• About
  • Cats Dig Hemingway
  • Guest Bookings
  • John King’s Publications
  • Literary Memes
  • Podcast Episode Guide
  • Store!
  • The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film
  • Videos
  • Writing Craft Discussions

The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Monthly Archives: January 2014

The Curator of Schlock #25: The Exterminator

31 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

≈ Leave a comment

The Curator of Schlock #25 by Jeffrey Shuster

The Exterminator: He takes out the trash so you don’t have to.

exterminator poster

1980’s The Exterminator from director James Glickenhouse is tour-de-force of violence, mayhem, and madness. The movie starts out during the Vietnam War where a bunch of American soldiers are being held captive by the Viet Cong. One of these American soldiers is John Eastland (Robert Ginty, of Warrior of the Lost World fame) and he watches in horror as one of his compatriots is nearly decapitated by one of the Viet Cong. I say nearly because his head just kind of dangles to side like a hangnail. Just as it seems John is going to suffer the same fate, John’s buddy Michael Jefferson shows up save the day. The Viet Cong get riddled with bullets and John and Michael go back home to New York City to work in a grocery warehouse.

Of course, the day comes when some local punks decide to start stealing cases of beer from this grocery warehouse. John discovers their nefarious plot and they hold him at knifepoint. Don’t worry. It’s not long before Michael bails John out again using some good old-fashioned street fighting to lay those punks flat on their backs. Unfortunately, Michael’s victory is short lived.

Exterminator still 1

Those same punks corner him the next day and beat him until he ends up in the hospital paralyzed and breathing through a respirator.

John decides to go find the punks who did this to his friend. He locates them in a tenement building where they’re busy listening to “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps. You know, any punk gang that listens to “Disco Inferno” can’t be all that bad.

Exterminator still 3

Still, I guess John would disagree with me since he shoots a bunch of them and throws their bodies in the basement for the rats to feast on.

John doesn’t stop there. He goes after a mob boss who’s been withholding money from paychecks and grinds him up in a meat grinder. He murders a pimp who specialized in providing young boys to powerful clients, one of whom is a U.S. Senator. The senator also has a yen burning young women with a soldering iron. John sets the pimp on fire and sends a bullet through the senator.

Exterminator still 2

Throughout the movie, there’s a police detective by the name of James Dalton (Christopher George) who’s always on the trail of the mystery vigilante the news media has dubbed “The Exterminator.” And there you have it. Will detective Dalton crack the case? You’ll have to watch the movie! In leau of a trailer, here’s a video of “Disco Inferno.”

Six Things I Learned from The Exterminator

  1. Dobermans are the ultimate in home security.
  2. Rats will eat your face even if you’re still alive.
  3. Don’t try to get the better of a man who’s holding you captive above a meat grinder.
  4. “Disco Inferno” still grooves after all this time.
  5. Bulletproof vests come in handy if you’re a vigilante.
  6. Christopher George has a Cheshire Cat smile.

___________

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47) is an MFA candidate and instructor at the University of Central Florida.

Heroes Never Rust #26: Daredevil: End of Days

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Heroes Never Rust

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Daredevil: End of Days, Heroes Never Rust, sean ironman

Heroes Never Rust #26 by Sean Ironman

Daredevil: End of Days

In the late 1960s, a few years after the creation of the Marvel Universe, an edict was passed down to the comic creators that there should be only the illusion of change. There was a lot of money to be made with these characters, so, in some ways, they were frozen. The characters would never come to an end. In 2002, Marvel began The End series—comics depicting the end of certain characters and created by a writer and artist who had famous runs on the character before. Some of these, like Iron Man: The End and Incredible Hulk: The End, are one issue long, while others, like Wolverine: The End and Fantastic Four: The End, are six issues long. The longest is X-Men: The End, which is 3 six-issue mini-series. The best of The End comics, in my opinion, is Daredevil: End of Days, written by Brian Michael Bendis and David Mack, with art by Klaus Janson, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Alex Maleev. Many comics I’ve read that feature multiple artists end up awkward on the page, but Janson, Sienkiewicz, and Maleev, along with the writers, make the comic flow, with the change of art style always making sense. Also, unlike other comics in The End series, Daredevil: End of Days is considered to be canon, the actual end of the character.

Daredevil End of Days Cover

Now, the problem with a comic stating from the outset that it will show the end of a certain character is that there may not be much tension. The reader knows the character will die or leave their superhero identity behind by the end of the series. If not, the reader may feel ripped off, tricked. Daredevil: End of Days solves the problem by killing off the hero in the opening scene. And not in a way that has the character jump into a building that explodes soon after. The reader is shown in great detail the death of Matt Murdock.

Pacing is this series’ best friend. Honestly, this is one of the most well-paced comics I’ve read in years. It opens with a full page shot of a close-up of Daredevil without his mask getting punched in the face. Comic fans will recognize the assailant by his white gloves as Bullseye. The inks on the image are heavy, making the fight look dirty and violent. Daredevil’s eyes are shut tight, or swollen shut.  In the top left, with great placement, is a single small caption. “They say the fight itself lasted over an hour and forty-five minutes.” That’s all the reader gets on that page. The striking image stops the reader, who immediately feels the weight of the situation.

Daredevil End Of Days 2

The next two pages feature a variety of panels showing the fight continue.  Very little text is given to keep pacing up. On the top of page two, both characters stand beyond the panel’s confinement. The fight is like none before. They even break panel rules. Both characters are torn and bloody. The beaten Daredevil’s big defense is to throw a box poorly at Bullseye.

It misses.

As the fight rages on, pedestrians snap photos and record video.

Pages four and five are one shot. Just in case anyone doubted we’d be shown the death of Daredevil, he’s killed, clearly and absolutely.  Swinging from left to right to allow the image to flow from one page to the next, Bullseye takes his stick and slams it through Matt Murdock’s head. We clearly see the stick come out the other side. Brains, blood, and dirt explode to the right.

In the background, cameras go off. A crowd has gathered.

Daredevil End of Days 1

The comic opens with the death of the title character.

Bendis and Mack have my interest. I have no idea where this story’s going. We don’t even know why the two were fighting.

Pages six and seven and another double page spread—this time of the Daily Bugle’s office. Now more text captions come into play. We’re not following Daredevil. The text caption from page one wasn’t Matt Murdock speaking, instead it was Ben Urich, a reporter from the Daily Bugle and a supporting character from the Daredevil comics. TVs around the office play footage from the fight. Urich is upset that people just watched the hero die after all Daredevil has done for the city. Soon, Urich is tasked with covering the death and begins to look into the meaning of Daredevil’s last word, “Mapone.”

For those that don’t follow Daredevil, the reader is given a recap, and then shown the character beating his old villain, The Kingpin, to death. “Heroes do not kill,” says Urich. He still doesn’t know what led Matt Murdock to his death, but we readers know that something got to him, something brought him to murder. The noir detective story is just beginning. We’ve seen two shocking deaths, but neither are played just for shocks. There’s a sadness to each death. Each had conseqences.

The real weight of the story though centers on Ben Urich. The Daily Bugle is going under. Print is dead. At Daredevil’s death, people just took pictures and recordings. Same thing at the death of the Kingpin. Bendis and Mack are not just telling the story of Daredevil’s death. Quite honestly, that’s a boring story. The comic is about the reporter Urich’s change to action. He’s not going to be one of those people who just watch. He’s going to figure this thing out. He’s the hero.

___________

Sean Ironman

Sean Ironman is an MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida, where he also serves as Managing Editor of The Florida Review and as President of the Graduate Writers’ Association. His art has appeared online at River Teeth. His writing can be read in Breakers: An Anthology of Comics and Redivider.

In Boozo Veritas #26: An Open Letter To Misogynist Bloggers

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

In Boozo Veritas, Misogyny, Teege Braune

In Boozo Veritas #26 by Teege Braune

An Open Letter To Misogynist Bloggers

Thanks to the internet everybody now has the opportunity to share their opinion about everything. Most of the time I use this technology to talk about drinking and literature. These are subjects I enjoy and perhaps, once in awhile, I can write something about them that someone else will enjoy too. This is ultimately my goal: to be entertaining and maybe sometimes even a little thought-provoking. I try really hard to keep my blog pretty positive, even if I don’t always feel this way in real life, because there is already enough hatred on the internet, and I don’t want to contribute to that culture, but you forced me to break my own rule because you are just so goddamn stupid I can’t take it anymore.

Do you really have such a problem with short haircuts on women that you feel the need to write blog after stupid blog about it? Is this really such a goddamn travesty with you that every time I login to Facebook I have to see another ridiculous article entitled “All Girls With Short Hair Are Damaged” or something equally as offensive? For the record, my friends are not sharing your idiotic blogs because they agree with you. Mostly they add a tagline like, “Is this for real?” because they are equally as dumbfounded as I am by your hateful rhetoric. I don’t know why I continue to read your poor excuse for writing. Sometimes I wonder if I actually look for things that make me angry. Okay, I guess I have my own issues too, but I have to say this: if your goal was simply to be inflammatory, then you’ve succeeded. You’ve aroused my ire, and now I’m coming for you.

Yes, I’m taking this personally but not for the reasons you think. It’s true my fiancé has short hair. I love her, am desperately attracted to her, and would feel the same whether she had short hair, long hair, or no hair at all. My opinion of her hair, or any other woman’s hair for that matter, is a moot point because women are not sexual objects on display for my approval. Their physical appearances and stylistic choices have nothing to do with me or you or our personal preferences. If you can’t find a woman who fits into your narrow, unrealistic prejudice of what women should look like, tough shit. Be lonely. It is nothing less than you deserve. Any woman would be better off without your stupid ass weighing her down. Your ludicrous reasons for long hair don’t even make any sense: its a symbol of youth and fertility? What the hell is that even supposed to mean? Based on what anthropological evidence do you make this claim? I think the reason that short hair bothers you is much simpler. I think short hair is often a reflection of a woman’s confidence and this is a quality that you are terrified of women possessing. This isn’t to say that women with long hair can’t be just as secure, but my guess is that you would rail against any other fashion choice that represented a woman’s independence. Short hair is an easy, obvious target, so you make it your scapegoat when what you are really saying is this: “I am scared shitless of any woman who doesn’t fit my limited and hateful misunderstanding of femininity.” Sorry, man, this is going to be a really frightening world for you.

So I’m not taking your blog personally because my fiancé has short hair. I’m taking it personally because it is an insult to people I love and for whom I have undying respect. I am taking it personally because you contribute to a culture that constantly attempts to dehumanize these amazing women, a culture that turns a blind eye to sexual assault, that apologizes for rapists, and blames victims for the violence acted upon them. I take it personally because I identify with these intelligent women more than I will ever identify with a hateful, ignorant misogynist like yourself, and I hold you personally responsible for the fact that after all the social progress we’ve made even in the last twenty years, we still live in a world that often treats women like nothing more than objects of men’s sexual fantasies.

My fiancé’s short hair is beside the point. That being said, heed this well, shit head: woe be it to the misogynist dirtbag who tells the love of my life she would be hotter if she had long hair. I would love to see the goddamn shit show that would take place if you had the audacity to do that, but we both know you never will. You’re a coward. You don’t even have the courage to write your blog under your real name. You use some fake moniker and hide behind the anonymity of the internet. Do you think you are some champion of maleness, finally saying what other men are thinking, redeeming manhood by calling out women? You are nothing but a sad agent of hate, squawking into the sea of voices that is the internet. I wish I could tell you that your opinion means less than nothing, but unfortunately this isn’t true. You are destructive, a bane to culture, an enemy on the road to progress, and we shall never be free until you are stamped out of existence.

___________

Teege Braun 4

Teege Braune (episode 72, episode 75, episode 77) is a writer of literary fiction, horror, essays, and poetry. Recently he has discovered the joys of drinking responsibly. He may or may not be a werewolf.

Episode 82: Susan Lilley!

25 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Poetry

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Anthony Jacobson, Carlton Melton, Irvine Welsh, Jimi Hendrix, Literature of Florida, Marabou Stork Nightmares, Night Windows, Photos of Photos, Poetry, Satellite Beach, Smoke Drip, Susan Lilley, teaching, Trainspotting

Episode 82 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I talk to the poet Susan Lilley,

Susan Lilley

Plus Anthony Jacobson writes about how the books of Irvine Welsh changed his life.

Anthony Jacobson

Irvine Welsh is on the left, Tony on the right.

NOTES

Quentin Tarantino vows to shelve his upcoming film project, The Hateful Eight, after the screenplay’s first draft was leaked (according to Deadline).

The Florida Writers’ Conference goes from February 13th-15th, ending with the Florida premiere of Terry Giliam’s new film, written by Pat Rushin, The Zero Theorem. Click here to learn how to register for the conference.

zero theorem

Carlton Melton‘s “Smoke Drip,” from their album Photos of Photos, accompanied Anthony Jacobson’s “Hang-Up at the Gorgie Venture Hostel for Exceptional Young Men.”

Photos Of Photos

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Satellite Beach

Night Windows

Trainspotting

Maribou Stork Nightmares

Episode 82 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

The Curator of Schlock #25: Savage Streets

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Jeffrey Shuster, Linda Blair, Savage Streets, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #25 by Jeffrey Shuster

Savage Streets (Linda Blair has awesome big hair!)

 What’s this? A female vigilante? That’s right, everyone. Linda Blair can stand toe to toe with the Charles Bronsons and Dolph Lundgrens of the world and towers above the Tom Skerritts. It’s time for Savage Streets!

Savage Streets Poster

1984’s Savage Streets from director Danny Steinmann features Linda Blair as Brenda, a tough street cookie who lives by her own rules. These are the Savage Streets after all. Brenda has a girl gang of her own, the Sirens, but they don’t start trouble unless the creeps are asking for it. Unfortunately, there’s this gang of local drug dealers called the Scars and they’re as creepy as the come. They almost run over Brenda’s deaf/mute sister Heather (Linnea Quigly). This doesn’t sit well with Brenda and she and the Sirens take the Scars’ convertible for a little joyride. They fill it to brim with garbage and when the Scars discover what they did, their leader Jake (Robert Dryer) swears revenge.

Brenda and the Sirens attend a high school that’s completely out of control! Students don’t pay attention during poetry lessons. They make jokes during sex education class. They even insult the gym teacher behind her back. The head jock loves Brenda. The head cheerleader hates Brenda since the head jock is the cheerleader’s boyfriend. A catfight in the girl’s shower ensues. Unfortunately, it’s when Brenda is involved with this altercation that the Scars decide to rape her sister.

The cops won’t do anything about the Scars. With her sister fighting for life and death in the hospital, Brenda wants the Scars to pay for what they did. In the meantime, she has to help her friend, Francine, with her wedding preparations. Guess who turns out to be the Scar’s next victim? Jake lifts Francine over his head and throws her over the Expressway. One of his goons throws Francine’s wedding dress over while saying, “Here comes the bride. She’s all drenched in red.”

Brenda decides it’s time to take the law into her own hands. She teases her hair out to ginormous proportions and dons a skintight leather jumpsuit. She lures Jake’s henchmen into a trap with her feminine wiles. The goons wander around what looks to be a rug store, following the sound of Brenda’s taunting voice. When they finally catch up to it, all they find is a tape recorder. And then Brenda shoots one of them in the neck with a crossbow. The other falls into a pair of bear traps.

Savage Streets 2

That still leaves Jake to deal with. Brenda toys with him, shooting an arrow in each of his legs. He manages to chase after her, but gets caught up in a snare. Brenda says she’s going to slaughter him like a pig. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but let’s just Jake gets what’s coming to him. If only there had been a Savage Streets 2!

 Ten Things I Learned from Savage Streets

  1. Linda Blair is dangerous
  2. Crossbows are awesome.
  3. 80s teased out hair is awesome.
  4. Paint can be flammable.
  5. Poems are about sex and/or death.
  6. Suburban teenagers keep their gang clothes hidden in their backpacks.
  7. Linda Blair wears her sunglasses at night.
  8. Pulling arrows out of your legs is messy business.
  9. The more studs on your leather jacket, the more evil you are.
  10. A thirty-year-old B movie can still entertain with the best of them.

___________

Jeffrey Shuster 2

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47) is an MFA candidate and instructor at the University of Central Florida.

Loading the Canon #15: Chihuly in the Desert

23 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Art, Loading the Canon

≈ Leave a comment

Loading the Canon #15 by Helena-Anne Hittel

Not Your Mom’s Garden Art!

Wait a second, I recognize that glasswork. Are we gonna do Chihuly AGAIN?

Yes. Yes we are.

A few weeks ago, I flew to Arizona with about 260 or so members of the Marching Knights for our performance at the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, where UCF became CHAMPIONS! Whatever time we didn’t spend either at rehearsals, in uniform, performing, or otherwise, we had a choice and three precious hours to spend. We could go to the Scottsdale Fashion Mall, the Musical Instrument Museum, or the Desert Botanical Garden. I had been reluctant to go to the gardens at first because of monetary reasons. I had a limited amount of per diem, after all. After a little more thought, though, this was an easy decision.

We have malls in Florida. Granted that Scottsdale was the size of three Millenias put together and I’d classify it as a good place to wander for a while, we’d be going there for lunch before we flew back to Orlando anyway. That was out. As for Option 2, I like instruments, and I like museums (DUH), but we were in the middle of Arizona. In the desert. The gardens were calling my name. There aren’t many cacti in Florida, I loved the climate out there (asthmatic lungs rejoice!), and really, how many other times would I be in Arizona? This was my second (last?) trip out there. While others complained and opted for the hotel or other venues (and I quote: “I don’t wanna go look at a cactus for three hours.”), I shelled out the $12 student admission fee and went in. It wasn’t until after I had done so that I realized that Dale Chihuly had installed art here, and that I’d be there to see it. So, I freaked out like a preteen girl at a Beiber concert throughout my time there. Armed with a dying iPhone that I’d forgotten to charge earlier, I took about 50 photos. Here is a sampling of said photos. I’m eternally thankful that Dale encourages photography. Put on some comfy shoes, Odysseans, we’re goin’ for a stroll.

Cacti

I waltzed right past this magnificent work of art on the way in and didn’t even notice it wasn’t a cactus.. This is merely one testament to Chihuly and his team’s amazing skill.

2013-12-31 13_29_11 2013-12-31 13_36_25 2013-12-31 13_55_55 2013-12-31 13_57_17 2013-12-31 13_58_16 2013-12-31 14_00_09 2013-12-31 14_29_02 2013-12-31 14_29_10

It all works so perfectly here. The colors of the glass, even the reeds that you can easily pick out from the actual plant life, look natural.

___________

Helena-Anne Hittel (Episode 35, essay) earned a B.A. in Art History at the University of Central Florida.

Heroes Never Rust #25: The Important Stuff

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Film, Heroes Never Rust

≈ 1 Comment

Heroes Never Rust #25 by Sean Ironman

The Important Stuff

When adapting a work into another medium, let’s say for the sake of this column adapting a comic book into a film, one can’t include everything. That’s understood by most audiences, I believe. What the adapters strive for, however, is to keep the important stuff, the stuff that makes the characters who they are. I find this especially true for the origins or the characters, and I say origins not just about what gained the character their superpowers but also when they decided to fight crime. For example, Krypton must explode in a Superman film. Batman’s parents must be gunned down in front of him. Uncle Ben must die in a Spider-man film because Peter Parker didn’t stop the gunman when he had the chance. Even with all the changes in the X-Men films, they are still sworn to protect a world that fears and hates them. That’s what makes them the X-Men.

One of the best adaptations of recent years was the first Iron Man film. One of the reasons the story was successful is not just that the filmmakers kept Tony Stark’s imprisonment and injury with shrapnel near his heart, but it gave him a character arc with starting him as a weapons manufacturer, like in the comics. It gives the character something to do other than get in a suit and fight bad guys.

There have been a few bad adaptations over the years, of course. A few I think, might have had problems with special effects or acting or the entire third act, but to me the most aggravating aspects of an adaptation is when the characters’ reasons for being are changed. To make this easier to follow, I’ll concentrate on three characters across four adaptations—The Punisher starring Thomas Jane, both Hulk films, and The Fantastic Four. I think these films suffer from the same problem. The characters are made to be too good. They want to save people, something bad happens to them even though all they want to do is help, and they become superheroes.

FF

Let’s start with the Fantastic Four film starring Jessica Alba and Michael Chiklis. At the beginning of the film, Reed Richards, who later becomes Mr. Fantastic, wants to research some clouds of cosmic energy in space to study how evolution was triggered. He makes a deal with Dr. Victor von Doom to use Doom’s space station. For this, Doom gets the majority of the profits from whatever this experiment yields. Right away, Richards is the good man and Doom the greedy evil one. The experiment goes haywire and everyone gains superpowers. Richards continues being good and Doom continues being bad. There’s no meaning to it all.

There’s no character arc.

Plus, it simplifies the guilt Reed Richards has over Ben Grimm’s transformation into the Thing. If Grimm becomes a monster because Richards was trying to better mankind, it makes the transformation more of a bad accident and something one can forgive Richards for inadvertently causing.

In the comics, which take place in the 1960s, Richards is hell bent on beating the Russians into space. His mission has nothing to do with the betterment of mankind—only himself and America. The four sneak past guards to get to the shuttle, which has nothing to do with Doom. They steal the shuttle and blast off into space. The Fantastic Four are created due to Richards’s pride and selfishness. When Ben Grimm is transformed, the reader feels for him, not just because he’s grotesque, but because it was for a stupid reason. It was a mistake. The comic isn’t just about the possibilities of science, but a cautionary tale. It’s a morality play.

the-hulk-od-2003

The Hulk adaptations go through something similar. In Ang Lee’s The Hulk, David Banner attempts to mutate DNA to allow soldiers to heal quickly in battle. He’s denied permission for human trials and puts himself through the process. This mutated DNA is passed on to his son, Bruce Banner. Bruce grows up and researches nanomeds, which he hopes can used for medical purposes. Things go wrong and he’s exposed to gamma radiation, mutating him into the Hulk. In The Incredible Hulk, while the film doesn’t cover the origin, there’s mention of the purpose of Banner’s experiments being immunity for humans to gamma radiation, as well as Thunderbolt Ross’s secret to continue the super soldier program that created Captain America. In both of these instances, Banner is made the victim of a laboratory accident while trying to better mankind.

But that’s not how the Hulk was created in the comics. Bruce Banner, in the comic book, was testing a nuclear bomb that produced a high gamma-radiation output. His goal was to kill people. Sure, he went out into the testing field to save Rick Jones, but the bomb didn’t go off by accident. His colleague, Igor Starsky, who was a Soviet spy, set off the bomb in an attempt to kill Banner and end the project. I understand you can’t have a Soviet spy in a time period when the Soviet Union doesn’t exist. The Hulk, though, is a metaphor for the result of our warmongering. It’s the result of our messing with nuclear power in an effort to kill. We have unleashed this beast onto the planet, a beast we cannot control. It’s not just good person has shitty luck.

The-Punisher
The Punisher starring Thomas Jane is in the same category. My good friend Jeff Shuster recently covered Dolph Lundgren’s The Punisher, so I’ll cover the Thomas Jane one. Plus, I love Thomas Jane and will watch anything that man is in. In the film, like all three Punisher films, Frank Castle’s family is murdered and he becomes the Punisher. This is the only one of the three that spends time with the family, instead of beginning after that event has already occurred. Castle pisses off a mobster played by John Travolta, so Travolta has Castle’s family killed. Something similar occurs in the Lundgren version, with the family being murdered in a mob hit. It’s sad, yes, but at the end of the day the film becomes a revenge flick, making the Punisher like every other vigilante.

I love the Punisher. If I ever make a name for myself in writing, I want to write the Punisher, comic or film. I find him to be one the most fascinating fictional characters of the last few decades. But he’s far from a simple revenge story.

First, his family isn’t killed because Frank Castle pisses someone off while being a cop or other member of law enforcement. They were killed randomly. The family was having a picnic in Central Park and two rival gangs had a shootout. It had nothing to do with Frank Castle. It could happen to anyone. Second, Castle doesn’t just want revenge. He snaps. He’s a veteran of the Vietnam War where he witnessed atrocities that stayed with him long after the war. Read Garth Ennis’s and Darick Robertson’s Born when you get the chance for Frank Castle’s last tour in the war. Castle is a man who can no longer accept the gray area of the world. There’s no inbetween with him. He’s a psychopath who believes the bad members of society should be punished. While on one hand I may agree with him, storytellers need to balance that feeling with the other hand that says he’s a mad man and I should be horrified by his actions. I find the character sad. He’s witnessed the horrors of the violence we inflict on one another and lost his family, his future. He damns himself in an effort to say it’s not right, not fair.

The Fantastic Four, the Hulk, and the Punisher are all characters who get caught up in something greater than themselves—the weak parts of ourselves—our aggressive sides and the violence. Like the mythology before them, they are morality tales. While we’re glad they end up doing some good, they are not what we strive to be. They have two purposes. First, to serve as reminders of the bad things we can do to others and ourselves. Second, that no matter how badly we messed up, we can turn things around. Reed Richards fucked up. Ben Grimm is a monster. But they can help. They can do good. All of these characters are more complex than what adaptations have shown people. Sometimes it’s not the flashier sides of the characters that are important. I couldn’t care less if the Hulk wears purple pants or Johnny Storm is white. But who they were before their respective tragedies and what they do after is important. That’s worth keeping.

___________

Sean Ironman

Sean Ironman is an MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida, where he also serves as Managing Editor of The Florida Review and as President of the Graduate Writers’ Association. His art has appeared online at River Teeth. His writing can be read in Breakers: An Anthology of Comics and Redivider.

In Boozo Veritas #25: Bacchus in Black Tie

20 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in In Boozo Veritas

≈ Leave a comment

In Boozo Veritas #25 by Teege Braune

Bacchus in Black Tie

Agriculturally speaking, people began fermenting grapes more recently than they’ve been fermenting malts or honey. Maybe its wine’s relative newness that make it seem inherently more refined than beer. Perhaps its cultural sophistication is merely a contemporary phenomenon. My friends and I certainly didn’t regard it as such our freshman year of college when we got wasted on cheap jugs of Carlo and Rossi, though I always found fascinating the deep burgundy hue of my vomit as I puked it up later that night. The craft beer world in which I have worked for the last six and a half years can be rather elitist about wine simply because it associates wine culture with elitism. As a professional beer geek, my love of wine has always been my dirty secret. As I matured and my palate climbed up the shelf, I too was seduced by wine’s allure. I thought of it as existing in a world that was sexier and more exotic than my own.

And yet let us not forget an important fact, that wine, for all its sophistication, is alcohol, and no matter how classy you are, enough of it will get any gentleman or lady drunk. Dionysus lurks in each molecule of ethanol eager for the opportunity to rear his mystic countenance. We’ve  seen them, the wealthy middle-aged lushes dressed in jacket and tie only to wind up hammered at last call, sloshing their glasses of wine, purple splotches staining the front of their white shirts. Even at a wine distributor’s trade show, Dionysus makes his appearance in the subtlest of moments. Having found myself at one of these last week, I couldn’t believe what a formal endeavor the other guests made the event. After all, why bother to put on a suit or a cocktail dress just to sample a handful of wines in the middle of the afternoon at the Tampa Museum of Art?

I showed up in jeans and a T-shirt and had no professional reason to be there. My coworker Sara had invited me to accompany her, so I tagged along thinking it would be a nice distraction from my daily routine. Hell, maybe I’ll learn something, I thought without considering that every time anyone has tried to teach me anything about wine, I tended to forget the moment I had my next glass. At 10:30 in the morning, before we even left Orlando’s city limits, the wine reps were crawling up and down the aisle of the charter bus they had rented pouring their guests glasses of some of the best champagne I’d ever had and afterwards they hosted a blind tasting, goading their passengers into guessing the origin and grape of each of the multiple bottles of very nice wine that they were sharing. It was only after this liquid breakfast that they brought out the sandwiches.

bacchanal

The trade show was far from a full blown Bacchanalia, but one could see Dionysus creeping around in the corners. Their was the winery owner who reminded me of Vincent Cassel’s leering, lecherous ballet instructor in Aronofsky’s Black Swan. A small but handsome man with an unspecific continental accent, he compared all of his wines to women. Unsure how the analogy worked and increasingly uncomfortable with its connotations, I nevertheless nodded my head as he explained to me that his pinot noir was like a full-figured beauty in a corset. While spitting might be considered rude in other contexts that involved tasting hand-crafted products, it is standard practice at wine shows. One must take it for granted that they will be surrounded by elegant connoisseurs regularly spurting streams of sputum into plastic buckets. They do this to keep their palates as keen as possible, yet I find that one sometimes comes across a person who seems to be enjoying the spitting more than the tasting itself. Most attempt to accomplish the unfortunately unsophisticated necessity as daintily as possible, but I found a particularly well-dressed young woman perched next to me was expectorating her enormous mouthfuls of wine as loudly and sloppily as was seemingly possible. Did I see the glimmer of a Maenad in her otherwise elegant eyes? The abject had found its way in amongst all her finery. Sara and I quickly moved away from her to avoid being caught in the crossfire of the mess she was creating while a waiter snatched the nearly overflowing bucket of backwash from the table and presented her with a fresh depository for her detritus.

Feeling our taste for wine waning, Sara and I met up with our friend Jack and the three of us made our way to the Hub, Tampa’s historical dive bar located right next door the equally historical Tampa theater.

thehub

Photo by Sara Matthews.

Jack explained that he had offended all of the wine makers by criticizing their Chardonnays while the directions on Sara’s smart phone sent us wandering around downtown looking for the elusive bar. For an establishment that doesn’t serve any food, the Hub was surprisingly crowded for two pm on a Thursday afternoon, and though the atmosphere was nothing but a cloud of smoke, the cold metal chairs, checkered tile floors, and lack of any pretension was a welcomed change of pace from the trade show only a few blocks away. Sara, disappointed that the bar had run out of Genesee Cream Ale, ordered a PBR instead. Then, remembering that she hates PBR, ordered a gin and tonic that was almost entirely gin, and after deciding against that also, ordered a Cigar City Invasion. I found myself double-fisting her rejected PBR and the strongest gin and tonic of all time as I popped dollar bills in the juke box and played one old-school country standard after another.

Pretty well tipsy by the time we began to head back to Orlando, I became frustrated by my attempt to utilize the charter bus’s restroom. At some point during the trade show, the handle to the door had fallen off and the latch had gotten stuck preventing anyone from entering. Several of us tried to use my pocket knife to jimmy the door open, but as no one was entirely sober, we had little success until one of the reps decided on a new approach and threw his entire body weight into the flimsy barrier. Sure enough the entire door handle and locking mechanism dislodged itself and landed with a thud on the floor. Relieved that I would be able to use the restroom at all, I soon found myself once again perturbed when I discovered that the door in its fractured state wouldn’t stay closed on its own. I considered just how classy I must have looked trying to hold the door shut with one had as I attempted to aim my stream with the other, a task that was all the more difficult as we bumped and jostled our way down I-4. Dribbling urine on my own shoes, I found it humorous that wine of all things had brought me to this lowly state. I crawled back to my seat and drifted off to sleep wondering if elsewhere Dionysus had turned these otherwise high-brow wine enthusiasts into his ow subjects. I dreamed of men in suits on their hands and knees retching up wine, its flavors reinvented in their guts, women nursing their own dogs after tethering their babies to leashes in the backyard, filthy orgies in which wine and blood rained down on the revelers whose sophistication had finally succumbed to the Bacchanalia for which they had secretly always yearned.

___________

Teege Braun 4

Teege Braune (episode 72, episode 75, episode 77) is a writer of literary fiction, horror, essays, and poetry. Recently he has discovered the joys of drinking responsibly. He may or may not be a werewolf.

Like a Geek God #16: That Old Disney Magic

19 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Disney, Film, Like a Geek God

≈ 3 Comments

Like a Geek God #16 by Mark Pursell

That Old Disney Magic

 I had no intention of ever seeing Frozen.

Frozen

Now, please understand.  I’m a Disneyphile.  I have a deep, permanent affection for the fairy-tale musicals of the Disney Renaissance, not to mention the Golden Age classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Sleeping Beauty.  I want nothing more than for Disney to make movies that capture that same magical spirit you find in The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.  But having seen and intensely disliked 2010’s Tangled, a milquetoast Rapunzel riff, I didn’t have a lot of confidence that Disney possessed the talent and the wherewithal to make another great fairy-tale musical.  I was also predisposed to dislike Frozen because it represents the final, meat-machine incarnation of a “Snow Queen” adaptation that had been in and out of development hell at Disney for twenty-plus years.  As a huge fan of the original Hans Christian Andersen story, I was dismayed to find that the long-rumored “Snow Queen” movie would finally see the light of day not as a darkly-beautiful, epic handdrawn film, but as a computer-animated romp bearing only the slightest relation to the source material.  However, when Frozen came out, several friends (both online and in “real” life) urged me to see it, claiming that it hearkened back to the very movies, like Mermaid and Beast, that made me a Disney/animation geek in the first place.

Suffice to say I should have trusted my own instincts.  It’s difficult to decide what aspect of Frozen is the most obnoxious.  Is it the contrived, nonsensical plot?  Is it the shameless aping of Wicked, in which a nascent Snow Queen is stylized as a “misunderstood” villainess, complete with a “screw you guys, I’mma be me!” midway-point ballad that comes off as such a desperate “Defying Gravity” copycat you feel embarrassed for the songwriters?  (They even hired Idina Menzel to voice the character.  I mean, come on).

Frozen’s lackluster storytelling isn’t an isolated problem, though.  Animated movies in general are in a bit of a rut these days.

Look, I’m a lifelong animation geek.  Not just anime, which certainly has a large and very specific geek subculture of its own, but all animation.  American, Japanese, 2D, 3D, whatever.  There’s something magical about animation that live-action doesn’t quite capture.  Purely from a visual standpoint, you can achieve effects of color, stylization, special effects and more that might fall flat or be less effective in live action.  Animation is, in some senses, a storybook or a painting come to life.

From an animation standpoint, I’ve been lucky enough to grow up and exist during two distinct Golden Ages.  As I mentioned above, I grew up during the Disney Renaissance of the ‘90s.  Then I was a teenager and young adult during the Aughties when Pixar’s visual mastery and storytelling panache exceeded that of its parent company.  This was also a time when Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki was accomplishing his greatest work (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away).

Princess Mononoke

Something peculiar has happened in the last several years, however.  I hesitate to say that animated storytelling has lost its “nobility of purpose,” but I can’t think of any other way to put it.  DreamWorks and studios of its ilk ushered in a new and different era with Shrek and its descendents, a flotilla of pandering pablum that translates fart jokes into dollar signs with the ease of Rumpelstiltskin spinning straw into gold.  Disney itself—torn in an existential crisis between the fairy-tale musicals that lifted them from the shadows of the ‘70s/‘80s and the creative success of their one-time vassal, Pixar—abandoned the class and taste that put them back on the map in favor of crude, unfunny fare such as Chicken Little and Bolt.

Chicken Little

Even Pixar itself, after spending the late ‘90s and most of the Aughties in the enviable position of being the arbiter of good taste in animated filmmaking, has begun sinking itself into unnecessary sequels and middle-America politicking (I’m looking at you, Cars).  The 2010s have seen Disney attempting to once again “recapture” their brand-name magic by releasing computer-animated fairy-tale musicals like Tangled and Frozen; from a box-office standpoint, it’s been a successful move, but the movies themselves are such insubstantial, ill-conceived imitations of Disney’s own former triumphs that one can hardly imagine them standing any test of time.

In short, the pendulum, as it will tend to do, has swung in an addlepated direction for about a decade or fifteen years, as far as animation is concerned.  In Disney’s first Golden Age, animation elevated itself in the eyes of the public as something not just for silly shorts and the amusement of children but as an artistic medium capable of magic, beauty, and wonder.

Pinocchio

Public opinion swung the other way in the ‘70s and ‘80s (perhaps partially due to some less-than-successful filmmaking ventures on Disney’s part), only for Disney to shake the dust off and recapture their former glory during the Renaissance of the ‘90s.  Yes, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast had funny moments, but they were first and foremost great movies, with characters you cared about and moments you wanted to relive over and over.

beauty and the beast

It’s no accident or surprise that Beauty and the Beast became the first animated movie to ever be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year.  Disney wasn’t making cartoons.  They were making movies that happened to be animated. It’s a similar mindset to what makes Pixar’s seminal works so captivating and so classic.  It’s a mindset largely absent from the animated movies of the current era.

Of course, it’s not all bad.  After a string of unremarkable releases (even fairy-tale adventure Brave suffered from behind-the-scenes drama and misguided promotion), Pixar is set to release Inside Out in 2015, a highly-conceptual movie about the emotions inside the mind of a little girl.  Cartoon Saloon, the Irish studio behind 2009’s flawless The Secret of Kells (possibly the best animated movie of the last several years, to this writer’s mind), will follow up the success of that movie in 2014 with new feature Song of the Sea.  As for Disney? One can only assume that the success of Tangled and Frozen will result in more computer-animated fairy tales with silly plots and slangy one-word titles filling our theaters at regular intervals.  Here’s hoping that there’s a visionary or two waiting in the wings to inject those ventures with the kind of verve and magic that made Disney the indomitable franchise it is today.  Anything less is just coasting.

 ___________

Mark Pursell in Orange

Mark Pursell (Episode 75) is a lifelong geek and lover of words.  His publishing credits include Nimrod International Journal, The New Orleans Review, and The Florida Review, where he also served as poetry editor.  His work can most recently be seen in the first volume of the 15 Views of Orlando anthology from Burrow Press.  He currently teaches storytelling and narrative design for video games at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida.

Episode 81: Mailbag Episode 4 (A New Hope)

18 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, David James Poissant, Episode

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Dan Lauer, David James Poissant, John King, Parliament House, Standing Straight, The Mysteries of Pittsburg

Episode 81 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I answer some mail with my friend, David James Poissant,

David James Poissant

Plus Dan Lauer writes about “standing straight.”

Dan Lauer

 NOTES

According to The Guardian, the short list for the Hatchet Awards has been announced.

John King Poster

The Heaven of Animals, the forthcoming collection from friend-of-the-show David James Poissant, is available for pre-order. Please support the launch of this exquisite collection.

The Heaven of Animals

TEXTS DISCUSSED

What The World Will Look Like

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

You Shall Know Our Velocity

Episode 81 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

← Older posts

Online, shop here:

If you must, shop Amazon and help the show.

Audible.com

Blogs

Not forgotten

Categories

  • 21st Century Bronte
  • A Word from the King
  • Aesthetic Drift
  • animation
  • Anime
  • Art
  • Autobiography
  • AWP
  • Biography
  • Blog Post
  • Bloomsday
  • Buddhism
  • Buzzed Books
  • Cheryl Strayed
  • Children's Literature
  • Christmas
  • Christmas literature
  • Comedy
  • Comic Books
  • Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart
  • Craft of Fiction Writing
  • Creative Nonfiction
  • David Foster Wallace
  • David James Poissant
  • David Lynch
  • David Sedaris
  • Disney
  • Dispatches from the Funkstown Clarion
  • Doctor Who
  • Drinking
  • Dungeons and Dragons
  • Editing
  • Education
  • Episode
  • Erotic Literature
  • Essay
  • Fan Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Film
  • Flash Fiction
  • Florida Literature
  • Francesca Lia Block
  • Functionally Literate
  • Ghost writing
  • Graphic Novels
  • Gutter Space
  • Help me!
  • Heroes Never Rust
  • History
  • Horror
  • Hunter S. Thompson
  • In Boozo Veritas
  • Irish Literature
  • Jack Kerouac
  • James Bond
  • James Joyce
  • Jazz
  • Journalism
  • Kerouac House
  • Kung Fu
  • Like a Geek God
  • Literary Magazines
  • Literary Prizes
  • Literary rizes
  • Literature of Florida
  • Litlando
  • Live Show
  • Loading the Canon
  • Loose Lips Reading Series
  • Lost Chords & Serenades Divine
  • Magic Realism
  • Mailbag
  • manga
  • McMillan's Codex
  • Memoir
  • Miami Book Fair
  • Michael Caine
  • Military Literature
  • Mixtape
  • Music
  • New York City
  • O, Miami
  • Old Poem Revue
  • On Top of It
  • Pensive Prowler
  • Philosophy
  • Photography
  • Poetry
  • politics
  • Postmodernism
  • Publishing
  • Recommendation
  • Repeal Day
  • Science Fiction
  • Screenwriting
  • Sexuality
  • Shakespeare
  • Shakespearing
  • Sozzled Scribbler
  • Sports
  • Star Wars
  • Television
  • The Bible
  • The Curator of Schlock
  • The Global Barfly's Companion
  • The Lists
  • The Perfect Life
  • The Pink Fire Revue
  • The Rogue's Guide to Shakespeare on Film
  • Theater
  • There Will Be Words
  • translation
  • Travel Writing
  • Vanessa Blakeslee
  • Versify
  • Video Games
  • Violence
  • Virginia Woolf
  • War
  • Word From the King
  • Young Adult
  • Your Next Beach Read
  • Zombies

Recent Posts

  • The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #23
  • The Perfect Life #1
  • Episode 455: Elif Shafak!
  • Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #105: Peeking Into the Future
  • Lost Chords & Serenades Divine #16

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel