Steven M. Finkelstein

Well, the summer is almost upon us. For many, it’s a time of barbecues, cold brews, and generally relaxation in its various forms…a time to visit with the relatives, kick back by the pool, and work on the tan. For me, the past few summers have featured some of those things, but something else, too. If there has been one notable similarity between the past several summers, it has been that before fall rolls around, I’ve found myself living in a different city. There have been various reasons for this, but the fact remains; each summer I’ve hit the road again, extending the nomadic existence that has been my life for the past few years, since finishing my undergrad. This year will be no exception. If all goes according to plan, by the beginning of July I will have moved from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to the Big Apple, Brooklyn, New York.

This shouldn’t come as any surprise to my regular readers. It seems like all I’ve been talking about on the blog the past nine months or so is how big of a mistake it was to come here. The transportation issues, the lack of like-minded people, the general ambiance of the South…and particularly, shall we say, certain traditions that are alive and well here…have all led to the desire for another move. This one is necessary, I think, more than perhaps any of the others, for the preservation of my sanity, and that of Megan, my girlfriend. We want to live in a major city again. We want culture. We want public transportation. We want museums, used book stores, Indian food. And we want, more than ever, to be successful in our chosen career paths, me with my writing, her with her crafting.

The reasons for the move are apparent. What’s less apparent, at least at first glance, is why we should choose to move to New York. With how little money either of us make, and have made, at least to this point, it sounds almost like suicide to move to one of the most expensive cities in the nation, especially in one of the worst economic periods that this country has seen in many, many years. Jobs are scarce, and we’re moving, with virtually no savings, into what is potentially an extremely inhospitable environment. I’m well aware of what New York is, the enormity of it, the way it can wear you down. It’s been just about three years since I last lived there, since I was forced to leave because of depleted funds. So why return? Why now? My answer: why the hell not?

I haven’t even come close yet to achieving what I want for myself in this life. I’ll be twenty-eight in a couple of months, on the sliding slope to thirty, a time by which some people have bought houses, have sizable chunks of money in the bank, are parents, and are well on their way toward fulfilling their career goals. But the career I chose was a gamble. Freelance writer, particularly freelance fiction writer? Being able to support myself exclusively through that, hell, I’d be better off playing the PowerBall. The odds are about the same. With one crucial difference. If you believe in yourself, if your will is indomitable, if you know, not think, know, that you’re going to be successful one day, then you’re willing to keep plugging away, to keep sacrificing, even in the face of what seems like common sense, day after day, week after week, month after month, and God help you, year after year, chasing a dream that to others seems like a fantasy. And when defeat is almost a certainty, when the voices in my head clamor for me to get a ”real” job, when I’m eating peanut-butter and jelly for the third time of the day, that’s when the smile on my face is the biggest. Because adversity is an opportunity for growth, hardship is the path to nirvana, and I’d never want it the easy way.

And that’s why we’re going to New York, penniless or not. Because it’s a gamble, and I’m a gambler, and this is what I want, more than anything in the world. Not just to succeed, but to succeed in New York, the jungle, the roughest, toughest, biggest, baddest city in the country. The city where you can puke on the subway and nobody bats an eye. The city where you can go to a Broadway show, a gay pride parade, and a rockin’ rooftop bash all in the same glorious twenty-four hours, fueled by street-vendor hot dogs, dodging tourists and speed-demon cab drivers the whole way. This is what I was meant to do, and this is the place where I was meant to do it. Three years ago I vowed to return, and guess what? I’m coming back, back to the city where two more residents won’t mean a thing to it, but it will mean everything to me. I’m coming back to the city that can just swallow me up, where I can vanish, disappear like a magic trick, where I’m nobody, part of the ever-surging throng. Where I can be invisible, just the way I like it. You could say that this is a gamble, but I don’t see it that way. Because this time…failure is not an option. This time, once I’m in, I’m staying in; I’m working my way under Brooklyn’s skin like a tick, the writer-parasite. I’m going to set up shop, network, and do whatever, whatever it takes. Yeah, I’m a gambler. And on the surface, it appears that the odds are long against me in this upcoming venture, the next step. That’s just the way I like it. That’s why I’m so sure of success. So don’t wish me luck, because I don’t need it. This time, I’m making my own luck.

Well, this sure blew Wolverine away. Of course, it didn’t hurt that I saw this one in Hollywood at the ArcLight, which boasts just about the largest, sharpest screens and the most ear-splitting sound systems I’ve come across.  A good movie is a good movie, though, and this one would have been enjoyable anywhere, under any circumstances. I was never a huge fan of the original Star Trek series, and I think that actually served me well going into this particular venture. I was expecting entertainment, and hopefully the successful relaunching of the movie franchise, and that’s exactly what I got. But this is a lot sleeker and sexier than any of the Shatner/Nemoy versions. Everyone is young and new minted, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, idealistic, and with a virtually limitless number of sequels to look forward to, and all of the revenue that they’ll provide, assuming this one will make money. It will. There’s virtually nothing bad I can say about it, and I sure as hell had my eyes open. Glued to the screen, really.

We begin with the birth of James Tiberius Kirk, taking place just as his father buys the space-farm, after twelve minutes of being ships’ captain, a position thrust upon him by the previous holder of that title, who is trying to dictate terms with a warlike Romulan vessel. The senior Kirk saves the lives of all the crew, but sacrifices himself, thereby providing a role model that his newborn son will always have to live up to. Flash forward twenty-something years, and Kirk is a hell raiser on Earth, bright, but without drive or focus. He finds that focus when an old friend of his father challenges him to join Starfleet, which he does. After three years, he cheats on the famed Kobayashi Maru, the simulated test of a Klingon attack, which, as we find out, was designed and programmed by Spock, the half-Vulcan, half-human who brings Kirk before a tribunal of his peers to answer charges of cheating. At odds from the beginning, their face-off is interrupted by a distress call from Vulcan, which is being menaced by the same ship whose attack inadvertently caused the death of Kirk’s father.

From there, the pace picks up considerably, as the Enterprise rushes off to battle, picking up new crew members, and old faces, along the way. We get hand to hand combat, flashy space battles, and laser gun-fights, all being orchestrated by Eric Bana, the Romulan who is wreaking havoc based on a perceived personal slight. Or at least I think that’s what’s going on. Frankly, when all the time traveling starts, things get a bit confusing, as is usually the case…this one would merit a future viewing, possibly, for me to get a better handle on the motivations of the baddie that set everything in motion. I’m sure it’s all very Shakespearean, but after a certain point, it was all coming across as merely confusing. Granted, I was high, which wasn’t helping anything. At that point I was just staring open-mouthed at all the pretty colors, and trying not to get blasted through the wall by the gargantuan speakers. Even when the plot began to feel a bit diluted, though, there was still a feeling of symmetry. Everyone is introduced successfully, looks and sounds like who they’re supposed to, and things tie up neatly, with some clever dialogue and character insight along the way.

I’ll admit, this was the first time I was really impressed by J.J. Abrams. I think he realized how seriously all the nuts out there take this series, and that a big part of his reputation was on the line. But this was in every way a triumph, as he and a talented group of young actors were able to walk the tightrope between drama and melodrama, in this larger and cooler than life space-opera that has grown from such humble roots so many years ago to this, one of the better sci-fi pics of at least the past decade. I walked away from this one with the same satisfaction I have after a good meal, and I’d like not only to see it again, but to see the future installments that I know are coming. This movie is going to launch some careers, and rightly so. This is what the summer blockbuster should be, and the bar’s been set high. We’ll see if anyone else can match this triumph. My rating: 7/10

And…the summer kicks off with a dud. I didn’t think a whole lot of this rather lifeless outing. Wolverine is my favorite X-Man, and possibly one of my favorite Marvel characters of all time; he’s in the running, certainly. I’d been dreaming of a Wolverine solo project for years, and I was also worried the whole time that when it came, they would screw it up. There have been so many comic to movie adoptions lately, what with the advent of increasingly impressive special effects and CGI capabilities, that some of them have to be busts. X-Men 3 was subpar, Ghost Rider sucked, both Hulks, both Punishers, Daredevil, Catwoman, etc, etc. But I was really holding out hope that they wouldn’t ruin Wolvie, and they did it. Damn Gavin Hood.

It wasn’t a total bust. There’s some fun visual stuff, occasionally, but for a movie that ran a full two hours, it just wasn’t very…fun. There were all kinds of changes from the comics to the screen, and while I’m not a complete purist when it comes to these things, there didn’t really seem to be much logical reason for a lot of what they made different. It seems like they did it just for the hell of it. They made the White Queen and Silver Fox sisters, which isn’t the case in the comics, they made Wolvie and Sabertooth brothers, and in the comics there’s no relation. They made Maverick Asian. They stuck a lot of characters together as part of the Weapon X program, some of whom were involved in the comics, some who weren’t. But all of that I could have forgiven, if there was a stronger plot. That’s what bothered me most. I like a good, strong, character driven plot, that seems to be moving inescapably from scene to scene, and toward an inevitable conclusion. That really wasn’t the case here. It felt more like at a production meeting, they all just sat down and said, “hey, let’s think of some cool things we want Wolverine to do. Well, let’s have him get in a boxing ring and box the Blob. Oh, and everyone’s been clamoring for Gambit for the past decade. We don’t really have anywhere to put him, though…oh, hell with it, just toss him in anyway. What about Deadpool? Sure, we’ll find a spot for him..” and so on. The result is many disparate feeling elements, all jumbled together. It felt rushed.

I was also having a problem with tone. There were parts that they were getting a little cutesy with dialogue that felt too comedic. If the audience is chuckling, but they’re also kind of wincing, that’s not a good thing. Sometimes it felt like they were going for serious, sometimes more of an action feel…they needed to pick a genre, and stick with it. You can’t fit too much in at once, emotion-wise. All in all, there wasn’t anything really terrible here, but this was one of my hands down favorite X-Men, about as layered and complex as you can possibly get, the berserker, the loner, the Samurai, the spy, and they ignored so much and changed around so much more, for no apparent reason. I think slowing down the pace of the story, working more on character development and less on action set pieces, having less characters, thereby reducing the need to gloss over them just because it would be fun to have them appear, and fine-tuning the dialogue all could have helped a good deal. This felt like a rough draft. About half of this film, I would say, could have been saved. I know they’re working on a Deadpool project, and another Wolverine solo film. Maybe with a new creative team a reboot could do better. This film needed to take a look at what made Iron Man so successful last year, a simple plot that didn’t try to encompass too much, sticking to a single tone throughout, comedic effect only at the right places, and just enough emotional content so the audience connects with the characters. All really basic film making stuff. My rating: 4/10

I’m past the point where I’m surprised by the news of any major league baseball player being caught using steroids or other performance enhancers. Mark McGuire under suspicion, Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens, A-Rod, and now, Manny. It seems like most of the best pitchers and hitters of the past ten to fifteen years have had their legacies tarnished by the steroid era, and it brings up a great many questions as to how this period in baseball history will be viewed. Will these players make it into the Hall of Fame, or will they only be in with an Astrix; yes, these were great players, but they were also cheaters. It’s a shame, because of all the negative publicity, but it seems to me like my personal favorite players, like Ozzie Smith and Derek Jeter, are never going to be accused of performance enhancement, because they aren’t musclebound freaks that hit fifty or sixty bombs a year. I’m much more appreciative of skill players and situational hitters, that are more concerned with the teams’ welfare than personal stats. A-Rod, regardless of when and in what capacity he took steroids, is, in addition to being a bold-faced liar, a Prima Donna. He can’t hit in the post season, when they need him the most, and until he proves otherwise, there’s no way he’s worth the twenty-seven and a half million per year he’s getting. That’s what bothers me, a whole lot more than the steroids.

Now, as far as Mann-Ram goes, I used to hate the guy when he played for the Red Sox, because I’m a Yankee fan, and he always murdered New York pitching. I had no problem with him since he went to L.A. In the National League, let him be Manny to his heart’s content, acting like a jackass, hitting home runs all day, botching easy plays in the outfield, other tomfoolery. Why not? But even if he’s no threat to the Yanks, I’ll never really be a fan of his, due to what I regard as certain fundamental problems with his character. The way he left Boston is a prime example. He wasn’t happy there, and his way of showing that he wanted a trade was to act like a clown, tussle with the coaches, and generally embarrass himself. Yeah, the guy’s a phenomenal clutch hitter, but he’s lacking in character, big time. I like guys who play the game right. They put the team before themselves, they leave it all out there on the field, they don’t make firestorms with the media…to put it succinctly, they act right. That’s not Manny. And now there’s this suspension. Manny’s explanation was that he was given the banned substance “for a personal health problem,” and it turned out to ”have unfortunately been banned by MLB.” It was an accident, then, is his take on it, which is to say, as I understand it, that he was unaware of the substance being illegal.

Okay, let’s consider this for a minute. If you’re a Major League ballplayer, especially one who has revolutionized and revitalized the Dodgers organization and set that city on fire, making twenty-three million or so this year, wouldn’t you be really, really, really careful about what you put in your body?! Wouldn’t you double and triple check the legality of whatever it is that you were using, for whatever “personal health problem” you might be having? Assuming that Manny is telling the truth, what he did was incredibly negligent and stupid. And that’s the best case scenario. The worst case scenario, of course, is that he’s lying, and he was in fact taking the banned substance to enhance his performance. I wouldn’t have wanted to believe it of Manny, but I wouldn’t have wanted to believe it of A-Rod, or Clemens, or any of the others…and the evidence against them is overwhelming, those who haven’t voluntarily admitted to doping.

This is a lose-lose scenario, for the Dodgers, for Major League Baseball, and for Manny’s already questionable legacy. No one can deny that the guy is one of the best pure hitters of his generation. But this latest indiscretion means one of two things: one, that he’s a liar, or two, that he’s careless and stupid, and I’m kind of inclined to think it’s the latter. But hey, it’s just Manny being Manny. I feel the worst for the Dodgers, though, for the city of Los Angeles, and for the fans. They jumped off to the best start-of-the-season-home-win-streak in almost a hundred years, and then Manny goes and pulls a stunt like this. It’s inexcusable. For all of the little Dodger fans in the dreadlock wigs, Manny, I hope you’re proud of yourself. But something tells me you weren’t thinking much about them, regardless of your flippant apology. You were thinking of the one and only person you ever have, on any team, in either league: yourself.

Hello again. I just wanted to let everyone know that my erotica story, entitled “Long Distance,” is now available for viewing on the website Oysters and Chocolate. You can check it out, free of charge, at www.oystersandchocolate.com. Of course, this story features adult content of a graphic nature, so no underage viewers, please.

Also, in addition to my trips to Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and New York in the next few weeks, I can also now confirm that my summer tour will be stopping in Philadelphia late in July for the Dragon Gate wrestling event being held at The Arena, (formerly the ECW Arena). There are still a limited number of tickets for Dragon Gate’s inaugural U.S. show, and you can get your hands on one at www.dgusa.tv/liveevents.htm. I hope everyone is enjoying their spring. More soon.