Probably it’s an unconscious homage to Hunter Thompson, a man who made his life a testament to craziness and spontaneous behavior. And I don’t entirely understand why he’s a role model. I appreciate his priorities, but there seems something vaguely desperate in his fantastic lifestyle.  As if he felt that life on it’s own wasn’t really all that great, and required fantasy and fiction to make it interesting; at least tolerable.

And in the same way, I feel like there is something false behind these 3 words.  Something idealized.  Fantasized.  Hollow.  Can one bet their existence upon hallucination, hedonism, and death?  Or is this missing the point?

I just watched Tropa De Elite and was deconstructing from a story perspective, trying to really get at the process for creating such a story.

Okay I’ll assume you haven’t seen Tropa De Elite, so I’ll just say it’s the kind of story with several different character’s whose paths intertwine, morphing the characters and arriving at a shocking conclusion.  It’s a great story to deconstruct, because it has such a powerful structure.  Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, it’s time to do my favorite thing in the world.  Hate on the story-gurus.

Robert McKee

First we have Robert McKee.  He would probably say, that first the author had to figure out what kind of story he wanted to tell.  In this case, a story about a man changing into a monster.  Next you have to fit it in a specific environment.  In this case, an elite police squad in Brazil.

It’s at this point that I call bullshit.  No one can write a story in this backasswards manner.  At least I can’t.  For example, why the hell would you want to tell a story about a man changing into a monster?  To amuse yourself?  To win an award?  Cause it certainly can’t be because you’re at all interested in that idea. It’s so generic, and has been done so many times before, there would be no purpose.  And why the hell would it occur to you to set in Brazil?? That’s just random.

But lets assume that’s the case.  Well it still doesn’t make sense, because it doesn’t provide a good motivation for creating the story the way it is.  There is no way an author sat down to tell a story about a man changing into a monster and ended up with this complex narrative, set in such a dynamic backdrop, and involving so many interesting characters.  They’re just unnecessary.  If this is how stories really are made, then the really good films would be 15 minutes long, and anything that reached an hour would be full of unnecessary boring ass shit!  Okay I’m done here.  Next!

Syd Field

Next we have Syd Field, who seems to believe that the point of a screenplay is the end.  The ending is what decides everything that comes before it, and without it, all of the buildup means nothing. To write a screenplay in this way, you’d have to start at the end, and add on elements until you reached the beginning.

Again this is crap.  I’d say anyone who really knows their ending, or thinks it is the whole point of the story, is going to write the most boring, contrived screenplay ever, and the only point of any scene will be to lead the audience to the next scene and the next and the next, until they get to the final scene, in which they are so shocked by the beautiful ending that they choke on their popcorn and die of euphoria and kernel asphyxiation.  Writing this way would never cause someone to create the nuanced twists and turns of Tropa De Elite.  After all, you’re just trying to get to the end right?

An Alternative

So what then?  Well, now allow me to unveil my ultimate theory on story creation.  I used to believe writing was all about the emotional moment, but in that case films would simply be a series of vignettes, every scene trying to capture something new.  But this doesn’t necessitate a plot line of any kind.  So here is my revised theory:

First you find a world that interests you, then you find what makes that world unique, then you explore emotional moments that bring out the contradictions and contrasts of the world you’re exploring. From this perspective, the creative choices in Tropa De Elite start to make sense.  The authors got deep into their subject matter, found out what made it unique, and pinned down that struggle into a single plot line punctuated by emotional moments between characters on the outskirts of that world.

The meaning of the story is discovered in the environment, not before the environment is created.  The ending is simply the culmination of the events, and the completion of the intertwining of events.  It allows us to see everything that has happened in perspective, to really get our hands around the thing, but it is not the whole point.

I’m getting really worked up here.  I should really write a screenplay.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

Okay here’s my thoughts:

On Drone Attacks

I had never thought about the people who pilot the drones in Pakistan.  That is seriously fucked up.  And while it’s great that we’re developing technologies that prevent our people from getting killed, I can’t see the end result as anything good.  In conventional warfare these would be great tools, but we’re using them for, going into neighborhoods half a world a way, spying on and killing the residents, it’s going to accomplish the opposite effect we’re looking for.  Great, we can precisely target a single terrorist and take them out without endangering a single American.  But we are endangering all the civilians in those areas, and all at the push of a button.  By some guy in a cubical in Las Vegas.  I imagine how I’d feel if that happened here.  If another nation decided to enforce it’s law in my country, and they didn’t even have to send people to do it.  There’s not even anyone to complain to, or to look in the eye, to plead with, to fight.  Where does all that helplessness get directed?  Do you just go about your day?  Or do you feel outrage, frustration, and anger?  Isn’t this exactly the opposite reaction we want?

On Video Games as Social Experiences

I dropped my video game addiction before World of Warcraft, but I still remember the pattern.  Inches from the screen, not blinking, not smiling, not flinching.  No emotion, just instincts, flicks of the wrist, and short sighs and stretches every death.  Night time is a clever illusion.  From around 9pm – 4am the sky never changes, so when the first bit of sun comes up, and that sickening feeling of “oh my god I am so tired and I spent the whole night playing games” hits, it’s already too late.  In my memory the social games were the worst.  Games where you are just running around killing people can only keep you going for so long, but if a game actually encourages you to forge friendships with your pixelated kill-buddies?  Forget it.  Social gaming is to death match as crack is to PBR.  That’s how I have always seen it.  However, this video talks about Second Life and World of Warcraft as if there is something redeeming to spending 18 hours a week of your life building relationships with people in an imaginary world.  I’m not so sure.  That sounds like giving up on First Life.  Maybe if I was completely locked down with a corporate job that I knew I’d be at for the next 30 years of my life I might allow myself to get that involved with a game again.  Surely that beats a crack addiction.  But from where I’m sitting, anything is better than a virtual experience.  And you’re kidding yourself if you think a conversation online is the same as in person.  It’s the same thing as unmanned drone warfare.  Where there is no human contact there is no risk and there is nothing human to be communicated.  And speaking of which, Second Life is a sloppy mess of culture placed in a blender and melted to a thick brown ooze.  That’s the problem with these virtual communities, there is no restriction on what can be built, so there is no identity, no culture, no roots.  People flit around between personalities and loyalties.  After all, you can be whoever you want, nothing is at stake, no one will ever confront you.  These are thin, superficial interactions, in a fantasy land of no correlation to the real world.  It has no meaning.  And there is no amount of time that’s worth spending on something meaningless.

On Focus

One thing I might possibly be able to attribute to our world of constant distraction is my lack of focus.  The internet allows me to switch up my focus so often that I don’t even have time to realize I’m not actually getting anywhere.  The instinct of instant gratification causes my brain to shoot off in all directions as soon it has the slightest whim.  Now the question is, given the option of instant gratification, or restricted possibilities, what being would choose the latter?  No one.  Technology has given us, for the first time, this choice.  And we can use it to be eternally distracted by possibilities, or to sit down and focus our selves on the things that really matter.  However I think we are all at a disadvantage, because by nature we’ve been drawn to distraction.  By now it’s been conditioned in us.  For myself, any time I have an idle moment, I find my fingers directing me to nytimes.com, or digg.com.  The real joke is that I hate the articles at digg.com, and I don’t read anything but headlines from nytimes.com.  This must be what the opposite of Buddism is.  Instead of being absorbed in a moment of conscious silence, we are pulled into a constant stream of distraction.  I’m not sure my western brain can even take meditation.  How am I supposed to check my gmail when I’m focusing exclusively on my breath?  What?  Thats the point??  What the hell is that supposed to mean??

We met up because he was new to Philly, looking for a job in video production. At that time I wasn’t in much of a position to help him- I had as tentative a grasp on my own survival as you can have before slipping away and spiraling off the earth, but really he needed someone to
talk to.

As it turned out he had lived here before, years ago. He had gone to California in search of a new life.  Traveling, exploring, learning the world. The lines on his face and his hunched, timid demeanor gave me an idea of the lessons he had learned.

After a beer or two he confided: “One thing I learned from travel.. You can’t trust anyone.”

I nodded in sympathy, but sensed a disconnect.  I knew his lesson wasn’t true, but I understood why he might think it was. When you’re traveling, all of your relationships are temporary. And there can be no foundation of trust within such temporary circumstances.

I’ve heard stories of friends striking out on a journey across the country, only to end up hurting each other, betraying each other, and abandoning each other. They made it to California alone, or they just didn’t make it at all. Maybe that’s traveling, or maybe that’s just the kind of friends you make when your idea of a road trip begins with stealing a car.  Looking at Andy, I couldn’t tell which he was. A victim of the elements, or a degenerate.

In any case, he had come back to Philly, haunted by some ghost. A girl he had left behind. Or maybe she had left him. Or maybe they had never been really together. He didn’t say, but clearly some memory of her had brought him back here.

And now he had become a ghost. I imagined him wandering the streets- filled with regret, desperation, guilt.  Searching for whatever it was he lost.

After that meeting I never saw him again. There was no real connection. Nothing I could do to help him, but also I didn’t want to get sucked into his world.

So there must be a reason that Andy popped into my head today.  As I look into the future, I can not think of a thing more frightening than becoming a ghost in my own past.

I’m haunted by Andy’s story. Will I become like him someday?

I’ve thought about it, and here’s what I’ve decided:  Ghosts aren’t here to warn us of the future. They’re here to focus us on what is important.  You can’t worry about regret. You’ll regret things or you won’t.  But either way, if what you’re going after is worth it, these consequence
don’t matter.

I wonder what Andy would think of this…  I wonder if things worked out.

I find myself at the mall. On my laptop plugged into a public outlet. Which is really a wonderful thing when you think about it. Free electricity. It’s like a drinking fountain for my electronic devices. What happened to drinking fountains?

The mall is just waking up. People walk in a daze, the heaters strain themselves to bring the temperature up. Signs of awakeness are here. The man next to me is involved with a short tempered work conversation. “Tell him it the latest technology. Call him. RIGHT now, before anyone else gets a chance.” I can’t tell if this is genuine intensity or if he’s faking it.  A security guard looks down from the balcony. The pace of his gaze just a little too controlled, his body language a little too alert. You can tell there is purpose here.

This is what being awake is all about. A specific focused goal. Without that we’re just a big amorphous blob of ingredients. Like an explosion without a spark. Just chemicals floating around in the air. They go where ever the wind takes them. They separate. The big chance leaves the room.

I’ve been thinking about these themes lately, how great it is to be inspired, focused, passionate. But anyone can excel when they’re passionate. Everyone does. The question is, when inspiration passes, how do you act?

Here’s where the problem begins.  Say you’re a juror intent on giving the defendant a fair punishment for his crime.  The system works like this:  The jury is fair in determining guilt, the judge is fair in determining sentencing.  The result is a just punishment proportional to the crime committed.  Unless you have mandatory minimums, in which case the whole concept of justice goes out the window.

Now the guilty party is subject to a completely inhuman and uncaring law which can not be bent, or flexed based upon circumstance.  The jury is not told if there are mandatory minimums at hand, because sentencing is not supposed to be their concern.  But as soon as you say there will be no human discretion in the sentencing process, it becomes absolutely the concern of the jury:  They are the only force capable of determining the proportionality of the punishment.

Deceiving the jury as to the Judge’s ability to affect punishment, is a contemptible act, violating the very principle by which American justice stands:  Fairness.
With mandatory minimums we’ve decided we will not be fair, and the whole justice process becomes a obfuscated orchistration with no other purpose but to make us feel good while we ignorantly perpetuate a flawed and dangerous sham.

I had a good reason.  It came to me like an epiphany, one that had been sitting on a slow burner, suddenly rising to a boil with a single intolerable degree. I had been walking down the street, and a guy came up to me and asked, “Could I have 12 cents?”  Nothing unusual here.  Happens every day in Philadelphia.  Only this time, I decided to try something different.  I looked the guy in the eye, and said, “Hmm.. lemmie see if I have anything..”  And I searched my pockets.
Now people ask me for change every single day of my life, and I can’t pin point exactly why in this moment I’d decide to give change that I know isn’t going to make this guy’s life any better.  But here I am, out of the kindness of the moment, digging around in my pocket, seeing if I can help this guy out and then.. nothing.
“Sorry man, I don’t have anything…”  I pull my hands out of my pockets, give an apologetic shrug and start walking.  But this guy is looking at me, trying to stare deep into me eyes, as if to say, “You were going to give me something, where is it?”  I return the look, put my hands to the sides, and repeat, “Sorry I don’t have anything..”
The man turns away looking pissed off, as if I’d just robbed him of something, and I as I step away, I can’t help myself.  Teeth bared, all my muscles contract at once, and I jump up and down on the side walk, a ridiculous caricature of a guy who has had enough.
“I”
“FUCKING”
“HATE”
“THIS”
“CITY!!!!”
On the last jump I look up and swing my fists like I’m starting a fight with the moon.  The moon doesn’t react. I shake it off and walk home.

Maybe the reason for all of this is my recent trip to San Francisco, a city which makes Philadelphia looks like some barren prototype.  Some kind of defunct testing ground, that has gone on long past it’s intended useage.  A cell culture stored away inside a tiny glass cylinder, which grew mold, and now continues on, replicating endlessly, alone and unwatched.  Since I’ve come back, I’ve been unable to see Philly the same way I once saw it: As a refuge from the tiny boring state of Connecticut where I was born.  Now, I seek a new refuge.

I’m tempted to soften the language, to write a dozen different disclaimers to prevent backlash, but nah, I’ve lived here 9 years, for once in my life I’ll allow myself to have an opinion.

So I had this weekend to stew over these thoughts, over my escape plan.  I plot out logistics endlessly, maybe I should try for a job in San Francisco?  Wait no, must travel before I go there.  What about the Peace Corps?  Fuck that, I can’t live in a hut for 2 years.  Maybe I should goto Jordan and teach English to Muslim people.  Ahhh, there’s too many options GAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Then I realized, that I’m going to do none of these things.  Every single solution that I have for getting out of Philadelphia is worthless.  I’ve lived here for 9 years, part of this city is inside of me.  When that attempted cop killer fled the scene and jumped in the Schuylkill, I joined the mob of curious bystanders.  When the convenience store down my street was robbed by a crazy drugged out dude, I was in on the manhunt.  When the Phillies won the world series, I was there toe to toe with cops videotaping the breakdown.  I can’t leave like this.  This city is sick, but maybe I am too.  Traveling around, I’m just beginning to recognize the symptoms.

I can’t leave this city, I’ve got to get discharged like from a hospital, with a clean bill of health.  I need to heal.  And in the process, maybe I’ll change something.

Tonight I went out to the grocery store, and just as I reached the corner of my block, I realized I forgot my grocery bag (I’m green like that), and simultaneously a woman decided to ask me for change.  Again, I smiled, and decide to check for change, and.. again.. I found none.  Her face scrunched up, “Are you going in the store?” Pointing at the Old Nelson’s, “Nah, I’ve gotta get something, sorry!”
I started walking back into my house, when I heard her mumble, “…he was goin to the store… lied right to my face.”
I stopped.  Took a breath, turned around, and very calmly and with as much understanding as I could manage said, “No I didn’t.  I’m going to the supermarket.”
And then I stepped inside…

Suddenly, I felt great.
I figured it out!  Philadelphia isn’t going to be fixed all by myself.  But I can help.  Some people will change, some are difficult and stubborn.  But still, I can help!

This woman clearly thought I was being an asshole to her, and given the odd timing of her request, it probably did look like I was trying to avoid her by going back for my bag.  Plus she’s probably encountered hundreds of rude non-responsive people in the city.  She’s probably already made up her mind.  But that doesn’t matter.  I can do what I can do.  Even if it’s the tiniest thing, such as making the extra effort to protest her suspicions.  If enough people do that, she’ll be changed.  Or maybe not.  But in any case, my humanity remains intact.

This city may be covered in shit, but if that’s true, then I will be the best shit filter I can be.  And it might only change the temperature a fraction of a degree, but maybe it’ll be the fraction of a degree that causes the whole thing to boil over.

FUCK disempowerment!  FUCK apathy! And FUCK GIVING UP!!!

No matter what comes my way, no matter how ugly or intollerable, I resolve to act like a human being.
Philadelphia, I am going to wash you clean.