a fan of the terrific podcast called WireTap. One of the main elements to this podcast is about a 5-minute monologue on a particular topic. Listening to these monologues I've been inspired by me, and thus I've tried my hand at writing a few.

So if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments section. And be on the look out for a new and hopefully improved blog.

Winning a Illinois Broadcasting Association's Silverdome Award for Veteran Matters

So this past week, I received rather some terrific news. Veteran Matters, a radio documentary series I worked on for the better part of two years, won an Illinois Broadcasting Association's Silverdome Award. We won 2nd Place in the category "Best Radio Series or Documentary in the Chicago Market". WDRV 97.1FM The Drive took 1st Place on a series about Led Zeppelin and WTMX, 101.9FM The Mix took 3rd Place for their Mix Matters Series.

Even though I found out on Tuesday that we had won this award, I still find myself at a lost for words. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would of received an award from a "Professional" awards competition. In my mind I still view myself as a college broadcaster. Maybe I still view myself like this because I still work at my college radio station. But to have your work recognized as being quality by professionals that work in the 3rd largest market in the country is truly a humbling experience. And it's a big kick in the pants too. Don't view yourself as a college broadcaster. View yourself as a broadcaster!!!

I feel rejuvenated by it.  In fact since Tuesday I've come up with a few potential ideas for radio shows that I would like to working on. One of those shows would focus on poverty and the stigma we as a society have towards poor people. It's time for me to get cracking again.

Here's the complete winners listing