Fred Smith's Blog

What if Alfred Hitchcock made Joker?

No point in issuing a spoiler alert. You already know how Joker ends. It’s in the title. It’s on the poster. It’s in the trailer. By the time the end credits roll, a villain will be born. In that respect, Joker is a lot like The Passion of the Christ or Titanic, or even Apollo 13. The only spoiler, really, is that there is no spoiler. We knew the end moment the lights dimmed. Jesus was getting nailed to the cross. The boat was going to sink. Tom Hanks was coming home. Movies whose endings are widely already known by a first-run audience can thrill us when the story of the journey is compelling. When each scene builds to that logical and yet still surprising climax, we walk away satisfied, thrilled even. I still get misty-eyed along with Ed Harris when the crew of Apollo 13 says upon re-entry, “It’s good to see you again.” Did I like Joker? Yes, but...It was only after a few days that I realized why. I wasn’t so sure while I was in the moment. Joaquin Phoenix was wonderful, deserves whatever accolades come his way this award season. He kept me on edge from the first frame to the last wondering how much can this guy take before he snaps? And he’s going to snap. He has to. It’s in the title. It’s on the poster. Unlike Passion or Titanic or Apollo 13, Joker is a small movie. It’s not going to wow us with spectacle, scale, or special effects. That said, it is nominated for a host of make-the-movie-look-great Oscars--best cinematography, editing, costume and makeup, etc. Deservedly so, it’s a great-looking movie. But it’s still about a guy pushed to his personal brink. It’s not the world we care about as an audience, it’s the guy. And in this case, the guy--alienated, frustrated, isolated--is enough to make us care.Alfred Hitchcock made us care about the guy. He made a career out making us believe the small story was a big deal.It’s when I considered how Hitch would have approached Joker that I truly started enjoying the movie. The master of suspense would have not have changed much if anything in Joker. But he would have changed the title.Hitch would never have given the ending way with the title. He would have pulled us in with the star and the promise of a tragedy, sure. And we would watch a brilliant performance of a guy pushed from the edge into his personal abyss. And at the opportune moment, we would realize we were watching the birth of one of the greatest villains in the history of pop culture. And we would be wowed because we didn’t see it coming. None of us would have known when the lights dimmed and the story began what we were in for. And we would keep the secret, begging our friends to see for themselves this movie with the twist of the year. Don’t buy it? Google Psycho. I won’t spoil the twist in that one. (But if you don’t know by now, you probably don’t really like movies in the first place.) Hitchcock was so concerned that each new audience was spared of spoilers that he insisted crowds who had just seen Psycho exit the theater through a door that ensured they couldn’t come into contact with the next audience about to see the film for the first time. For Alfred Hitchcock, the audience’s experience was the thing he held sacred above anything else, including a bulletproof marketing plan. Today, he’d be fired for merely suggesting the movie be titled be anything other than Joker. I’d be fired and likely blacklisted for supporting him. The Batman franchise and its spinoffs are a global brand. Each installment is all but guaranteed to gross hundreds of millions of dollars after a worldwide release as long as the world knows it's a Batman movie when the ticket is sold or they click RENT on their smart TV. Very few movies are worth watching again after you know the outcome. That’s because audiences care about one thing and one thing only in a given story. We care about what happens next. Take that away from us, tell us that we already know what’s going to happen and ask us to be interested instead in how it happens and we’re looking for the remote. My remote went untouched during Joker. Will it win Best Picture this year at the Oscars? I don’t think so, but I won’t change this text if it does. For the record, Psycho didn't win Best Picture in 1960. While we're on the subject, I don’t think Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will win, either. But I had a lot of fun watching Brad and Leo make an ending I was pretty sure of at the movie's outset go up in flames of surprise. Imagine if Joker had a card up its sleeve, a Hitchcockian moment just waiting to be played at exactly the right time. I don’t know if it would impress the Academy’s voters, but it sure would make me forget about my remote control. Fred Smith is an author and filmmaker. His debut novel, The Coolest Labels, is available on Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and other online retailers. You're on his site. So stick around, have a few rounds on the house, then you know...buy something.

Evander Preston: My Most Eccentric Casting

I wasn't going to leave until he agreed to be in my movie, but for a guy with his own art palace and beer label, he sure seemed to have a knack for ducking attention. We were sitting in his kitchen and on our third round of his personal home brew when Evander Preston told me about why he chose to make the signature brew of his namesake brand a light pilsner. "My doctor says it's the kind of beer that will kill me the slowest." Years later, that little quip seems to encapsulate Evander Preston as an artist, jeweler, brewer, gourmet cook, and all-around eccentric. He embraced the chaos and he wanted to be a part of tomorrow so he could see how it all turned out. Like a lot of people living in the Tampa Bay area in the mid-late aughts, I'd heard about Evander. Every year around Christmas time, he'd make the news for passing out cigars and liquor to homeless people in a public park. (The eventual law banning the act would affectionately get referred to by locals as the Evander Preston law.) So when it came time to cast a beggar in my movie, Uploading to Angels(2009), I knew exactly who I wanted to play the part. It would take some convincing (and a few more rounds of his pilsner) to get Evander to agree to the role, but he eventually did. And he nailed it.In his lone scene, Aunt Jana (Nevada Caldwell) and 9-year-old Terry (Abigail Taylor) experience car trouble that's alleviated only after a little altruism. (The clip begins at 35:39)This scene was shot in an alley in Pass-a-Grille, Florida. If you look over Evander's shoulder you'll see a building. That's his gallery and home. Part the agreement for him being in the movie was we had to shoot his scene close to his home because he didn't like to travel. That, and we had to take home a few complimentary six packs of his private-label beer. That was Evander. The law may have forbade him from passing out liquor to the homeless, but it didn't say anything about giving beer to struggling filmmakers. Evander Preston died last week. He was 84.I'll miss him, but I'll never forget him.Fred Smith is an author and filmmaker. His debut novel, The Coolest Labels, is available on Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and other online retailers. You're on his site. So stick around, have a few rounds on the house, then you know...buy something.

Dave Chapelle's Perfect Political Joke

Arguably the greatest standup comedian of his generation, Dave Chappelle's most enlightened political joke was unleashed not during his 2019 Netflix special, Sticks and Stones, but nearly two decades ago on HBO.At the turn of the 21st century, when he was just 27 years old, the artist with a once-a-generation gift for racial observation and transcendent humor proved he had his finger on the pulse not just of the nation's racial awareness but specifically on the double-standard nature of U.S. immigration policy. Released in 2000, Killin' Them Softly was Chappelle's first hour-long special on HBO. The show was recorded in Washington D.C in front of a hometown crowd that swallowed whole every punchline of the night, filling the theatre with a laugh track that would soon fuel the rise of a comedian whose bright future had no cut off time. Near the end of the show, Chappelle spun a joke that was so perfect the audience roared despite not fully understand the crack's depths.I'm not going to even try to paraphrase Chappelle's most insightful joke of the now-legendary performance. I'll let the man do it himself (the joke begins at 46:04):"If he was Haitian, you'd have never heard about his ass."On that night in 2000, less than a year removed from the Elián González saga, the audience in our nation's capital thought the joke was funny. If you're from Miami, Florida (like yours truly) and have even a rudimentary understanding the city's cultural history as it relates to U.S. immigration policy, you could argue this is more than just funny... it is the perfect political joke. "They'd have pushed that little rubber tube back in the water and said, 'sorry, fella. All full. Good luck!'"The line is a bulls-eyed shot at our country's post-World War II immigration policies, a zinger so on-the-surface funny the audience doesn't realize how on-the-mark the slight truly is. To a D.C. crowd and for most of the television audience, this is but another in Chappelle's endless bag of funny-cuz-it's-true jokes whose morale is rooted in the premise that black isn't welcome in America. And to give credit where it's certainly due, few in comedy's history have been better at reinventing and parading this sentiment to diverse American audiences than Chappelle. With this joke, however, he steps into a class by himself in delivering an observation on the legacy of disparities in U.S. immigration policy concerning Haitians and Cubans.In 2000, Elián González was front page news across the country, a six-year old boy thrust into an immigration and international custody controversy when he was found on an inner tube along with two other survivors from an ill-fated escape from Cuba during which his mother and ten others drowned in attempt to reach the U.S. In Miami, Elián González was the news. In my lifetime (I was born in 1977), a Cuban of any note who'd endured the arduous journey across the Florida Straits and claimed asylum in the U.S. was often worthy of above-the-fold, front-page coverage in the Miami Herald. A six-year-old Cuban-born boy who'd survived the merciless trip when his mother hadn't? That was shut-down-the streets news.But the crux of Chappelle's joke focuses not on the plight of the Cuban seeking asylum in America, but the Haitian. Therein lies the brilliance. Most who've heard this joke, however, don't fully appreciate its worth unless they have a keen understanding of how U.S. immigration policy as practiced from the 1960s through the early 2000s decidedly favored Cubans over Haitians. Consider the seven months in 1980 from April to October when some 125,000 Cuban refugees were granted asylum in the U.S. during the Mariel Boatlift at a time when the U.S. under President Carter had an open-door policy toward Cuban immigration. During his first year in office in 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan negotiated with the Haitian government a policy of interdiction, whereby the Coast Guard could stop and search boats on the high seas suspected of transporting undocumented immigrants.From 1981-1990, some 22,940 Haitians were interdicted, yet only 11 of them qualified to apply for asylum in the United States. Why the disparity?To keep things simple (enough):Cuban immigrants, in the eyes of the U.S. government, sought political asylum by fleeing Communist rule under Fidel Castro. Communism was an archenemy of the U.S. during the latter half of the 20th century and the Cold War, ergo Cubans were welcomed to asylum in the U.S.Haitians, in contrast to Cubans and according to the U.S., were, by and large, seeking economic opportunity, their native country's economy having been run amok by the wayward rule of the brutal despot Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and later his son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier.As a result, some of the Haitian boat people, those who could convince the U.S. officials their reasons for immigration were political in nature, could stay. Those who couldn't were deemed economic refugees and sent on their way. Now, let's re-examine Chappelle's joke: "If he was Haitian, you'd have never heard about his ass."Check. Unless little Haitian Elián could convince officials he was a political prisoner.They'd have pushed that little tube back in the water and said, 'sorry, fella. All full. Good luck!'"Check mate. Game. Set. Match. To Mr. Chappelle.We're laughing so hard, that we don't even realize that it isn't really funny, because it's so damn true.Fred Smith grew up in Miami, Florida. His debut novel, The Coolest Labels, is about a group of diverse teens in Miami trying to put their lives back together in the immediate wake of Hurricane Andrew.Official trailer for The Coolest Labels, a novel by Fred Smith:

The 1980 Miami Riots were the Blueprint for LA’s in ‘92

On December 21, 1979, at just after 1 AM, thirty-three-year-old Arthur McDuffie left his girlfriend’s apartment in Miami’s Liberty City on his Kawasaki Motorcycle. While McDuffie’s intended destination that morning remains unknown, his fate is not. The insurance salesman and former US Marine was beaten to death by four Miami-Dade Police officers following a high-speed chase that had, according to Police, exceeded 100 mph. The officers responsible for McDuffie’s death--Ira Diggs, William Hanlon, Michael Watts, and Alex Marrero--were indicted on charges of manslaughter and fabricating physical evidence. Two other officers, Herbert Evans, Jr., and Ubaldo Del Toro, were charged with being accessories to the crimes.On May 17, 1980, the officers were acquitted of all charges by an all-white jury. That evening, the first rock was thrown at Northwest 62nd Street, igniting the deadliest riots in the US since the Watts riots of 1965.For three days, predominantly black neighborhoods Liberty City, Overtown, and the Black Grove stewed in violent unrest.Cars were overturned and burned. Stores were looted. Victims guilty only of being in the wrong place at the time were killed. By the time the Miami riots concluded, 18 people had died. 350 had suffered injuries. More than 600 were arrested, and over $100 million in property damage had been accumulated. A dozen years later on the opposite coast of the country, another speeding black man would be severely beaten by police officers whose acquittal would incite days of rioting in a major US city. Unlike Arthur McDuffie, Rodney King would soon become a household name as the battered face of police brutality thanks to a grainy clip of video footage shot by a plumber named George HolidayAnyone over the age of 40 knows this piece of footage as though they’d shot it themselves. In the spring of 1991 until King’s trial one year later, the scene was plastered on every television screen in America--a viral video some 14 years before YouTube was born. The video showed the world what the denizens of South Central Los Angeles knew all too well: blacks had for years been the targets of a prejudiced police force whose violent hand knew no limits. Miami blacks had felt the same wrath for most of the 20th century. A Century of Oppression By 1910, just fourteen years after Miami had been officially founded, blacks totaled nearly 42% of the budding city’s population. Boundary conflicts were becoming increasingly common as blacks tried to move from Colored Town (today Overtown) north and northwest into a predominantly white area called Highland Park. In 1911, the Miami Herald wrote, “The advance of the Negro population is like a plague and carries devastation with it to all surrounding prosperity.”Attacks in the press did little to keep Miami blacks from staying on their side of an imaginary color line drawn by white residents around Colored Town. To enforce black restriction, Miami needed a dog with a much more vicious bite. Chief Quigg’s Iron HandOn March 1, 1928, a grand jury indicted three Miami police officers for beating to death a black man named Harry Kier who had allegedly insulted a white woman in a downtown hotel. The grand jury’s denouncing of Miami police policies as “tortuous” was amplified by the Miami Herald. The paper’s public criticism led to the indictment of police chief, H. Leslie Quigg, who had ruled Miami’s black areas with an iron hand, racking up twelve counts of police brutality over the course of a decades-long career. Quigg would eventually be acquitted of the Kier murder but later dismissed as police chief for being “wholly unfit for the office.” His dismissal would prove to be little more than a time-out.“They’ll Learn.”Quigg would soon return to helm Miami’s Police force, resuming his brutal policies toward blacks. During the 1930s, he routinely hired dozens of whites from Georgia’s rural streets, bussed them to Miami where they were given badges and nightsticks (but no formal training) and sent into the streets to keep the peace however they saw fit.Quigg’s successor, Walter Headley, continued his predecessor’s savage policies toward blacks. Incensed over the crime rates in Miami’s black ghettos, Headley held a press conference on Christmas morning in 1967, vowing to get tough on crime by policing Miami’s black communities with double patrols armed with shotguns and attack dogs.In a preemptive strike against the rioting that was breaking out across the country, Chief Headley declared, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts. They’ll learn,” Headley decreed, referring to blacks, “that they can’t get bailed out of the morgue.” The Miami Riot of 1968In August 1968, the Republican National Convention gathered in Miami Beach to nominate Richard Nixon as their party’s candidate. At the same time, several black political groups including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Black Panthers organized political rallies of their own in the black community to discuss among other grievances the Dade County business community’s failure to provide jobs for black youths, despite an official promise to do so.The largest of the rallies began on August 7th in a Liberty City community center. By the late evening, the crowd had ballooned to several hundred people and had overflowed to the streets. Around 7 pm, a white man in a pickup truck with a bumper sticker that read “George Wallace for President” attempted to cross 17th avenue by way of 62nd street. He would never make it. The truck met a bombardment of rocks launched from the hands of what had become a frustrated mob. The panicked driver lost control of his vehicle and collided with an oncoming car. The truck driver was pulled to safety, fleeing the scene with the help of a group of black men who sheltered him in a nearby bar. Shouts of “Get whitey!” echoed through the air as the mob overturned the truck and set it on fire, igniting the 1968 Miami Riot with the blaze. The violence continued the following day when rioters stoned police, looted white-owned stores, and fire-bombed local markets. Miami Police, mistakingly thinking they were under sniper fire, killed three unarmed residents--the only deaths of the riot. On August 8th, the Florida National Guard imposed a dusk to dawn curfew, enforced by 800 National Guard troops and 200 sheriff deputies. In the end, heavy rains on August 9th proved to be most effective in calming the streets of violence. The Rotten Meat Riot of 1970 On June 15, 1970, a group of blacks picketed a white-owned Pic-and-Pay store in Miami’s Brownville section next to Liberty City. Chief among the picketers complaints was their accusation that the store sold spoiled goods to the area’s poor blacks. After three days of peaceful protest, violence erupted when sheriff’s deputies appeared at the store and allegedly fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. Rocks were thrown at police cars. Two white motorists were pulled from their cars and beaten, their cars set ablaze. Molotov cocktails were heaved through store windows. The unrest finally abated the following day with no deaths but plenty of arrests, including 18-year-old George Curtis, who was falsely accused of being a sniper and sentenced to five years in prison for assaulting police. Prelude to the Miami Riot of 1980Throughout the 1970s, Miami experienced no fewer than twelve mini-riots. The throughline in each was an exasperated black community that was tired of being targeted by police and treated like an underclass by the business community. Historians and social critics have for years debated whether Miami’s upwardly mobile Cuban population vindicates the black community’s claim they’ve been systemically elbowed out of economic progress in favor of an immigrant population fleeing communist oppression. In April 1980, a month before the Miami Riot would erupt, the first boat of Cuban refugees arrived as part of a mass emigration of Cubans to South Florida that would come to be known as the Mariel boatlift. Nearly 8,000 Cuban asylum seekers arrived in Miami in April 1980. That number would spike to almost 87,000 the following month. By October, when the boatlift officially ended, more than 125,000 Cubans had arrived in Miami. The first month of the boatlift proved to be most chaotic as the federal government led by then-president Jimmy Carter rushed to officially address the situation, which had previously been an open-door policy toward Cuban immigrants. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of asylum-seekers waited in makeshift camps hastily established in the Greater Miami area at decommissioned missile defense sites, the Orange Bowl, and various local churches. The stockpiling of Cubans awaiting an official stay-or-go-back decision made for an uneasy situation in Miami.When rioting broke out following the acquittal of the officers responsible for Arthur McDuffie's death, it wasn’t unreasonable to consider the imminent flood of Cuban immigrants into the labor market as a contributing factor to black unrest. Fallout from the Miami Riot of 1980In the immediate wake of Miami’s 1980 riot, Richard McEwen, then the CEO of Burdines, struggled to convince his fellow white business leaders that ethnic division between Latinos, blacks, and whites was the biggest problem in Miami. McEwen saw the white business community’s prevailing desire to integrate Latinos into white organizations and address separately the issues of black frustration and poverty as dangerous to Miami society as a whole. He founded Greater Miami United as a non-profit group to promote ethnic understanding. The organization was never fully embraced by Miami’s white business elite and folded in the early 1990s after McEwen retired and several corporate supporters went bankrupt.Arthur McDuffie’s LegacyThere’s a sign at the intersection between Northwest 62nd and 17th Avenue that reads “Arthur McDuffie Avenue.” Beyond that, the former US marine whose death led to the Miami Riots in 1980 has little in the way of a lasting legacy. Outside of Miami, the name Arthur McDuffie draws blank stares that linger even after a quick Google search of his name. He could be considered the original Rodney King. The parallels are freakishly identical: both were young black motorists severely beaten by cops who were acquitted of all wrongdoing. Both have riots named after them. Unlike Rodney King, however, Arthur McDuffie didn’t survive his beating. He was never awarded $3.8 million in civil suit damages, never made public appearances on national TV. He was never interviewed by Oprah.His beating wasn’t captured on videotape, either. Maybe that’s why he didn’t become a household name.Reference and suggested reading:The Miami Riot of 1980: Crossing the Bounds by Bruce Porter and Marvin DunnThis Land is Our Land: Immigrants and Power in Miami by Alex Stepick and Guillermo GrenierReading Rodney King/Reading Urban Uprising by Robert Gooding WilliamsBlack Miami in the 20th Century by Marvin DunnMiami: a Cultural History by Anthony P. MaingotFred Smith grew up in Miami in the 1990s. His debut novel,The Coolest Labels, is about a group of Miami teens trying to find their way after Hurricane Andrew devastates South Florida.

The Code of a Miami High School Parking Lot

The student parking lot contains a high school’s DNA, the unique code that gives a school its distinct character and defines who it is. Float through any high school parking lot before the first-period bell and you’ll see a side of the school you can’t experience in the halls or classrooms. Once inside the school’s halls, a student body is segmented by the institution itself. The kids flow through locker-lined passageways like blood through arteries, dispatched by echoing bells and driven by the school’s agenda, not the students’.In the parking lot, kids are free to make the kinds of choices that foster a culture. They congregate and colonize based on interests: smokers with other smokers, ballers with ballers, preps with preps, labels with like labels and so it goes until the lot is a discernible patchwork of idiosyncrasies.But to truly understand a given school, you have to look past the generic labels and consider the particulars of the student parking lot, details that include their time and place in history.In August 1992, Hurricane Andrew--then the most devastating storm to ever make landfall in US history--ravaged South Dade County in Miami and forced the start of the school year back two weeks to allow the area to gather itself. By the time the parking lot at Miami Palmetto Senior High was full on day one of the 1992 semester, the community had hardly recovered. Nestled east of US-1 and west of the Biscayne Bay, Palmetto’s campus stood just north of where Andrew’s north eyewall had passed. Wounds the campus had physically suffered during the storm hadn’t yet healed by the first day of class, but time and life were marching in lockstep. Much of the student body lived south of Palmetto, closer to Andrew’s eye and destructive epicenter that had leveled Homestead and anything else in its path. On the first day of school in 1992, nearly 2000 teens rolled into Palmetto’s multiple lots and tried to resume their lives as they were before the roofs of their homes had been ripped to the heavens, before every tree in their once-verdant landscape had been denuded then uprooted, leaving unopposed sky in every direction, before their parents’ mettle had cracked in the wake of a seemingly hopeless situation exacerbated by slow-moving insurance adjusters and a lack of air-conditioning during Miami’s unrelenting dog days.An invisible cloak of trauma wrapped Palmetto’s parking lot, uniting its denizens in a harrowing experience no one wanted to discuss. It was easier to be cool, to cut up with friends, to smoke if you had ‘em and bum if you didn’t. Scattered throughout Palmetto’s student lot, in diverse tribes whose camaraderie eased the pain of the still-open wounds lingering from the storm, were kids that, in little over a decade, would grow to shape America’s culture. Among those kids on opening day in 1992...a future Hollywood screenwriter, a budding singer destined for American Idol fame, the future Florida Commissioner of Agriculture, a backyard brawler whose name would spread via a yet-to-be-conceived online video platform called YouTube, and the future Surgeon General of the United States. That’s just a short list of notable alumni that Wikipedia reports. The roll sheet of Palmetto’s eventual stars was much longer. Future business leaders roamed the sun-soaked asphalt amongst soon-to-be collegiate athletes, politicians, engineers, lawyers, artists, and convicts. Opening day 1992 in the Palmetto lot even had an eventual porn mogul whose sites would one day climb to the top of the internet’s hit list.Maybe the asphalt was charmed. A decade earlier, the future founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, had spent his early mornings in Palmetto’s parking lot, en route to graduating as his class's valedictorian.Most of us came to the lot in jalopies. Some arrived in BMW’s, a few in rolling subwoofers. None of us were yet wild successes, average nobodies, or abysmal failures. We were ordinary teenagers trying to put calamity aside and get on with life. We were kids, young and free to make choices, not all of them wise and wholesome. The student handbook for Miami Palmetto Senior High School from 1992-95 was likely explicit about its policy on cigarette smoking, fighting, illicit drug use, and fornication on school grounds, particularly in the school’s parking lot. Somewhere, in a block typeface smudged on non-recyclable paper, there must have been language outlawing such activities and detailing the punishments associated with being found guilty of each. There must have been rules. Printed rules. Official rules. But I never saw them. And judging by what a fly on the bumper would have witnessed in the parking from 1992-95, neither did the anyone else at Palmetto, teachers and students included.The average cost of a pack of cigarettes in 1992 was about $1.85, a far cry from the pint of blood and pinky finger they cost today. Dollars didn’t factor into kids deciding whether or not the habit made sense back then. Cigarettes were cool and sexy and so were the kids who smoked them. In the Palmetto parking lot, the smoker’s ritual was on repeat each morning from the moment the gates opened: roll in, park, light up, step out, be cool until the first bell, go to class. While no-smoking-on-campus rules must have existed, they were never enforced. Teachers looked the other way, outnumbered and perhaps content that the deviance took place on campus instead of off it.Whatever the administration’s logic, some kids were happy to take the inch and lean deeper into their vice of choice. Marijuana was a popular pre-class high. Its use was easy to conceal in the confines of cars masked by tinted windows. Its effects were easy to hide with a few drops of Visine before the bell. Booze was even easier to pound and conceal.Then there were “ruffies,” the street name for the sedative, Rohypnol--the Quaalude and Oxycontin of the 90s--the easy-to-pop pill that played well alone and ramped previously consumed highs until the user was reduced to a slurring slug. Illicit consumption tended to spike in popularity on days when the Leo club held student blood drives, the thinking amongst partakers being that blood supply and toxicity held an inverse relationship. The science was sound. The driving prowess of the plastered, not so much. As for parking lot sex, I can’t say I ever bore personal witness. But rumors have a way of becoming legend. Especially in high-school. Were we righteous? Not particularly. Were we innocent? Some were.We were kids leaning over the rules’ edges, searching for an identity but settling for experience. ‘90s kids. Miami kids. South Dade kids. Palmetto kids. The parking lot housed our DNA.If you weren’t there, you may never understand. If you were, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. If you're from South Dade in the early 90s (like me) and you enjoyed this story, you'll love my debut novel, The Coolest Labels. It's set in Miami, 1992 and follows a group of high school kids from South Dade trying to put their lives back together in the immediate wake of Hurricane Andrew. The book will be available on August 24, 2019.Sign up to my blog to learn more and be the first to know when the novel drops!Fred Smith grew up in Miami in the 1990s. His debut novel, The Coolest Labels, is about a group of Miami teens trying to find their way after Hurricane Andrew devastates South Florida.You're on his site. So kick back, have a few rounds on the house, then, you know...buy something.

The Roads of a '90s Miami Teen

For a teenager from South Miami-Dade in the 1990s, US-1 was a highway to mischief, mayhem, and memory. Along its east and west banks were the sites and haunts of a teenage Miamian’s after-hours, high school adventure.For South Dade kids who came of age in the 1990s, US-1 was more than a road. It was a runway that led to life. We knew the thoroughfare the way generals understand the battlefield. Every strategic touchpoint was committed to memory and ready to be called into action when the situation warranted.Pop Quiz:What did the Texaco station on 168th Street and the Amoco on Le Jeune have in common during the first term of the Clinton Administration? Don't think too hard. (If you were there, it's knee-jerk.)They were both reliable sources where an underage, confidence-faking teen could regularly buy beer without a fake ID. Round two:How many pay phones were there between Eureka drive and 136th street? Think like a 90's kid. Back then, knowing where a pay phone is when one of your crew gets a beep from a friendly could change a night. In a world before cell phones were standard-issue teen gear and beepers were few and far between among teens, quick access to pay phones could make the difference between you and crew not finding out about an impromptu backyard party and instead spending Friday night with a twelve pack at Coral Reef Park. (The cops always found you and they always laughed when they made you dump the beer.)Spanning 2,369 miles from Key West to the Canadian border in Maine, U.S. Route 1 is the largest north-south road in the country.In the early 1990's, it was a perpetually-congested thoroughfare that served as the raceway for recently-licensed teens to test their skills and contribute to Miami’s notorious reputation for offensive driving. New York streets may have a bark-but-don’t-bite attitude. Los Angeles may have its 24-hour, smog-inducing congestion. Miami traffic can be summed in a popular South Florida bumper sticker from the late 1980s:So wary of US-1’s notorious dangers was my Connecticut-born mother that she demanded I prove a working knowledge South Dade back roads before allowing me to drive alone.That brings us to Old Cutler Road. We called it the Gauntlet, in part because so much of Old Cutler’s entire 15 or so mile stretch is lined with banyan trees that sprawl from either bank of the road, enveloping it in a picturesque canopy of limbs and leaves. Old Cutler runs parallel to US-1, just east of Biscayne Bay, from SW 224th street (unincorporated Dade County in 1992, Cutler Bay since 2005) north to the circle at Cartegena Plaza in Coral Gables. To run the Gauntlet, as we often did in the ’90s, meant a kid traveled from our end of Old Cutler (roughly south of 152nd Street) to Coral Gables without getting stopped by cops from any of the multiple police forces along the way--no easy task, even for “white-and-polite” kids like yours truly.Traveling north through the Gauntlet was an ascension through layers of socio-economic strata, with working-class Cutler Ridge on one end of the spectrum and opulent Coral Gables on the other. Along the way, police cruisers from every municipality--Miami, South Miami, and Coral Gables-- were staked out in inconspicuous locales, waiting to ensnare a speeding teen. (Old Cutler was notorious for its winding curves and lack of traffic lights--driving conditions that inspired the lead foot in all of us.)At night’s end, there was often a decision to be made. Is US-1 or the Gauntlet the better road to take home after an evening of exploits fueled with octane stronger than chips and soda?Both roads had their pros and cons for kids who probably shouldn’t have been driving in the first place. US-1 offered the straighter passage with more traffic and an endless series of stoplights. Old Cutler’s meandering byway was congestion and stoplight-free by comparison, but still had plenty of cops and trees, both with a knack for springing on you during momentary lapses of concentration. Two roads, two thruways to indelible memories. The inner high-school kid in me smiles when I think of US-1 and Old Cutler Road, remembering the good times, having survived them (mostly) unscathed. As a father, however, with a little girl who's just a few years shy of driving, I cringe with dread just knowing those two roads exist. Good thing I live in Tampa. If you're from South Dade in the early 90s (like me) and you enjoyed this story, you'll love my debut novel, The Coolest Labels. It's set in Miami, 1992 and follows a group of high school kids from South Dade trying to put their lives back together in the immediate wake of Hurricane Andrew. The book will be available on August 24, 2019.Sign up to my blog to learn more and be the first to know when the novel drops! Fred Smith grew up in Miami in the 1990s. His debut novel,The Coolest Labels, is about a group of Miami teens trying to find their way after Hurricane Andrew devastates South Florida.You're on his site. So kick back, have a few rounds on the house, then, you know...buy something.

How I would have ended Game of Thrones

I'll admit it for you if, unlike the rest of the internet, you're still in denial. The series finale of Game of Thrones didn't satisfy. Sure, there were moments that reminded you why you've devoted yourself to HBO's flagship show for the better part of the last decade. I won't recap them. Chances are, you've already discussed them at length with the person you sleep with.But as the credits rolled, you felt cheated. Why? I think it's because the show betrayed the very motif that captivated you in the first place. GOT, you've pleaded to skeptics (like me who joined the party late), is about people vying for power in an unforgiving world. Sure, it's got some wizardry and dragons, but it's about the people. The people. The people. The people.I'm with you and agree...right up until the finale's second act turn to be precise.On second thought, let's do a quick recap, and I'll show where I think it all went wrong.[Spoilers ahead...big time.]Kings Landing is a pile and bones of ashes courtesy of Daeneryus, who's clearly the bad side of the aforementioned coin the gods flip every time a Targaryan is born. Jon Snow, the show's lone true hero, is torn between loyalty and morality. Tyrion, eager to force the hero to action, points out that Snow himself has been on the back of a dragon and wouldn't incinerate an entire city if given the chance. So in a moment of Shakespearean tragedy, Snow kills Daeneryus and rids the realm of its most brutal tyrant.Now here comes the dragon. And here's where we and Jon Snow have a problem. The dragon, which just recently wiped out the city at the bequest of its mother, is pissed. That works. Everything we've seen of this dragon to date reveals its unwavering loyalty to its now-dead mother. Someone has to pay. That works, too. Of course, the dragon wants justice and like most dragons, this one probably isn't going to let due process run its course.But the dragon can't kill Snow because, altogether now, Snow has Targaryan blood and the dragon can't kill a Targaryan. Everything's working to this point. We've got the pedal to the dramatic metal, the narrative's engine redlining when the dragon breathes a blast of fire just over Snow's head. I'm on the edge of my seat, begging to know what happens next.What is Jon Snow--our hero, the rightful heir to the Iron throne--going to do? What heroic act will he commit to take hold of the moment and slingshot the most watched fantasy show in history to its climactic end?Nothing. The hero does absolutely nothing but cower while the dragon melts the Iron Throne.The Iron Throne. The ultimate prize in the game. The thing whose conquest has been the root of all strife in the realm. Melted...by a dragon while the hero watches impotently. Bullshit. In a show that's lived on its brutal portrayal of people against people, a dragon can't suddenly find a moral compass and make a decision that affects the fate of the world. Yet, it happened. Is this a simple case of the dragon tasting sour grapes? If my mom can't sit on the throne, then no one can.Or did the dragon do the people a favor as if to say look at what this thing has done to you. Here let me help you realize a change is gonna come. Argue with me. Tell me about some obscure moment in a previous episode that foreshadows this and I'll make you an Iron Throne ice sculpture for Christmas.In simple terms: Game of Thrones robbed its hero of his balls when it let a dragon--the most fantastical of all inventions--make the decisive action that changes the kingdom forever.But Jon killed Daeneryus, you say. He never wanted the throne, you say. No arguments from me on those points. But the finale fell on its face at this precise moment and everything that came after it---which otherwise works and concludes the show with characters forging to new adventures--didn't pack the punch it should have. Here's how I would have done it. Let's begin just after the dragon, distraught over its mother's death, sprays fire over Jon Snow's head.Jon Snow stands tall, undaunted by the dragon's flame. He locks eyes with the beast who seems poised to incinerate his mother's killer.The stare down persists. Neither breaks until finally the dragon drops its head at Snow's feet. CUT TO:THE ARMYEndless rows of soldiers look skyward as the dragon ROARS overhead. The soldiers BANG their spears on the conquered earth in rhythmic unison, acknowledging their queen.Zooming in to the dragon, we see it is not the queen commanding the beast, but Jon Snow. Snow's dark eyes seem darker as he flies the dragon just over the heads of the soldiers, unleashing a stream of fire just above the garrison. Snow can see the fear in the soldiers' eyes and piss at some of their feet. His plan is working.Tyrion looks on from a perch high above, wondering if Snow's gone mad.Now we see the dragon has something in its clutch. It's the Iron Throne, which the dragon drops in a clearing relinquished by scared soldiers. Snow hovers the dragon over the throne. All watch in silence as the dragon unleashes a mighty burst of flame and melts the Iron Throne to its core.With the throne reduced to molten rubble, the dragon ascends and flies back to the where its mother lies. Snow dismounts and watches the dragon scoop its mother in its claws and, without looking back, flies east. Snow turns and sees Tyrion, backed by an impromptu tribunal of dignitaries, none of whom are sure what to make of what's just happened. Snow looks them over, locking eyes with those who will decide his fate. After several beats, he speaks:SNOW:It is done.As written, the above scene would take about two minutes of screen time. 120 seconds to give GOTfans a chance to see their hero act as heroes should. The rest of the finale can stay as is--save for maybe the scene where an imprisoned Jon Snow doesn't feel right. In my ending, he stands by his actions because that's what heroes do. That's how I'd do it differently, believing in the supreme truth that heroes don't suffer a bout of inaction at the critical moment.Save that for the sequel.Fred Smith was born in the '70s, wore long socks and short shorts in the '80s, played drums in bands in the '90s, and became a husband (to the greatest woman on the planet) and a father in the 2000s. This decade he's made a few movies and written a few books you can check out on this site. Stick around. Have a few rounds on the house. Then, you know...buy something. Fred Smith's latest book of short stories, The Closet, is now available on AmazonHERE.

How 1993's "Falling Down" inspired the take-no-sh** American icon

“Having a bad day? Going nowhere fast? The economy making you tense? Afraid to walk the streets? Life in the ‘90s got you down? What are you going to do about it?”So begins the voiceover from the trailer for the 1993 movie Falling Down, about (according to the film’s marketing department) an ordinary guy having a very bad day.Here’s Falling Down’s basic plot (no spoilers): a disenfranchised white guy who’s been cut off from the so-called American Dream decides to lash back at society with a baseball bat and a gym bag full of automatic weapons. Not an obvious recipe for success in today's social climate, which is why context is important in understanding movie-going culture at the time.The Reagan '80s were still lingering at the time of the film's release. The LA riots were less than a year old. The Columbine massacre was six years away.The filmmakers behind Falling Down believed it was relevant for its time.In promoting the film during its theatrical run, star and Academy Award winner Michael Douglas said of his character’s relatability: "There's a lot of people who are a paycheck away from being on the streets and being out of work who did everything right. They've been responsible. They tried hard, [and] they don't know what went wrong! We won the war, where's it all at?"Audiences, for the most part, related. Falling Down did business in 1993. For two weeks, it was the top-grossing movie in the country and would end pulling in north of $40 million dollars in the USIn 2019? Doubtful a script centered on a marginalized white guy turned social vigilante would even get green-lit into production today.Seen through a 2019 lens, Falling Down looks at best like a movie about a middle-aged snowflake having the ultimate meltdown. At worst, in a Make-America-Great-Again and post-Charlottesville world, it looks divisive, insensitive, and decidedly un-woke.Let’s, for a moment, forgive the film for the ill-timing of its release--less than a year after LA burned following the Rodney King verdict--and concede that #WhiteLivesMatter was 25 years away and therefore not the filmmakers' intended message.Let’s also assume the film’s screenwriter, Ebe Roe Smith, was genuine when he said: “The main character represents the old power structure of the U.S. that has now become archaic, and hopelessly lost.”“Hopelessly lost” seems to have been the sentiment super-critic Roger Ebert noted about the film’s main character when he said, “He seems weary and confused. And in his actions, he unconsciously follows scripts that he may have learned from the movies, or on the news, where other frustrated misfits vent their rage on innocent bystanders.”I’ll concede, Falling Down succeeds in presenting its central character as a victim--perhaps of his own deficiencies as opposed to society’s but a victim nonetheless.Another celebrity critic, Vincent Canby, offered perhaps the keenest insight about Falling Down when he called it, “the most interesting, all-out commercial American film of the year to date, and one that will function much like a Rorschach test (ink blots) to expose the secrets of those who watch it.”Hal Hinson of the Washington Post was a bit more obvious: “This guy is you. At one time or another, we’ve all had these thoughts.”Hinson’s sentiment exposes Falling Down’s 2019 problem. People do indulge thoughts of settling the score with automatic weapons. The difference between the early ‘90s and today is that today the indulgence doesn’t end with fantasy like it we see in Falling Down. Today it too often ends in a mass shooting.Is liking Falling Down a litmus test for dangerous instability? Hardly. It’s a movie, a two-hour fantasy romp where the rules and morals get rewritten by the average white guy turned victim pleading to anyone who will listen what about me?The movie came and went and is today seldom seen or talked about. (Even the most macho-minded cable networks don’t dare air it today.)But that doesn’t mean Falling Down hasn’t had a lasting influence.The film’s character touched a nerve in the early 1990s and a few soon-to-be very rich writers in Hollywood noticed. Let me now bring into the conversation a few other famous white-guy characters from the last two decades. Tell me if you detect a thread.Tony Soprano from The Sopranos.Walter White from Breaking Bad.Walt “Get off my lawn” Kowalski from Gran Torino.Negan from The Walking Dead.Ari Gold from Entourage. What do these guys have in common?All white guys, sure. What else?All antiheroes? We could go that route if we wanted to win points with our modern-lit professor. But what I’m after isn’t so academic.How’s this:They're all working-class grinders who react to a competitive and at times unfair world by acting on their own terms and playing by their own rules.In other words, the world deals them a shitty hand, they take it like a man and fight back with purpose, drive, and an endless supply of YouTube-ready one-liners.Talk about a recipe for character success.With the exception of The Walking Dead’s Negan, these guys are family men with the requisite patriarchal problems. (Negan was a family man until the zombie apocalypse, so he gets a pass.) They dominate colleagues and competitors at work with bulletproof machismo then try to play the sensitive alpha at home. When they succeed, the drama works. But when they fail, it’s downright riveting.Tony Soprano and Walter White present the best cases in point for how wildly entertaining and captivating this kind of work/life balancing act can be onscreen. They’re the main characters of their respective shows, the baddest of bad guys whose wicked drive has landed them at the top of their professions.But it’s the family storylines (not the bad guys doing bad things narrative) that make The Sopranos and Breaking Bad stand out as dramas and have kept these shows relevant years after their finales aired.Like Falling Down’s central character (a divorcee trying to get to his daughter’s birthday), the Tony Sopranos and Walter Whites don’t have all the answers of fatherhood and husbandry. In that respect, they’re just like us.But they’re nothing like the TV dads that dominated the 1980’s, dads like The Cosby Show’s Dr. Cliff Huxtable who was always in control, always had the answer, and convinced a generation of boys that everything was going to be OK as long as you stay honest and do your best.That’s bullshit, of course. Falling Down called it out in 1993. The Sopranos followed suit just a few years later. Breaking Bad a few years after that and so on. Now, what’s the major difference between Soprano, White, and the rest of their ilk and the hapless chuck in Falling Down?The new guard never whines when they lose. They come back stronger with a better plan. They win. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent years, it's how much American audiences love winners. Here’s another way these guys are different from Falling Down: their vehicles didn’t do a just a little business. They were gargantuan hits that made fortunes for their creators and cultural phenomenons of their characters.How’s this for proof?The Sopranos and Breaking Bad are widely considered two of the greatest TV series of all time; both are among the most watched shows in cable TV history. After 10 seasons, The Walking Dead may be losing some of its bite. But how popular a Halloween costume was Negan (barbed wire bat and all) three years ago?Entourage may not make anyone forget All in the Family anytime soon in terms of social commentary and ratings dominance, but Ari Gold Best of videos continue to rack up millions of views on YouTube.And Gran Torino seems poised to unseat The Shawshank Redemption as cable TV’s most aired movie. Even if it never wins the belt, the film can relish in the nearly $300 million dollars it made worldwide.Step into the gauntlet, dear reader. If you're not convinced there's a pot of gold waiting on the other side, then Google the net worth of David Chase (writer, creator of The Sopranos), Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad), Doug Ellin (Entourage), and Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead).Now get off my lawn and go write a story that turns the supportive TV mom of the 1980s into a badass who dominates the boardroom and battlefield but struggles with her teenagers. You can thank me when you win your Emmy.Fred Smith was born in the '70s, wore long socks and short shorts in the '80s, played drums in bands in the '90s, and became a husband (to the greatest woman on the planet) and a father in the 2000s. This decade he's made a few movies and written a few books you can check out on this site. Stick around. Have a few rounds on the house. Then, you know...buy something. Fred Smith's latest book of short stories, The Closet, is now available on AmazonHERE.

John Singleton gave me advice that’s guided me every day

Filmmaker John Singleton died yesterday at 51. Most will remember him for his 1991 debut Boyz N the Hood. I’ll forever remember him for the advice he gave me about storytelling.He was already a Hollywood juggernaut when he spoke at the University of Florida in 1998. Boyz, had put him on the map. Poetic Justice (1993) Higher Learning (1995)andRosewood (1997) tattooed his name as one of the most significant auteurs of his generation. That night, Singleton spoke to a packed house of students eager to hear rags to riches tales that end at the top of the Hollywood sign looking down at a conquered industry.Singleton kept the focus on the struggle. Writing the script to Boyz had been therapeutic. Fighting with producers over budget was not.(Unable to afford a helicopter to show the nightly patrol over a Compton neighborhood, Singleton opted for giant lights to shine on the actors from above, accompanied with the appropriate sound effects. Problem solved. I think of his anecdote every time I see the scene when the suit-wearing USC football recruiter comes to Rickey’s house.) After his talk, there was a Q&A, which quickly devolved into scores of star-struck kids asking the director for a part in his next movie.I waited until the Q&A was over to ask my question. Waited until the gracious auteur had worked the room, shaken every hand, signed every autograph, and was near his exit before asking his opinion on a topic that was dear to me but hopefully dearer to him.My chance came when he turned into me in the crowd. He was short. (I’m 5’ 9” and looked down to him.) Still, his presence dominated the room. I’m sure my voice shook when I asked, “Mr. Singleton, how do you feel about telling the story of the other?”He paused, giving my question a moment’s thought. No need to establish what “the other” meant. He knew.Then looked me in the eye and spoke words that echo each time I sit in front of a keyboard. “You have to be careful, because it’s been done so poorly in the past that it has caused harm.”I have been careful, Mr. Singleton. Thank you for your art and insight. Rest easy.Fred Smith was born in the '70s, wore long socks and short shorts in the '80s, played drums in bands in the '90s, and became a husband (to the greatest woman on the planet) and a father in the 2000s. This decade he's made a few movies and written a few books you can check out on this site. Stick around. Have a few rounds on the house. Then, you know...buy something. Fred Smith's latest book of short stories, The Closet, is now available on AmazonHERE.

Why this Lightning team may NEVER win the Stanley Cup

You could see it in their eyes. They weren’t the eyes of champions, confident and determined to do whatever it takes to win.Watching hockey in hi-def on TV, even a casual fan can see two crucial things: the puck and the eyes of the players. The eyes of the Lightning looked like those of over-matched players who knew they couldn’t win.They weren’t game 7 eyes.Game 7? You heard me right.Go back to game 7 of last year’s Conference Finals when the Bolts were blanked 4-0 by the Washington Capitals, the eventual Stanley Cup winners with game 7 eyes.Last year’s game 7 loss was when the historic playoff collapse of this year’s Lightning began. In between was a nice little season when some records were set, 62 regular season wins if you’re counting.But 5 is the number that matters, as in 5 playoff losses in a row. That’s the streak the Lightning have to break if they want to get on with the dream of winning a Stanley Cup.I don’t think they’ll ever reach that goal. Not this team. Not as is. Here’s why:Forget this year. I quietly made this prediction about the Bolts’ future last year after Game 7. It was an easy call.To win the Stanley Cup, you have to be a great team. The Lightning are not a great team.Great teams show up in Game 7. They may not always win. But they make a game of it. They fight like rabid dogs until the bitter end, leaving it all on the ice, field, or court. Always.The Lightning didn’t show up for Game 7 of the 2018 Conference Finals. Their eyes told the whole story. They looked like a helpless team that was on its way to being shut out with the season on the line--at home.The fans did what fans do when their team loses at home to end a playoff run. They applauded a great season and said wait ‘till next year.And the media did what it does when its darling home team doesn’t get out of warm-ups in Game 7, it makes excuses with cliches like they didn’t have enough left in the tank and this team is built for the long run.And what a run the 2019 regular season was. 62 wins. 128 team points. Presidents' Trophy. Home ice advantage throughout the playoffs. Three 40 goal scorers. Speaking of whom…Great players show up in Game 7, too. Always.Can anyone remember a game 7 when Michael Jordan wasn’t great? How about a conference championship when Emmitt Smith didn’t want the ball? Oh, and I’m trying to remember, did Tom Brady ever leave his best pass in pre-game warm-ups when the season was on the line?Never. Why? Because great players show up when it matters most. (And every player is tired, hurt, or running on empty by the time any game 7 rolls around.)Not only do great players show up, they demand their teammates show up, too. We never saw that with the Lightning in this year’s epic playoff collapse.Never once did the high-definition TV images show one of the Lightning’s superstars get in the face of his teammates and make a profanity-laced decree that this ends now. We take OVER now. We turn the series NOW.Didn’t see it. All we saw was the eyes of helpless lambs who looked like they were waiting for someone else to step up and turn things around. It was all in the eyes.There’s always next year. And the good news is the 2019 Lightning will get to watch this year’s playoffs on HD TV, where the eyes of win-or-die champions are on display every night. Fred Smith was born in the '70s, wore long socks and short shorts in the '80s, played drums in bands in the '90s, and became a husband (to the greatest woman on the planet) and a father inthe 2000s. This decade he's made a few movies and written a few books you can check out on this site. Stick around. Have a few rounds on the house. Then, you know...buy something. Fred Smith's latest book of short stories, The Closet, is now available on AmazonHERE.