Steven M. Finkelstein

Well, another year has come and gone, so it’s time for my first year in review blog, which I plan on making an ongoing tradition. The first thing that comes to mind this year is the presidential election, which has brought about a historic change in this country, and hopefully, when new President Barack Obama is sworn in on January 20th, will mean bettering foreign relations that have been so terribly damaged by the past eight hellish years under the worst, most incompetent leader I’ve ever seen, George W. Bush. It’s like waking up from a nightmare, but W’s reign was all too real. Obama has a lot to deal with. Obviously the tough economic times are a top concern for most of the nation, except for the very rich, who won’t be effected much, and the very poor, like me. That, of course, is the other big story of this year; the economic collapse, that, apparently, has not reached its lowest point yet. Supposedly, things will get worse before they get better. It’s depressing, but like I’ve talked about on the site before, I’ve been struggling every month to pay the rent for the past five years. Sure, it sucks that lots of other people have lost their jobs and have fallen on hard times, but hey, welcome to my world, bitches. I know poverty intimately, and since misery loves company, I’m not exactly losing tears over everyone else’s plight.

As for me, personally, I lived the first seven and a half months of 2008 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before moving to North Myrtle Beach with my girlfriend in mid-August, where I’ve been since. If you want to know why we did it, all I can say is it seemed like a good idea at the time. I’ve lived in five different states in the past five years. I lived in L.A. and New York, and I loved both of them. It was due to lack of money that I left, as both of them are very expensive, if you didn’t know. I spent some time in Cincinnati, my home town, while trying to figure out what to do with myself, and I moved back to Pittsburgh because I wanted to be with my girlfriend and she wasn’t ready to leave the area yet. When our leases expired midway through this past year, we looked at other possibilities, settling on Myrtle Beach, as I recall, because it’s warm, the beach is nearby, and because, while it’s the South, it’s not the deep South, like Mississippi or Alabama. It was also something different, a part of the country where neither of us had lived before. We tried something new, and, like most times when we try something new, it backfired. I’ve spoken on the blog about the lack of transportation. That’s the biggest problem, first and foremost. Since neither of us owns a car, it’s been next to impossible getting around, and the job options here are extremely limited. Then, of course, there’s the people. It may not be the deep South, but it’s the South, and it’s a Red State, with everything that goes along with that: religion, NASCAR, a distinct lack of dental hygiene, and pro-lifers. I hate nearly everyone I’ve come into contact with around here, and if you happen to be reading this and you’re from the area, and if I’ve offended you, good. You’re what’s wrong with America today.

So come June 30th, when our lease is up, Megan and I will be moving on. Where we’ll be going, I honestly don’t know. At the top of both of our lists is New York City. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be. It has everything I like and hardly anything I don’t. There’s music, food, culture, and a bubbling fondue pot of every kind of people you can imagine, and I’m absolutely in love with it. It also presents great opportunities for a writer, like myself, and a crafter, like Megan. That being said, it’s terribly expensive. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to scrape the money together in the next six months to get there. We’re looking at other options; Baltimore, Charlotte, Richmond, Raleigh-Durham and others are on the table, but one thing we’re in total agreement on is that we need to get back to a major city, because, without transportation, for us non car owners, a resort community like Myrtle Beach with no buses, trains, or other mass transit has been an unmitigated disaster. Also, it would be great to be somewhere that has museums again. Not a whole lot of those around here.

The new year 2009 opens with a lot of unanswered questions for me. In order to punch our ticket back into New York, realistically, something will probably have to change in between now and then. I’ll need to land a deal for one of my two novels, or win a writing contest with a major cash prize, or Megan will have to get a couple of big wholesale accounts for her products. How likely is any of that? Again, I’m not sure. I can say this much for myself, at least. I was holding out hope that I might cash in with my entry into Narrative Magazine’s Fall Fiction contest, which had several sizable cash prizes. A couple of days ago they announced the winners, however, and my name was not among them. As far as the novels go, over the past few months I sent inquiries to all 119 agents and agencies on the AARP website who represent fiction writers. I did it in alphabetical order and just went right down the list. Since then, I’ve received a string of steady rejections letters and emails. I don’t know if my luck will change as far as that goes. With writing, as with many other professions where you’re producing a product that you’re trying to market, connections count for a lot. Without them, you’re trying to get your foot in the door based solely on the merit of whatever it is you’re producing, and, while I do have faith in my writing, that extra boost of knowing somebody on the inside would definitely help. I don’t have that, so I’m doing it all on my own. I did just finish a project that I’ve been working on for the past eight or nine months, a comic book that I wrote, with help from Pittsburgh artist Jesse Renfrew, a friend of mine. He approached me with the project and I wrote it for him, and after he cranked out the first five penciled and inked pages of the first issue, and a mock up of the cover, I added a cover letter and a synopsis and we sent it to Image Comics. We thought Image might be a good fit for this particular story. Image usually responds within a month, and it’s been a couple of weeks, so I’ve had all my fingers crossed awaiting a reply. I’ve written two novels and a screenplay, and I’ve yet to find a place for any of them. Will the comic book be my first major success as a writer? Stay tuned. I know I will be.

As far as other writing success in the year 2008, I’ve actually had more published in this calender year than at any other time in my fledgling career. I recorded a total of five new publishing credits, including a pair of stories appearing in the online ‘zine Farmhouse, a story appearing in the lit mag Expressions Journal, the second time my work has been featured there, a story in the online ‘zine Freight Train, and a piece of erotica published in the online ‘zine Bare Back. For those who were wondering, I didn’t receive any money for any of that, just the publishing credits. Still, it’s been my best year by far, maybe due in part to my being aggressive and sending out more material for consideration than ever before, maybe due to the quality of my writing improving. Maybe both. In any case, I do take some comfort in that, and also in the fact that I’ll be having another piece of erotica published next month in Bare Back, and a story published in the online ‘zine Kaleidoscopic Resonance, also next month, the first time my work has appeared there. I’m starting off ‘09 hot, and hopefully that trend will continue. My new year’s resolution is this: in 2009, more publishing credits would be great, but I am resolved to actually get paid for something that I wrote. I’m tired of writing for free. I want to put that education to use with some monetary dividends, finally. It’s sure as hell been a long time coming.

I guess the only other thing I want to talk about as far as 2008 goes is my writing more here on the blog, and trying to make the website more accessible. I’ll be honest. I have no idea how many people read this blog, other than friends and family. I don’t know how many people are referred here by the bios I always make the publications add, the ones who have featured my work. Maybe a few, maybe none. I was reluctant to become a “personal” blogger, and talk about the more intimate details of my life. I equated it, in a way, to public masturbation, and I still do. I don’t like doing it, but I think I understand the importance of it, so it’s something I’ve been coming to terms with. But I’m going to do something now, and if there really is anybody out there reading this, maybe you’ll help me out, because listen…I need you. Each and every one of you. Understand, I’m never going to stop writing. I don’t really have a choice in that. I’m compelled to do it, so even if I never get anything else published, and even if I’m never paid for anything I write, I’m going to keep at it. And since I’ve yet to figure out how to support myself in a way, other than writing, which allows me to live in a lifestyle where I’m doing anything but scraping by month to month, this is my plea: help me. If you have any suggestions as to where I can send my work, if you know of anybody who needs to hire a freelance writer, or if you’re a fellow writer who is either struggling like me or has achieved success and has some suggestions, please, please, contact me here on the website. Or, alternatively, even if you don’t have any suggestions or work ideas for me, just post a comment and let me know you’re out there. Part of what I find so objectionable about blogging is that it feels like when I post something I’m just shooting it off into a black hole. I don’t know if a handful of people are reading it, or a lot of people, or no one. Let me know. If you agree with one of my tangents, let me know, or if you disagree. If you read one of my movie reviews and you saw that movie too, let me know what you thought about it. If you think I’m a pompous asshole and I’m doomed for failure, let me know that. Just make your voices heard. That’s all I ask. Direct people to the sight. If you have suggestions on how I can make it better or other things you want to see here, let me know. Seriously. Anything to increase traffic.

I guess that’s it for now. I have to go the grocery store and buy some cheap alcohol for tonight, so Megan and I can ring in the New Year, and say goodbye to a decidedly sub-par 2008. What will ‘09 hold? Triumph? Failure? I can’t predict that, and I can’t predict where I’m going to be a year from now either. But a special message for anyone reading this, and for anyone who keeps checking back in to hear what I have to say: thank you. You got on the bandwagon early. One more thing: look for my newest volume of collected works, The Great Divide, to be posted on the website later in ‘09. As usual, it will feature an assortment of shorter works from the past couple of years, including some never before seen bonus material. Happy New Year, everyone. Keep on truckin’.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is directed by David Fincher; this is the third time he has teamed with titular character Brad Pitt, and is based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The basic premise is that a child is born in New Orleans right at the conclusion of the first World War, with a medical defect that makes him appear as a very old man, who then begins aging backwards, so that he continues to grow younger and younger as he gets older. His mother dies in childbirth, and his father, horrified by his grotesque appearance, drops him off on the steps of a sort of retirement community, where he is raised by Queenie, a nurse who lives there. From this jumping off point, we follow Benjamin through his life, including a stint as a sailor on a tugboat in WWII, a world traveler, and generally a naive ol’ country boy with a heart of gold. Kate Blanchett, who Benjamin meets in New Orleans when she is a young girl (and when they are the same age, appearances to the contrary) drifts in and out of his life; at one point, she is a ballerina in New York, until a car accident crushes one of her legs. Blanchett sees almost as much screen time as Pitt, as she is obviously intended from the first to be his true love, and indeed the two of them live together in the middle of their lives, when they appear to be about the same age, although she continues aging forward, while he is growing steadily younger. A very old woman on her death bed in New Orleans turns out to be Blanchett, and the story is related to us by her daughter, who reads from Benjamin’s diary and postcards until we get to the inevitable part of the story where it is revealed that Benjamin is her father, something she was previously unaware of, as Benjamin left when she was very young, to save her the trouble of having to deal with his malady, and Daisy, Blanchett’s character, remarries. Up until this revelation, she was under the impression the other man was her father. Pretty heavy to lay on your daughter at your deathbed, no? 

Although the aging backwards is the ongoing gimmick, and it’s kind of fun to watch Grandpa Brad Pitt move slowly back to hot Brad Pitt (“You’re perfect!” Blanchett exclaims at one point, having not seen him in a few years), and eventually to teenager, toddler, and infant again, this movie is more the epic scope of a life than anything else, with a certain feel to it reminiscent of Forrest Gump, and others. There’s a kind of creepiness to it, as at one point there is a tryst between a much older appearing Blanchett and a much younger appearing Pitt, and I’m honestly not sure whether that was intended or not. We are to understand, I think, that the love between the two of them is always there, but due to the nature of Benjamin’s illness, things are never going to be easy for this pair. They have a limited amount of time when the two of them are both the same age and look it, and they must make the most of it, as indeed they do…but the pain of what will come as Benjamin grows older is never lost on them, and the audience.

For the most part, this is a strong film, with the usual dependable performance from Pitt, who lately has been showing his range, with a comedic turn back in September in Burn After Reading, to his part in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford a couple of years ago, a seriously flawed movie that still featured a fine, understated, brooding performance by Pitt. Here, we get a fuller range of emotions, and there is a poignancy and delicacy in which this subject matter is handled that is undeniable. Benjamin is someone who experiences the world as a place where magic is alive and well, and for the proof of that, all he has to do is look in a mirror. However, there are some problems here too. The first is the length: this movie is close to three hours, and doesn’t need to be. I don’t mind long movies, when it’s justified, but this time around, trimming twenty minutes wouldn’t have hurt anything, and at a couple of points things felt like they were dragging. My other problem was with the bookend story of Daisy, on her death bed. The concept of the story within a story has been done to death; I was reminded, actually, of the grandfather reading to Fred Savage in the Princess Bride, a similar tactic for presenting the bulk of what is to appear on screen. It’s obvious from the beginning that the daughter is Benjamin’s daughter, and the only one that doesn’t know it is her. It’s a cliche, and I have no doubt it could have been avoided. The death bed tack is also intrusive, as we keep coming back to it throughout the film, and I found it jarring. If if needed to be there, it would have been much better to keep it to a minimum. Then, there was the somewhat baffling detail of the death scene taking place during Hurricane Katrina, and if you have a reason why that should have been, maybe you can clue me in, because I sure as hell couldn’t come up with anything. I don’t know if Fincher just said, “Hey, most of this story is taking place in New Orleans, and we’re trying to put a modern spin on it. You know what happened in New Orleans in modern times? Katrina. What a great way to marry this story to the modern age!”

Apart from that, this is a surpisingly tender story with some genuine heart, compelling visuals, and fine acting from principles and minor characters alike. A worthy holiday film, and even though I had to walk ten miles to see it, due to the lack of transportation around here that I’ve mentioned on the blog previously, I wasn’t disappointed. My rating: 6/10

Sean Penn is a magician. I put him in a class of actor inhabited by few others; Daniel Day-Lewis is one. Whatever character either of them is portraying, the second the cameras are rolling, the actors disappear, and there is only the person into which they have been transformed. This, of course, should be the ultimate goal of the actor or actress, but few actually accomplish it.  Sean Penn is able to make it look easy, and for that, he should certainly receive an Oscar nod for this movie. He might win it, too. I’m hard pressed to think of a better male role this year, except for the obvious Shia Labouf in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, although he was a supporting character, which puts him out of the running.

Milk is about Harvey Milk, America’s first openly gay elected official, who was assassinated, along with Mayor George Moscone, by San Fransisco Supervisor Dan White. Gus Van Sant, who also directed Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester- and who hasn’t done a whole lot noteworthy since- is behind the camera. Milk has a very biopic feel to it, similar to the tried and true format that made The Doors, Ray, Walk the Line, and others watchable and accessible. The pacing works well, and I was impressed by the whole ensemble, including James Franco as Penn’s love interest, Emile Hirsch as activist Cleve Jones, and Josh Brolin as Dan White. Hirsch first came to my attention with Into The Wild, one of the better films of ‘07, and Josh Brolin has been on fire lately, especially with his work in last year’s Best Picture, No Country for Old Men, and this year’s Oliver Stone directed W.

Milk is well written, acted, and certainly runs the gamut of emotions; there’s very little bad that I can say about this film. I didn’t know a whole lot about the life of Harvey Milk, but from all indications, he was not so much the stereotypical politician, but rather someone who ran for public office to make a statement, and ended up becoming a symbol, sacrificing several aspects of his personal life along the way. What he was willing to do to spearhead a movement that was a long, painful time in coming is truly inspirational. Society still has a long way to go before homosexuals can enjoy true equality, as they continue to be denied the right to marry and are challenged by ignorance and bigotry, but with the emergence of strong, outspoken leaders like Milk, the chances of that becoming a reality someday are much greater. Penn’s portrayal is truly touching, and this will be yet another career defining role for the chameleon, that he can add to the rapidly growing list. Oh, and this movie also features James Franco’s ass, which I know is really what everyone came to see. My rating: 7/10

Hello again. Just wanted to mention that I’ve had another story accepted, and it will be published sometime next month. It’s a titillating yarn called “Long Distance,” and it will be featured in the online erotica ‘zine Bare Back. This is the second time my work has appeared there. Remember, Bare Back is only supposed to be viewed by readers 18 and older, so if you’re of legal age, check it out at www.barebackmagazine.com. If you’re not, then you have no business even thinking about sex, and should be ashamed of yourself. I’ll be praying for you. Later this month I’ll be posting my first ever “Year in Review,” so watch for that. Happy Holidays, all.

Hello again. Just wanted to pass along that I’ve had another short story accepted, this time by the online literary magazine Kaleidoscopic Resonance. It’s an independent mag that focuses on fiction, nonfiction, audio recordings, and photography that appeal to a specific one of the five senses. My story, “Fountain in the Courtyard,” will be appearing in their second issue, due out soon. You can look for it on their website at www.kaleidoscopicresonance.com. More soon.

I hate the Christmas season. The whole thing really sticks in my craw, the way the day after Thanksgiving it descends like a red and green plague on all the restaurants, coffee shops, shopping centers, banks, and other public places, anywhere, in short, that they can pipe in bad remixes of Christmas carols. It’s on t.v. too, the specials where the snowman, reindeer, elves, orphans, or any combination of the above learn the true meaning of the holiday, not commercialism, but the birth of a magical carpenter two thousand years ago who sort of was and sort of wasn’t God. And then there are commercials for luxury vehicles and diamonds. It’s enough to make your head explode.

Even if I had been raised Christian, I think my feelings about the thing would have been the same, but I wasn’t; my family were Jewish, but only in a very casual and superficial way. In elementary school I was in a class with about thirty other kids, and I remember for three or four years in a row my mother would come in on Hannukah and explain to them a little bit about Judaism, fry some latkes for them, give them dreidels, and have them play with them. What the purpose of this was I’m still not sure. It’s true, I was the only Jewish kid in the class, but my family only went to Temple on the High Holidays, and not even all of those. I was seldom actually required to go, I never got a Bar Mitzvah, and I can barely tell you when all the Jewish holidays are, or what they symbolize. Now, years later, I light the candles on Hannukah, but I do so not out of any religious symbolism, but rather because I feel a sense of connection with my relatives that have passed on who did the same thing.

But Christmas is very different from Hannukah. Hannukah is small, unobtrusive, and doesn’t take up a lot of space. Christmas is loud, boisterous, and it inundates you. There’s no escaping it, the sounds, the colors, the lights. This year, though, it seems worse than usual, not because of the festivities themselves, but because of the economic conditions in this country. It is just so typically American, and so representative of the state in which we find ourselves, that we hit the time of year when consumerism is pushed on us the hardest right when so many families are struggling. Let’s go back to those commercials I was talking about before. I saw one for an S.U.V. the other day, made by Cadillac, where a guy was leaving a party with seven women who looked like supermodels, and they were all piling into this thing, that looked like some kind of a sexy tank, because it can hold up to eight people, I guess, and six supermodels just wouldn’t have been enough. I know it never is for me. Setting aside for a moment the size of this guy’s libido, it next flashed on the screen that this thing gets up to 24 miles per gallon on the highway. Is that supposed to be good? And then, just before the commercial ended, it said the asking price was forty-seven thousand dollars and change. I wanted to kick the t.v. I haven’t made forty-seven thousand dollars in my entire life. Seriously. I doubt I’ve made half of that.

Then there was the diamond commercial. We’ve all seen these. A guy takes his lady-love to a romantic spot in the park, a perfect covering of snow on the ground, and proposes, thereby confirming and cementing his love for her, and asks her to marry him. Now that diamonds have entered the picture, we know he’s serious, and now that nuptials have entered the picture, we know their love is for real. This one is so messed up I don’t even know where to start. I could talk about conditions in Sierra Leon where conflict diamonds come from. I could start in on marriage being the antithesis of love (one of my favorite talking points), an artificiality made of the most beautiful expression of emotions in the human spectrum. But I think I’ll talk about the tag line that they threw in at the end, “A diamond, like love, is timeless.” Maybe I’m too much of a realist to fall for that one, but even without all the other problems I have with this commercial, I feel obligated to say that nothing is timeless, except, perhaps, for time itself, and even that I’m not sure of. Something tells me I won’t be there at the end of time to find out for myself. Love, between two people or otherwise, sure as hell isn’t timeless. It goes on until it stops. If it lasts for their entire lives, that’s wonderful, and they’re doing better than most. Getting married probably won’t help them, but forgetting that, when they die, their love will end. I’m sorry, but that’s literally true. Maybe the people who remember them will keep their love alive for a while, because when we’re alive in someones memory, some part of us is still lingering here. But then in turn those that remembered them will also die, and the love they shared, along with everything else about them, will pass on. The diamond, being a physical presence in the world, and a lot longer lasting than the fleshy beings that we are, will go on for some time after we’re gone. Maybe the line at the end of this commercial should have been “Diamonds. They’ll last longer than you will.”

But regardless of how much the commercials upset me, I can always turn off the television. I can’t avoid going outside for five weeks, and since they play Christmas music at my job, I’m pretty much guaranteed to get a dose of it every day. There’s no escaping it, so I’ll just have to suffer through it like the rest. I know this, and I accept it. But I have just one more thing to say. To every guy who’s free from cynicism, who actually likes this time of year, who drives to the mall in their forty-seven thousand dollar Cadillac S.U.V to buy Cd’s of holiday music to play in their homes, at their Christmas parties where their pudgy wives wear holiday sweaters festooned with jingle bells, who bought those same wives the diamond earrings from that damned commercial as a sure-fire method of getting guaranteed sex that night, one of the few nights of the year when they can expect it…know only that I despise you, and everything you stand for. Bah humbug.