The Stillness of that Night

The scene, in its simplest form, is a relatively lonely stretch of highway on the road from Fullerton to Escondido. He had made that trek many times before. You could even go as far as to say he knew that route like the back of his hand... though he would never be so bold as to claim such a thing. Humility was not necessarily his game, but he made a point to play it whenever others were around. Something about appearing more humble than you actually are... but I digress...

... the word lonely as a descriptor for the road is intentional. Though this particular stretch of road is technically a portion of a major interstate highway, it is peculiarly situated where man and his tools have not yet explored. It is one of the many parts of the road that still pays tribute to the great Pacific ocean that lays by its side. The water that runs parallel to this stretch of road always appears calmer than other parts.

I have written rather frequently as of late about events or occurrences in my life that at first seem insignificant or trivial, but somehow manage to be marked as pivotal or profound moments for my own life. This stretch of road along the interstate is the site for another one of these moments.

An overly confident young man is driving along the highway, making his almost bi-monthly trip home to visit his parents. Although he makes it home much more frequently than some of his friends who went away to college, he still seethes with anticipation whenever he finds the time to go home. His excitement and demeanor are especially elevated when he hits the stretch of road in question. The business and rush that typifies this major interstate road becomes hushed. His car stereo, "driven" by his iPod packed full of eclectic music (set to random), adjusts itself to the mood by playing the song "Me And A Gun" by Tori Amos. Although a fan of Amos' instrumental and vocal talents, the young driver admits to being familiar with only a few of her songs, which he listened to numerous times when he purchased her compilation album, "Tales of a Librarian." After a month or so of listening to the same two or three songs on repeat, he moved on to new music and forgot all about Tori Amos. He had never heard "Me And A Gun" before that night.

The song itself is chilling. Devastating. In it, Amos discusses the rape of a woman. Amos, herself a survivor of a sexual assault, contributes haunting vocal qualities to the already sickening lyrical content. "It was me and a gun, and a man on my back, and I sang 'holy holy' as he buttoned down his pants. You can laugh, it's kind of funny, things you think at times like these. Like I haven't seen Barbados, so I must get out of this." These words, so strikingly honest and poignant, create a connection to the character in a fantastically intense way. The aesthetics of the song also contribute to the raw subject matter. Despite Amos' talents as a pianist, this song is stripped of all but the powerful vocals. Just her and her voice.

I am behind the wheel. As a drove alone that night, I wept for the woman in the song. However, I was sobered by the notion that my tears and sorrow were the products of my deepest sympathy, but not empathy. My tears were nothing compared to the ones shed by those who have been forced to endure such atrocities. This crushed me. The sorrows I felt for this woman... and for all women who have ever been tortured in such a manner were honest, but they were the most that I could give. I was conflicted by competing emotional responses. The first was a repulsion for the material. I was tempted at numerous points to press a single button and move on to another song... one that would surely be more emotionally “pleasing.” I never pressed the button. I needed to feel sick. The other emotional response was longing. I was motivated by a desire to connect to the woman in the way she deserved. I felt guilty over the thought that my cry was nothing but a cheap, unwelcome gesture. A way for someone with little history of emotional devastation to feign interest and care... in order to impress everyone around. But there was no one around me that night. It was just me, the road, and night... as far as my eyes could see. I wiped my tears away on my sleeve.

The moment at which I heard this song was as terrifying as it was profound. Amos' stirring voice was enhanced by the eerie stillness of the night and the road on which I traveled. Although I don't at all believe in fate or divine master plans, this experience is a curiously compelling argument. The haunting nature of the song and my surroundings are rivaled only by the maddening nature of the coincidence that paired them together... on that cold Winter night.

There's A Saying Old...

Michael Buble, modern day crooner and recording artist extraordinaire, has made quite a remarkable living off of his suave renditions of some of music's most historic and cherished songs. Although Mr. Buble has reached mainstream success with some of his original tunes, I argue that the bulk of his fan base became infatuated with him based on his renditions of the "standards." While hundreds of songs seemingly come and go every year, some songs are so good, they become permanently etched in our collective musical memories. Luckily for Buble, he garnered a love for these songs at a young age, and developed himself as a musical artist under the guise of the great songwriters of yesteryear. While I am certainly a fan of Michael Buble, this entry is not principally concerned with his career. No, my focus is on the songs.

One great pleasure of being a fan of the "standards" is that most of them have been recorded by a large number of artists over the years. Bobby Darin's "Beyond The Sea," for example, is a song so good, it has been recorded and performed by more musicians than I care to list here (no rendition better than Darin's original, if I may be so bold as to say so...). Because of the outstanding availability of many "standards" by so many different artists, fans of the music can take great pleasure in exploring different renditions of a given tune, often leading one to come up with a personal favorite. It may even be the case that the focus narrows even more, where a specific performance of a song by a particular artist becomes a personal musical staple.

"Someone To Watch Over Me," composition and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, is one of the most beautiful and heart-wrenching songs you are likely ever to hear. It is a song of longing over something worse than a lost love… a love never had. In expressing remorse over being forced to cherish only the prospect of love, the song’s protagonist expresses a profound hope that there is “that” person out there, who is meant to do no things better than to love him/her. What is particularly beautiful about the song is how it describes love in such an unconventional, but staggeringly honest and alluring way. A typical way of describing love, or someone to love, is to run through all of the qualities that make that (potential) person attractive. Whether it be physical attributes or personality characteristics, we often conceive of love in the ways that we can come to love someone else. Equally as important, I say, is how able we are to be loved. It is in this notion that I find the real beauty of the song. For me, the phrase “how I need someone to watch over me” encapsulates an essential, but often repressed human desire – the desire to have someone who will make you able to be loved in the same way you desire to love someone else. In an act of full disclosure, I have spent more time trying to write this paragraph than I have many other entire posts. I wish that I could write more about what makes this song one of the greats, but that is a task formidable for far more talented writers. I can only ask that you listen to the song for yourself, and hopefully feel similarly about it.

Although this song has been performed by many musical greats over the years, my favorite rendition of it comes from a seemingly unlikely source. The film Mr. Holland’s Opus is a film that centers on an aspiring musical composer named Glenn Holland (Richard Dreyfuss), who decides to take up a job teaching music to high school students in order to pay the bills. It is Mr. Holland’s thinking that teaching high school students during the week will serve as a less than strenuous way to make a decent living, and more importantly, will also allow him the time to focus on his own musical efforts. Of course, Mr. Holland quite quickly discovers that the job of a teacher is slightly more time consuming than he had originally envisioned. At one point in the film, Mr. Holland is asked to team up with the school’s drama teacher in putting together a Fall musical. They decide on a Gershwin review. In the midst of auditioning less-than-stellar thespians for the singing roles, Mr. Holland finds himself entranced by a young woman named Rowena Morgan (Jean Louisa Kelly). Ms. Morgan sings beautifully, and appears perfectly suited for the role as the film’s ingénue. As we discover later, however, she manages to transcend the characteristics of such a stock character.

I fell in love with Gershwin’s song in part because I, like Mr. Holland, fell in love with Rowena Morgan. Her performance of the song is simply breathtaking. What I believe to be noteworthy about my affection for this particular performance is the fact that for all intents and purposes, it is not the “best” that the song has ever been performed. Surely, from a musical standpoint, Kelly’s performance as Rowena does not hold up to other renditions of the song by musical icons like Sinatra or Fitzgerald. Still, whenever I hear the song, to this day I recall the first time I “met” Rowena Morgan, and experienced her enchantment for the first time.

If you have been so bold as to read this far, you are wonderfully patient. Even the most patient reader, I’m sure, eventually must ask, “What is your point?” Here it is. I think it is incredibly important for us to cherish specific memories like this one, and to share them with others. It gives us the ability to communicate pieces of ourselves to those around us, which can prove to be unbelievably fulfilling for our own emotional development. A great many people have heard “Someone To Watch Over Me” in their lifetimes, but no one has ever heard it in precisely the same way I did way back when. Similarly, I may have seen the same film that you have at one point, but I have never seen it exactly the way you have. But, to understand the ways you have seen the things you cherish in your life is a way for me to understand you. And maybe, a chance for you to better understand yourself.

John Denver wrote “Annie’s Song” for his wife. I once saw an interview where she said that, although he had sung the song to her many times throughout the course of their marriage, the most beautiful time she ever heard it was at her daughter’s wedding, after John had died. While Annie may hear that song innumerable more times in her life, she will always hold dear the memory of hearing it that one time. That, my friends, is special.

Musical Memories

A browse through my iTunes library would surely reveal what truly is an eclectic music taste. Although classic and contemporary progressive rock, Motown, and big band and swing may comprise a sizeable portion of my collection, the range of artists at my disposal involves the likes of Oingo Boingo, Chaka Kahn, Andrea Bocelli, Burl Ives, and John Denver… to name just a few… essentially what I’m saying is that there aren’t many genres of music that I find truly distasteful. If I were forced to choose types of music that just don’t do it for me, I would have to narrow the list down to most rap and country music. If forced to narrow it down even further, it would be contemporary rap music and female country singers. Of the latter, I have quite the disdain. I don’t know why, but I almost cannot stand the music produced by Country’s women. Nothing against them or their talents, but there is just something about the music they produce that doesn’t act favorably on my ears. Of all the female country singers I have listened to (believe me, I’ve given quite a few of them their fair chances in hopes of eliminating my bias), only one has ever managed to make it to my music library.

Kathy Mattea has had quite an extensive career in the music business, though I doubt many have followed her career religiously. She released her self-titled debut album in 1984, and has released a total of seventeen original ones in her twenty-five years of active musical artistry. In 1990, she released a compilation of some of her most popular songs to that date, titled “A Collection of Hits.” Of all the CDs in all the world, it is this one that means the very most to me.

Growing up, my parents never had much of an interest in broadcasting music throughout our home. When the house wasn’t silent, it was filled with the sounds of a television show. When I had the privilege of spending the night at a friend’s house, I was enthralled by the ways some family members would go about their days, with eclectic musical pieces filling their respective houses. Even as a child, I thought there was something so much more special about conducting ones daily affairs to the sound of music. Although my parents never made the broadcasting of music a household custom, they did occasionally groove to some tunes. My Dad, who has always maintained a certain swagger (like you wouldn’t believe for a man his age), has always loved the sounds of Motown. The Four Tops, The Temptations, The Commodores, and others of the like are some of my favorites, most likely because my dad taught me from a very early age that those men knew how to do music the right way. I could always count on dad for some real musical ditties when I needed them the most. Mom, on the other hand, almost never spoke about music. She may have remarked about diggin’ the Rolling Stones or CCR “back in the day,” but she never really seemed enthused about any piece of music… until one day she heard (and subsequently bought) Kathy Mattea’s “Collection of Hits.”

From the day my mother bought this CD, she was in love. When we had people coming over for dinner, this album was playing in the background. When we were hanging out by the pool, these songs were playing. One might be inclined to think that years and years of hearing almost exclusively the same set of songs over and over again would cause me to have a certain hatred for them. I suppose this phenomenon may hold true for some, but for me it has had precisely the opposite effect. I love these songs more today than I ever thought I could. Sure, I own other pieces of music that I hold to higher musical standards than the ones on Mattea’s 1990 album, but no others that are supplanted as concretely in my heart and mind. I am tied to these songs as a professional baseball player may be tied to his first Little League glove, or an artist to his first-ever painting. They may just be antique artifacts worthy of no more than a garage sale to others, but to us they mean just about everything. These songs encapsulate a part of myself that I love dearly… a part of me that can only be communicated through the songs themselves.

I hope everyone has an artifact like my Kathy Mattea CD. Whether it be a piece of music, art, or something else, I think it’s important that we remind ourselves about the things in life that helped us get to where we are today, and how we wouldn’t give them up for anything. Anything.


“Like a warm spring rain on the roof above
The way you called my name when we make love
While the world outside my window goes insane
You’re here to remind me, a few good things remain.”

The Rocketeer: A Less-Than-Formal Request for Reconsideration

I’m willing to wager a guess that the video cassette of The Rocketeer that I watched religiously at my Grandmother’s house in the early 90’s was purchased at a heavily discounted price, and was one of forty or so copies available for purchase. Why do I predict such a thing? Because, simply, the film was a flop. At least, a flop when considering the ambitious marketing ventures associated with it. The film (and probably more so the character) was “supposed” to jumpstart a new pop culture revelation where adolescent boys and girls would abandon their whimsies of flying with a red cape, and instead venture through the skies propelled by an industrial jetpack. Unfortunately for the advertising forces behind The Rocketeer, no one considers its title character to be anywhere close to on par with other iconic heroes (natural or supernatural).

I am writing this post from the comforts of a couch, watching The Rocketeer (thanks to the fine folks at SyFy for their visual generosity). And ya know what? I like it.

The movie stars Bill Campbell (second cousin to Bruce Campbell) as Cliff, an aspiring young pilot who finds himself in the awkward circumstance of being in a morally debilitating crash at the onset of the film. Cliff, despondent after his aviation blunder, is comforted by the presence of his main squeeze Jenny (Jennifer Connelly), who he is in the process of courting. Jenny is an aspiring actress trying to ascend from the rank of movie extra into the limelight of the bustling 1930’s Hollywood scene. Along for the ride is Peevy (Alan Arkin), Cliff’s flying mentor and quirky friend/life associate. When Cliff and Peevy find themselves in the possession of a top-secret jetpack, they engage in a playful back-and-forth over what they should do with the thing. Naturally, Cliff’s adventurous and free-spirited quirkiness prevails, and the two test out their new toy. In the end, Cliff plays the role of the rocket man (dubbed The Rocketeer by press writers), and Peevy contributes his intellect to the project by serving as the rocket’s chief mechanic. However, the use of the rocket must be kept somewhat of a secret, because of the numerous men who are after it. One of these men, who the film considers the primary villain, is a swanky British Hollywood leading man named Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton). Cat and mouse games ensue…

I’m not much in the mood of debating whether this movie depreciates filmmaking. It probably does. However, it also provides a cheesy, thrilling ol’ time. And, keeping with the needs of many movie patrons, such a film can deliver something worthwhile. The film really is charming. Charming, primarily, because of the wonderful ways that each of the primary cast members contribute to their roles. Bill Campbell is a good-looking man, with a sense of altruism and compassion that is necessary for the story to work. He stands up for his beliefs, and always appears willing to throw himself into harms way in order to save others. You may easily call this character contrived, but it works. This character works even better when dealing with Peevy, who spends most of the film unsuccessfully slinging cautious advice in Cliff’s direction. Naturally, this cautiousness is ignored for the sake of cheap CGI’d thrills.

The real winners in this cast are Jennifer Connelly and Timothy Dalton. Connelly is absolutely radiant in this role, and managed the remarkable feat of maintaining a high level of class considering the less-than-stellar dialogue her character was given. I have always been a fan of her more intense acting work, but I may have to commend her the most for her work in this movie, where she manages to shine in a way that not many other actresses could. And, for as charming as Connelly is in her role, Dalton is the same in his. His snide and often cunning performance gave the film a more effective villain than it probably deserved. He played his moments of bewilderment as effectively as he did his moments of possessing the upper hand.

The Rocketeer is a flick filled with some of the cheapest thrills you can find in the (super)hero action genre, but embraces them with energy and lighthearted sensibilities. The film’s score is as triumphantly cheesy as you can expect (reminiscent of Hook), and put me in quite the ecstatic mood. The screenplay is nothing to rave about, but manages to offer horribly fantastic one-liners precisely when it gets too bland for its own good.

I know a few people who really enjoy this film, and appear lethargic over the fact that it didn’t “take off” (pun INTENDED!). Me, I’m glad the film was a flop. I’m glad its cheesy, contrived beauty isn’t permanently ingrained in the minds of the majority of moviegoers. I’m glad it has been relegated to the B-movie section of the universal film archive. This way, when I write a positive critique of it, my friends can call me an idiot.

In Search of Bops

It's sort of funny the way we come to know people. When I think back on some of the people I've met in my life, I'm sometimes struck with a grin over how we came to meet - and eventually became friends. Some of my friends came into my life through relations with someone else, others I have met by sitting next to them on a first day of a class, and some others I have met out of the blue... almost by shear coincidence. It's fun to think about how our relationships once formed.

What's even more interesting to me, is the way we sometimes come to know people without ever meeting them. Typically, this happens through hearing stories from those people we do know. I can think of quite a few people who I know of, but have yet to be acquainted with. Sometimes, the stories I hear of these people are so good, I come to feel as though I know a particular person, only having to be sobered by the realization that I have never met them.

My Great Grandfather's name was Tom Barkdull, and we never met. And if it turns out that we did meet, I was certainly too young to remember the encounter. Until this last year, my only conception of Tom was what I learned from my mother's childhood stories. As many of you are probably well aware, when you spend lots of time with someone, you tend to hear jokes or stories more than once. In the case of my mother, she has told my siblings and myself HER story of Tom on more than one occasion. The story, which usually comes up at a family dinner where fish is the main course (something my mother refuses to touch), goes something like this:

In the mid 1960's, my mother was frequently sent away from her family home in California to stay with her grandparents in Prescott, Arizona. According to my mother, her grandparents (named Tom and Evelyn - who I grew up knowing as Bops and Grams) frequently served fish for dinner. In all fairness to my mother, she never describes it as simply fish. It was salmon, and supposedly the most vile, repugnant salmon a human being has ever been forced to digest. In any case, my mother's stories about these times primarily concern her grandparents coercing her into eating all of the fish... in order to instill a sense of discipline in a small child, I suppose. Although the story generally revolves around a young girl being forced to eat something she doesn't care for, my mother always manages to convey heart-wrenching (and possibly overly dramatized) specificity in precisely what she was made to eat, as well as what the experience was like. The full, detailed story involves a girl, forced to sit in an empty kitchen until she finished the ENTIRE contents of her dinner plate. So for a long while, this cold, emotionless image of Tom was the only thing I had to work with. I practically never heard his name, and when I did, it was framed in the context of my mother's tortured memories.

One day, when my siblings and I were visiting my grandparents at their home in El Cajon, California, my grandmother got to talking about her father. "Brent, you know my father was a writer, don't you?" "Um... no, I had no idea," I replied inquisitively. "Yes, very prolific, in fact." It was at this point that my grandmother explained to me that Bops had written quite a few publications in magazines, and that he even published a book. It was called Lonesome Walls. Although I had absolutely no clue that my Great Grandfather had ever written a thing in his life, something about the title of the book caused a spark in my mind. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew of this book...

... as it turns out, I had walked past Bops' book hundreds, maybe thousands of times during my lifetime. For years, it had been sitting on a desk in our house, inconspicuously hiding among a dozen or so other antique books, none of which I had ever even touched, let alone read. A month ago, I read Lonesome Walls.

The book is, in its most simplest sense, about old ghost towns. Each chapter offers some historical information about each town, and about how it came to be in the state it currently is in. The book's subtitle is "An Odyssey Through Ghost Towns of the Old West." This subtitle is strikingly appropriate, mainly because Bops' book is an odyssey. If there ever was a thing called "a life's work," this book is his. I like to think that "Lonesome Walls" is a bounded representation of the man I never knew... in the way he would have liked me to see him.

I am not going to summarize any part of the book here, but rather, explain what it means to me. As I stated prior, I read this book over a month ago. Although I wanted to sit down and write about it the second I put it down, it just would not have worked. I have needed this time to become comfortable with my thoughts, as well as to be comfortable enough sharing them.

Bops was a wonderful writer, this much is clear from the book. I don't like comparing writers to one another, and I most certainly do not like comparing any writer to John Steinbeck (who, for my money, was the greatest writer to ever live). However, when reading Lonesome Walls, I couldn't help but make the connection. Bops described the towns he visited in a sophisticated and heartfelt way that reminded me of the way Steinbeck wrote of the Salinas Valley at the beginning of East of Eden. I appreciated the way he described the towns as they appeared to his naked eyes, but also in the ways they appeared in his own mind. He had the wonderful ability to give life and emotion to run-down buildings and decayed landscapes.

Apart from admiring Bops for his talents as a writer, reading Lonesome Walls allowed me to connect myself to him in a way I never imagined I could... or at least, never thought I would have the opportunity to. The man who I once identified as cold and irreverent took on a new form when I read his book. In the same ways I have passions for certain topics in my field of study, I imagine the image of a ghost town always fascinated Bops. I have no idea if my thinking is accurate, but I like to think that he got a particular "kick" out of Westerns, and that he took a deep breadth every time he felt the rush of a cold breeze on his cheek. I hope he thought about things in the same way that I do. I hope he would have liked to sit and talk to me about the places he visited and the people he met. I wish I could be there with him as he was writing this book... to understand what it meant for him to take his passion and craft it into a piece that others would one day read, and maybe, just maybe, feel an iota of what he felt when he studied the towns and their histories.

Truth be told, I never considered myself particularly interested in the subject of "the old West" or ghost towns. Actually, I can't say that the subject itself appeals to me any more now than it did a year ago. And still, I find myself being pulled toward the old towns of Arizona, to the places where Bops conducted his fieldwork. It would mean something special for me to wander around those lands... to trace his steps. I have heard it said that you can never know someone until you walk a mile in their shoes. So, while I'll never get the chance to meet my Great Grandfather, retracing his steps and learning more of his life's work... and passion, would be a valuable learning experience. And, even if I never make it out to these old abandoned towns, I'll always have a copy of Lonesome Walls to remind me of the man I never knew... the writer I will always strive to become.

"The tumble-down ghosts of many ravaged mining fields are visited in these pages. But this book is not dedicated to those storied communities, nor to the rugged men and gracious ladies who thronged the chewed-up streets of other years.
This book is dedicated, rather, to the incessant wind of change that bleaches white, and gives voices to, the sagging skeletons where ghost-town buffs will listen... and dream.
Sometimes a hot desert wind will whisper through the ruined lace of an ancient head frame, stirring the rotten timber to wake and groan. Another time the high-country wind, soft and spicy, drifts down an old Main Street - tousling its pine-needle bed, stealing through its pane less windows - then leaves with a whimper to swap secrets with lost friends who sleep under crazy-angle crosses on the hill.
But the wind is always there - now gentle and warm, again snarling and chill - the faithful companion of those who go out to search for lonesome walls." - Tom Barkdull

What I Most Fear

For much of my childhood, I was generally described as having much older tastes. When I was in the third grade, I recall claiming, in front of my entire class, that my favorite comedian was George Burns. How I came up with this answer at the puny age of eight I shall never know, and certainly never care to know. My tastes in movies were no different. While I was certainly drawn to Disney movies and the like, I found myself enthralled to the films of Alfred Hitchcock (films that I usually referred to as “old”, much to the chagrin of my grandparents). Around this same time, my grandmother gave me the book Truffaut Hitchcock as a gift. The book, now one of my most prized possessions (primarily because of my grandmother's heartwarming inscription inside the front cover), allowed me a fascinating glimpse into the mind of the man responsible for all of the "old" movies I had grown to love at such a young age. Although I can’t help but frown on Mr. Hitchcock’s misogynistic tendencies now that I am a bit more educated, I must still credit his work as being monumental in the development of my appreciation of film.

Although admittedly rather stereotypical, Hitchock's 1960 film Psycho is the one that jumpstarted my love affair with motion pictures. As much as I would come to adore and appreciate the picture, however, it had the capacity to instill in me intense fear. The famous "shower" scene, as you will probably recall, features an astonishing frightening musical accompaniment. I often refer to it as the “dreaded strings”. This moniker is most closely linked to my tendency to run out of the room with my ears covered for fear of hearing such wretched noises. That sound, may just be the most enduringly famous of all Hitchcock's professional endeavors. Although I am now much older, and as a result, afraid of less things, I have reached a point of being able to sit down to a viewing of Psycho, able to make it through the infamous shower scene. Nevertheless, my memories of being absolutely mortified while viewing the film as a child remain in my mind as the most frightened I have ever been. In some way, the memory of my adolescent fear has endured as my greatest fear.

I have spent a great deal of time pondering thoughts of fear, often reflecting back on my moments of terrific dread at the hands of Psycho. These reflections made me alert to a whole slew of new fears, most of which do not stand a chance of combating my earlier memory - not even the thought of death. Although I do not wish to delve into a detailed discussion of different religious beliefs, let me state, frankly, that I do not believe in any kind of afterlife. I have become resigned to the notion that "life" after death is precisely the same as before birth. An utter lack of consciousness and awareness. As a result, even the thought of death does nothing to make me tremble. However, my most fearful thoughts are, in a way, concerned with the end of life.

I fear, above all else, witnessing the physical and mental deterioration of the people I love. Although humans typically describe such gut-wrenching thoughts as eliciting fear, the thought of witnessing my parents and other loved ones wither away makes me feel a certain type of hate. I HATE the thought that I will (almost certainly) have to one day experience my parents in a permanently sickly state. I abhor the reality of today's loves being nothing but fading memories in my own mind. I am certain that even photographs of my family in today's state will do nothing but cause me to weep as a result of a longing for past days. I understand that every sunset and sunrise provides another link in the chain that will, someday, lead me to devastation.

The hate that I possess for these thoughts transforms back into fear when I acknowledge the cold inevitability of it all. My grandfather passed away in 1989. My father, who rarely ever appears anything but chipper and loving, reveals tears of raw pain and discomfort from the mention of his father. If I believed in karma, I would say that my father deserves not even an iota of suffering from the positive energy he has put into his life and the world around him. Nonetheless, the universe appeared to think differently when it bludgeoned my grandfather with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (typically referred to as Lou Gehrig's Disease). As a result, my father, the man I love the most, was forced to watch the father he once knew become a faint memory. I am in tears at this moment thinking of the grief my father endured, as well as the pain endured by others of similar circumstances.

My father has had to live through what is surely my worst fear. Unlike my fears of monsters creeping into my bedroom at night, there is no night-light my father can purchase and install that will do anything to soothe or remedy my fear. All he can do is love me as intensely as he can, so that my fleeting memories of him, on that particular someday, will be just a tad bit stronger.

Superman Returns: A Formal Request for Reconsideration

I have a tangible fear that Superman Returns will soon be less than a blip in the fanboy radar – undeservedly so.

I can still remember the experience of watching the film’s theatrical trailer for the first time. It was at Comic-Con San Diego. I was waiting to hear Kevin Smith lecture on something(s) crude and hilarious. Although I had never been recognized by others or recognized myself as being an earnest fan of Superman, I was certainly a fan of motion pictures – really, just coming into a sort of “film buff” persona. Despite being involved in a persistent battle with my own inclinations toward film snobbery, I remember watching the trailer for Superman Returns and being stunned… impressed. The desperation to watch the trailer for a second time was surpassed only by my deep-seeded longing to not be let down once the finish product came to theaters. Luckily, I wasn’t let down. Unluckily, the rest of the world seemed to be.

As much as I know how praised and revered the Richard Donner Superman films are, it pains me to think that their cult statuses have put an end to all considerations for different takes on the beloved superhero. I point to the James Bond franchise as a form of evidence. The character of Bond has seen a variety of different faces over the years, but each has managed to stake some sort of a claim in the “sacred land.” The most recent Bond films should serve as even more concrete examples of my point. Although I respect what the likes of Roger Moore and Sean Connery did for the Bond character, Daniel Craig has starred in the two best Bond films to date. To my surprise and contentment, both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace stood tall as movies, not strictly vehicles for a cult character. The same, I feel, goes for Superman Returns and its title character. Disagree if you wish, but I regard this latest Superman picture to contain all the “makings” of a successful Hollywood picture.

Personally, I love the work Bryan Singer did with the picture. He brought a creative and directorial flare, not dissimilar to the impact he had on the two X-Men pictures. I also love the idiosyncratically sophisticated performance from Brandon Routh. If he took any misstep, it was simply not being Christopher Reeve. The comparison is unfair to Routh, a splendid and charming actor in his own right, but also unnecessary considering the inflated perceptions of Reeves’ work in the Donner films. You may choose to call me unappreciative of the original franchise or the work of the late Christopher Reeves, but I genuinely consider Brandon Routh to be a better Superman – the best the screen has yet seen. The timidity and vulnerability he contributed to the Clark Kent alias, along with the methodical and tormented characteristics he gave Superman, combined for a stellar performance. One that I consider to be one of the most popularly underrated in recent memory.

Superman Returns is a movie that stands tall by its own merits. Not only are the “standard” Superman components present, they thrive under modern filmmaking technologies. Although I have been critical of modern Hollywood’s obsession with CGI, Superman Returns managed the remarkable feat of implementing heavy amounts of CGI in a sophisticated and entertaining package. Although the film’s storyline is admittedly convoluted, the premise is well explained and lends itself well to the emotional turmoil the main characters undergo. Kate Bosworth has delightful chemistry with Routh, specifically in the plutonic relationship between Lois Lane and Clark Kent. And, although I know specific individuals who will disagree, Kevin Spacey was an effective as Lex Luthor, especially refreshing when compared to the absurd contributions of Gene Hackman to the beloved villain.

Superman Returns is a dead film. Its cast and creative team lost momentum long ago. With another Superman picture already in the works, this film is destined for no place other than the lost and underappreciated pantheon of Hollywood action films. Nevertheless, I implore all you superhero appreciators to reconsider Superman Returns. It is a wonderfully crafted film, and (in the opinion of this author) a worthy homage to a beloved and respected character.