Miles Watson's Blog: ANTAGONY: BECAUSE EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO MY OPINION , page 20

PRAISE FOR THE VERY DEAD OF WINTER

There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary. -- Brendan Behan

You may have noticed I am never shy about publicizing my writing, but perhaps I can be forgiven this rather venal sin. Independent authors have to cling to praise and awards like Scrooge clung to coins. I would therefore like to announce that Literary Titan is the first reviewer to weigh in on my new novel, The Very Dead of Winter: A Sinner's Cross Novel. , and their verdict is as follows:

"The Very Dead Of Winter by Miles Watson is a work of historical fiction revolving around the Battle of the Bulge and is set during World War II. This interesting story centers around the three main characters with intermingled storylines, Halleck, Breese, and Cramm.

"In The Very Dead of Winter, Miles Watson explores the very concept of war. The author addresses how war affects the mind, morality, and the relationships of the soldiers involved, in addition to the cruelty and horror of the subject matter in which enemies actively murder each other in an effort to advance their personal cause.

"Each of the main characters in this book is complex, and we see in his writing how Watson brings each to life in the pages. Though the characters are different war officers, Watson portrays them in such a way that they are convicted by their morality, each one striving to do the right thing.

"Watson has written a book that is sobering but intriguing. If you are looking for a book with rich characters, an enticing story, and significant historical context, this book is for you. It will make you think, empathize, and put yourself in the shoes of those men and women in the military, specifically those in active combat. This book is well worth the read and will give readers a brand new perspective. I highly recommend it.

"The Very Dead Of Winter is a complex and thought-provoking historical war fiction novel. This captivating book can unmask the stereotypical idea of what the average citizen thinks a soldier looks like. The author’s storytelling abilities allow readers to get to the heart of the matter in distinguishing the humanity and moral choices people in the armed forces make in their daily decisions. FIVE STARS."

As first blushes go, this ain't bad. I am certainly very proud of the book, and God knows it had one of the most lengthy drafting processes I have ever undergone. I'm looking forward to the critical reactions to come, even if they should prove less sanguine than this one: Sinner's Cross, viewed from an awards/acclaim standpoint, is certainly not an easy act for me to follow. Every writer knows when he's fouled or bunted, but he also knows when he's hit one out of the park. This second book in the series will have to sweat hard to escape its progenitor's shadow.

Ultimately, my objective with these novels is not to build temples to "Greatest Generation" worship, nor to cater to war movie stereotypes, nor to produce one of those novels so slavishly faithful to actual history that you may as well ditch it for a book by Cornelius Ryan, but to do what I feel that I do best: create a highly atmospheric story that immerses the reader not only in the physical sensations of war, but the emotional pressures and their ultimate effects on my characters. In short, books that try to take you there. I trust that I have succeeded, but whether I succeeded or not, that was my aim, my working ideal.

So if you haven't already, give the series a try, or at least a look. You may not like what you read, but I guarantee you will never forget it.

FEAR AND 50: THOUGHTS FROM THE ROAD

Why am I soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard? -- Paul Simon

When a man turns fifty, it's only natural that he indulges in a little reflection -- especially when his own father died at the age of fifty-four. Well, your humble correspondent not only turned fifty last week, he marked the two-year anniversary of his return to the East after twelve and a half spent in California; also his two-year anniversary of returning to the fold of criminal justice. In short, it was a date filled with milestones: so he did the only thing possible: he hit the road.

I haven't had a proper vacation in longer than I can remember, and the days leading up to it were so riddled with anxiety I could hardly function. After years in the pressure cooker, I couldn't adapt to relaxation, to being my own master. I almost scuttled the trip out of sheer discomfort with the idea of taking it that easy for that long. Subconsciously, I think there was something else going on. I was afraid to be alone with my own thoughts.

When you turn fifty, you are painfully well aware that you not only have more days behind than ahead, you are also aware that the days remaining also include physical and mental challenges you didn't have worry about at 18, or 31, or even 44. You are aware that even if you live for decades yet, all the vigor of youth, the natural energy and strength, the smooth unlined skin, the full head of hair -- all of that is behind you. Between forty and fifty you can absolutely convince yourself that you are still young in many ways. Between fifty and sixty that prospect becomes impossible. Even with all the modern tools of the anti-ageing trade, steroids and surgery and hair transplants and teeth-capping, the real magic of youth can never be recaptured. It's gone, and that's that.

When I started the drive north, I was simply relieved to get away. Stress seemed to ebb as the miles piled up and the hours dragged by. And when I finally arrived at the bed and breakfast tucked in the middle of a huge state park, itself tucked into a great wilderness that encompasses most of the upper part of the state, a place that not only looked but felt and even smelled differently than where I had come from, it tapered into a feeling of exhaustion. I didn't know how tired I was until I got there and just lay down for about three hours, listening to the silence.

I didn't feel relief, or happiness, or excitement. I felt nothing of note. Even when I went up to the top of a mountain and watched the full moon rise above the trees like a huge gold coin, bathing the sky and the land both in its radiance, I can't say I was struck with any profound thoughts or emotions. I was just tired and cold and a little annoyed I couldn't see more stars. I went back to my cabin, drank a lot of beer and went to bed.

It was on the second day that I felt the change. Having slept well between crisp cool sheets in cold country air, I woke up full of appetite and indulged in a huge breakfast of sausages, bacon, loaded French toast covered in preserves, fresh fruit, and coffee. I then drove an hour to a huge old railway bridge, half-destroyed by age and a tornado, which has a glass bottom. I stood on that bottom and looked 275 feet down to the valley floor, trying to overcome my fear of heights. Then I took a four-mile hike in the woods. Another hour in the car and I was at the Elliot Ness Museum, full of beautiful old cars and gangster memorabilia. A few hours of rest, some food, and I was out hiking again, deep in the woods, on a trail so raw the lumber was still stacked by the silent earth-moving machinery. That night I slept very well indeed.

On my last full day -- not of vacation, but this part of it -- I indulged in yet more excessive breakfast, then met an old friend an hour away at a WW2 museum packed with relics of the conflict. I hadn't seen this guy in years and we ended up spending hours there, and then in a roadside diner, "jawjacking," as he likes to put it (I'm convinced he borrowed this expression from my character Halleck in SINNER'S CROSS, a book I know he has read, but if I call him on it and I'm wrong, I will look a pretentious clod). Late afternoon was upon us before I hit the road again, for the four-plus hour drive back home, two hours of which were spent in country roads cut narrowly into the pine-covered hills of northern Pennsylvania.

When you drive through God's country, you have plenty of time to think about those things you weren't keen to think about. I thought about the face of my friend, who I have known for 31 years, and how it is now as old as the face of his father when I met the man in 1991 or thereabouts, yet is still clearly the same face: slim, tanned, strong-featured behind a neatly trimmed grayish-white beard. Sometimes when I run into people from my past, I am saddened and frightened by their appearances, or by their circumstances -- divorces, economic ruin, depression, physical ailments. It is, of course, myself I am partially feeling sorry for: not that I am in any dire straits, in fact I am ageing better than I could have hoped, but let's face it, there comes a time in any one of those encounters when you wonder what they are thinking about you. And if they catch you on the wrong day, when you forgot to shave and are ten pounds over your fighting weight and didn't sleep so well the night before, you go home cursing vain and shallow curses. But it's really Father Time you're cursing, and his chief enforcer, Death. This time I was just glad to see my old pal was in good shape and good spirits, and that our bond had only strengthened with years. Sometimes we forget that: age is not merely destructive: it can make things sturdier, can give them vintage and wisdom, a tang of experience. It is not for nothing we call it "seasoning."

As the miles disappeared beneath the wheels of my rental car, I considered the life I was returning to, and its attendant anxieties. They seemed less now than before, but I knew that was an illusion; rather, it was a difference in perspective. The problems of life seem much worse when you are tired, or angry, or lonely or frustrated or sad, or even hungry: I felt rested, if a touch fat after all that beer and country cholesterol, so naturally my woes seemed less woeful. The terrible anxiety and even terror that had gripped me the day before I embarked on my little trip north now struck me as absurd and cowardly. This too, however, was a matter of perspective. I am a man juggling two distinct careers which have nothing whatsoever in common with each other. By day I am an advocate for victims of crime. By night -- like a superhero! (or a supervillain) -- I am a writer with a small but growing audience, a regular on three different podcasts, and a guy who still keeps a foot in the entertainment industry, if only remotely. This is not exhausting. My second career takes the role of a hobby which refreshes me and keeps me reasonably sharp for my first. What is exhausting is the constant internal voice which tells me I can do more -- much more -- and that time is running out to do so. The Germans call this "torschlusspanik." In my case the "panik" is rooted in the fact that I spend far too much time and energy in things that take me out of alignment with my purpose. Sure, I'm working, but do I have the right job? Am I making enough money and taking care of myself? Sure, I'm writing, but am I doing everything I could be doing to reach the widest audience, win the most awards, rake in the most cash? Sure, I try to enjoy life, but what does that mean practically -- drinking beer and watching 40 year-old TV shows in my underwear on Sunday afternoons? Couldn't I -- shouldn't I -- be doing MORE?

In life I have often found that the people around me who are most unhappy are the ones least aligned with, or simply ignorant of, their purpose here on earth. They drift, and are aware they are drifting. I don't have the latter problem, but I do have the former. When my energy, my focus, my discipline are all in line with my goal here in this existence, I achieve a Nirvana-like state which we Americans refer to unimaginatively as being in the "zone." But this path is very easy to stray from. There are many distractions, and beneath those distractions is fear. To be what you were meant to be is frightening. To be what you were meant to be every day is to change from who you were -- potential -- to what you could be: realization. It means becoming someone else, and that is scary. Everyday life (work, commute, relationship) has the curious effect of actually distancing us from our life's purpose. We get so caught up in the trivia and the bullshit and the day-to-day, that we either forget or put off our passions and our actual reasons for occupying space on this planet. When I lived in Los Angeles, I saw this all the time, guys with film degrees from great schools who had let their day jobs consume their lives and before they knew it, had forgotten their grand plans to conquer Hollywood. Some kidded themselves with an occasional "I'll get around to that script yet" but they knew they were lying, and they knew I knew. They scared me, because in them I saw a possible future for myself. And isn't that why we really shun homeless people? It's sure as fuck not because we can't spare a quarter. We shun the homeless for the same reason we shun sick people, dying people, crazy people, and so-called losers. We're afraid they'll infect us. What we don't consider is that we're already infected. The infection comes from within. It's called fear.

When I was in seventh grade, I sat next to a girl named Ellen in school. I was a mess at that time: I had greasy hair and dandruff, was heavily overweight, and failing half my classes. I had no friends to speak of and had to fight bullies with humor, my only weapon. Ellen, however, was in an even worse place. She was truly obese and wore Coke bottle glasses. She had a tiny voice, almost a squeak, and no friends at all. She had nothing to fight the bullies with, and they tormented her with the utmost cruelty. Ellen was always unfailingly kind to me. When I forgot my pencil, when I was out of paper, when my ruler went missing, she always offered to help me and I always accepted politely. But that was where it ended. She would say, in that timid little-girl voice, "Would you like a pencil?" and I would say, "Thank you," rather formally, and take it. But I never smiled at her. I never looked her in the eye. I never tried to protect her from the bullies in the class. In short, I never offered her friendship or even friendly acquaintanceship, which I sincerely believe she was looking for -- that poor, lonely, isolated girl. Instead, I treated her the way you'd treat a bank teller -- politely, but with no warmth, no human kindness, no acknowledgement that they are suffering. Why? Because as low as I was on the totem pole of Thomas W. Pyle Junior High School, Ellen was lower, and so long as I kept my distance from Ellen I was safe from the added burden I'd entail if I called her my friend -- the extra bullying, the sneering remarks about how Miles landed himself a girrrrrlfriend. But beyond that, I was just scared that I'd lose the fragment of social standing I actually possessed if I publicly showed her compassion. Cowardice and selfishness gave me an easy way out of a difficult situation...except the way out was a dead end: I ran into a guilt and a shame I carry to this day, this moment as I write this. Fear can be a healthy thing, but in civilized life it is usually moral and not mortal fear. It is fear of doing the right thing. The necessary thing.

When at last I arrived home, fed the cat, and looked at my bank balance, I groaned a little, but then simply turned the page in my own mind. I wasn't going to let the most contrived fear of all -- money -- or the Puritan work-ethic ruin a much-needed exercise in self-care. The vacation was a good idea; it did me good. I wanted some clarity and I got it: I see a path going forward. I cannot really make out the details of the path through the mists of uncertainty which we call life, but I know it is there, and I am moving upon it, if only stumblingly and with hesitation. One thing I have come to understand completely, even if I don't frequently act upon the knowledge, is that without overcoming the inertia which fear places upon me, no positive change is ever possible; and positive change always begins with anxiety, doubt, uncertainty, fear, trepidation, and self-negotiation. In short, change and discomfort are two sides of the same coin: to flip the coin one must actually come into contact with its dark side. There is no formula by which we can achieve positive change without sweating and feeling pain or fear. I have long known that “breaking the ice” kicks in my adrenaline and my courage; the trick is that I can't break the ice with these weapons, they lie on the other side of the scrim. A different kind of courage, a kind of pushing-the-boulder-up-the-hill-kind-of-courage, real courage, not reckless abandon but the overcoming of fear, is necessary: and that's what I generally avoid. Actually, I must overcome the fear of getting what I want in all aspects of my life, which has been holding me back from day one. It's not enough to be a theorist, I have to practice. We all have to practice, because no one will practice for us.

When I was alone in the woods on that windy overlook in the early evening, no one around for miles, just a vista of white pine and hemlock as far as the eye could see and the sun like a gold blaze, I held up my arms and demanded the universe align me fully with my purpose. But of course there is no one listening when you make these sort of demands. The universe isn't, I believe, a conscious entity in the way we understand consciousness. It is a gigantic force that wheels slowly and irresistibly like a galaxy or the hands of a clock, or perhaps more accurately a rushing river, and you either actively align yourself with its movement, i.e. or you allow it to carry you along, or you swim in the other direction entirely. The universe doesn't care what you do. It gave you certain abilities and perhaps certain inborn desires, and the free will to act upon them or no. But if you swim with the current, with its intentions for you, you get to where you want to go quickly and have some control over your exact course; if you just ride along, you will perhaps arrive, or perhaps be swept past that point without realizing it until it's too late; and if you fight it, you will simply accomplish nothing at all, except to exhaust yourself. When I look upon my own life, I see that most of it has been spent either fighting my destiny, or trying to force another, different destiny into existence, or simply running away from destiny, period. All stupid wastes of time and effort which have inflicted great pain upon me and others, too – friends and family and lovers who had to bear the brunt of my self-created bitterness, either by witnessing it without being able to stop it or actually suffering from it by having to live with me at the time.

When I was on the road, I reflected that I have – if I'm lucky – perhaps twenty-five years left to me at the maximum, and only ten of those, the next ten, will really still fall in that active period of life when one can achieve great results physically as well as creatively and spiritually. I have wasted so much time it makes me sick, and time is passing faster and faster, so it's really no longer a question of deferring dreams. I'm sure my dad had many dreams about his later life and how he wanted to spend it. He shared some of them with me when he was dying. I don't think about that much because it hurts too badly. Maybe in his own way he was trying to warn me about not letting time slip by, not assuming there will always be opportunities to do the things you wish to do. If so, I wasn't listening then; but I'm listening now.

THE VERY DEAD OF WINTER

I am pleased to announce that the sequel to SINNER'S CROSS (2019) is now available for pre-order on Amazon. This has been a long time in coming and it is not only pleasure that I experience at this moment, but a certain sense of relief, as I reveal its title: THE VERY DEAD OF WINTER.

When I released SINNER'S CROSS, I did so with the conscious knowledge that for the first time as a novelist, I had exceeded my own expectations. I know how that sounds, but consider the journey I went on in writing the damned thing. It began as a lark more than twenty years ago, lines scrawled to no particular purpose or aim, just writing for the sake of writing. At some point I realized I'd written almost fifty pages, and for the first time began to wonder if I hadn't stumbled on to something. Then, almost ten years after I scribbled the first sentence, I decided to "finish" it, eventually producing a 20,000 word novella I called "Bone Meal" which comprised one very rough day in the life of Master Sergeant Thomas Edward Halleck during WW2. I shopped this little story around for a time but, because of the awkward length -- way too long for a short story, way too short for a novel -- found no takers. Back to the drawer it went.

A few more years passed, and having finished CAGE LIFE and KNUCKLE DOWN, I found myself needing a project which did not involve gangsters. Out of the drawer came the manuscript, now called "Crossroad," and after a lot of metaphorical blood and very real sweat and tears, SINNER'S CROSS came into the world. It was a number of years yet before I published it, but I do believe a long cooling-off always period benefits a novel. It gives the author time to gain perspective and even forget some of what he's written, which helps the editing process immensely. Because only after numerous self-inflicted editing passes do I hand it over to my actual editor, Michael Dell of One Nine Books. His suggestions proved of immense value and helped greatly in making it the novel that it ultimately became -- winner of the Best Indie Book Award (2019), the Literary Titan Gold Medal (2020), the Book Excellence Award (2020), a Finalist badge in the International Author Network Awards (2020) and a Reader's Favorite "5 Stars" rating (2021). It is also my best-selling novel to date, and has cracked Amazon's Top 100 several times in several categories.

When one works that hard for that long, any talent one possesses must come to the surface, and whatever talent I possess, and whatever style, and whatever passion, are all contained with that grim tale of three soldiers fighting the same bloody, futile battle for a useless crossroad on the edge of Germany. I had originally planned to leave everything I had in the story and move on, but the characters -- the ones who survived, anyway -- so haunted me that I soon realized a sequel, indeed an entire series, was warranted. And so, sometime around 2015, I began the process of writing THE VERY DEAD OF WINTER.

Without giving away the store, I can tell you that WINTER picks up where the previous novel left off: the eve of the Battle of the Bulge (16 December, 1944). It employs a somewhat different storytelling structure than the last book, rotating the three main characters chapter by chapter and sticking to a purely linear narrative. Nor is it divided into acts. I designed, or tried to design, a story that rolls along at an ever-increasing pace to another apocalyptic climax. As before, I have employed a "no character is safe" strategy borrowed from the great English novelist Derek Robinson, who mastered the art of slaughtering beloved characters long before HBO learned the trick, and done my level best to depict, through the character of Cramm, the German soldier of WW2 in an accurate and objective light, without either demonizing or romanticizing him.

In the previous book, I examined the Battle of the Huertgen Forest, a half-forgotten bloodbath that raged for six months and killed 30,000 soldiers on both sides. In this one, the setting is the much more famous Bulge campaign of '44 - 45, but in keeping with my tradition, I am avoiding the familair-to-the-point-of-cliche battles such as Bastogne and concentrating on the lesser-known, and in some cases deliberately forgetten fights, such as the Snow Eifel and the Losheim Gap. In any event, the emphasis is not on big historical events but how men trapped within them react. There is heroism here, and clear-headed thinking, and gritty resolve; there is also chaos, panic, viciousness and cowardice. With this series, I have never been interested in writing hardcore historical fiction, i.e. real history with a few fictional characters tucked along for the ride. Rather, I am telling "emotional history" which synthesizes events and downplays geography, place-names, and tedious techno-babble, so that I can concentrate on the purely human elements: what the soldiers felt, what they saw, what they feared and what they endured. War concerns weaponry, tactics, strategy, geopolitics and economics: but it is fought by human beings, and as a storyteller, that is where my interests lie.

So, there you have it. My first full-length novel in almost three years is about to hit the (electronic) shelves on July 4, 2022, with the softcover 6" x 9" arriving shortly thereafter. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I was tormented by writing it.

AS I PLEASE VIII: TELEVISION EDITION

The space between the television set and the viewer is holy ground. -- Fred Rogers

Television is a bottomless pit of shit. -- Stephen King

Every now and again I am reminded of the fact that my relationship with television is somewhat abusive.

I love TV, and I also hate it. I watch it every day when I should be reading, and I ridicule those who don't read and watch too much of it. I bitterly envied those who worked in the medium, and then, when I finally became one of them, I often felt overworked, underpaid, disrespected and generally sorry for myself.

When I look at the state of television today, I see that the word itself no longer really has any meaning. Aside from the fact you no longer need a television to watch TV, but can view programming on your cellular phone, tablet, or even watch, the very description "TV show," which used to mean either half-hour or one-hour episodic series which broadcast about 22 episodes a season, now only describes a small part of the vast universe of "content." There are TV shows which run entirely on Amazon, on Netflix, on Hulu, on YouTube Red, on Disney+, HBO, and God knows what else. And these networks are putting out not only their own movies but their own episodic and "event" series. On several occasions, when I was living in Los Angeles, I saw for the first time "series finale" advertisements for shows which I had never heard of -- they had run for years without me knowing they ever existed. In my day, this would have been almost physically impossible. Children of the 80s were well aware of every prime-time television show, sit-com, soap opera, and talk show. We might not have watched them, but we knew of their existence and when that existence ended. We knew this because the TV Guide, that indispensible little booklet which always smelled so distinctively of newspaper and ink, gave us the broadcast schedule for 12 hours of every day, 7 days a week. A glance at it was sufficient to let us know when something new had taken to the air, and because there were so few channels, we inevitably saw commercials advertising the latest pilot weeks or months before it was broadcast. Similarly, we knew the dismal slate of daytime TV like the backs of our tiny hands, because every time we faked sick and got to stay home from school, we sat in bed for hours, staring dully at re-runs, talk shows, game shows and soaps. We even knew about the schedule of late-night TV, because we were allowed to stay up late on Fridays and Saturdays and watch "adult" programming like "Dallas" and "The Late Show." Like house pets who find the movement of a lamp across a room to be an earth-shattering event, the slightest deviation in the television schedule was known to us.

Things change slowly, or at least tend to, and so it was about 1996 that I finally encountered a TV program which had been running for some time whose existence was a complete surprise to me. Myself, and a girl I was dating by the name of Michelle, were up late one night, lounging in front of the tube, when through the static of her shitty old Magnavox television on came a show called "The Pointman." Both of us watched in complete astonishment -- astonishment, because we had never heard of the fucking thing. How could a TV show exist without our knowledge? It seemed fantastical, ridiculous, and indeed, we made great fun of "The Pointman" for weeks afterward for daring to exist without telling us. TV shows were very public things, and for one to slip beneath the radar, even on late-late-night television, was unprecedented.

Because of this, and at the risk of sounding even older than I am, it is very hard for me to relate to people who grew up with unlimited television options. In my day, people had exactly five choices: the big three networks (ABC, NBC, CBS), PBS (mosly for "grownups"), and that one local station. Every town in America had this one local station and regardless of who owned it or what part of the country it resided, its programming was always the same: a kind of trash heap of very local news, old war movies, cartoons, and Kung Fu Theater.

Because of these limited options, and because remote controls didn't enter widespread use until the early-mid 1980s, channel surfing was not a possibility either. In fact there was no channel surfing: you turned the dial click, click, click, click, click, and in the space of those five clicks discovered all your choices. Cable TV and VCRs added a little dimension to this very dismal scenario, but both were considered extravagances in middle-class families until the mid-80s. The former, however, was a clunky medium best suited for watching movies, and the latter expensive and unreliable: our cable used to go out every time the wind picked up, and the schedule of movies was often astonishingly repetetive and bad. If I remember most moronic moments of that Clint Eastwood movie with the oranguatan, blame cable television, which never seemed to show anything else.

The upside of this paucity of selections was that television served as a great unifier of people. Sometimes everyone watched The Super Bowl not because they gave a damn about football, but because there was simply nothing else on the air. If this was limiting, it also served as a form of ready cultural currency: everyone had seen the game, so everyone could discuss it at the locker or the water cooler the next day. The effect was inclusive. Nowadays, with hundreds of series to choose from, it is completely normal to be watching a half-dozen programs regularly that perhaps none of your friends or family have ever seen or even heard of. Even "popular" programs draw only a few million viewers. In fact, a "good" ratings share today would have meant instant cancellation in 1989, whereas network executives of 2022 would literally commit murder to have the sort of numbers the most popular programs of the 70s, 80s, 90s and early-mid 00s posted on the regular. The landscape is too fractured, too honeycombed, for cultural phenomenons like "Friends" or "Seinfeld" or "90210" or even a latecomer like "CSI" to happen ever again. Thus we will never again have a moment like the finale of "M*A*S*H" or the "Who Shot J.R.?" episode of "Dallas," which literally everyone in the goddamned country watched and then discussed at length for days or weeks afterwards. It simply won't happen. And the effect of this is a further atomization of our already atomized culture. Everyone has their own select favorites in the queue, but nothing brings us all together.

Another advantage of the old system was the excitement we experienced while awaiting a "television event" -- one of those lavish mini-series costume dramas which were chock-full of faded stars of yesteryear mingled with young up-and-comers. Some of these mini-series were appallingly bad, even laughable, but a few rose to dizzying heights of excellence, and nearly all were enjoyable on some level, even if only as popcorn entertainment. I have the fondest memories of sitting around the TV with my father, mother, older brother and cat, watching things like HOLOCAUST, MASADA, THE WINDS OF WAR, WAR & REMEMBRANCE, SHOGUN, PETER THE GREAT, NORTH AND SOUTH, and many others, until this medium too began to fade away with time. The last full-court-press TV mini-series I can remember was FALCONE, in 2000, and it was a dismal failure, completely ignored in the wake of "The Sopranos"....an HBO cable series. If that isn't an example of an old medium being crushed beneath a new one, I don't know what is.

Then there was the waiting. We live in an era of binge-watching, in which new seasons of shows are released all at once or in clumps, two and three episodes at a time, so that audiences can burn through a year's worth of stories in a single weekend or even a day. This simply underscores the fatal idea that TV shows are merely disposable "content" to be consumed like soda or popcorn, and not something to be savored. In my time, you had to wait about 30 weeks -- minimum -- for your favorite show to play out, and God help you if you missed an episode and nobody taped the fucking thing. This may seem like a disadvantage, but it taught us to savor what we had, to be patient -- always a good lesson for kids to choke down -- and to appreciate the process of following a story to its conclusion. Whatever our television was or was not in terms of quality or maturity, it was not "content." We grasped the enormous effort and expense involved, not to mention the emotional investment, into even the shittiest shows. By parceling stories out slowly, we respected the medium in which they were conveyed more and held it in greater value and esteem.

There is another aspect to television of yore, somewhat unappreciated, which I dearly miss, and that is its moral sense. Time was that there were fairly clear boundaries drawn between good and evil in television land. Good guys were generally flawed -- you can't tell me Dr. Quincy, Thomas Magnum, or Hawkeye Pierce were perfect or even close to it -- but we knew ultimately they were always going to do the right thing as they saw it: that they had a firmly fixed moral compass and certain internal governors which would prevent them from doing some things or tolerating others. But at a certain point about twenty years ago, audiences began to lose patience with heroes who were actually heroes. They not only wanted more egregious flaws and more pronounced eccentric quirks, they began craving outright anti-heroes like Vic Mackie or Tony Soprano, who had few redeeming qualities as human beings and were merely interesting to watch, in the way a drunken college student with a baseball bat is interesting to watch. As an alternative to the traditional TV hero this sort of thing served a very definite purpose: it more closely reflected the world we live in, which, at the risk of kicking an already dead cliche one too many times, has a helluva lot more gray than black or white in it. It also freed writers from the somewhat tedious limitations of Network Standards & Practices, which often forced happy endings onto episodes whose stories demanded otherwise.But because Hollywood is almost pathologically imitative, the "troubled and flawed protagonist with a haunted past," of the sort which -- for example -- abounded in the 00s era reboot of "Battlestar Galactica," suddenly became at first the norm and then the same sort of tiresome cliche. Today it is literally almost impossible to find a hero anywhere. Even Superman, the Dudley Doo-Rite Boy Scout of the comic book world, has been turned into an angry brooder who kills when he feels it necessary. The Good Man has been replaced by the Bad Boy, who, it turns out, is kind of a candy ass, what with all that existential brooding and crying into the void.

Is there a place for the troubled, deeply flawed protagonist on television? Of course there is. Nobody wants to see 100 shows about Superman. But nobody -- at least this nobody -- wants to see 100 shows about Batman, either. When did we, as a society, become so corrupted that the idea of a hero became offensive to us? That courage, decency, selflessness, patriotism, and so on were regarded with cynicism, disbelief and contempt? I don't know, but I do know it has happened within my lifetime.

By now you're probably thinking I'm jammed in some nostalgic feedback loop, where anything I grew up with is better than everything today, just because I grew up with it. This is not so. There are definite upsides to the destruction of the Big Three, five-channel system: a lot of melodramatic, sappy, saccharine, feel-good trash is no longer produced for the simple reason that nobody would watch it. What's more, writers no longer have to pretend that America consists of 95% white people and 5% "others," with "others" filling out ridiculously cliched roles (as someone once joked, black actors of the 80s had plenty of roles to choose from: convict, drill instructor, and escaped slave). Also, writers are no longer handcuffed to heroic sterotypes or fanciful, idealistic depictions of police officers, doctors, or ordinary housewives. They can, if they wish, depict the human experience in its full spectrum, with the very adult notion that good people can do bad things, and bad people good ones. (Prior to "The Shield," for example, TV did not depict police corruption as something that could be systemic, but rather the result of individual cops on the take.) My problem, and it is a serious problem, is that they do not avail themselves of this right. Modern writers of television operate along guidelines which do not correspond with reality, but with the demands of Stitch Fix enneuchs from Human Resources. The generic television show of 2020 is racially, ethnically, sexually, and morally diverse, but it bears no relation to what I see when I walk outside my door, in either form or content. It is unrealistic in the way the 80s shows were unrealistic, but without the rigid moral standards of those shows to redeem their many other failings.

In "1984," Winston Smith notes that the Party's depiction of people in Oceania -- attractive, healthy, athletic and happy -- not only does not correspond with reality, it is in fact the exact opposite of reality. Smith realizes there is a yawning gap between what the Party says is true and what is actually true. So it is with modern television writing. "They" want to sell us a world in which you walk into a crime lab and it is basically a meeting of the United Nations during Pride Month. And maybe the American workplace should actually look like that. But I do know, from personal experience, that it does not. The writer's rooms in Hollywood are about as racially diverse as your nearest synogogue, NRA meeting or NBA franchise, and this hypocrisy is not lost on those who have a deeper understanding of the system. Who is Hollywood to sell us this rainbow fantasy, when, according to an official study conducted by The Hollywood Reporter, 90% of studio executives are Jewish and the Academy is almost exclusively white and predominately male? The fact is, if you want to claim that your show is "grittty" and "depicts reality" then you ought to do just exactly that. Give us a show in southside Chicago where 100% of the cast is black and I'm with you provided it's well-written and well-acted. Give me a show in New York where everyone is Jewish, Puerto Rican, or gay and I'm also there under the same caveats. But don't give us a show in Bangor, Maine with the same casting. Don't pretend that racial-ethnic diversity is found everywhere in this country. It isn't, and we all know it isn't. Stop depicting the reality you want and exchange it for actual reality you have yet to change for yourselves. Or otherwise give us fantasy, and have the nuts to call it that. The shows I grew up with, I am very well aware, often failed to present this country as it was, and are mocked for it: but the shows of today also fail this test, albeit in a much different way.

Don't mistake me. I still love television, and despite being an increasingly cranky middle-aged man, I still watch it: new TV, old TV, domestic TV, foreign TV, event TV, streaming TV. I find a great deal of pleasure and even some joy in the worlds I'm allowed to visit, the people I'm permitted to know, the adventures, triumphs and tragedies I'm favored to share in. I will never stop enjoying a well-crafted, well-executed television series be it a 70s sit-com or a 2020's "limited series event." But I will also never stop grumbling and complaining about how badly this medium often fails to deliver on its immense promise, how often it reaches for the lowest-hanging fruit, and how it frequently becomes a tool in the hands of bumbling social justice warriors who do not practice what they preach. Television is a grand thing, and it is also, as King said, a bottomless pit of shit.

GONE TOO SOON III

By now you are probably familiar with my “Gone Too Soon” series here on Stone Cold Prose, in which I examine television shows which I deem were cancelled before their time. In the first installment, I tackled five shows which were murdered either within or just after completion of their first seasons: they were The Lone Gunmen, Tales of the Gold Monkey, Alien Nation, Kindred: The Embraced, and the original Battlestar Galactica. In chapter two, I looked at seven television shows which had not necessarily closed their eyes during their inaugural seasons, but nevertheless left us before they should have: Friday the 13th: The Series, WKRP in Cincinatti, Rome, Forever Knight, Millennium, The Lost World and Angel.

Today kick off the third, but sadly not the last, chapter of Gone Too Soon, with five shows I feel were cruelly taken from us well before their time. In some cases the series were excellent but suffered from poor marketing or political interference; in others they were the victims of bad business decisions by studio suits or simply weren't strong enough to survive the opening frame despite their promise and potential. In every example the loss was ours. Stephen King once famously remarked that television was “a bottomless pit of shit,” and while this is certainly true, he might have added that there would be less fertilizer for the hole if those in power were able to tell said shit from Shinola at cancellation time.

Proceeding in order of appearance, we begin with WEREWOLF (1987 – 1988). This little piece of costume jewelry is virtually forgotten today. You won't find it on any streaming services, and it was never officially released on DVD. Poor-quality bootlegs and YouTube videos are the best you can get. How things change. Back in 1987, WEREWOLF was an integral part of the Fox Network's first ever broadcast lineup, and in its own way it was quite the innovation. First and foremost, it was a horror series, which remains a rarity on network TV but was almost unheard-of back then; second, it was shot in half-hour format, which by the 80s was used almost exclusively for situation comedies. Because of this, the show felt and looked very different from anything else on television at the time. WEREWOLF was the story of Eric Cord (John J. York), a college grad who gets bitten by a lycanthrope and discovers the only way to free himself from the curse of transforming into a slavering, blood-thirsty monster is to track down and kill the originator of his werewolf bloodline, one Janos Skorzeny (Chuck Connors). As he hunts Skorzeny, he himself is tracked by bounty hunter Alamo Joe Rogan (Lance LeGault), one of the go-to character actors of the 70s and 80s. Now, if this sounds like a furry version of THE HULK, you're right: the premise is exactly the same, right down to the fact that Cord is a wanted man who wanders from town to town, pursued from without and cursed from within. What's more, at that stage of his career, John J. York was one of the worst actors ever to step in front of a camera. When he talks, even when he handles a prop, he's absolutely unconvincing and has all the acting range of a wood block. Some of the episodes are trash, and while the special effects are good for 80s TV (they had some heavy hitters in the FX department), the show was only intermittently frightening. Having said that, the werewolf mythology was quite well thought out, LeGault was a great anti-villain, many of the guest actors were first rate, and Chuck Connors had the advantage of actually looking and sounding like a monster without makeup. What's more, unlike The Hulk, Cord's werewolf did occasionally kill people, and if they all happened to be evil, well, that didn't make their eviscerations any less gruesome. This show was never going to be really good, because York was just a terrible actor (he did get better), but there were a number of really promising episodes that showed what it might have been able to accomplish if it had stuck around a few more years.

HARSH REALM (1999). In 1999, Chris Carter was on a roll. THE X-FILES was still going strong, and MILLENNIUM hadn't yet been canceled. Approached by Fox to put together another series, he borrowed loosely from a graphic novel of the same name to create HARSH REALM, one of the most miscast and mismanaged good ideas anyone ever had. Released after THE MATRIX, but in gestation well before THE MATRIX hit theaters, REALM is the story of Lt. Tom Hobbes (Scott Bairstow), a U.S. Army officer fresh from Kosovo, who is tapped by his superiors to enter Harsh Realm, a virtual reality program “created by the U.S. Army, programmed to minutely replicate the real world for training simulations.” In this case, his mission is to assassinate an opponent named Santiago (Terry O'Quinn). When he enters the simulation, however, he discovers the virtual world in a dystopian state, and even worse, quickly realizes that anyone who dies in the Realm dies for real. Furious over being lied to, but unable to escape, he tries to carry out his mission, picking up a foul-mouthed mercenary companion named Pinocchio (D.B. Sweeny). The two men, often at odds, pursue differing agendas while trying to kill the elusive Santiago, who has set himself up as a warlord in Harsh Realm and plans to destroy the real world via nuclear holocaust, so he can reign supreme in the “virtual” world. Anyone familiar with Chris Carter's work will recognize his trademarks here: Vancouver setting, superb cinematography and lighting, stylized (often wooden) dialogue, dark conspiracies, and a nebulous but fertile mythology. Unfortunately, the show suffered from the beginning from questionable casting and a confusion of focus: Bairstow is too flat to carry a TV series, Sweeny relishes his cigar-chewing role as the mercenary but doesn't quite sell it, and the story hiccups from idea to idea without ever establishing a clear-cut identity. However, some of the episodes are pretty good, with one in particular (“Keine Ausgang”) demonstrating just how truly flexible the format of this series could be: within Harsh Realm, Hobbes and Pinocchio discover a WW2 battle simulation which repeats itself endlessly, trapping anyone who enters it a hellish version of Groundhog Day. HARSH REALM is a mess, but it is a fascinating mess, with an almost bottomless well of potential stories that we never got to see: only nine were shot, and only three were ever aired.

DA VINCI'S CITY HALL (2005). One of the best television shows I ever watched was DA VINCI'S INQUEST, a hard-hitting, brilliantly written and superbly acted Canadian TV series about an irascible, conscience-driven, alcoholic coroner named Dominic Da Vinci (Nicholas Campbell). For seven years, this Chris Haddock-created masterpiece followed Da Vinci around Vancouver as he investigated a long series of murders, accidents and scandals, and also pushed a series of controversial social reforms on unwilling cops and politicians. A unique blend of the police prodecural, medical and forensic detective show, while simultaneously taking on numerous “causes” a la QUINCY, it made for excellent viewing. It was so good that when it ended, Haddock decided to keep the story going by taking more or less the entire cast into a continuation spinoff called DA VINCI'S CITY HALL. The last few seasons of INQUEST were increasingly political, and at the end, Da Vinci becomes a candidate for mayor; CITY HALL picks up a year into his tenure as Vancouver's politican chieftan. The series displayed a relish for its brutal examination of city politics: muffled scandals, backroom deals, egotism, personal vendettas, and cynicism abound, and the series' protagonist must walk a very fine line between pushing his forward-thinking agenda and falling into the various traps and ambushes his enemies have laid out before him. Being free of its procedural roots, CITY HALL was in some ways even better than INQUEST; the complexity of its intrigues between politicans, businessmen, and city agencies was fascinating, especially from an American perspective. Unfortunately, CITY HALL debuted in Canada during a television strike, and as a result was afforded almost no publicity; few Canadians knew the show was even on the air, and its ratings were insufficient to justify a second season. Haddock, a resourceful man, tried to keep things going with a Da Vinci television movie called “The Quality of Life”; he was hoping for a whole series of them a la the very successful PERRY MASON TV movies of the 80s and 90s, but “Quality” was the only one ever produced, it is not streamed anywhere, and it is goddamned next to impossible to get your hands on a copy of it. This was a bitter pill when one considers just how damned good the politico-criminal universe Haddock built really was.

K-9 & COMPANY (1981). During the run of "classic" Doctor Who (1963 - 1989), the time-traveling Time Lord had many memorable companions. The most noteworthy of these was arguably Sarah Jane Smith, played by Lis Sladen, who served as companion to both Doctor #3 (Jon Pertwee) and Doctor #4 (Tom Baker), appearing in a staggering 80 episodes between 1973 - 1976. She left the show, curiously enough, via a misunderstanding: believing she was going to be ushered out by the new showrunner, Philip Hinchcliffe, she departed on her own. Hinchcliffe, a man of great genius, had no such intention, and when he later discovered he was the motive force behind her departure, allegedly "turned pale" with shock and upset. The character of Sarah remained extremely popular with fans, however, and various ideas were concocted to bring her back. In 1981, a different showrunner named John Nathan-Turner came up with the idea of a "Who" spinoff series. The robotic dog K-9 had become a very popular companion for the Doctor, but could obviously not carry a series on its own, so Nathan-Turner asked Sladen to reprise Sarah Jane as the human lead. She accepted, and "K-9 & Company" was born. Now, I am hardly a fan of Nathan-Turner's aesthetic, and the idea of a freelance journalist and a robot dog fighting evil is questionable even for a kid's show, but the pilot, "A Girl's Best Friend," despite having arguably the worst opening credit sequence of any show in televsion history -- it's atrocious, is a remarkable piece of work, harkening back to Doctor Who's golden age, when Hinchcliffe utilized horror and mystery rather than science fiction tropes to fuel the storytelling. Sarah is snarky, scrappy, and smart,
the plucky dog makes an amusing sidekick, and the creepy story about a rural English cult that practices human sacrifice, is spiced with performances from, among others, Colin Jeavons and Sean Chapman. The atmosphere is pure Hammer horror, and Nathan-Turner deserves much credit for tapping into that aesthetic. "A Girl's Best Friend" was a pilot with enormous promise, but unfortunately was not picked up despite huge ratings. Though Sladen ultimately did return in the sucessful "Sarah Jane Adventures" in 2006, which ran until her untimely death in 2011, "K-9 & Company" represents, to me, an enormous opportunity cruelly wasted.

INTELLIGENCE (2005 - 2007). "Da Vinci's Inquest" aside, Chris Haddock had a rather tragic history of creating great entertainment which didn't have, or rather wasn't allowed, to live out a natural life. "Intelligence" was a prime example of this. This minor masterpiece ran but two Canadian seasons (13 episodes each), but makes an indelible impression on anyone who watches it. "Intelligence" is the story of Jimmy Reardon (Ian Tracey), a cagey Vancouver mob boss, and Mary Spalding (Klea Scott), director of the Organized Crime Unit of the Candian Security Intelligence Service. The two form a tense, unlikely, mutually exploitative alliance, with Reardon supplying information on his many enemies to Spalding, who uses that intelligence to further her own career ambitions. The complex world of Canadian gangsterism, which includes bikers, Mafia, and various immigrant gangs is explored, as is the even more Byzantine world of CSIS, which straddles the line between cop shop and spy agency. There is also plenty of personal drama, with Reardon trying to manage his irresponsible younger brother Mike and crazy ex wife Francine, while Spalding tries and fails to juggle a dying marriage with her relentless personal ambitions. Like all Haddock shows, this one is full of sharply drawn characters, blistering performances, naturalistic dialog, and scathing social commentary. The United States is presented, through Canadian eyes, as a bullying, intrusive, arrogant "partner" which views Canada as a back yard rather than a country, and both the Canadian gangsters and Canadian cops see the Yanks through suspicious and even hostile eyes. This perspective is fascinating, especially when American spying in Canada is discussed, and indeed, these hot-button topics ultimately caused the CBC to cancel the show, proving that squeaky wheels don't always get grease: sometimes they get the axe. The show ended on a cliffhanger, which made it all the more cruel to the audience. (On a pair of side-notes: I met Klea Scott, who also happened to star in the third season of Millennium, and she is a fine human being who has had the curious luck of being on two classic shows who died before their time. I also feel it worth mentioning that Haddock is a showrunner who knew how to employ the most diverse casting imaginable without ever making it feel like box-checking.)

On that note, I bring the third installment of Gone Too Soon to a close. I am experimenting with trying to be grateful for the things I have rather than bitter over the things I don't, and it seems to be working, so instead of extending a huge middle finger at the suits, bureacrats and assorted morons responsible for killing these babies in their cradles, I'll just say "thank you" to the folks that brought them into existence.

THIS IS YOUR WAR

Some nights I think things are going to hell, and other nights I know it's just me. Maybe I've reached a time in my life when I have to think what the hell I'm going to do: hide under the blanket or get up and join the war again. – Dominic Da Vinci

As I write this, I am struggling with an urge to go to sleep.

Oh, I know what you're thinking: "Reading this, I'm fighting that urge, too."

But all kidding aside...at least I hope you're kidding...I'm really damned tired, and it's only 6:52 pm. It's a bitterly cold monday at the end of March, and the clocks in my head are striking thirteen. It's a thirteen of mental, moral, and physical exhaustion, and I'm fairly certain you're familiar with it. The furious pace of modern life, and the increasingly depressing outlook for the future of humanity generally, have a tendency to take the starch out of a fella. Sometimes I'm struck by a sense of futility, a sort of "Why bother writing, or going to the gym, or doing anything really constructive, when there are so many distractions I can amuse myself with until bedtime?" This the age of content, after all: an endless stream of memes, gifs, TikToks, reels, stories, television shows, videos and movies designed to occupy our attention and neutralize our brains. All I have to do is give in, take that shot of spiritual dope, and I can put another day into the books. Unfortunately, my conscience, if you want to call it that, won't let me do so: at least not past a certain point, that is. I'm driven, or perhaps more accurately galvanized like a lump of pudding by electricity, into making productive use of the rest of my evening, even if all I really want is to sit on the couch in my pajamas and watch re-runs of Forever Knight.

Like most writers, I have a day job. Unlike most writers, my day job actually matters. I am an advocate for victims of crime. I'm not granted the luxury of placing myself on cruise control, though God knows there are days that I try. What I do is too important, and -- lest you think I'm trying to paint myself in heroic colors -- too demanding to allow me to slack off even when I want to. It requires concentration, organization, passion, toughness, resiliency, empathy, assertiveness, knowlege of the law and of human psychology. Some of these qualities I actually possess. The rest I fake convincingly or not so convincingly depending on what day it is how much coffee I've consumed, and how much Irish whiskey I drank the night before. What's more, and what's most, it requires that for nine hours a day I put myself and my ambitions, hopes, dreams, plans, lusts and wishes secondary to everything and anything I encounter at work. It is an extended, ritualized, act of self-effacement: a sort of vow of selflessness that comes with a suit and tie instead of a monk's robes, and a decent benefits package instead of a ticket to heaven. The rest of the time I may be a self-absorbed jerk, but from 8 to 430 (and sometimes a lot later), from Monday to Friday, I put everyone else's needs before my own. It's good for the soul, but it's hard on just about everything else.

Sometimes I'm asked why I don't spend more time doing the things I frequently state, and complain, that I want to do in my so-called free time: boxing, studying martial arts, visiting Civil War battlefields, taking road trips, writing a history book, penning a memoir of my college years. It might do people some good to understand why my energy levels are not always up to this task. In my story is the story of many others in this nation who want to be more "productive" in their off-hours but oftimes cannot summon the necessary wattage. Today is an excellent example of why this struggle exists, and how it plays out, at least in my own example.

Last night I returned late from a day-trip to Maryland. I fed the cat, drank a double whiskey, wrote in my journal, read a few pages of Ernst Jünger's Fire and Blood and went to bed. This morning, around seven o'clock, I awoke with the cat stomping directly on my bladder, a cruel but effective technique for getting me out of bed to feed him once more.

After the usual struggle to drag the razor over my face, I was at work by eight o'clock, coffee in hand. I did paperwork and returned phone calls until ten, and then spent an hour prepping a witness for a case involving a fatal drug overdose. I then had my ten o'clock snack an hour late. An attorney dropped off a massive list of victims I must contact for upcoming trials; a detective came by and gave me contact information on an elusive witness; a colleague pointed out that I'd neglected to mail out some letters. I spoke with a family whose lives had been altered by a sudden tragedy, and who want to take an active part in the legal proceedings which follow.

Sometime after noon I slipped home and ate lunch. I live close to where I work, which makes this easy. The cat was glad to see me, mainly because I could supply him with yet more food. The little bastard eats enough for a wolf, yet remains slim. What's his secret?

At one I attended a sit-down conference with a future trial witness. At two I sent out some text messages to those who prefer that form of communication. At three I screened more files on incoming cases, made notes, did paperwork, and sent out letters, until quarter-til, when I had my third and final witness prep of the day. I left at the stroke of five. Came home. Doffed coat, blazer, tie, vest, shirt, undershirt, belt, holster, gun, khakis, and shoes, and settled on my "Top Gun" t-shirt, worn-out flannels, and Rite Aid slippers. Made dinner. Watched exactly an hour of a television program. Struggled with the desire, almost the need, to sleep on the couch, and staggered into my bedroom to write this. Strange as it may seem, the very act of writing forces some energy into my muscles, some spark into my brains. I'm not quite as invertibrate with exhaustion as I was a half an hour ago, when I watched a 90s-era Canadian TV program about a vampire trying to win back his soul by working as a night-shift detective in Toronto.

I'll be truthful. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not in the same boat. Having a job like this pays a lot of karmic debts. At least I hope it does. I certainly feel that way, most days. God knows it can take a toll. Right now, I don't want to change into gym clothes and slog down to the Y to work out in front of TV screens silently blaring bad news. I don't want to spend the last hour or two before bed torturing my creative nerve into producing something readable for my small but (slowly) growing audience. What I want is to watch Season 4 of Cobra Kai, or see if CSI:Vegas is any good or just a cash grab, or play mindless videogames while serving myself another double whiskey. What I want is to piss away the hours before bed noodling on social media. I don't want to show up for my life: I want to hide from it.

But that's really the struggle we all face, isn't it? The war within? We all grow up wanting to "be" something. Then we actually get there -- upville, adulthood -- and we find we aren't what we wanted to "be." Those simple, clear-cut goals and dreams have either blurred out of recognition or receded out of reach. We have rents and mortgages and student loans and bills for the kids' braces. We spent forty to sixty hours a week at work and another five to ten in commuting there. We don't get enough sleep, we eat crap, and a great deal of our so-called free time is squandered worrying about our jobs or our bills, or both. Nearly everyone I know is struggling with their mental health. That special verve, that sense of excitement and hope and passion, which we need to do the things we really want to do, is often burning very low in those hours we do have to ourselves; elsewise it is simply absent. And then comes the choice: do we give in to defeatism, hide behind that pitiful but useful excuse that we have "grown up" and no longer need to pursue our dreams, our hobbies, the things that make us truly fulfilled and happy...or do we force ourselves into action even though we'd rather hide under the blanket? Even though we'd like to spend the next 40 years with "Netflix and chill?"

I'd like to paint myself as a smug success story, or more cheerily, an inspiration: a guy who knows how to walk the line between the obligations I have to the needs of reality and those I have to my own soul, someone who can hold down a full-time job and still chase his dreams. And I confess I like to think of myself that way. Indeed, I'll also confess that my ego purrs when people ask me how I keep myself inspired in the face of endless discouragements. It makes me seem tough and manly, someone who never quit, someone cut from harder stone than the common. But it isn't true. I just happen to live by a philosophy that never lets me down. I thought long and hard about how to explain it before I realized others had explained it better than I ever could, before I had even known of its existence. So here it is, in a single conversation between antagonists, written by Tim Minnear in 2001:

ANGEL: You're not gonna win.

HOLLAND MANNERS: Well... no. Of course we aren't. We have no intention of doing anything so prosaic as "winning."

ANGEL: Then why?

HOLLAND MANNERS: I'm sorry. Why what?

ANGEL: Why fight?

HOLLAND MANNERS: That's really the question you should be asking yourself, isn't it? See, for us, there is no fight. Which is why winning doesn't enter into it.

That's it. Right there. The coward in us hides under the blanket. The hero gets up and joins the war. But the realist, the guy we have to live with every day who is neither coward nor hero but both simultaneously, asks, "How do I win the war?" And the existential void replies: "You don't. You fight because the fight needs fighting. You fight because."

One could say that it is all about finding joy in the process, in the act of reaching for that ever-elusive dream; thrusting one's chest out to break the tape that means we've "made it" -- even though the definition of "making it" is curiously vague and becomes moreso the closer we seem to get. The cliche says, "life is a journey, not a destination." Actually, death is the destination, and that is precisely what gives zest to life. The journey. The fight.

Ernest Hemingway conceived an epigram for his collection Winner Take Nothing which goes like this:

Unlike all other forms of lutte or combat the
conditions are that the winner shall take nothing; neither his ease, nor his pleasure, nor any notion of glory; nor, if he win far enough,
shall there be any reward within himself.

Read literally, this is terribly grim stuff. It seems almost dirge-like in its existential woe. But like a lot of Hemingway's better work, it is very deep water if you care to go sounding. I have often struggled to define in words what this epigram means, though I have no trouble understanding it emotionally, so once again I resort to quotation, this time from an anonymous internet essay published in 2009. It is badly written but the brilliance of it shines through the clumsy wording:

"Important is how man fights not what he wins. The prize is that man is alive and has the ability to fight and to show what he is capable for. The winning is in that he suffers and not gives up, showing he is stronger than the pain. People are in this world to fight. The only true sense of life is this fight - all other is transient and futile. And Hemingway’s characters are fighters. Though rags and common people, they are fighters and heroes. They are small heroes having their big victories...

"And if man wins in that fight he doesn’t get anything...He goes without award, because there is no prize and the victory is - to fight knowing he will get nothing in the end. The winners are those who fight for the fight and fight fair and self-deniably. The winners are fighting even knowing they will lose, lose everything. The winner overcomes himself, thus free of everything, having only his courage and faith, he is ready to do the impossible, to sacrifice himself, even to receive greater pains but in that way he is winning, in that way he is victorious, in that way he can not be defeated."

The fact of the matter is that the war, the one we face internally, daily, is not a war we can win. Hemingway was right about that, and the quotation of the fictional cop-turned-coroner, Domenic Da Vinci, with which I began this essay, does not even imply that it is winnable. It does state that there is a choice: participate, or hide under the blanket.

I choose to participate. Usually. Mostly. Today. I participate.

I fight.

And sometimes keep the blanket handy.

A HAPPY ANNOUNCEMENT AMIDST ALL THIS BAD NEWS

As I write this, the Russian army is shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Only minutes ago I had the sorry pleasure of watching tracer fire slam into burning buildings on the plant grounds. I'm glad I saw this at the end of my workout, or it would have killed my motivation to burn calories. Who needs to worry about their weight or muscle tone when Mr. Putin is working so hard to turn all of their potential energy into the kinetic version by incinerating them?

George Orwell once made a remark, "No doubt time will do to me what it does to most prophets." Yesterday I posted a blog on this very site which pointed out that, history being cyclical, we perhaps did not need to worry about the present conflict going nuclear. It took less than a day for Vladimir Vladimirovich to begin the process of making a fool out of me, but any man who can order his army to shell a nuclear power plant in the same goddamn region which plays host to Chernobyl is unlikey to lose sleep over my discomfiture.

Thinking that you as well as I might need some distraction, I am therefore happy to announce that I will be the featured guest on THE HOLLYWOOD GODFATHER PODCAST on March 9. THE HOLLYWOOD GODFATHER is hosted by Gianni Russo, the real-life Mafioso, actor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and co-star of the all-time classic "The Godfather" -- a true gentleman, whose autiobiography is still a bestseller. You will no doubt remember him not only as Carlo Rizzi, the nasty and unfortunate hood who marries into the Corleone Family, but such films as STRIPTEASE, ANY GIVEN SUNDAY and RED DRAGON, and an incredible variety of TV shows including PERRY MASON, WISEGUY, HUNTER, SILK STALKINGS, RENEGADE and PRISON BREAK. As if all this isn't enough, a "rapology" album of his life story has just been released.

THGP is co-hosted by Patrick Piccarelli, Vietnam vet, Purple Heart recipient, NYPD Detective Lieutenant (Ret.), Private Investigator, PhD of Criminal Justice at Cal U, and the author of BLOOD SHOT EYES, THE POP LINE, MALA FEMINA, HOLLYWOOD GODFATHER and many others. The show is produced by the lovely Megan Horan: actress, associate producer and writer since the podcast's inception four years ago. I'm especially appreciative of her because she laughs at my jokes.

On the podcast, I'll be discussing my books, my family's origins in Capone-controlled Chicago, my dad's encounters with notorious mobster Anthony "The Ant" Spilotro, and my own run-ins with Maggadino and Luppino Crime Family associates, the Russian mob, and CIA operative Felix Rodriguez.

In celebration of this triumph, I've price-dumped my first two (mob-themed) novels, CAGE LIFE and KNUCKLE DOWN to 99c on Amazon Kindle for the next 10 days. I hope everyone tunes in and enjoys themselves -- assuming, of course, that Mr. Putin hasn't blown us all to hell by then.

UKRAINE AND DEJA VU

This morning, as I walked to McDonald's on George Street to get my Sunday coffee, I reflected on the curiously cyclical nature of life. Twenty years previously, I'd wake up in my rundown apartment on Sunday morning, go to this very same McDonald's, order coffee and breakfast, and then consume it in front of my television while watching The Lost World, starring the lovely Jen O'Dell. This ridiculous ritual, not really befitting a supervising investigator in the District Attorney's Office, was the highlight of an otherwise bleak and barren day. It was bleak and barren because as a recently-single 28 year-old man, I was still living mentally in a collegiate atmosphere, where one possessed a surfeit of friends and romantic partners and never lacked for anything to do in one's spare time. Adult life, in comparison, struck me as profoundly boring and empty. I went to work, I went to the gym, I occasionally went to a bar with colleagues...and that was about it. Hence the morphine-like pleasure I took in sinking into the child-like ritual of eating fast food while ogling a good-looking blonde in a skimpy costume as she fought dinosaurs and aliens.

Now, two decades longer in the tooth and on the hunt for Sunday coffee, I found myself glimpsing Jen's face on social media. I met her by chance when I was living in Los Angeles and we became friendly enough to hit the red carpet together when I was invited to the Writers of the Future Awards a few years ago. The experience was for me surreal: I had gone from watching her on television to drinking champagne with her in Hollywood. It was doubly surreal because I had the strongest desire to find a way to communicate with my unfulfilled, depressed 28 year-old self and say, "Things won't always seem so boring and hopeless and routine and empty. You will have experiences you wouldn't believe, go places you never imagined, accomplish things you never dreamed. Just hang in there and you will see daydreams become reality, even if it takes years, and tears." And it was triply surreal because, well, here I am again, all these years later, and so much has changed...and yet so much remains the same.

By now you may be wondering what this rambling has to do with the war in Ukraine. Well, when I entrered the McDonald's this morning to get my coffee, I glimpsed on the television the headline PUTIN PUTS NUCLEAR FORCES ON HIGH ALERT. Up to that moment I had been thinking of my life now vs. my life twenty years ago and how curious the similarities were; seeing those words made my thoughts skip like a needle back to my own Cold War childhood, when it always seemed we were staring down the launch-tube of global annihilation, always waiting for the series of blunders which would lead to mushroom clouds rising in the distance.

I have already written a blog about my memories of the Cold War, and I know I have a tendendy to touch upon certain subjects over and over again in these entries, so I will stick to the over-arching theme here, which is the cyclical nature of life, and how Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the largest-scale military conflict in Europe since 1945, is really just another example of how nobody learns from history; how nothing ever really changes; and how, if you life long enough, the wheel will come back 'round again and you will find yourself taking a bath, welcome or otherwise, in a feeling of deja vu.

The area roughly encompassing Poland, Belarus and the Ukraine has been dubbed "The Bloodlands" for how often and how ferociously it has been fought over by warring powers over the centuries. In the last hundred-odd years alone, the First World War, the Polish -Soviet War, the Russian Civil War, and the Second World War all played out in that territory. The levels of violence and destruction which passed over the Bloodlands are unimaginable to Americans: even the South during our own Civil War suffered only a fraction of the depravations involved in these conflicts. Throw in the Ukrainian famine (known as the Holmodor), engineered by Stalin to break the back of resistance to his forcible collectivization of farms, a famine which killed millions of people, and you begin to get a sense of just how much suffering has been concentrated there in such a small period of time.

What attracts dictators and armies to these lands? The answer is twofold. The natural defensive barriers which protect countries from one-another in Europe, such as the Alps, the Pyrennes, the Rhine River, the English Channel, and so on, do not exist in this portion of Eastern Europe. Poland is as flat as a soccer field, making it an ideal gateway to march armies in either direction. Second, the Ukraine, known as "the Breadbasket of Europe," is an incredibly fertile area both in terms of agriculture, mineral wealth, coal and oil. It is arguably the most valuable land in all of Europe: it fed and powered the Soviet Union, and since the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, Russian leaders have regarded its loss as akin to the removal of a limb. Putin has never accepted the loss, and tried with to make sure its government, in the style of Belarus, worked as a vassal of his own. His long-term failure to achieve this is the reason for the present invasion: he cannot tolerate a Ukraine which sees itself as a Western rather than an Eastern nation, and which wants to integrate itself with the Euro, the E.U., and NATO. In his mind, he is in a dilemma no less severe than the one presented to the United States when Castro imported Soviet nuclear weapons into Cuba. To lose Ukraine, as he has already "lost" the Baltic states and most of the former Warsaw Pact powers (like Poland) to the Western sphere of influence, represents to him an existential threat to the security of Russia. But like all the previous warlords who brought misery to this region, his justifications and pretexts are really just noise. The hard reality is destruction, death, panic and chaos. And the theme is merely one of familiarity, of a cycle repeating itself. The place-names I'm hearing on the news this week are the same place-names you will read about in any biography of Nicholas II, Lenin, or Stalin; any biography of Hitler; or any book on the above-mentioned wars. Even Chernobyl, which was the focus of so much anxious attention in 1986 when the reactor blew and nearly killed 100 million people, is once again in the news: the Russians, after heavy fighting, captured the nuclear complex there yesterday. It reminded me so much of this exchange from the HBO mini-series of that name:

SHCHERBINA
Do you know anything about this town? Chernobyl?

LEGASOV
Not really. No.

SHCHERBINA
It was mostly Jews and Poles. The Jews were killed in pogroms, Stalin forced out the Poles, then the Nazis came and murdered whoever was left. But after the war, people came here to live anyway. They knew the ground beneath their feet was soaked in blood, but they didn't care. Dead Jews, dead Poles, but not them. No one ever thinks it will happen to them. But here we are.

Yes, here we are. The great wheel has turned slowly and bloodily once more, and all the old fears have been released, along with all the old animosities, and all the old dog-eared plans for conquest and occupation. Even the belated but heartening response of what we call The Free World to Russia's aggression is reminiscent of the laggard way the Allies stood up to fascism in World War Two. It's as if we're all new actors performing a very old play. And as Cassius asked, rhetorically, in JULIUS CAESAR: "How many ages hence shall this our lofty scene be acted over in states unborn and accents yet unknown?" The answer is, I suppose, all of them. All the ages of man which are yet to come, however many or few. Human beings are like ants making a track around a circle so large they cannot discern its curve, and thus think they are moving forward, when in fact they are merely describing a zero.

Discouraging news? Yes. But there is one potential upside. Vladimir Putin controls a hefty stock of nuclear bombs, well sufficient to destroy this planet and everything on it, and he did indeed put his nuclear forces on a higher state of alert as a bullying tactic. This is frightening, but it's worth remembering that the Cold War lasted 45 years, and during those years the Soviets had all their nuclear missiles pointed at us and ready to fire...yet they never left their tubes. Nor did any of ours. No matter how tense the diplomatic situation got, no matter how fiercely the proxy wars raged, nobody on either side ever pushed that button. So if I'm right, and history really is a slow-turning wheel, this latest demonstration of human stupidity will, at least, come to its end without the accompanying imagery of mushroom clouds. And that's something, isn't it?

DIALOG

Probably the greatest challenge an author faces when introducing characters to a reader is bringing them to life in the smallest possible amount of time. We want the audience to know who they are dealing with, and we want to do it subtly, showing rather than telling.

This week we will discuss the technique of utilizing dialog to establish different aspects of characterization in a story. For my own convenience and sanity, and also because screen-and-teleplays require brevity by their very nature, I have decided to example dialog from the big and small screen rather than from novels and short stories. I have also chosen not to draw on radio scripts from the Golden Age of Radio, even though they were often masterclasses in dialog, because that is a subject for an essay in its own right. Speaking specifically, the purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate that dialog is at least as effective as any other form of action or description in letting the audience know what sort of character they are dealing with, and in the shortest possible amount of time. In that spirit...

MINIMALIST CHARACTER REVEALS

In this brief and very simple exchange from the 1945 horror movie "The Red House," a character reveals much about her personality:

PETE: Hens doing all right?
MEG: We always have more eggs than we can use.

This communicates the woman's point of view in a single sentence. Pete, seeing Meg's basket is full of eggs, inquires about the hens and their yield, probably in a rhetorical way; but Meg, who is unhappy, puts a negative spin on a positive outcome.

Likewise this gem from the Canadian TV series DA VINCI'S INQUEST, which shows exactly what kind of person Mayor Russ Hathaway is, while allowing his lawyer, Richard Norton, to show both his wit, intelligence and political cynicism:

HATHAWAY: As far as I'm concerned, I was ready to come clean right from the start, but on the advice of my lawyer, which is you, I didn't – but only to protect my girlfriend and my wife.

NORTON: Wife first, girlfriend second.

CHARACTER REVEAL THROUGH PATHOS

M*A*S*H (1972 – 1983) was probably the best example of high-level repartee and banter in the history of television. If the dialog was sometimes heavily stylized, it rarely if ever failed to communicate its point in the most consise possible way. In this sequence, the hospital's resident innocent, Corporal Walther “Radar” O'Reilly, is ashamed of weeping over the death of a soldier who hails from his home state of Iowa. Army surgeon B.J. Hunnicutt shows his mettle as a human being when he replies to the boy's question with an answer which throws out all differences of rank, societial position and social class and levels them as human beings:

RADAR: When was the last time you wanted to cry?
B.J.: What time is it?

In another scene from the same show, the classic “frenemies” Hawkeye Pierce and Charles Emerson Winchester III are forced by potential tragedy to lower their guards and communicate as human beings about their respective relationships with their fathers:

HAWKEYE: Dad and I are too close to let this all suddenly end with...silence, 12,000 miles apart.
WINCHESTER: Pierce, you should be grateful that... only distance is separating you. My father and I have been 12,000 miles apart in the same room.
HAWKEYE: Yeah?
WINCHESTER: The most intimate and personal communication at the Winchester household took place at the evening meal. Every night, promptly at 7.15, we would gather at the dinner table. The soup would be served, and my father would begin with... "Tell us what you did today, Charles." As the elder of the two children, I was given the privilege of speaking first. I would then have until the salad to report the highlights of my day. Even now, the sight of lettuce makes me talk faster. I always assumed that that's how it was in every family. But when I see the...warmth...closeness, the fun of your relationship....My father's a good man. He always wanted the best for me. But...where I have a father...you have a dad.
HAWKEYE: You never told me this before.
WINCHESTER: Actually...Hawkeye...I've never told you anything before.

The last two lines of dialog cement a deeply emotional sequence by having Winchester use, for the first and perhaps only time, Hawkeye's nickname, instead of the contemptuously uttered “Pierce.”

CHARACTER REVEAL THROUGH HUMOR AND WORDPLAY

A character's sense of humor, or lack of same, is central to their identity. There are however many types of humor, from observational to sarcastic to flat-out cruel, and the sort of humor a character displays will tell us much about them.

The following examples are drawn from many difference sources:

(BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER)

The stuffy and pedantic librarian Giles, gets spiked by Jenny, his far more hip and culturally connected love interest:

Rupert Giles: I'm-I'm just gonna stay and clean up a little. I'll-I'll, uh, I'll be back in the Middle Ages.
Jenny Calendar: Did you ever leave?

(PLANET OF THE APES)

Dr. Zaius: I see you've brought the female of your species. I didn't realize that man could be monogamous.
Taylor: On this planet, it's easy.

SIMON & SIMON:

RICK: It's a messy case.
A.J.: This from a man who eats burritos in the shower!

CHARACTER REVEAL THROUGH ACTION

A writer does not always have all the time he wants to establish his characters; or he may simply wish for a less traditional way of showing what his character is made of without tiresome exposition or over the top action. In this sequence from THE KARATE KID, we learn everything we need to know about the villainous John Kreese by seeing how he trains his students:

Kreese: What do we study here?
Karate Class : THE WAY OF THE FIST SIR.
Kreese : And what is that way?
Karate Class : STRIKE FIRST, STRIKE HARD, NO MERCY SIR.

Kreese's entire philosophy, which "rests in his fist," is revealed here without him even interacting with the film's protagonist: this is the sort of man who imbues teenage boys with dangerous fighting skills and imputes them with an aggressive, merciless attitude, which mirrors his own philosophy of life. His character is established irrevocably in this brief glimpse.

CHARACTER REVEAL COMBINING DRAMA AND HUMOR

Long before Joss Whedon popularized the school of "undercutting drama with humor," the writers of M*A*S*H were hard at work doing the same thing. In this sequence, the cross-dressing misfit Klinger drops his veil of clownishness for the probing shrink, Dr. Freedman, to reveal the true source of his hatred for the army. It begins with Freedman assuming that Klinger, who is trying to get out of the military on a fake psychological discharge, has arrived to enlist psychiatrist for this purpose. Freedman isn't having any.

FREEDMAN: I can't help you with your Section Eight, Klinger.
KLINGER: I'm talking about a Section Eight. I'm talking about being crazy.

With this sentence, Klinger is saying a great deal. First, he is admitting that his transvestite persona is just that. Second, he is showing his trust in the doctor. Third, he is expressing sincere fears in the hope that the doctor will understand. Now Freedman shows his mettle by realizing that Klinger is in need of his genuine psychiatric counsel. After listening to the corporal explain that he feels his transvestite act has actually become part of his identity, the psychiatrist probes deeper:

FREEDMAN: Klinger, let me ask you something. Why do you want to get out of here?
KLINGER: Why? Well, there's, there's lots of reasons. I guess death tops the list. I don't want to die. And I don't want to look at other people while they do it. And I don't want to be told where to stand while it happens to me. And I don't want to be told how to do it to somebody else. And I ain't gonna, period, that's it, I'm gettin' out!
FREEDMAN: You don't like death.
KLINGER: Overall, I'd rather lay in a hammock with a couple of girls than be dead. Yes.

Here the writers do a great deal with not very many words. Freedman's intelligence is established by virtue of the way he asks the initial question -- he clearly suspects Klinger's motives, but isn't sure. Klinger, on the other hand, becomes increasingly agitated as he comes toward his central motivation for obtaining the Section Eight discharcge: he does not want to kill. The exchange demonstrates both the sincerity of Klinger as well as his moral compass, and shows just how shrewd a psychiatrist Freedman really is. The last interchange releases the tension of the scene by allowing Klinger to go from angry confession to his more familiar sarcasm.

Another example of this technique, taken from SCHINDLER'S LIST, couples seriousness and humor to show the protagonist, Schindler, begins his story not only as an absolutely unregenerate opportunist, but as a man completely unwilling to take responsibility for past failures. Schindler's tone is serious, but he is setting up his wife Emilie for a punch-line: and this, too, is in keeping with his character, which takes nothing very seriously.

SCHINDLER: There's no way I could have known this before, but there was always something missing. In every business
I tried, I see now it wasn't me that was failing, i was this thing, this missing thing. Even if I'd known what it was, there's nothing I could have done about it, because you can't create this sort of thing. And it makes all the difference in the world between success and failure.
EMILIE: Luck?
SCHINDLER: War.

DIALOG AS COMMENTARY

Great dialog does not always have to possess an immediately obvious purpose. One of the best conversations on M*A*S*H seems to point to Hawkeye's cleverness and sense of humor, but in reality simply highlights the universiality of the American experience circa the 1950s. It is not a question of “what are we fighting for” but rather “what do we want to go back to when the fighting is over.”

HAWKEYE: Where are you from?
HARKNESS: Idaville, Indiana.
HAWKEYE: No kidding? Idaville!
HARKNESS: Yeah.
HAWKEYE: Ever go to the dances at the American Legion Hall there?
HARKNESS: Yeah, sure.
HAWKEYE: And, um...on the edge of town, there's this little place where you can get the world's greasiest French fries.
HARKNESS: Right, Mona's!
HAWKEYE: Yeah, yeah. And, uh, uh, what else? The Studebaker dealership. Always has those search lights when they bring in the new models.
HARKNESS: Hey, when were you in Idaville?
HAWKEYE: Never. I grew up in the same small town in Maine.

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF LETTING THE AUDIENCE KNOW THEY'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

In this very terse exchange from ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR, one inmate of the Nazi death camp Sobibor cautions the other, whose reply reminds him -- and the audience -- that caution is no longer part of their vocabulary:

SASHA: Shlomo, do not take any unnecessary risks.
SHLOMO: It's Sobibor.

An entire world of meaning lies in those two words.

SARCASM IN DIALOG AS A MEANS OF ESTABLISHING RELATIONSHIPS OR CHARACTERS

In this banter from the British series THE MIDSOMER MURDERS, we discover the nature of the relationship between Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby and his young protoge, Detective Inspector Troy. Barnaby is clearly fond of the Socratic method:

TROY: I've had a thought.
BARNABY: Well treat it gently. It's in a strange place.

Likewise, in LAST OF THE MOHICANS, this back-and-forth tells us much about both the sort of relationship Ducan and Hawkeye are going to have, as well as everything we need to know about their respective world-views:

Duncan: There is a war on. How is it you are headed west?
Hawkeye: Well, we kinda face to the north and real subtle-like turn left.

In M*A*S*H, the intense snobbery of Winchester was generally conveyed with jabs like this:

MULCAHY: What time is it in Iowa?
WINCHESTER: 1882.

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF ESTABLISHING CULTURAL NORMS

It is often possible to establish regional, ethnic, or national characteristics in the simplest exchanges. In the otherwise lackluster script for THE WHISTLE BLOWER, the writer manages here to communicate the “Englishness” of his father and son characters in a way which will seem amusingly familiar to English audiences and amusingly different to American ones:

BOB: Are we going to have an argument?
FRANK: I shouldn't be surprised.
BOB: Tea?
FRANK: All right.

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF REVEALING THE MORAL COMPASS SPECIFICALLY

This scene, taken from BLUE THUNDER, demonstrates the different directions of the two characters' moral compasses in just two sentences:

FLETCHER: One civilian dead for every ten terrorists. That's an acceptable ratio.
MURPHY: Unless you're one of the civilians.

DIALOG AS MASS CHARACTER REVEAL

While we must always remember that it is better to show than to tell, dialog does more than simply exist as a way of filling in gaps in exposition. Properly crafted and employed at the right psychological moment in a story, it can do what no amount of “showing” can – fill out a character sketch. This short scene in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN manages to tell us crucial facts about no less than four of the main characters. It begins when Chico, the young hothead of the group, expresses dismay over the bitterness and cynicism of the older, more experienced gunmen toward their own professions and lives:

CHICO: Hey. How can you talk like this? Your gun has got you everything you have. Isn't that true? Hmm? Well, isn't that true?
VIN: Yeah, sure. Everything. After awhile you can call bartenders and faro dealers by their first name - maybe two hundred of 'em! Rented rooms you live in - five hundred! Meals you eat in hash houses - a thousand. Home – none. Wife – none. Kids... none. Prospects - zero. Suppose I left anything out?
CHRIS: Yeah. Places you're tied down to - none. People with a hold on you - none. Men you step aside for - none.
LEE: Insults swallowed - none. Enemies - none.
CHRIS: No enemies?
LEE:Alive.
CHICO: Now you're talking.

If we had only this sequence to go on, we would know that a) Chico is still eager and naive about his profession and the consequences it will bring to his life, b) Vin is bitter and remorseful about his life choices, c) Chris takes a somewhat more balanced view, d) Lee, alone among the veterans, still retains (or pretends to retain) some Chico-type enthusiasm.

DIALOG AS FORESHADOWING

REVENGE OF THE SITH is not necessarily known for brilliant repartee, but this tete-a-tete between Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and Chancellor Sheev Palpatine is a model for “sowing evil seeds” in conversation. Palpatine is seducing Skywalker to the dark side of the force without Anakin even suspecting it is taking place, by playing on Anakin's greatest weakness – his love of Padme Amidala, who he has foreseen will die in childbirth. Palpatine does this without even referencing her name or hinting that he knows of Anakin's secret affair with the senator. In so doing he also weakens Anakin's connection to the Jedi Order.

Palpatine: Have you ever heard the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?
Anakin: No.
Palpatine: I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create... life. He had such a knowledge of the dark side, he could even keep the ones he cared about... from dying.
Anakin: He could actually... save people from death?
Palpatine: The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.
Anakin: What happened to him?
Palpatine: He became so powerful, the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power...which, eventually of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic. He could save others from death... but not himself.
Anakin: Is it possible to learn this power?
Palpatine: Not from a Jedi.

CONSISTENT TONE AS A MEANS OF USING DIALOG TO CONVEY RELATIONSHIPS

The show SIMON & SIMON excelled in this category – defining the consistent, realistic and humorous relationship between brothers Rick and A.J. Simon. Rick, the older brother, was scruffy, irresponsible, and immature, always looking for the shortcut and the easy payday; A.J. was a snobbish, preppie intellectual who dotted every i and crossed every t. From the very first episode, the brothers' banter continously reminded us of this.

A.J.: We're not going to lose, are we?
RICK: No. Remember, the eagle may soar, but the weasel never gets sucked up into a jet engine.

A.J.: Are you aware that the instructions are all in Spanish?
RICK: Well, that's not a problem, I speak Spanish.
A.J.: Yeah, Rick, but this is technical stuff. I think it's a little tougher than saying 'What time does happy hour start?'

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF ESTABLISHING THE CONTOURS OF RELATIONSHIPS

Since we don't always have eight years, or eight novels, to establish how two characters get along in a story, it's nice to know it can be done considerably faster, sometimes in a single exchange. This one lets us know just how Mr. Ken Holliday feels about his now-superstar ex-wife:

PERRY MASON: And you attended her wedding?
KEN HOLLIDAY: Why not? She performed in front of 30,000 screaming fans: I play “Feelings” in some dive bar full of stiffs. Forgive and forget. I forgave...and she forgot.

This example from the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is also telling, when the character of Starbuck introduces his best friend to a third party:

STARBUCK: I'm Starbuck. This is my conscience, Apollo.

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF SHOWING CONFIDENCE

PERRY MASON often found the mastermind lawyer leaning frequently on his private eye, Paul Drake, to perform seemingly impossible tasks. In this sequence, Drake manages to fully convey his self-confidence without quite stepping over the line into arrogance by the insertion of a single word: “pretty.” What's more, the exchange is a play on Drake's self-styled reputation as a ladies' man:

PERRY MASON: Paul, how good are you at finding a needle in a haystack?
PAUL DRAKE: I've got a pretty good magnet.

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF ENIGMA

The purpose of dialog can be to reveal, but it can also be to confuse, lend mystery, and obfuscate the reader/audience. Words can mean exactly what they say, or precisely and entirely the opposite. In this scene from the pilot of “Buffy,” the heroine is introduced to Angel, a handsome young man who seems to come in the guise of an ally, but is deliberately enigmatic and mysterious in his behavior, even going so far as to taunt Buffy even as he vaguely offers her assistance:

ANGEL: I'm a friend.
BUFFY: Yeah, well, maybe I don't want a friend.
ANGEL: I didn't say I was yours.

DIALOG AS AN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER REVEAL

The fascinating thing about dialog is that it can be about one thing on the surface, and another thing entirely underneath. All sexual banter and repartee hinges on the double entendré, but it is less understood that this form of speaking can be used for a multiplicity of other purposes. The Danish film DANCER IN THE DARK uses back-and-forth dialog about a specific subject to establish the mindset of the character Selma about life itself:

Selma: You like the movies, don’t you?
Bill: I love the movies. I just love the musicals.
Selma: But isn’t it annoying when they do the last song in the films?
Bill: Why?
Selma: Because you just know when it goes really big… and the camera goes like out of the roof… and you just know it’s going to end. I hate that. I would leave just after the next to last song… and the film would just go on forever.

DIALOG AS CHARACTER'S THROUGH LINE

A through line is defined as “a connecting theme, plot, or characteristic in a film, television series, book, etc.” Sometimes one does not require back and forth exchanges, but rather individual statements of dialog uttered by characters, to establish their entirely raison d'etre. Take this utterance from the character Amy Hastings in PERRY MASON, which defines her entire relationship with Ken Milansky, the man she desires as a husband.

“I intend to pursue you until you catch me.”

In the classic movie HEAT, several characters utter these sort of through-lines, including the film's protagonist, Vincent Hanna:

“All I am is what I'm after.”

Ditto the antagonist, Neil McCaulley:

“Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.”

Even Homer Simpson can get in on the act:

“Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand.”

DIALOG AS A MEANS OF ENDING A SCENE ON A NOTE OF TENSION

In NIGHT SINS, Tami Hoag works very hard to establish a sense of paranoia and menace in the little town of Deer Lake. Throughout the story, it is made clear that the antagonist is several steps ahead of the police, which adds to this menace. When one suspect is caught, rather than bringing relief to our protagonist, this exchange simply highlights the fact that the real culprit is still on the loose:

HANNAH GARRISON: Ollie Swain had something to do with my son's disappearance, and I hope he's roasting in hell.
MEGAN O'MALLEY: Oh, I believe he's roasting in hell. But he's saving a seat for someone.

DIALOG AS THIRD-PARTY CHARACTER REVEAL

One seldom-if-ever-discussed possibility for dialog is the third-party character reveal. We have often observed how dialog works to reveal the traits and personalities of those involved in the exchange, but it can also be used to flesh out characters not in scene. A fine example from TOMBSTONE:

WYATT EARP: What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?
DOC HOLIDAY: A man like Ringo is born with a great big hole at the center of him. He can't kill enough or steal enough or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
WYATT EARP: What is he after?
DOC HOLIDAY: Revenge.
WYATT EARP: For what?
DOC HOLIDAY: Being born.

DIALOG AS CONFESSIONAL

Confession is good for the soul: it is also good, actually great and quite necessary, for our protagonists and our heroes. Confession of past sins and present weaknesses makes them relatable even if they are not necessarily likeable. In this exchange from THE UNTOUCHABLES, Elliot Ness, a proud and righteous man, confesses that he cannot take down Al Capone by his own resources; Jimmy Malone confesses a much more shameful motive in his reply:

ELLIOT NESS: You want to stay on the beat? You do that. If you'd like to come with me, I need your help. I'm askin' you for help.
JIMMY MALONE: Well...that's the thing you fear, isn't it? Mr Ness, l wish I'd met you ten years and...twenty pounds ago. But...I just think it got...more important to me...to stay alive. And that's why l'm walkin' the beat. Thank you, no.

DIALOG AS PSYCHOTHERAPY

Sometimes a character is, willingly or unwillingly, coming to a realization of some kind or another. This truth lies within themselves, but is not exposed by their own words but rather by those of a second, perhaps hostile party, who cuts into their defenses as if with a scalpel to exorcise the painful reality. No finer example of this can be found than in this “therapy session” between Buffy Summers and her perennial nemesis, the vampire Spike. Buffy, coming off a near-death experience, wants Spike to explain how he was able to kill two of her predecessors. His reply forces her worst fears to the surface:

Spike: The first [Slayer I killed] was all business, but the second -- she had a touch of your style. She was cunning, resourceful... oh, did I mention? Hot. I could have danced all night with that one.
Buffy: You think we're dancing?
Spike: That's all we've ever done. And the thing about the dance is, you never get to stop. Every day you wake up, it's the same bloody question that haunts you: "Is today the day I die?" Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day. That final gasp. That look of peace. Part of you is desperate to know: "What's it like? Where does it lead you?" And now, you see, that's the secret. Not the punch you didn't throw, or the kicks you didn't land. She merely wanted it. Every Slayer... has a death wish. Even you. The only reason you've lasted as long as you have is you've got ties to the world...your mum, your brat kid sister, the Scoobies. They all tie you here, but you're just putting off the inevitable. Sooner or later, you're gonna want it. And the second- the second - that happens... you know I'll be there. I'll slip in... have myself a real good day. Here endeth the lesson. I just wonder if you'll like it as much as she did.

This is a fine piece of writing that allows us deep character analysis of our heroine without restorting to painful expositon. Even better, it provides insight which comes through the heroine's worst enemy, which makes it at once all the more honest and all the more possibly innacurate. There is no doubt Spike believes it: but is it true?

DIALOG TO ESTABLISH MENACE

We have already observed how dialog can end a scene on a note of tension, but tension -- and a sense of menace -- can be injected anywhere in a sequence with the right words. One underused technique is that of the rhetorical question. Take this, from THE HOBBIT:

Gandalf the Gray: The Ringwraiths have been summoned to Dol Guldur.
Radagast the Brown: But it cannot be the Necromancer. A human sorcerer could not summon such evil.
Gandalf the Gray: Who said it was human?

In this tete-a-tete from THE KEEP, two opposing worldviews clash in the form of Woermann, a humane German officer who hates the Nazis, and Kaempfer, an SS officer with absolute faith in the power of violence and terror. Kaempfer has arrived at the Keep not knowing what Woermann has come to suspect: that the guerillas killing the German soldiers is not a person at all, but a bloodthirsty supernatural entity. Kaempfer executes three innocent villagers as a show of force, and the proceeds to lecture Woermann on how to handle a restive populace:

KAEMPFER: Your security doesn't work because your methods are wrong. The answer's fear, Woermann. From now on, these partisans will be afraid to kill, because they will fear the price their actions cause these villagers to pay.
WOERMANN: Now listen, something else is killing us. And if it doesn't care about the lives of three villagers...if it is like you...then does your fear work? Take that brilliant thought back to Dachau when you go. If you go. Because here in this keep, Major Kaempfer, you may learn something new.

Likewise, in THE OMEN PART II, the putative young antichrist, Damien Thorn, does not yet understand that he is a supernatural being, so one of his Satanic protectors guides him toward a dark epiphany:

Sergeant Neff: The day will come when everyone will know who you are, but that day is not yet here.
Damien Thorn: What do you mean?
Sergeant Neff: There are things you don't understand. Read your Bible. In the New Testament, there is a Book of Revelation. For you, it is just that - a book of revelation. For you. About you. Read it. 13th chapter. Read. Learn. Understand.
Damien Thorn: What am I supposed to understand?
Sergeant Neff: Who you are.

DIALOG AS WORLDVIEW

The following are examples which show how humor, cruelty, sarcasm, etc. can reveal the essence of how a character looks at the world:

(From PERRY MASON:)

ADRIAN LYE: Champagne?
DAVID KINGSMAN: Alcohol dulls the senses.
ADRIAN LYE: That is the entire point.

(From DA VINCI'S INQUEST:)

Chick Savoy: The things people throw away!
Angela Cosmo: People, too.

(From ARACHNOPHOBIA:)

JENNINGS: Be careful with this. Chateau Margeaux, $127 a bottle.
MOVER: Tasty, huh?
JENNINGS: At that price, who can afford to drink it?

(From ANGEL:)

CORDELIA: I will not give up this apartment!
ANGEL: It's haunted.
CORDELIA: It's rent controlled!

DIALOG AS A DUEL BETWEEN CHARACTERS

Drama is conflict, and it follows that to have drama, characters must be in tension with each other: but tension can exist between characters who are lovers, friends and allies just as it can exist between enemies: the crucial difference is that "friendly" tension generally has a more constructive purpose within the story. From the writer's standpoint, it can be used to build a relationship between fellow protagonists. This "duel" of personalities is creation through friction. In the film CITIZEN X, much of the story rides on the tension between Burkov, an obsessed detective with zero diplomatic instincts or tact, and Fetisov, a smooth-talking bureacrat. Here, Fetisov decides to gently put Burkov in his place while also revealing to the audience his own position in society, his sense of self-grandeur, and his wit:

BURKOV: The killer finds them on Electrichka. I know it. Electrichka, the trains that criss cross rural Russia.
FETISOV: I know what they are, Comrade. I don't ride them, but they do sometimes get in the way of my limousine.

But it is also possible for both characters to win a pointed exchange and reveal their world-views in the bargain:

BURKOV: You think a man is what he says, don't you, Colonel?
FETISOV: He is, if he talks for a living.

Here the writer establishes, in just 19 words, a) Burkov's contempt for Fetisov, b) Burkov's grasp of human nature, c) Fetisov's cleverness, d) Fetsiov's understanding of the Soviet system, in which words often have to substitute for deeds -- or goods.

Fellow protagonists can, of course, have more destructive relationships with each other than the above-exampled. In this scene from WHEN TRUMPETS FADE, the salient characteristic of the movie's unhappy antihero, Sgt. David Manning, is his overwhelming desire to survive. This clashes with the necessity of soldiers in battle to be selfless, a fact his platoon leader, Lt. Lukas, understands all too well:

MANNING: What do you want?
LUKAS: I want your help!
MANNING: Look, if I can help you in any way, without endangering my own life, I won't hesitate. If you want my opinion, I'll give it to ya. But I'm not takin' a bullet for anybody.
LUKAS: That's not good enough.
MANNING: That's as good as it gets.

This conversation is overheard by Manning's sole remaining friend, the medic Chamberlain, who then confronts Manning:

CHAMBERLAIN: When you're out there with your guts hanging out, screaming for help -- if there's any way I can save you without endangering my own life, I won't hesitate.

The difference here is important. When Manning tells Lukas he will not risk his own life to help anyone else, he is telling the truth. When Chamberlain throws Manning's words back in his face and implies he will leave Manning to die if Manning is injured, the audience knows that Chamberlain is probably lying: unlike Manning, whose survival instincts have obliterated his sense of decency, Chamberlain probably could not leave a wounded man on the field.

You will see, looking back on this dithyramb, that my selections are wide-ranging yet hardly comprehensive. or even systematic. It would take an entire book, and a lengthy one at that, covering not only film, television and radio but novels, plays and short stories, to explore to the fullest degree to which dialog can be exploited to develop characterization in a swift, efficient and arresting manner. My point here is simply to remind the reader that it is possible to establish the personalities, quirks, eccentricities, failings, grievances and so forth of their characters without resorting to blunt exposition or worn-out stylistic tricks. The guiding principle of the writer, beginning any scene, ought to be, "How can I make this character seem real, distinct, and interesting, in the shortest possible time?" Dialog is not the only tool in the arsenal to accomplish this, but it is a formiddable one whose powers have long been underappreciated.

THE GREAT RESIGNATION

“Sometimes I thought about what Margaret said. About how a person can just drift through life like they're not connected to anyone or anything. You look around - all those characters trying to kill time. Going around in circles. Even if a person wanted to break free, they could find out they've got nowhere else to go.” -- Iris Chapman, Clockwatchers

"The future had lost its rosy glow and become something real and menacing." -- George Orwell, Burmese Days


Twenty years ago left my desk in the courthouse and went home for lunch. Today I finally came back.

I mean this figuratively. I actually didn't quit my job for another four or five months. But the decision to walk away was made then and there, as I sat on my couch and gazing at my television screen. By chance, or perhaps by design, I'd happened on Clockwatchers, a low-budget indie movie directed by Jill Sprecher. Clockwatchers is the story of four young women temping at a huge, faceless credit agency. The stupidity and boredom of their jobs pressure them into a mutual friendship which slowly unravels as the work climate grows nastier and more humiliating. Instead of coming together in support, they begin to quarrel. What begins as a thoughtful, gently comedic poke at the modern workplace devolves into a dark commentary about the emptiness, the senselessness of modern life, and the fragile and fleeting nature of human relationships. I had begun the movie thinking it was an all-female take on Office Space, and finished it in a completely different place, intellectually and emotionally.

Clockwatchers devastated me. I felt as if I were watching an allegory about my own life. There was nothing which happened to the film's chief protagonist, Iris, which hadn't happened to me: the petty indignities, the lonely, solitary lunches, the paralyzing boredom, the futile office crushes, the petty feuds and squabbles, the broken friendships, the drunken nights out full of forced cameraderie and secret despair. With the supreme egotism of all miserable people, I had assumed that I alone felt the existential woe. That I alone knew what it meant to be in my late 20s, financially sound with a respectable job, and yet achingly, tormentingly empty within. Stupid as it seems, I thought the condition localized to myself. WItnessingClockwatchers made me realize that it was generalized, spread over our society as generously as butter on diner toast.

So I decided to quit. Right then and there, in my shabby apartment on the corner of Market and Duke Streets, I decided I would quit my job, and more than that, abandon my entire career in the criminal justice system. I had gone to college to work in that system, and for four and a half years had worked within it, rising to a supervisory position in the district attorney's office before I was thirty. Had I stayed the course, I would have risen still further -- if not there, then in the office of the attorney general or inspector general. From there I could have gone into federal service. Yet because of an obscure movie I'd never heard of until I saw most of it on an extended lunch break, I decided to chuck it. To walk. To get the hell out while I still had some youth and some hope for a more satisfying and fulfiilling future. The film had simply hit too close to home to be ignored. It was like the scene in Miracle on 23rd Street when the hero is stabbed, and while in the hospital is discovered to have a tumor requiring immediate removal: to his amusement he realizes that if someone hadn't tried to kill him, he'd have died of cancer. Watching Specher's movie had hurt like hell, but only because, by some species of curiously cruel logic, the truth often hurts.

I went back to the office and typed up my resignation. I didn't hand it in for some months, but I carried it in my suit pocket every day like a talisman. Sometimes, when I was angry or depressed about the nature of my job, I'd remove it and stroke the corners like a James Bond villain stroking his cat. Eventually I gave it to my boss. I didn't have another job lined up, I simply quit. I had to. If I had waited for the stars to align properly, I'd never have left. As a friend of mine once remarked, "There will never be a perfect time, but there will never be a better time."

If you read this blog even occasionally, you know the rest of my story. I spent six glorious months in fertile unemployment, writing up a storm, traveling periodically, and generally decompressing from the last five years of my life. I then spent two horribly unhappy years back in the system in a different state, when economic circumstances forced me to resume working. But these two years did not in my mind constitute an abandonment of my decision to leave: they were driven by the simple need to keep a roof over my head. At the very first opportunity, I left again, and for the next sixteen years did very little that I did not want to do. I went back to school and then to graduate school, I moved to Los Angeles, I worked in video games, television and film, and I wrote, wrote, and wrote some more. If I was not always happy, I was generally content, and even at my worst, when I was struggling to make a living in Hollywood, I had the comfort of knowing I was where I wanted to be, doing, at least superficially, the things I wanted to do.

Then, one day -- so to speak -- I got off the couch, turned off the television, and went back to work in the courthouse. I traded the big city and the entertainment industry for that same old smallish town and and its courthouse. I even moved back into the same apartment building.

Why do I mention all of this? Because America is currently in the grips of what is being called The Great Resignation or The Big Quit. I ran a search on these terms and got 2.4 billion results in .64 seconds. Some of the definitions:

"The Great Resignation (as economists have coined the employee exodus) reflects a deep dissatisfaction with previous employment situations. The ongoing global pandemic has enabled workers to rethink their careers, work/life balance, long-term goals, and working conditions." -- Google

"The Great Resignation, also known as the Big Quit, is an economic trend in which employees voluntarily resign from their jobs en masse, beginning in early 2021, primarily in the United States." -- Wikipedia

"The Great Resignation is a phenomenon that describes record numbers of people leaving their jobs after the COVID-19 pandemic ends." -- Weforum

At my present place of employment, I am seeing The Big Quit up close. The casualty rate among the staff is like something out of a WW2 movie. I have been back "at my desk" for 17 months, and am already high on the seniority list in my office. It's difficult to keep anyone, regardless of age: the new hires, some as young as 19, are just as likely to shrug and walk out as disgruntled, embittered veterans in their 40s. The willingness of people to endure what we generally refer to as "the grind" ("the ratrace" was a good description of it as well, though it has fallen out of favor for some reason) seems to be plummetting like a 1929 stockbroker off a skyscraper. Having worked from home, or not at all, for a lengthy period of time due to the pandemic, many people are reconnecting with the basic ideas driven home to me by Clockwatchers, to wit: life is short, and we owe it to ourselves to find meaning in the time we have, rather than squander it in soulless drudgery.

Obviously people can't quit their jobs cold without having some resources, and most of the "Quitters" will return to the workforce in some capacity almost immediately, hence the third name for the phenomenon: The Great Reshuffle. But it's important to grasp that what is going on here is more than a migration of workers from one grind to another. It is a fundamental rejection of the old way of doing things, driven by the epiphany that happiness is more important than job security or money. In a Puritan-based, capitalist-driven society like ours, which has programmed people to view life and self-worth solely through the lens of economic success and societial status, and to regard existence itself as a punishing grind (the more punishing the better), this is a massive development: a sea change, a tectonic shift. And contrary to what some people maintain,
it has more to do with a refusal to accept a series of bad choices than with weakness, selfishness or entitlement.

In his lesser-known novels like KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING, COMING UP FOR AIR, BURMESE DAYS, and A CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER, and in his brutal expose of British poverty, THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER, George Orwell often explored the misery, both spiritual-emotional and financial, which 20th century life inflicted upon human beings. A great deal of the suffering he documented stemmed not just from an unjust and exploitative economic system but from a mentality which he summed up in a single sentence: "I was getting acquainted with 'real life' -- meaning unpleasantness." Not only the British school system of his day but the whole of society was designed to inculcate children of the lower and middle classes with the idea that adulthood was a series of unpleasant tasks and grim responsibilities, and that one of the worst crimes a person could commit was to have unrealistic expectations about the possibilities of life. The reasoning behind this was obvious:
curb expectation and you curb ambition and prevent, or at least retard, social change.

In America, thanks to Puritanism and an even more aggressive strain of capitalist thought, these ideas were bred into our people in an more exaggerated way, with the caveat that "through hard work you can get rich." In other words, we doubled down on the idea that life was "unpleasantness" and real virtue lay in "working hard" while dangling a gold-plated carrot which for the vast majoriity remained permanently out of reach.

My father certainly believed in the Puritan work ethic, and I'm sure my laziness exasperated him to the point of dementia; but my laziness was not entirely laziness for its own sake. Even as a child I understood that to some extent the modern outlook on life was a swindle, designed to turn the great masses of the people into faceless, hopeless worker ants toiling ceaselessly for the benefit of others. I was observant enough to see how tired, how unhappy and anxiety-ridden, most adults were, and how much time they spent bickering over money and complaining about the petty politics of their respective jobs. To me they seemed joyless and miserable figures, almost cartoonish in the way they seemed to work frantically without reaping any benefits. But I was a member of Generation X, and while it's perhaps as foolish to ascribe millions of people with specific characteristics because of the timeframe into which they were born as it is to believe an astrological sign has the faintest effect on one's personality, it can be said with some assurance that every generation does share certain generalized traits born out of shared experience: and the outstanding quality of Generation X was our bizarre combination of being able to clearly see, and to ridicule, every fault-line, crack, absurdity and injustice in modern life, without necessarily being willing to change any of them. In a broad sense, Generation X was comprised of tens of millions of anarchs -- not anarchists, but anarchs (the Anarch is a metaphysical ideal figure of a sovereign individual, conceived by the German writer Ernst Jünger in his novel Eumeswil.). That is to say, we were "sovereign individuals," who were "in" society without being "of" it, and who did not really share its values or respect its beliefs. We understood, we even accepted and resigned ourselves, but only to the degree necessary to exist. We were, in retrospect, a necessary intervening stage between the generation of our parents and the generations which followed us -- the Millennials and Gen Z. In order for them to abruptly quit their shitty jobs by the millions, we had to lay the groundwork of recognizing the absurdity of suffering in a shitty job for decades in the vague belief that "you can enjoy life when you retire."

In walking away from my original career without a safety net or even a plan, simply because I was unhappy, I was perhaps a few years ahead of my time, and like most people in that position, I faced a good deal of ridicule and some well-meaning dismay. I will never forget a woman I worked for in Maryland saying, in a plaintive voice after I put in my notice, "But we get cost of living increases, and you can retire in eighteen years!" It was simply no use pointing out that I was not about to burn eighteen years of my life in a job I detested for periodic 7% raises. She had accepted a certain way of looking at the world which I had explicity rejected, and in any event, she did not hate her job. More power to you, I thought, but your path is not mine. The "sovereign individual" must find their own, and this is at the core of so much of the anger directed at The Quitters today. When I was a child, few insults carried more impact that being called a quitter: it implied not only weakness but a lack of character. Virtue, on the other hand, rested in seeing a thing through to the end, even if the end brought no benefit to anyone. I imagine if the people who had kept us in Vietnam and later, Afghanistan, year after bloody futile year, were polled, a great many of them would have put "perseverence" and "sticktoitiveness" at the top of the scale of virtues. And of course, there are times when one must see a thing through despite all hazards: but the times for such fanaticism are relatively rare. To mindlessly apply that metric to everything in life, including soul-murdering jobs, is simply stupid.

All of this brings me back to Clockwatchers, and the curiously imitative nature of my own life in respect to the film. In the movie, the shy, retiring main character, Iris, ultimately decides that in order to connect with life, she must quit her temp job, but at the end of the film it is also implied that she has become a much more aggressive and ambitious person, ready to succeed in the job market by exploiting what she has learned about office culture. Some critics drew from this that the film misses some of its own point, but I would argue that in one sense anyway, the ending is the entire point: Iris is miserable for much of the movie precisely because she contents herself with a mindless and intolerable dead-end job. She grasps, quite against her will, that modern life is all about learning how the system really works and then operating ruthlessly upon that knowledge for your own advantage. It is a very much Generation X moral; had the movie been set today, she would have "rescued" the other temps and started her own business which was the antilogy of Global Credit: a fun, happy place to work that filled its employees with a sense of fulfillment. The point I'm trying to make is that in order for a film like that to even exist, however, Iris had to exist first, just as the passive but knowing attitude of Gen X had to precede the active, knowing attitude of the two generations which have followed it into the workforce. Everything in life that is not mutation is progression, and every progression comes by degrees, sometimes too small to discern as they occur. When I decided to leave Hollywood and "go back to my desk," I had a whole host of motivations, but foremost among them was the need to occupy a more selfless space in the universe. For sixteen years I had followed only my own desires: first, the desire to have an easy and comfortable life, and later, the desire to satisfy my creative side, and my vanity, by working in the entertainment industry. For a long time I found this deeply satisfying, but the last three years rang increasingly hollow, and the idea of a return to public service, despite all of its frustrations and silliness, increasingly appealing. My main concern was that I would feel as if I had betrayed myself by returning, that I would be selling out the epiphany of 2002 for good benefits, a short commute and a lower cost of living. So far this has not been the case. I realize that what I am doing is temporary, serving a temporary need, and that I am not destined to run out my own personal clock "behind the desk": so the existential horror I felt in that position as a young man does not obtain as a middle-aged one. I also realize that it is necessary to re-evaluate the course of one's life every few years, and to quit, if necessary, any situation which has outlived its usefulness, no matter how glamorous it might seem to others.

There is a great deal to be anxious about nowadays. The great event of my lifetime, the end of the Cold War, has actually proven to be a terribly destabilizing influence on the world, one whose effects are only just now being realized. The climate catastrophe seems to worsen every season with no end in sight. America is openly flirting with fascism, and the pandemic has been a psychological disaster as well as a plague. Yet in the end, I think the Great Resignation is proof that no matter how bleak a situation may be, there are always movements toward the light. Millions of people have realized by force of circumstance that much of their anxiety and suffering were unecessary, and are demanding more and more of a say in how they live their own lives. They are not anarchs. They are activisits for their own good, and whatever discomfort this may cause the job market and businesses generally, if it helps drive a few more nails in the coffin of the great cult of mindless suffering into which I was born, I say full speed ahead.