Arc PART 1: "You must choose..."

When I was a boy of about nine or ten my mother and I would take trips to Old San Juan every Saturday. We would hop the trolley and ride up and down the cobblestone streets every weekend like clockwork. I never grew tired of it. We would have breakfast at La Bombonera where I would order the fried eggs and bacon special with a tall glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. We would then walk into the different shops looking for nothing in particular. It had become our own little family tradition.

On one such day she asked me a question that would alter my personality and help shape my life for better or worse.

My parents had gotten divorced when I was about seven years old. My mom and I returned to Puerto Rico immediately after. My father, it seemed, had been sucked into an alternate dimension to fight off the evil dark lord Garbanzo the Wicked from the 7^th Realm of Chaos. Whatever the case, I wouldn’t hear from him for many years.

While my mother was quite excellent at the whole “raising” and “educating” thing, there was only so much a mom could do for her son. There were things only a father could teach. Even though there were some decent men in our family, most of them were out dated Puerto Rican male clichés. She didn’t want me becoming that kind of man…  beer in one hand wearing a “wife-beater” shirt with my other hand permanently secured to my crotch. She also didn’t want me growing up into a prissy little mama’s boy either. What to do... what to do?

She knew of my interest in movies and could see that it was more than just a hobby for me. It was growing into something quite personal. She saw the opportunity. Film… film was the key! So, bouncing around in a bright green trolley going at an outrageous two miles-per-hour down the unleveled cobblestone streets of Old San Juan surrounded by Spanish architecture and 20^th century noises, she asked…

“Who is your favorite movie hero?”

What kind of a question was that?! There were too many to choose from! I mean… Superman, Luke Skywalker, Perseus, Dar the Beastmaster, Captain Kirk and James Bond to name just a few. This is the kind of question that would take days… nay, years to ponder. Each character offered a myriad of admirable qualities that had to be taken into consideration and…

 Oh f**k it. It took me about two seconds

“Indiana Jones!”

Duh.

She didn’t seem surprised. In fact I think she already knew. Aside from the movies themselves, she remembered how, as a little boy living in Greece, I would watch the archeologists digging up the ancient ruins in search of some hint to the mysteries of the past. When we got home I would run out back intent on discovering my own underground secrets. I would begin digging for treasure or perhaps a long lost civilization… in our backyard… with a teaspoon. Indy was the perfect choice! She then proceeded to tell me to pay close attention to the intrepid archeologist and follow his lead. So I watched his every move, studied his every word, copied his every gesture and learned what it took to be a man. Courage, honor, confidence, an understanding of art and history, a leather jacket, a half shaven face, a sense of humor, a respect for the ladies even while acting like a complete prick, a cadre of loyal friends and a big ass whip for good measure. I would fight the forces of evil. I would stand up for the weak. I would be… the hero.

Tool of archeology

The first two films and a couple of cheap Indy novels kept me going for a few years but, as does often happen, children grow up and life throws things at you that you could not possibly be prepared for.

I was thirteen or thereabout. I was staying at my grandmother’s house. I had already gone to bed when I heard the phone ring in her room next door. It was one of those old rotary phones that made a massive ding-o-ling sound potent enough to raise the dead. I could hear her talking and while it was only a collection of muffled hums, I knew she was excited about something. She came into my room and said in a hysterical whisper… “It’s your father!”

TO BE CONTINUED…

"To a dark place this line of thought will carry us."

“Knowledge itself is power.” Sir Francis Bacon

“Power tends to corrupt…” Lord Acton

Sir Francis Bacon

My head was filling with information. Art school was saturating my brain with words and concepts I had never known existed. They covered everything. Every medium was sampled, art history from around the world, an entire class devoted to the theory of color and another dedicated to the complexities of perspective. It was a lot of information and it… was… great! I could apply most of it to film, too. My major, I had finally decided, would be digital art. I had a small understanding of computers at the time and too much impatience when it came to sitting back while waiting for paint to dry. What had also caught my attention was the mention that the digital design department was going to add a video class… I’m in!

The problem with all this was that I was becoming arrogant. I had been absorbing all these new theories and ideas and somewhere along the way… I got lost. I started feeling a sense of superiority towards the non-artistically inclined. I felt as if they were beneath me and I was a member of an exclusive club. It was intoxicating… going to all the art shows and standing around with my glass of wine and a napkin full of cheese. Meeting new people and discussing all manner of topics while engaging in a barrage of trivial banter in order to prove just how smart I really was. Spewing out names and dates and long words ending in “ism” while juggling gargantuan terms like “juxtaposition”, “nexus” and “oxymoronic” … anything with the letter “X” in it. I was in… deep.

I had a professor who once said that we had an arduous journey ahead of us because, ”We artists are like gods. Like God, we have the ability to create worlds.” Now… I am not a particularly religious fellow but I can recognize bulls**t when I hear it and this guy was simmering in it. Something was off. I would hear many of my teachers talking about how we represented the soul of the people but these people were too elitist to even give the average man a second thought. How would they know the feelings of the everyman when they spent the bulk of their time amongst each other… praising one another while stabbing each other in the back?

Don’t get me wrong… there were a few decent people among my professors but I had learned the magician’s tricks and somehow… the magic was gone and the magician, as it turned out, was an a**hole.

I knew it had taken hold when I started keeping things to myself. I would only speak of things that made me seem… intellectual. I only spoke of Indiana Jones and Star Wars in the context of their social applications… not to mention how E.T. was a childish film that had no real relevance as an adult. Who the hell was this guy? What happened to that kid who used to just love a good story? Why was there sudden need to deconstruct everything and analyze it to its very core? Social application!? What does that even mean?

My mother had moved to Connecticut soon after I had graduated from high school. I had visited her on several occasions but half way through college… I really needed a vacation. I was on top of the world and it felt like crap. To add to the frustration, things were going downhill with Katherine and the end was imminent. Yeah… I needed to get away from Puerto Rico for a few weeks.

As usual… I decided to go to the movies. I can’t even remember the movie I watched. That’s saying something. What I do remember was the trailer. The lights were dim and the room went silent. A little television popped up in middle of the screen and a man began to speak. “For an entire generation people have experienced Star Wars the only way it’s been possible… on the T.V. screen.” What? What was this? My eyes widened and my jaw dropped the moment he said, “But if you’ve only seen it this way… you haven’t seen it at all!” and the theater exploded! The Star Wars theme blew out of the speakers and echoed inside my head. With every passing image my eyes started to well up. When the narrator invited me to “welcome back” all those characters I knew and loved as a boy… I damn near lost it in that place. Star Wars Special Edition? It was old and it was new. It was all coming back to me. When I was a kid I wasn't analyzing anything. I was just watching, feeling and enjoying. How could I go back without sacrificing all I had learned? Was there a way to acquire knowledge but still maintain a sense of wonder? In other words… could I learn all the magicians tricks but still enjoy the show? Yes.

It all comes down to a very simple thing. Honesty. At the risk of sounding like Disney's version of a Paulo Coelho book… be honest with yourself. If you like a certain type of movie or music or work of art… don’t hide it. Don’t deny it. If you hate the Hollywood blockbusters or if the rare and independent isn’t your cup of tea… fantastic! Just be sure it’s for the right reasons. Don’t toss the big budgets aside in an effort to appear intellectually superior and don’t dismiss the foreign and obscure simply because you don’t understand them. Vocabulary is important if only so that when some holier-than-thou nitwit tries to crush you with their god-like knowledge of the universe, you can tell them to go screw themselves in the most elegant way possible. Don’t forget to throw in a few “X” words too. Then you can stick out your middle finger and tell them to “juxtapose this!”

Just enjoy the experience. There will be time for analyzing once the film is over. When it comes to the movies… I say: Feel first… think later.

"I don't know, I'm making this up as I go."

So there I was floating around in my amniotic abode at the Hotel Madre Mia, enjoying the free room service and complimentary pre-chewed popcorn when I was suddenly startled by the muffled sounds of what could only be... I had no idea what it could be. I hadn't even been born yet so I had no way of knowing what I was listening to. It was deafening. It was relentless. According to my sources it was gunfire!

Puerto Rico: circa 1974. My mother had taken it upon herself to frequent the local drive-in while I was still simmering in the womb. It seems that the diversified theater only played one of two types of movies… cowboy movies and beach films. The beach films were the typical teenage romps with musical numbers dedicated to some guy named Frankie and his frickin surfboard. The cowboy movies, on the other hand, had little if no singing but a whole lot of gunplay. I am told that with each subsequent pistol shot, I would shift and kick within the confines of my inundated studio. OF COURSE I WAS KICKING! I was submerged in a thick liquid with limited moving space! It must have been like what fish feel when you tap on the glass and yell asinine comments to a creature that has no idea what the hell you are talking about. Deep thuds and nowhere to run. Scared out of my undeveloped little mind while mom was sitting back somewhere in the outer realm sipping a Coke and chugging down a bucketful of snacks wondering why Little Baby is so upset.

She tells the charming tale about how my passion for film began while she was still pregnant. Perhaps. I love movies. However, while I have a great respect and understanding for all genres, I am not a big fan of cowboy flicks and musicals. Weird.

I cannot in all honesty tell you what my first personal movie experience was. No one can confirm this either. I can however share my first memory of going to the movies. I was seven years old. I was hanging out with my cousin Alex and his family. I’m not going to go into some romantic diatribe about how I remember the smell of the concession stand or the murmur of the crowd as they awaited with anticipation for the cinematic event to begin. I really don’t remember that level of detail. For all I know the lobby smelled like vomit and the people talking behind me were spewing out obscenities and death threats. I do, however, remember the huge red curtains covering the entire screen. They were big… and red. Suddenly they opened.

I remember the lights going down after being bombarded with previews. I remember a mountain. I remember a jungle. I remember a gunshot and a filthy looking man. Most importantly I remember the filthy looking man running for dear life from THE BIGGEST ROCK I had ever seen! OH MY GOD! IT’S GONNA CRUSH HIM! AHHHHH! He charged through a cavernous tunnel and dove straight out of the cave while the boulder slammed the entrance shut. I was wide-awake. My heart was pounding. I was seven years old and I was in awe!

It had begun.

And yes… I do realize that my fascination with film began with a hero who carried a gun (which he used quite a bit) while dressed in a manner very similar to that of a cowboy... only cooler.