Steven M. Finkelstein

So, I recently quit one job and started another. The new job, I judge, just from the few days I’ve had of it, seems to be marginally better than the old one. It pays slightly better, and there are benefits available, which make a huge difference, since Obama and his various supporters and opposition can’t seem to get their act together. But the new job isn’t really any more interesting than the old one; it’s security again, and unfortunately, that’s a profession that involves a lot of standing or sitting around, not really doing much of anything. Granted, I understand the need for security, and I’m not downplaying the importance of the field. I’m also not saying that these are the worst jobs I ever had; as I’ve mentioned here on the site before, I toiled in food service for several years, not able to find anything else till a few months ago. But just because we’re talking about something that’s slightly less unbearable doesn’t mean that I feel any better or more enthusiastic about going in for work five days a week, getting up at six in the morning, no less, to do something that is boring the living hell out of me. It frustrates me that all I want to do is work on my writing and be left alone, and the fact that I have to continue working these menial jobs I hate makes me absolutely loath the world sometimes. Maybe it makes me sound like a spoiled brat, but I don’t even care. I know the world doesn’t owe me a living. I know that there are people all over the world who would kill for the privileges that I enjoy. It’s all a sliding scale. There are people who are freezing and starving; by the same token, there are people who are billionaires and live in luxury, in the most opulent of surroundings. I’m in the middle somewhere, just doing my best to get along.

I’ve talked on the site recently about how some people are preoccupied these days with whether at some point the world is going to end, or be dramatically altered, by earthquakes, by tidal waves, by a giant comet colliding with the Earth. When I think about that, about the world being thrown back into the Stone Age, no electricity, return to the wild, let might make right, why is it that it’s so appealing to me? I think the reason is that I’d like to see us all return to our roots, when no one stood above anyone else due to accumulation of wealth and influence. I’d like us all to return to year zero. We’d live shorter, more brutal lives, but at least then we’d all remember what’s important! It’s in a city like New York where the poor and homeless live alongside and among the insanely wealthy, that I think about these things most, especially when I go to work at a Park Avenue sight where the people I’m “guarding” are making more  in five minutes than I make in a month. I’m so jealous of them for their wealth, and yet I think what they’re doing is as much of a joke, if not more so, than I; they’re in suits and ties, each one trying to look more snooty and well off than the last. We’re all jokes, everyone in the building, and everyone is taking themselves so seriously. Well, I’m not. I understand the basic futility and uselessness of what it is we’re doing, every one of us, essentially wasting the precious time of our lives, having the sand in the hourglass tick out while we dance like simple-minded marionettes. If bombs started going off, if we were hit with an earthquake, if that tsunami rose from the Atlantic and drowned the Gomorrah that is Manhattan island, I would have no problem with it; I’d rejoice. If I happened to be one of the casualties, at least I wouldn’t be bored anymore. And if I was lucky enough to be spared, and everyone was reduced to their base instincts again, seeking shelter, food, warmth, I would gleefully pick up something to use as a cudgel, and get down to the real business of living, the business that all of us “civilized” people have forgotten. We think we’ve evolved, but we’ve really done the opposite. Just because we’ve put on custom-fitted suits, it doesn’t mean we’re enlightened. We’re just deluding ourselves. Well, my eyes are open, and even if I have no choice but to keep on as I’ve been, that doesn’t mean dissension isn’t always in my heart. Ask yourself, if you’re one of the many who spend your days doing something you rather wouldn’t, what would you do if some day your shackles were suddenly broken? Think about it. Because if it turns out that any one of the Apocalypses scripted by those supposedly in the know come to pass, and you are a survivor, then you’ll very quickly have to come up with a new job…and I  think you’ll find it was the one you should have been working at all along.

If you live on the East Coast, or other parts of the country where the changes in the season mean big swings in temperature and noticeable changes in the weather, by November you have to be mentally ready for what you’re going to be seeing and experiencing for a period of about four months, give or take. Snow, rain, sleet, hail, gray skies, no growing green things, and less daylight are all to be expected. It can get to you, sometimes, when you know that spring is still several weeks away, and going out for a walk in shorts and a tee-shirt won’t be a possibility for a while. Were it possible to just stay in the house and only venture out occasionally for groceries, that’s just what I’d do. Of course, I’d still be serenaded by the same crappy rap music shaking the walls from the guy in the apartment behind me, and the Italian couple next door screaming at each other, along with the higher pitched yelling of their child, who is in the process of learning that healthy communication should take place at the maximum possible volume. Sigh.

Still, though, there’s quite a lot to put me in a more cheerful mindset this winter. Even if, a year previously, I was enjoying higher temperatures in South Carolina, I was still dealing with a God-awful, going nowhere job, a general climate of ignorance, and the knowledge that I would have to orchestrate a move to another state in the next few months, yet again. This year, none of those things are true. I’m about to start a higher paying job than my previous one, a job that actually offers health and dental care (novel concept). I’m in New York, where I tend to get along better with the citizenry, my immediate neighbors being exceptions. But most importantly, I’m operating under the knowledge that in a few months, in midsummer, I won’t have to move again. Knowing that in all probability, Meg and I will renew the lease here, is very exciting to me. I’ve even gone so far as to do some minor home improvement jobs around the house, something I can’t ever recall doing before…normally, I wouldn’t bother doing any serious alterations, if I knew I was just going to be moving on again when the lease was up.

Knowing that I’m going to remain in this city, in the same place, makes it so much easier to get through the winter doldrums. I know the warm days are going to come again, with their leisure, and the many cultural opportunities, and opportunities for mischief, that this city affords. I’m even excited by the prospect of living in a single neighborhood for more than a year at a time; Boro Park has its charms. Even if the looks I get from the Koreans and the orthodox Jews are equally disapproving, it doesn’t bother me. They can’t get rid of me. I’m paying rent, and we’re stuck with each other. So the remaining days of cold don’t bother me. When I feel momentarily bleak, I just remind myself that it’s temporary, and more than worth it to be here.

It’s strange that I should be bored by a movie with a word like “Imaginarium” in the title, but I have to say, that’s where I was finding myself by the second hour of this film: firmly entrenched in the land of boredom. By then, the movie was so irreparably muddled that all I was hoping for was it to end as quickly as possible. The first half hour or so was very strong. The plot…while there was one…went something like this. Christopher Plummer, as Dr. Parnassus, has made a deal with the devil, Tom Waits, for immortality. In exchange, when his daughter turns sixteen, the devil will take possession of her and her soul. Having lived for many centuries, Parnassus, a hapless drunk, makes his living as a sort of traveling peddler, who, along with a teenage front-man who has eyes for his shapely young daughter, and Verne Troyer (because every circus act needs a midget), trundle about in a colorful, over-sized cart, stopping to give shows, during which people are whisked away into the “imaginarium” a sort of fantasy world created partially through their own imaginings and partially through Parnassus’ conjuring. Things become complicated when their family life is disturbed by a new addition, Tony (Heath Ledger, in his final role). The daughter falls for Ledger, whose reason for being there is unclear, and, unfortunately, remains so throughout the film. After a certain point, it all just falls apart. I wish I could explain it more clearly than that, but I simply can’t. Seldom have I encountered a more tangled hour and a half than that which followed the first thirty minutes. There is a struggle between Parnassus and the devil, during which each one is trying to capture five souls; if the devil does so, he retains possession of the daughter, if Parnassus wins, the daughter goes free. Along the way, we learn more about Tony, but also less. There are people after him because he embezzled money from a children’s charity of his own creation, or at least I think that’s what’s happening. I couldn’t swear to it, or to much of anything else in this movie.

This is a film by Terry Gilliam, and he’s hit and miss. He’s had some really big hits (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys), and some spectacular misses (The Brothers Grimm, which was completely unwatchable). Although there were some really fun visual moments in this film, colorful, eye-popping, etc, there’s also a whole lot that makes no sense, both in terms of plot and in every other conceivable way. This seems like a rough draft of a film rather than a finished product, emphasis on rough. Probably half an hour to forty-five minutes of this film could be saved; the rest belongs on the cutting room floor. It seems like, when Gilliam has a project in mind, he has about a million ideas, and this time, rather than choosing between them, he tried fitting in all of them. The result is a muddle of epic proportions. There are high points, certainly. Heath Ledger does a fine job, for all the scenes that were shot with him before his death (three other actors fill in for him, Johnny Depp, delivering a lot, as usual, Jude Law, delivering a little, and Colin Ferral, making me want to lobotomize myself with a spoon). It’s yet another reminder of how talented Ledger was, and how much of a loss his death really is. Christopher Plummer is enjoyable as Parnassus, and likewise Tom Waits, who is essentially playing himself. Still, this movie has far too many shortcomings to counteract the bright spots. The tone suffers from so much incongruity that there are several moments, looking around the theater, when I could see that the audience didn’t know how to react to what they were seeing. Whenever you have people looking at each other and being sort of perplexed, along with a few scattered, none-too-sure-of-themselves chuckles, you know you’re failing as a director, and the fault here is all Gilliam’s. This belongs in the same category as The Brothers Grimm: a failure on a number of levels. In a way, it’s almost like Ledger’s career, which experienced legitimate hits, like The Dark Knight and Brokeback Mountain, and seriously bad misses, like a Knight’s Tale. I guess you can’t win ‘em all, but at least Terry Gilliam will have a chance to make another movie. Ledger, tragically, will not. My rating: 4/10.

Well, the holiday season is the second biggest time for movie openings, right after midsummer blockbuster season. All the Oscar bait on display, and also some big-budget eye candy, which is what Guy Ritchie was going for with his loud, flashy Sherlock Holmes, an attempt at rewriting the public perception of the world’s most famous literary detective. Robert Downey Jr. has come a long way, in the past few years, to erasing opinion of him as a talented actor who can’t leave the drugs and partying alone. Now in his early forties, it seems like Downey has his priorities straight, acting being foremost among them, and the movie going public is rewarded because of it. Downey truly is a leading man, with charm, screen presence, and versatility. He can do drama, he can do comedy, and there is no longer any doubt he can do action, as he mixes it up here with former WWE wrestler Kergan and duels with Roderick Strong, here a somewhat forgettable villain in Lord Blackwood. Much of what happens in this first installment is setup for later films, which there almost certainly will be, as ”Sherlock” is doing a brisk business. We get glimpses of a shadowy Professor Moriarty, Holmes’ arch nemesis, who rumor has it will be played by Brad Pitt in part 2. Jude Law rounds out the cast as Watson, not really adding much.

There’s quite a bit in Sherlock Holmes that works. The green-screen created London is a fun place for the characters to mug with each other and strike poses, and there are some really enjoyable action set pieces and sequences. There’s plenty of room for improvement, though. The biggest problem I had was that it’s, well, a Guy Ritchie movie, and that means that things move at a furious pace from the very beginning. Ritchie has everybody running around at about a hundred and ten percent, behind which a very loud, ear-smashing soundtrack is pumping. I’d like things to be taken down just a couple of notches. A great part of the problem for me was pacing. The rest of it came from the fact that I couldn’t really understand what everybody was saying all the time, Downey in particular. Part of it might have been that he’s looking for an English accent that he never quite gets a handle on, and part of it might have been that there are times when he’s delivering expository speeches where he’s speaking too quickly for us to grasp every nuance. If Ritchie had just told everyone to slow down, take a deep breath, and lower their heart rate, and ours, before starting every scene, I think the movie would have been helped immeasurably for it. Also, I didn’t so much care for the supposedly witty banter between Holmes and Watson. In the written stories, it was always point and counterpoint between the two, yin and yang. Here, it’s more like yang and yang. Law, as Watson, seems to be just a watered-down version of Holmes himself, possessing some of his abilities as a detective, but just being one or two paces behind him in terms of deductive prowess. I wanted to see more of a difference between them, though they are at least at odds over Holmes’ slovenly habits…that part they got right.

All in all, there’s more here to like than not to. Everything is wrapped up in a satisfactory manner, with a speech by Holmes in the closing minutes neatly tying up any loose ends that had been bothering me. There were no gaping holes left in the plot, and I find that I do want to see the next installment, so this one did its job. It also convincingly landed Downy at the helm of a second action franchise after Iron Man, part 2 of which is due out this coming summer. With an Iron Man film and a Sherlock Holmes film out every other year, he’s suddenly a box office god rivaled by few. What I would advise Ritchie to do the next time out is to have everybody brush up on their English accents, slow things down a couple of clicks, and focus a bit more on actual character development and well, um, detection. That is, after all, what Holmes is all about, not bare knuckle boxing, and that’s what I’d like to see a bit more of. I know we’re trying to appeal to kids growing up in an age where they’d rather see Holmes pull out an M-16 and start mowing people down, but let’s try to preserve the integrity of the source material a little bit. Holmes is one of the most complex literary figures from history. I’d like to see more of that complexity and less running around and things exploding in part 2. But it’s Hollywood, and it’s Guy Ritchie with the biggest budget available to him he’s ever had, so there’s probably not much chance of that. My rating: 6/10.

Well, as always, it’s been an eventful twelve months. I think it’s safe to say that this particular year has been even more of a roller coaster ride for me than usual. As I’ve noted on the site before, over the past few years I’ve traveled around quite a lot, and it’s been rare for me to be in the same place for an entire calender year, the same city or even the same state. This year was no exception; twelve months ago found me in Myrtle Beach, SC, miserable for making a poor choice. Myrtle Beach was a mistake, and it was only through fortitude and some much appreciated financial aid from my family that we made it out. In July we made the trip North, from South Carolina to New York City, and the rest, as they say, is history.

It’s my second stint in New York, and the challenges remain the same. Even if the economy wasn’t as bad back when I first lived here, in ‘06, I was just as poor, and the city was just as expensive. I couldn’t find work, back then. This time around, I got my security guard and fire guard licenses, enabling me to get a job as a security guard, not  the most glamorous in the world, but you know what, I’m okay with that. It’s fine, for now. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve worked a lot of food service in the past five years, which is about as thankless and awful of a job as you can hope to find, but security work doesn’t strike me as all that bad. There’s no constantly burning and cutting myself, it’s steady, and I’m in somewhat of a position of authority, placed over the people that I’ve been designated to protect, rather than “serving” them. I can live with that.

Of course, anything that I do for money, as in previous years, is just to pay the rent and isn’t what I plan on occupying myself with for the rest of my life. As far as the writing goes, there have been advancements on that front as well. My new years’ resolution for ‘09 was to finally be paid for my writing. It happened, all the way back in January, actually. Since I’d met my goal so quickly it was somewhat anticlimactic, but none-the-less, I was pleased to finally be a paid author, even if the money that I saw was only enough for me to buy some groceries. During the year I amassed several more paying gigs, and several more publishing credits. My work appeared in a total of ten different publications, the erotica magazines Bare Back, Oysters and Chocolate, Three Pillows, Scarlet, and Grace and Beauty, in the literary mags Kaleidoscopic Resonance, Perceptions, Glass Cases, and Babel Lit, and in the story anthology Patchwork Path. Several of these were paid publications, making this my most successful year for publishing ever. I feel like I should address the issue of my writing erotica…it’s not something that I’m particularly proud of. I felt like I would probably have a good chance of making some easy money that way, and that was indeed the case. I still struggled with some thoughts that maybe I compromised my artistic integrity a bit by resorting to something a little sordid to make a buck. It’s not that I have anything against erotica or the people who write it, it’s just not something I ever really envisioned for myself. But when you’re trying to support yourself through as difficult and competitive a medium as the printed word, sometimes, you’ll be willing to do just about anything to make some money. Hell, I even wrote an entire erotica novel, Underbelly, this year (still looking for a publisher, by the way). All I can say is that after careful consideration, I don’t feel like I compromised anything by writing what amounts to, essentially, porn. People are way too Puritanical about sex anyway, and I’m just trying to pay the rent. In any case, I was glad to see my work appear in Scarlet, which, even though I’d never heard of it prior to submitting to them, is apparently as big a magazine in the U.K. as Cosmo is over here. That means that my story may well have been read by hundreds, even thousands of people! Now that’s exciting. I was also pleased that my work appeared in publications that were based out of such diverse parts of the country as New Orleans, Portland, and right here in New York.

As it relates to my personal life, I feel I would be remiss if I did not mention the passing away of my step-grandfather, David Gresky. I posted about David’s death here on the site before; he was a kind, gentle man who I always held in very high regard, and I’m going to miss him. He had been in decline lately, and by the end there was not very much left of the person I’d known. I very much hope that David is resting peacefully somewhere, and my thoughts continue to be with Dora, my grandmother, who has lost two husbands now. At least it is the consensus that David lived a long, full life, and I’m glad that he got to be a part of our family. I am thankful, too, for the inheritance that he left me, with which I can finally say, possibly for the first time in my adult life, that I am no longer so completely, totally, wretchedly poor. No one wants to profit from a loved ones’ passing, but I am still tremendously thankful to David for his generosity.  

There’s been plenty going on in the public spectrum as well. Obama officially took office, and before long had record low approval ratings. I don’t know what they expected from this guy. He’s doing the best he can! It seems like people wanted a miracle worker. They wanted someone who could walk on water, and instantly generate millions of new jobs and balance the budget. It’s just not realistic. Even though as of this post, it seems like a health care bill with a public option is in the midst of being finalized, it remains to be seen what Obama’s legacy will be in the long term. I really hope the public continues to give him a chance. He inherited an unholy mess let behind by Bush. It’s going to take some time to sift through it.

The death of Michael Jackson midway through the year made the King of Pop even more famous in death than he was in life. People everywhere were expressing their undying love for him, and he was on tee-shirts every which way you looked. I hope the people don’t forget that even though the man was a great singer and dancer, there were also allegations of child molestation as it relates to him, going back the past three decades. I don’t know if we’ll ever know the truth about all the rumors, but it’s safe to say that here was a man that left an indelible impressions on our minds, and culture.

Toward the latter part of the year Tiger Woods fell from grace, with the revelation that he had committed adultery many times with many women. It comes as no surprise to me that the man had a dark side, especially considering that there is evidence to suggest that his father was guilty of the same transgressions. It is only strange to me that he chose to marry in the first place, instead of remaining a “confirmed bachelor” like one of my sports idols, Derek Jeter. And speaking of Derek Jeter, my beloved Yankees captured their twenty-seventh World Championship, just a few months after Megan and I arrived in the city. I look at it as a good omen, and a portent of even better things to come.

All in all, there is much in the positive column that I can mention personally as it relates to 2009. Escape from Myrtle Beach to New York, the city of my dreams, becoming a paid writer for the first time, and achieving the most success with my writing than I had in any other year to date. Am I satisfied? Not remotely. I’m still looking for my big break. I’m looking to get an agent, publish a novel, get the comic book or the screenplay picked up…in short, I’m still trying to make it. But I feel like, in the past twelve months, I’ve taken giant steps toward making my dreams a reality. It seems to me that if I have a chance at becoming what I want to be, I have no better shot at it than being in New York. This is where the writing industry is, so there’s no better place to garner attention for my work. And on top of that, I’ve just wanted to be here for so long. When I had to leave in ‘06 it was so disheartening. But I always knew I’d be back. It’s impossible not to be optimistic about the new year, 2010, and indeed, about the new decade. I’m living in the city of my dreams, and my focus and ambition have never been higher. I’m predicting a bigger year for me in ‘10 than ‘09 was. And I really hope that all of you are coming along with me for the ride. I’m never sure how many people are actually reading this blog. I’ve posted about it before, the fact that I might just be sort of shooting messages off into cyberspace, with no real recipients. But if you’re out there, and if you’ve followed this blog, and my work, since the beginning, or if you’re a more recent addition, whatever the case, I’m glad you’re here, I’m glad you’re listening, and I’m glad you’re reading. After all, what use is a writer without readers? I sincerely hope that 2009 was a good year for all of you. I will see you in 2010.