A Sea of C-Level Steven Seagal (part 1 of 2)

Oh, Steven Seagal. Actor. Martial artist. Self-described national hero and self-styled lawman.

Also asshole. Respondent in sexual harassment lawsuits. Terrible actor. And entertainer of a great many moments in the young lives of my buddies and me.

By no means is he either a cinematic gem nor a national treasure. But dude made some pretty awesome late-80s/early-90s entries into the action/martial arts genre. Not only that, but prior to his appearance on the scene, no other martial arts movie actor (to my knowledge) was a real-life practitioner of aikido, the Japanese martial artform that depends upon redirecting and diverting an opponent’s energy away from the assaulted so as to put the attacker both off-balance and, eventually, defeated. Not only is it incredibly effective in the hands of the right user, it looks GREAT on-camera, especially when performed by a seventh-degree black belt in his physical prime jousting with trained stuntmen to create some of the most realistic, joint-busting and limb-crunching fight scenes this side of the Pacific. Like this one.

Not only does staged aikido look cool, it’s also incredibly graceful as a combat style. Unlike karate and artforms practiced by the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme, aikido is fluid and relies upon using an enemy’s own energy against him rather than meeting it with superior force. I’ve studied martial arts for over 25 years, but I would NEVER want to get in a fight with Seagal.

Seagal, a rather unlikely movie star, happened to come on the scene at a rather propitious time for both martial arts in popular culture and action movies—and the marriage of the two. He was helped along not only by his undoubted ass-whomping skills and unconventional looks, but by a certain charm and a definite I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude, which included his fashioning his own narrative about being a former CIA agent —an assertion that was both debunked and borrowed from his first film, Above the Law.

As mentioned, I’ve been a karateka for the better part of my life, inspired initially by—and I’m totally serious here—The Karate Kid movies. My late Isshinryu Karate sensei turned us on to Seagal and Van Damme not because they were “good” films but because they demonstrated badass martial arts styles that were both foreign to my studies and superior to my own abilities. It gave me something to shoot for: One day I’ll be a martial arts actor/director too!

Alas, life has gone another way. As it has for the martial arts/action genre, which was largely a phenomenon of its time, as were “serious” action movies in general (Lethal Weapon, Predator, etc.). It holds a special place in my moviegoing psyche and history, as it does for my buddies, who were there with me in those crucial preteen and teen years.

It’s sometimes fun to go back and revisit the “classics,” not necessarily because they’re examples of quality cinema but because they represent a time in our lives that was simpler, freer, younger and uncomplicated.

Before jobs.

Before girls.

Before women.

Before life!

As strange as this may sound, there actually is a certain hierarchy of “good” Seagal movies versus the shit that came later. To explain, as far as entertaining examples of the genre, Seagal had four early films (Above the Law, Hard to Kill, Marked for Death and Out for Justice) that were both fun and “quality” examples of martial arts/action cinema. Not too ridiculous and not too self-knowing, and flirting (barely) with legitimacy. Seagal’s career as a “legit” actor peaked with Under Siege in 1992, which was basically Die Hard on a battleship—and arguably the best of the Die Hard clone mini-genre.

Thereafter, it was pretty much over. His career descended into lame-o retreads of past formula, complicated by the fact that Seagal was putting on more and more weight and getting sloppier in his choreographed fights, which relied ever more heavily on stuntmen and fast editing versus the slick fight dance of the early films. As with Van Damme, Seagal stalemated not only with age and declining, increasingly self-aware product, but also with an audience that had grown more sophisticated and sought out protagonists who were morally ambiguous operating in a grayer world than that inherent in the traditional good-versus-bad paradigm that goes all the way back to John Wayne.

Enter the conversation that I am about to elucidate. A few weeks back one of my buddies from those glory days, Chris, sent to his brother Steve, myself and our friend Craig an invitation to attend a Seagal retrospective being held at the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax Ave. in L.A. Alas, despite returning to the Left Coast several times per annum, I haven’t lived in L.A. full-time in almost three years; Chris was busy that day; Steve had other plans; and Craig, well…see below.

Here’s just a little bit about the participants:

Chris and Steve: Long-standing buddies of mine from my hometown in New Jersey, with whom I grew up. We used to hang out at their mother’s house in Flemington more or less every weekend between 9th and 12th grades and watch action movies and make our own sketch comedy “show” with various family camcorders. Their tastes tend to be similar to mine as far as the action/martial arts genre goes and legit cinema both. They too once studied karate.

Craig: A native Southern California whom Steve met in film classes at USC. Fiercely loyal to whatever cause he chooses and to his friends. This can sometimes be to his own detriment as Craig can be a bit like a pit bull: Once he bites down, he refuses to give ground, even when his defensive propositions have been soundly debunked—as we shall see. His movie tastes tend to veer more toward arty European fare, i.e., he’d rather take in a Fellini or Bergman film on a Friday night versus a Bruce Willis low-budg actioner. Which is fine, but the latter is far more fun with company; there’s a time and place for “serious” film fare, but not with your buddies (usually).

What follows now is Chris’s initial email informing us of the event, followed thereafter by my reaction to the event—excitement tempered with regret—and the snowball that began from there.

I’ll be back with editorializing as we go along (seen in bold and prefaced by my initials).


From: Chris
To: Eric, Steve, Craig
Tue, Jun 10, 2014 04:36 PM

Heavy Midnites Presents:
SEAGALOGY: A Steven Seagal Marathon
(co-hosted by Vern!)
Saturday, June 14th | 5pm

Co-presented by AIN'T IT COOL NEWS


ORDER OF FILMS (start times VERY approximate):
1) Hard To Kill - approx. 5:15pm
2) Under Siege 2: Dark Territory - approx. 7:30pm
3) Out For Justice - approx. 10:00pm
4) On Deadly Ground - approx. midnight

Steven Seagal: aikido instructor, environmental activist and movie star. He writes, directs, plays blues guitar, creates energy drinks and is a reserve deputy sheriff. He might be an authority on antique samurai swords, and may have even killed for the CIA. For three decades he's left an indelible and deeply personal mark on action cinema, igniting screens with his unique blend of machismo and mysticism. And now, those fist-pumping hits are coming to Cinefamily for a take-no-prisoners, one-day-only 35mm blowout!

But that's not all: we're flying in cinematic outlaw/bestselling author/legendary film scholar Vern (the man who literally wrote the book on Seagalogy) for his FIRST-EVER public appearance to help better explain the man, the myth and the magic behind your favorite dealer of swift, lethal moves. Plus we'll have special guests, vintage trailers and more fun 'n games than should legally be allowed, all to celebrate Heavy Midnites' 2nd anniversary!


Tickets - $20/$10 for members


From: Eric
To: Chris, Steve, Craig
On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 4:40 PM, auteur2000@juno.com<auteur2000@juno.com> wrote:

Dudes, I so wish we could go to this together, if only for irony's sake.

That said, I think the actual lineup is a bit weak and seems to have been programmed solely based on who from the industry they could get to show up.

I mean, c'mon, the EDITOR of Out for Justice?????

They should have just done the "best" of Seagal marathon and called it a day:

Above the Law
Hard to Kill
Marked for Death
Out for Justice
Under Siege

Nothing post-1992.

Steve
Tue, Jun 10, 2014 07:05 PM

Hard to Kill and Out For Justice are both solid B-pluses, maybe even A-minuses.

Out For Justice has the fight in the pool hall, maybe the quintessential Seagal set action piece. Plus there's the subplot with the abandoned dog and the awesome scene where he tells the story about the old man who used to walk around the neighborhood sharpening knives and scissors for five, ten cents a piece and how at some point times change and people don't need the knife sharpener man anymore and his ex-wife realizes that he's talking about his father.

In Hard to Kill he trains on that wooden plank and woos Kelly LeBrock. Plus he tells that Senator he's gonna take him to the bank. THE BLOOD BANK!!!!

But On Deadly Ground and Under Siege 2 both suck.

And how they can have a Seagal Film Festival without Marked For Death is incomprehensible.



On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 4:48 PM, Chris wrote:

True that! To use an 90's expression. On Deadly Ground sucks... and not in a good way.


Craig
Wed, Jun 11, 2014 12:08 AM

I'm bummed I'm going to miss this night. It sounds like a lot of fun. And I need to see these movies. My Dad is probably frustrated in the great beyond that his son still hasn't seen HARD TO KILL and MARKED FOR DEATH. I have to rectify that pronto. Maybe we'll show those movies at the wedding.
. .

But you guys kill me. ON DEADLY GROUND is jaw droppingly bad. But it is also jaw droppingly brilliant. I laughed my ass off.

I know I'm not going to convince you fellas with your strange New Jersey laws about what constitutes legit and not legit.

But ON DEADLY GROUND is legit "so bad it's good".

Go back and read the Cinefamily write up. Cinefamily calls it the best
one. Even the dude who wrote the autobiography on Seagal calls it the
most defining Seagal moment.

SOUTH PARK referenced it in a classic episode. Why? Because at least a
certain number of people would get the reference. Why? Because people who know brilliant so bad they're good movies know ON DEADLY GROUND.

Barry and I watched that thing, jaws on the floor, after midnight. Oh. . .I'm feeling happy just remembering it now. . .the vision quest. . . Michael Caine making some crazy reference to Vietnamese hookers as an oil rig blows up. . .the FULL METAL JACKET guy appearing in the middle of the movie. . .

Let me just leave it at this. . .in being so rigid about ON DEADLY GROUND you guys are denying yourselves a really good time. Don't take my word for it. Ask Kenney. Ask someone you trust who loves movies of all stripes.

ON DEADLY GROUND is classic gold. And you can take that all the way to the Blood Bank.


EFA HERE: Gauntlet officially thrown. It’s important to note that Craig has only ever seen On Deadly Ground, Seagal’s solitary directorial effort, and not the early classics. This does not sit well with the three of us, but to each their own opinion.

However…

Chris
Wed, Jun 11, 2014 07:03 AM

Says the man who had never seen a Seagal movie before...

I like early low-budget ones. The later bad are just bad. Next you're be recommending The Glimmer Man.

Sent from my iPhone


EFA again: OK, here’s where it starts to get crazy. Steve tends to take movie discussions VERY personally. When he doesn’t like something, he is like a rhino in a china shop and refuses to back down until all know he has traipsed upon and destroyed—quite often to the enjoyment of all around. (To wit, when we commiserated following the opening of the execrable Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Steve carried on as follows: “In Raiders, you like that monkey, but they had the courage to kill that monkey! Whereas in this piece of shit Shia LaBouf is swinging around on vines with CGI monkeys?!”)

I don’t want to oversell it. Just read on.


Steve
Wed, Jun 11, 2014 10:24 AM

Craig. Please don't reference Hard To Kill. Quite frankly, you haven't earned the right.

And Craig, you know I love you, but with all due respect, you, Barry, the Cinephile Family, and the douche who wrote that book need to pull your collective heads out of your asses.

Anyone who knows Seagal movies will tell you that Marked For Death is where it's at, followed by Out For Justice and Hard To Kill. On Deadly Ground may be the last watchable one, before he got too fat to do his own moves, but it's so far down the list that it shouldn't really be mentioned.

Now I know you and Barry's jaws dropped when you saw it, and it was a fun and successful Movie Club Night, but that's kind of like someone telling you they just saw Rumble In the Bronx and it blew their mind because they had never seen fights and stunts like that and it's also funny and then there's this gag reel at the end, and you're thinking, "yeah, I get it, if you've never seen a Jackie Chan movie before I guess you would be blown away, but I've seen Drunken Master 2 and Project A so forgive me if I wasn't blown away by Rumble in the Bronx." It's like someone telling you Donnie Brasco is the best gangster movie ever made and then finding out they've never seen Goodfellas or The Godfather. It's like the other day when [Girlfriend] and I watched Moonrise Kingdom and she was impressed by the look/costumes/music/editing/etc. and I was like, yeah, I've seen it all before, but I can see why you were so taken by it.

It's like if one of your friends was having a Charles Bronson movie night and they were showing Murphy's Law and Mr. Majestik, but not Death Wish 3 or even 10 to Midnight or Chato's Land.

You're right about one thing: On Deadly Ground is jaw-droppingly bad. But it is not jaw-droppingly brilliant. I get it, there's the scene in the beginning where he beats up the oil worker who's making fun of the Eskimo (or is it Alaskan Inuit, I'm not sure about the correct nomenclature), who then says he needs time to change, and then there's the weird vision quest scenes, but there's nothing in that movie that compares to the pool hall scene in Out For Justice, or anything in Marked For Death.

It's not a weird New Jersey thing. You say ask Kenny? I don't need to. I showed him the line up when I found out about it last. He's not interested. Not with that line-up, and that's specifically because of On Deadly Ground. He can't stand it. Recently he went on an internet date with a girl who was obsessed with Steven Seagal movies. He asked her which was her favorite and she said, "That's easy. It's gotta be Marked For Death." (I'm not making that up.)

I could ask my uncle, who loves old Seagal movies, but I know what he's gonna say. He probably can't remember which movies are which and what scenes are in which movies, since they can run together, but I know he'd talk about scenes from Out For Justice, and maybe the deli fight scene in Above the Law, but I know if I asked him about On Deadly Ground, he would say, "which one's that? the one on the oil rig, yeah that one sucked."

But what about the Cinefamily? Surely their tastes in the so-bad-it's-good world are unparalleled, right? Well by calling it the most Seagal-movie of them all, it shows that they haven't done their due diligence either. Maybe while we were spending our teenage summers watching Seagal movies and other bad 80's and 90's martial arts taped off HBO, they were watching 70's underground, avant-garde cult classics (not that there's anything wrong with that, it just doesn't make them experts). I'm not going to tell them which is the best Jodorowsky movie, since I've only seen one, but I'll thank them kindly not to try to tell me which is the best Steven Seagal movie, because I've seen them all (or at least every one until about 1999/2000, after which they don't count as he's barely in them).

I mean, they're right about one thing. It is the most stupefying Seagal movie (you might even go so far as to say the most Jodorowsky-esque Seagal movie) so maybe it fits better in their wheelhouse and in their audience's wheelhouse. But taking stupefying Seagal over legit badass Seagal is like someone telling you that Hudson Hawk is a better Bruce Willis movie than Die Hard because Hudson Hawk is do mind-numbingly bad. Your response would be, "that's just stupid."

What about the guy who wrote the book? I don't know anything about him except that he goes by a one-word name and used to write for Ain't It Cool news, which to be honest doesn't hold any water in my book. My guess is he saw some sort of cache value in writing a wink-wink-nudge-nudge anthology of Seagal movies, but that he's not a bona-fide fan. My proof? Simply that he calls On Deadly Ground Seagal's defining moment. That gives away his true colors. Any real fan would disagree. He's simply in this for the hipster value.

Look, you guys can like what you like. And Cinefamily can put on a "Steven Seagal marathon" that chooses On Deadly Ground over Marked For Death. But it won't be aimed at true Seagal fans, fans who grew up watching him crush limbs and break faces. It will be a hipsters entree into the world of Steven Seagal. And I guess that's why I'm so peeved about the whole thing. They can have Chuck Norris. His movies mostly suck anyway, but now they're trying to claim Steven too.

And that just sucks.




From Steve:
Wed, Jun 11, 2014 10:33 AM

Also, I happen to have Kenny right here.

So, so, so he says:

"I heard what you were saying. You know nothing of my work. You mean my whole phalacy is wrong. How you came to give opinions on Steven Seagal is perfectly amazing."



On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 10:53 AM, Eric F Althoff <auteur2000@juno.com> wrote:

Craig you know we love you but On Deadly Ground just doesn't work despite the oil painting. I guess it helps if you go back in time to 1992 and watch those early seagal flicks with us in New Jersey, at which point you'd understand why ODG was such a letdown. It has a few good moments but it's past the era of classic Seagal.

And I might add he hasn't directed a film

Since!

Sent from EFA's mind

Chris
Wed, Jun 11, 2014 11:21 AM

I suggest we settle this debate with a movie marathon. The first four films... Above the Law, Hard to Kill, Marked for Death and Out for Justice. I think we should all be able to agree that Under Siege (a lot because of Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey) is legit. And we already watched On Deadly Ground together.

I'd like to add one thing to what Steve and Eric said.

I just recall tremendous, tremendous disappointment when going to see On Deadly Ground as a teenager. Here's why... the first four movies we watched on VHS with Eric. Did they come out in theaters? Maybe... but not in a theater near us... or we were too young. Then he makes a legit movie that actually played in normal theaters with a decent director/budget/cast. And that movie is a hit! Puts his name on the map. He could do anything after Under Siege. Anything!! So what does he do? He decides to direct his next one himself and include a bullshit environmental message. And the way I recall it... he was already getting a little fat so it was also lacking the bad-ass action of the previous movies.

What little camp value that it had when we watched it at Movie Club did not make up for my teenage disappointment. It was like going to see the Crow 2. But worse.

Okay... maybe not worse than the Crow 2.

Chris


EFA here: For some background, On Deadly Ground opened in early 1994, during one of the absolute worst winters on record. We used up so many damn snow days that year that we finally got out for the year like the absolutely end of June! The roads had just cleared enough for us to drive to Somerville, New Jersey, to see On Deadly Ground, so my mom drove me to Chris and Steve’s place. Their driveway so still snowed under that they had to trudge through a foot of snow across their yard to my mother’s Toyota 4-Runner. We got to the theater—young, hopeful, high on previous Seagal movies—only to be crushed.



Steve
Wed, Jun 11, 2014 11:22 AM

Please see these two best of Seagal lists randomly culled from the interwebs:

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/steven-seagal/29557/top-25-steven-seagal-films-from-5-to-1

http://martialarts.about.com/od/martialartsculture/tp/seagalmovies.htm

EFA here: Chris contacted me separately to suggest the following:

On Wed, June 11, 2014 1:43 pm, Chris wrote:

Also... regarding the original event... I figured they scheduled Under Siege 2 so you could have an excuse to duck out in the middle to grab beers and bone up.

And they scheduled On Deadly Ground so you won't feel guilty about leaving early to grab beers and bone up.


Back to the group email, wherein Craig attempts AGAIN to defend his defense of On Deadly Ground…and once again falls victim to Steve’s diatribes. (As you’ll notice, Craig almost certainly sticks to his guns strictly to raise Steve’s ire—which worked precisely as I suspect he intended.)


On Jun 11, 2014, at 6:27 PM, Craig wrote:

Okay Bros. I have read all the emails and I have learned one thing:

If ever I need to somehow help you find the fire you once had (or divert you for 30 minutes while I rob your homes), I will make a comment about Steven Seagal.

Steve, your response needs to go in the New Yorker. It's an instant classic.

Let Kenny know I'm sorry I asked him to back me up. I thought he
was cool. I won't make that mistake again.

Eric and Chris, your passion is inspiring.

But I feel like you three may be like Frenchie at the beginning of ON
DEADLY GROUND when Seagal asks him "What does it take to change the
essence of a man?" And Frenchie, bloodied from the hand slap game, says "I need time."

I feel you may need time.

My argument was and still is that ON DEADLY GROUND is a "so bad its
amazing" experience that taken on its own, it is a singular and
(supremely) enjoyable experience.

Here is my one link proof:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLi0IYAleA0

Chris
Wed, Jun 11, 2014 06:54 PM

Out of protest I will not be watching that clip. I agree with NewYorker (or LA Weekly) submission.

Someone should make cash off this writing.

Sent from my iPhone



EFA here: Chris’s response about “making cash” partly inspired this blog. Now, on to Steve’s response to Craig’s response to Steve’s response to Craig’s initial response, wherein he actually makes analogues between watching Seagal movies and gang turf wars. I shit ye not.


On Jun 12, 2014, at 12:28 AM, Steve wrote:

Time to change, Craig?? We've had twenty fucking years!! And guess what. It ain't no better now than when we went saw it in the theater in [1994].

And you can take that to the bank. THE BLOOD BANK!!

(See, I get to say that, having seen the movie probably a half dozen times.)

Craig, with all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about.

Now mind you, I said all due respect, but if you persist on going down this road, talking about which Seagal movie is the best after having only seen one film, then the next time no respect will be given because none will be due. It's like you're some 1970s New York gang member and you're lost and you need to get back to your home turf, but between here and there is our turf. Now we're a pretty heavy crew, but we're willing to let you take a shortcut through our turf, but only if you show us some respect. And right now you ain't showing any fucking respect.

>Let Kenny know I'm sorry I asked him to back me up. I thought he was cool. I won't make that mistake >again.

Are you fucking kidding me?? He's not Freddo and you ain't Michael Corleone here. He's the fucking Godfather of Seagal-ism and you're the mortician who went to him expecting a favor. Only you didn't do it with respect, you didn't offer friendship, or even call him Godfather. And it ain't the fucking day of his fucking daughter's wedding!! It was a foolish bet, Craig, like when Ellis does too many lines of coke and thinks he can negotiate with Hansey-baby. Hey, business is business. You use a gun, I use a fountain pen, what's the difference? Well there's a big fucking difference, and you're damn right you won't make that mistake again. Cause Ellis is fucking dead!! 

Now I watched your link. I am unfazed. Six and a half minutes of shitty filmmaking culled from a roughly two hour movie? That's child's play. You want six and a half minutes of Seagal?? Well here it is. One scene. In its entirety. From one movie. Not four or five seconds at a time stitched together into some sort of Fool's Gold.

Anybody seen a real Seagal move, huh? I'm gonna keep coming back until somebody remembers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zu1YIukylw



On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 7:58 AM, Chris wrote:

That clip was awesome! I'll be revisiting these films for sure.

I watched the On Deadly Ground clip. I'll say this... I could see why one could like it if you had never seen an Seagal movie before. It's got a couple good fights and stuff. But it's cheesy. The early Seagal movies are good in a non-cheesy way. And more percentage of fights.

Also. I think Craig is just arguing for the sake of arguing. He knows he's been beat. But he likes the responses.

Or if he doesn't know he's been beat... then he's an asshole. Because the answer to the argument takes under 2 hours. Just time to screen 1 flick.

Out for Justice anyone? Or Marked for Death? I can host the second half of this showdown...


Sent from my iPhone


EFA: At this point Steve leaves behind the gang turf metaphor in favor of taking up the mantle of food analogies to describe Craig’s lack of taste in Seagal-ism (no pun intended). The results are hilarious.


On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 11:18 AM, Steve wrote:

Look, I get it. And I get why they're playing it at the Silent Movie Theater. If your normal diet consisted of Masterpieces of Polish Cinema, International Documentaries, Underground Cult Animation, and Lost Gems of the French New Wave, (not that there's anything wrong with that), then if you were to try to ease your way into the world of Steven Seagal movies, maybe On Deadly Ground would be a good choice. A little of the familiar with a little of the unfamiliar. I mean, you wouldn't want to push it, right?? Marked For Death just might be too much of a shock to the system. It'd be like a vegetarian contemplating eating meat again and going right out and wolfing down a double bacon chili cheeseburger. You gotta ease your way into that shit with some fish or chicken before tackling that kind of red meat overload with your carnivore friends. Otherwise you'll get sick.



Chris
Thu, Jun 12, 2014 11:48 AM

Just remember we're dealing with the same a-hole who will write down Braveheart in his notebook 15 times before sitting down to watch it... even though it won a ton of rewards and is gloriously violent. No time for Braveheart because he's gotta watch Loves of Blonde for the 18th time.

Hey... Craig... I'm gonna tell my kids to skip Silence of the Lambs and Manhunter and just watch the Hannibal TV show.

And skip Terminator and watch the Sarah Conor Chronicles.

And skip Predator and Alien and Aliens and just watch Alien vs. Predator. Or AVP2.

AND!! Skip Raiders and just watch Crystal Skull.

No I'm not... I'm gonna sit them down in their 15th birthday and do a marathon of Silence of the Lambs, Manhunter, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Terminator 1 and 2, Predator, Alien, Aliens and Out for Justice.


EFA: Although soundly beaten by three Seagal experts, Craig simply won’t give up the ghost. The anger and nerd rage inherent in this discussion has already boiled over and seethed all over the kitchen floor in a horrid fury stew. Best thing to do: walk away.

Nope, not my buddy Craigie. He’s taking his sharpest fingernail and poking right into Steve’s wound and twisting it even further.

But notice how he softens the blow by first offering a compliment. You’ll see!


Craig
Fri, Jun 13, 2014 06:56 PM

Steve, Chris, Eric,

Chris is right. I do love these responses. And Steve, your writing has
been incandescent, on fire. There's no way I can touch it. It's been
amazing. So I have to go for a paltry second option: try to be to the
point and sincere.

Guys, I'm the one who started off this debate in a confrontational tone.
So I have nobody to blame but myself.

And I do get all your points. But the irony is that my point really never challenged you on any of those points.

My only point has, from the beginning, just been that "On Deadly Ground" is so bad it's amazing.

Really quickly, let's just focus on that point. You might come back and
say no it's not. It just sucks. Which I think is basically your point.

So where's my proof, other than I loved it, Barry loved it, a lot of folks in our movie club loved it?

Here are just a few of many legit sites, people who also love ON DEADLY
GROUND because they think it's "so bad its amazing":

THE ONION AV CLUB loved it:
http://www.avclub.com/article/earth-friendly-case-file-130-ion-deadly-ground-i-23400

The film is listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book
The Official Razzie Movie Guide as one of The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad
Movies Ever Made.

Seagalogy author Vern considers On Deadly Ground to be one of Seagal's
defining works, writing, "It's the corniest, most unintentionally
hilarious movie of his career... But it's also Seagal's most sincere and his most ballsy," going on to claim, "You can't understand Seagal if you haven't seen On Deadly Ground."

***

Now, further logic, goes on to say that "On Deadly Ground" must be "so bad it's amazing" to a lot of people for the following reasons:

It made such an impression on South Park co-creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone, they referenced it in their episode "Over Logging" (and a lot of people got the reference. This couldn't have worked if nobody was watching ON DEADLY GROUND. Enough people must be watching ON DEADLY GROUND out of camp enjoyment for SOUTH PARK to feel it merited the reference it got).

***
Finally, let's take the most important point: ON DEADLY GROUND was a huge let down for you guys. It sucked. It basically killed Seagal's career. And you guys know he had a lot to give and he squandered it here.

But that doesn't mean that it isn't "so bad it's amazing". Take for
instance CRYSTAL SKULL. Nobody is watching that. It just sucked. And
that was also a huge let down. Or PROMETHEUS. That too sucked. But
nobody's really having huge PROMETHEUS movie clubs or Cinefamily nights.

But ON DEADLY GROUND is slowly becoming one of those movies that rep
theaters and programmers with a sense of humor program. Hence why it's
going on at CINEFAMILY.

***
Guys, it's my fault that I started this whole exchange confrontationally. But I do really think ON DEADLY GROUND is a lot of fun. And a lot of other people do too.

I just want to extend a real olive branch here: if you can let go of the anger you felt at what a let down it was for you and just watch it again, I think you'll have a blast. How could you not? The movie has everything: a vision quest, Michael Caine, Billy Bob Thornton, Lee Ermey spouting non-sensical lines, Seagal asking "what does it take to change the essence of a man?".

I never argued that ON DEADLY GROUND was better than the movies you
reference. I never argued that the only Seagal movie anyone should ever
see is ON DEADLY GROUND. You guys keep setting up fake arguments I never made and then knocking them down like you scored points.

***
Now, I'm going to go out and immediately watch MARKED FOR DEATH, OUT FOR JUSTICE, and HARD TO KILL.

best,
Craig


From
Me <auteur2000@juno.com>
To: Craig, Chris, Steve
Subject: Re: One link response to this ON DEADLY GROUND debate
Sun, Jun 15, 2014 05:40 PM


Craig, I would love to hear your opining once you have seen "Hard to Kill" and the other early Seagal vehicles as a basis not only for comparison but also education and elucidation on the early 90s phenomenon that he spawned.

As far as ODG goes, I'm afraid we shall have to agree to disagree. But I still love ya, of course!

"Fire Down Below," the one from 97 where Seagal plays with his bluegrass band *onscreen*, is even more laughable (but not in a good way). It has Kristofferson as the villain, which is about all that can be said for it.

Happy Father's Day, gents, to guiding men in life both biological and otherwise (mostly otherwise).

EFA

EFA here: Steve once again takes the bait, and once again resorts to such far-reaching metaphors as comparing Seagal-ogy not only to beers but now to white zinfandels. Couldn’t make it up if I tried.



Steve
Fri, Jun 20, 2014 12:49 AM

Gentlemen.

Craig and I watched the USA/Ghana world cup game this week and did briefly discuss this conversation.

Here's the thing. I know four legit Steven Seagal fans including myself. Four out of four were excited when they found out about the Seagal marathon. Four out of four were then disappointed when they found out the lineup. They were all disappointed on account of Under Siege 2: Dark Territory and more specifically On Deadly Ground, so disappointed that they lost all interest in attending the marathon. Now I know that's a matter of opinion, but there's something to be said when four out of four people who were familiar with the movies in the lineup had the exact same reaction.

I don't think I'm setting up false arguments and knocking them down. Like I said, the lineup for the Seagal marathon sucks in my opinion. They have two good movies and two shitty ones. And I feel strongly about that, and I consider that to be an expert opinion considering I saw both of the shitty movies int he theater, and then again years later.

Now what about the Cinefamily brain trust and this Vern character? Like I said before, there's nothing wrong with him recommending On Deadly Ground for preferred viewing, but if he claims that it's the pinnacle of Seagalogy then he's not a true fan and is approaching it from a hipster viewpoint. It's not something you can prove, but it doesn't pass the eye-test. Anyone who actually enjoys Seagal movies would tell you that.

But what about it being "so bad it's good?" Here's the thing. Sure, if it works for you, it works for you. And if it works for others, then great, it works for them. But for those of us well versed in the Seagal canon (and the whole 1980's/early 90's American martial arts B-movie genre) someone telling you that On Deadly Ground is the pinnacle, or even preferred viewing, is like a wine drinker deciding to live on the edge one night, trying an over-the-top San Diego style Double IPA and then telling you it's the best beer they've ever had. Sure, a fellow wine maker might try it and agree, but a serious beer drinker would be justified in saying, "Look, I get it, it's full of hops, so much so it slaps you in the face with hops, and you think that's good, but I know this other beer that's got just as much hops, but it has the malt character and complexity to balance those hops. It's so well balance in fact, that you probably won't notice that it's 10% alcohol, so you won't even realize that you're getting drunk off one beer."

Let's face it, we obviously have different ideas about what makes a movie "so bad it's good." For me, On Deadly Ground doesn't qualify. Maybe that's because I'm too familiar with his other movies of the era and what kind of potential it had to enjoy it. Maybe it's also because for me, "so bad it's good" really means "it straddles the line between legit dope and illegit bad so amazingly that as a whole it is awesome." It has to have things that work, or that should have worked, mixed with things that are so head-slappingly ill-conceived that together it's magic. Death Wish 3 has that. There are good scenes, or good concepts, mixed with the laughable. The Apple has that. As bad as it it, there's fun production values, plus the fact that it very accurately predicted our media-obsessed, celebrity-worshipping society. Same with Cobra or Roadhouse. There was something in there that could have worked. There's got to be something in there that works to hold it all together. For me, just being shockingly bad isn't good enough. That weird martial arts movie we all watched (Eric wasn't there), Chinese Boxer maybe it was called, to me, as shocking and head-slapping as it may have been, it was just bad. There's was nothing in it that worked. Nothing. It was so bad it was awful. Excruciating even. But not so bad it was good.

That's what On Deadly Ground is for me. Look, Steven had no business directing, it's aspirations are all wrong, the acting/writing/execution are all just awful, but not in any way that to me actually makes it stick out in any way. To me, it's just bad. Is it especially bad? Yes. Is it shockingly bad? Indeed. But to me the best thing you could say about it is that sometimes it's "so bad it's actually entertaining." But "so bad it's good" is a level it never reaches.

Craig, your point seems to be that lots of people like On Deadly Ground so there must be something to it. Sure, look, if it works for all of you that's great, but you know what, a lot of people like white zinfandel, but that doesn't mean it's good. Not to be a dick, but it's like I'm a Seagal sommelier and you guys are wine tasting for the first time so of course you're drawn to the white zinfandel. That's fine. I get it. It's sweet. It's easy. It's a good entry. But when a fellow wine expert walks in, I know that he won't have time for the white zin, and we will open up a big bold Cabernet.

And that's what On Deadly Ground is. It's a white zin. It's easy to read. It's like a fast running, shallow stream. It looks challenging to cross, because the surface is moving so fast, but it's so shallow anyone can cross it. Marked For Death is like a deep river. It may not look powerful, because the surface doesn't look like it's moving that fast, but if you try crossing it and you'll be swept away downstream.

Craig, I'm sorry. No amount of second chances, or watching it with an "open mind" are going to change that. It just doesn't work on any level for me. And it won't for the other guys in this argument either. We prefer Marked For Death. Plain and simple. And it's not even close. And this is not a false dichotomy. It is one or the other. You can't like both. Marked For Death is simultaneously legit awesome and ridiculous, often in the same scene, sometimes in the same instant. On Deadly Ground isn't awesome in any way. You're just laughing at bad filmmaking, only it's heightened because it's bad filmmaking by a martial arts star who decided to get all environmental and forgot to kick ass.

I don't have time for bad filmmaking.

Or, to put it simply, you either like Seagal movies or you don't.

(And I get it if you don't. They're not for everyone.)

If you don't like Seagal movies, you might like On Deadly Ground.

But if you like Seagal movies, you won't (and could never) like On Deadly Ground.

There's no real middle ground. It's not a false dichotomy. Recommending On Deadly Ground is the same as poo-pooing on Marked For Death, Out For Justice, or Hard To Kill.

So I guess I think it's weird that Cinefamily put on a Seagal marathon with two movies for Seagal fans (Hard to Kill and Out For Justice), one movie for non-Seagal fans (On Deadly Ground) and then, oddly, one movie for nobody (Under Siege 2). It was a poorly conceived line-up.

But like I said earlier, part of me is glad they didn't show Marked For Death. Part of me doesn't want it to be shared. Part of me likes being able to tell who my friends are. Marked For Death is too good to be shown to a bunch of hipsters who've never seen any of his movies.

Craig

Sun, Jun 22, 2014 11:45 PM

Amazing replies here. Steve, your writing is so persuasive and
passionate, we should just stop right here. There's no way I can top it.

I will watch all these movies, including ABOVE THE LAW as Chris mentions below, and look forward to the next round of Segal Semantics.

In the meantime I move that we focus our mojo on a Thursday tie or win for the USA.

Yes, today's game was a heartbreaker. A win would have been infinitely
better than a tie. But now is the moment that true teams are made.

This is a moment early Steven Seagal would appreciate.


CONTINUED IN PART 2

Why I Was Sterilized

A few months back I celebrated the first anniversary of having undergone a vasectomy.  As with most other major life decisions—especially those concerning one’s reproductive capability—it was not one arrived at by myself lightly nor without generous aforethought and introspective contemplation.  To proactively, and permanently, remove my ability to procreate was a decision many years in the making.  To date, only a select few close friends and associates have known about my decision, and I have now opted to elucidate, for a broader audience, some of the reasons why—if for no other motive than in the hopes that I might counsel others who wish not to bear children in their lives that the decision to become sterilized is neither “selfish” nor deserving of the harsh, indignant light of a society that bears down unfairly upon the single and the childless, of which I am (unapologetically) both.

I fully realize that many of you will not agree with me or my decision.  Some of you may not understand; others may even condemn.  But I ask only that you keep in mind one basic premise: My reproductive life is my own destiny to make as a please, up to and including not reproducing. 

How I arrived at the decision:

I’ve known pretty much since age 26 or 27 that I did not ever want to have children.  At that time I was in a long-term relationship with a woman a decade my senior.  Of all the many, many problems she and I had, the specific issue of procreation was, thankfully, not one of them.  She too had never been married and had no children, nor desired to bear any.  When weighing the pros and cons of the two of us “going the distance,” having kids never once entered into the equations, which was a blessing given the rapidly shrinking window of her reproductive years. 

The terminus of that relationship—my first, and to date, my only long-term—is now more than half a decade in the past.  There has not been any feeling of reversal in the intervening years as to my own wish to remain childless.  In all of my dating life since then, I have become even more comfortable being upfront with such information with new partners.  There are 6 billion people in the world; there’s always someone else who will be a better fit for me (and for you). 

As my thirties have ground on, I toyed more and more with the notion of cutting off the little swimmers permanently.  Since I did not wish to have kids, and since that would be a necessary dealbreaker for many potential future relationships, why not just cut off the tadpoles at the source and live my life as I wished on the course I chose?  That way, moving forward in my sexual life, I could engage safely in healthy, adult, consensual activity with theoretical future long-term partners without the fear of inadvertent conception.  (However, I cannot stress enough the importance of continuing to engage in safe sex even once you’re sterile as STDs await the careless and the foolish!)

The older I’ve gotten, the less and less I like children in general.  While many of my friends and relatives have wonderful little ones whom I love to make funny voices for, ply with sugar and caffeine and them tell them to leave their toys where their parents are sure to step on them, I also like handing them back when posterior aromas arise, when they start crying or when I’d simply rather return to engaging in adult interaction.  I actually get a kick out of being Cool Uncle Eric, the adult who will act like a doofus for them and let them do (almost) anything and let them run hog-wild and have fun before returning them to their rightful owners for deprogramming.  Frankly, after a few hours of being the goofy chaperone, I’m pretty beat.

Which transitions nicely into my next point.  Parenting is a 24/7/365 job, without break or respite.  Once you have children, it’s rather difficult to turn them back in like library books—or to even catch a break for a few hours.  Your life is no longer your own.  Which, obviously, is the way it ought to be: Children should be the primary focus for parents.  It’s a major, major responsibility, and my hat is off to anyone who can do it or who has done it.

Or who even wishes to.    

Furthermore, I’m not getting any younger.  I’m 35 now, and some days even eight hours of sleep still isn’t enough.  I don’t advise bearing children in your twenties (certainly not in your teens!), but on the other hand, I totally understand how those who bear children later in life tend to have more lackadaisical parenting styles.  (This is especially true of folks with multiple kids and for whom the youngest, the baby, is typically afforded a do-what-you-want modus.)  I can’t imagine tending an infant as I approach 40, let alone a toddler in my mid-forties, who will then be a teen when I’m in my fifties.  At that point I think I’ll be far too busy pondering why my friends have started dying (oh, wait, they already have!!!) and how I’m going to survive the ever-growing gap between rich and poor to give full attention to the next generation.

Furthermore, I dislike interacting with children for the same reason that I don’t enjoy interfacing with adults lacking in conversational abilities.  There’s a wonderful quote from Oscar Wilds that a bore is “someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with companionship.”  Kids can’t hold down a real conversation precisely because they’re kids and they haven’t yet achieved a level of maturity for a give-and-take, balanced conversation.  Just as with any other life skill, conversing at a mature level requires both age and experience.  Sadly, I’ve run into far too many adults who suffer from this very same deficit.  You know the type: that guy who can’t stop talking about his Saran-Wrap collection and his idiot coworkers and who never pauses long enough to catch a breath, let alone to ask you about even a simple question about your life and invariably returns the focus to himself.  At least children have the excuse that they don’t yet have the skills to engage in proper discourse, but I fear that far too many of them will just grow up to be adults who never STFU either.  To quote George Carlin, “God, people are fucking boring!”

I have to interact with too many adults who are terrible conversants just in the course of getting through my day.  One reason I remain single is I suffer fools insufferably—combined with my ADD, a non-engaging conversant will bore me faster than a toaster infomercial marathon at three in the morning.  Therefore, I choose to subject myself to the vagaries of child-prattle as seldom as possible.  My time and my sanity are important to me, even if they aren’t to your children. 

So that’s more or less the how I came to decide to get snipped: I don’t want kids of my own because I don’t wish for the responsibility, the investment, the encroachment upon my lifestyle nor for their incessant, infantile drivel.  And I already feel I’m too old. 

Now I shall turn to the why I got it done.

The onus for contraception falls unfairly on women

Women have to carry a developing humanoid to term for nearly a year and then suffer the birthing process; men only need fire off their baby gravy and walk away.  That’s a pretty shitty deal in the mammalian sweepstakes, and I don’t pretend for a second that it’s in any way equitable in terms of the biological investment between the genders. 

It’s little wonder then that medicine has sought ways to “solve” the conundrum of contraception through such female-centric options as the Pill, the Patch, hormone injections, etc.  To use a hockey analogy, with nine players all fighting to fire into a single goal, it make more sense to protect the goal itself rather than to try to individually block—or kill—all of the players.  (Although, depending on the metaphorical men in question, eradication might be far more preferable.)  Barrier methods such as condoms also follow this strategy of stopping sperm from meeting ovum. 

But let’s get real: What men have to do to avoid conception versus what women do is terrifically unbalanced.  I think if guys had to take a pill every day that fucked up their dicks and made them moody and gave them weight fluctuations, they’d be far more sympathetic in this regard.  Some women don’t or can’t utilize birth control for various individual biological reasons, and yet the question is always asked: “Are you on the pill?”  No one ever asks a male: “Hey, are you sterilized?” 

To date, no male birth control pill has been successfully brought to market by Big Pharma.  But were such an option available when I started becoming sexually active, I would have absolutely taken it.  (One scare was enough, thank you very much, Crazy Lady From Orange County.) 

The burden for birth control has been, to date, unfairly placed on women due to a combination of sex-specific reproductive specialization, economics, varying—and largely sexist and/or misogynistic—societal mores and medicine.  So, in my own small, insipid way, getting sterilized was my gesture of evening out the playing field, however slightly. 

It’s my little way of saying, “I’m with you, girls.” 

It’s cheap

Best $30 I ever spent.  Yes, thirty dollars!  My insurance company required only that I fork over two copays to consult with a urologist and then for him to perform the procedure.  The remaining two grand was paid for thanks to the “good people” of Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Thirty dollars for a lifetime of not having to worry about impregnation.  (To be fair, it’s not like I’m saving money on prophylactics.)

Since I wish to avoid inducing nausea, I will skip over the particulars of the actual surgery itself, for which I was fully awake and had only a local anesthetic.  (I have a rather high tolerance for pain, but until given an extra shot or two directly into my business, I thought I might actually vomit the pain was so intense.  As I have a slight background in medicine and am far from squeamish, I intended to watch the procedure, but the pain associated with the surgery prior to the extra dose of anesthetic usurped this plan.  Thank God for my view being blocked.)    

It’s reversible

If the zombie apocalypse arrives and I’m one of the last men on earth, recanalization is medically possible…for a price, of course (but frankly, I’d still rather let the human race perish).  When I first inquired of my insurance company as to if the vasectomy would be covered under my policy—which it was—they made sure to repeat and then repeat and then repeat again that a future reversal would be entirely out of my own pocket to the tune of $50,000 or more.  (I had to sign several documents indicating I understood what I was getting into.) 

That’s like buying a tricycle but then deciding you’d rather have a Porsche. 

Sorry, but no woman, nor any theoretical future child of mine, is worth that kind of investment.

Poor people have absolutely no business having children

For the lion’s share of my post-college life, I have either been completely broke, just about broke or slightly above broke but for a year or two.  At the time of this writing, I live paycheck to paycheck and am once again seeking a second job at a restaurant just to make ends meet.  (I don’t even have furniture in my place yet.)  That basically covers my bills every month but not groceries nor paying off my debts.  To bring a little human into that equation would be the apogee of folly for I would be fiscally unable to provide for it. 

I’m fairly egalitarian in most of my views, but on procreating, I firmly believe that you shouldn’t have kids until you’re financially able to support them.  Sociologists have studied why the poor seem to have more children than they can care for, which include income and class disparity, lack of education, prevailing social attitudes as to a woman’s “proper place” and a whole host of other social and economic factors.  I’m fortunate that I grew up in a fairly comfortable middle-class situation and was blessed with a first-rate secondary and high school education that included comprehensive sex education.  However, this did not change the fact that, as an English major who entered the workforce as the dot.com bubble burst in 2000, I was all but assured a difficult professional vocational road.  Furthermore, I’ve been through not less than five layoffs in my career, so even my East Coast German work ethic hasn’t helped stem the vagaries of the economy, over which I have no control. 

Sometimes working hard just isn’t enough. 

And so I’ve eked out a fairly lower-middle-class living in the 14 years since graduating college.  At times I couldn’t even feed myself, let alone a partner, and certainly not a child or children (plural). 

Government help exists for a reason, but wouldn’t getting sterilized be a lot cheaper?

I’m just sayin’. 

Kids have everything, including fucking Vegas!

American culture is so high on children that even Las Vegas, that last bastion of sin and vice, has made a stab at being “family-friendly” for the better part of 15 years.  I was in Vegas recently for a conference, and if there’s one place in the world where I do NOT want to be tripping over little monsters, it’s Sin City.  The Disney empire was built specifically for and by you, with finely overpriced destinations in California and Florida for your saccharine, sanitized fun and view of life.  Please take your little shits there, and leave me Gomorrah. 

People with kids never shut up about their fucking kids

The vast, vast majority of my friends and colleagues who have children are amazing parents.  Every time I visit them and see how hard they have to work not just to pay bills like I do but also to tend and care for their progeny, I continue to be impressed.  It requires a level of fortitude and thanklessness that I find to be frankly miraculous.

But it’s just not me.

One of my absolute biggest resentments about the child-worship society is when someone I have never met before, within 30 seconds of being introduced, whips out their phone to show me pictures of their little Mini-Me’s. 

Now I must explain, there are instances of social necessity when politeness must trump my personal ire.  For instance, if my boss were to show me pictures of his or her family, I must, of course, smile and nod if in fact I wish to keep my job.  But that is about the only time when it is acceptable for someone outside of my circle of friends, family and associates where I will blow smoke up someone’s ass regarding photos of their children.  When I see photographs and images of my friends’ children, my reaction and smiles are genuine—the sheer joy that I see on the faces of my friends makes me joyful precisely because I know they are happy, and I know that they are providing loving homes for their little ones, to the mutual joy of all.  They’re the “good ones.”  And again, because they are my friends, I want to show interest in their lives, which includes their jobs, their ambitions, and yes, their spouses and children. 

The thing is, I have nothing to add quid pro quo in such conversations; I can’t whip out my phone and show my friends pics of my spouse or children.  (I don’t even have pets!)  This goes back to the phenomenon of adult conversation: Just because something is interesting to you does not mean it will interest me—and vice versa.  So sure, let’s talk about your kids for a few minutes, but then let’s move the conversation on to something of more mutual interest.  This is how a real conversation is, or how it should be.  You ask me questions, I ask you questions.  We discuss things we have in common as well as the uniqueness of our respective lives, even though such may be less than fascinating to the other.  Because that’s what friends do.  That’s what being adult and being polite is about.  It’s how mature people engage in verbal intercourse.  I’ll listen to almost anything a good friend has to tell me because he or she is my friend.  I expect the same in return.

But if you are not my friend, if you are not my boss, or if you are not my family, I could not care less about your kids, especially if we have literally just met for the first time.  So a few years back I instituted a new policy: If, within the first few minutes of meeting me, you show me pictures of your children, then I in turn will take out my phone and show you a dirty photo.  If you’re shocked at this, my reasoning goes as follows:

You didn’t ask to see a pornographic photo, just like I didn’t ask to see pictures of your little poop machines.  And speaking candidly, I find your assumption that I would even want to to be as offensive as you find the smutty selfies that various women have sexted me over the years. 

So there.

“I’m tired of selfish men”

When I first moved to Illinois in December of last year I was talking with a gal through a dating site.  We had great chemistry and were set up for a first meeting when she asked me about kids.  When I informed her that I would not be procreating, she said (reasonably) that we should probably not go any farther as that was an absolute dealbreaker for her. 

Fair enough.  I’m not going to lead anyone on nor misrepresent my intentions and desires.  I don’t believe in lying to women just to get laid—honesty is the correct path, always.  So I texted back to say I completely understood and wished her well. 

This was her exact response:

“I’m just so tired of selfish men.”

OK, now you’ve picked a fight, honey!  Firstly, the lady in question was an attorney, who thus should know better than to apply ad hominem attacks in her argument.  Heretofore, she had apparently found me nothing but charming and pleasant.  Now I’m suddenly selfish?

To her credit, she later apologized for the remark, which was rather big of her.  But then she said something even stranger:

“I just think it’d be so great to see kids all excited on Christmas morning.”

That’s quite a massive investment of time, money and energy into raising another human being for the incredible minor flash memory of Junior beaming when he unwraps his Tonka Truck the morning of December Twenty-Five.  Her remark also perfectly illustrates yet another reason why I find it difficult to relate to would-be parents: They seem to focus solely on hyper-specific theoretical positive future moments rather than the massively inordinate difficulties that befall even the most well-meaning, well-prepared, well-heeled and even-keeled parents.  (To wit, I have a friend who beams himself into a future of watching Predator with his son someday, but I always ponder how disappointing it might be if Movie Geek Jr. said, “Daddy, this movie really sucks!”  His entire reason for parenting would suddenly be entirely nil.)  No one ever seems to take into account the fact that for every jovial Christmas morning, there will be the death of a grandparent, the loss of a favorite toy, Fluffy getting run over by the UPS van, chicken pox, measles, puberty, truancy, failing tests, experimentation with drugs and sex, fights, bullying, college funds and the normal bad choices that young people make throughout adolescence and beyond.

And that’s if everything is NORMAL!

No one wants to believe that they might actually be disappointed in their children either. Every hypothetical progeny is always the golden child, the honor roll student, captain of the chess and football teams, the valedictorian at Harvard, Hercules unto earth. 

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the only thing that doesn’t lie is numbers.  Most children born today will be nothing but average wage-earners…just like me.  While I’d love to wax about what phenomenal accomplishments I’ve made, the truth is, mostly through my own choices and despite constant striving, I’ve led a decidedly lower-middle-class life punctuated by periods of poverty.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love love LOVE my life and would rather have it than anyone else’s, but I’m fairly certain that when I was a wee lad, my parents had visions of me being a successful something rather than a wage-earning what-I-am.  Sure, they tell me constantly that they’re proud of me, but I’m part of the first generation in a century where the children actually did worse than their parents.  My generation has far more qualified, college-educated people than ever before competing for fewer and fewer jobs.  More and more people are being added to the planet every year, which will only increase the competition for economic and biological resources. 

To put it another way, the future, as now, will feature a kakistocric oligarchy of the superrich robber-barons and everyone else.  The media has people believing that we’ll will be rich someday, but it’s just not true and flies in the face of all economic theory and principles.  Most of us, college-educated or not, will be clock-punchers.  I’ve done every menial job you can think of and then some.  I never thought I’d work at a restaurant at age 35 after doing so at ages 26 and 16, but that’s life, and I’m not ashamed of it. 

My point is only that the “narrative” that people create about their progeny, whether theoretical or actual, will be far disparate from the realities of the life that actually awaits. 

No one ever said, “I really hope my kid is an average wage-earner someday.”  Welcome to the real world; enjoy your stay.

So if anything, in response to the Lawyer’s admonition as to my being selfish, I would retort that my desire to remain childless is anything but selfish.  One less person in the world means (slightly) more resources for everyone else.  If you multiplied that by millions of others, then the 21^st century population bomb might not be so incredibly scary to behold. 

Finally, I don’t need a little Mini-Me to validate my own existence.  I’m fine with it as it is and don’t need the ego stroke of my genes continuing on beyond my own existence. 

This “selfish man” sleeps soundly at night without crying emanating from the next room, thank you very much. 

But someday I’ll get a cat. 

I’d be an absolutely terrible father

You know that bumbling dad on most sitcoms who really doesn’t give a shit about his kids but is kind of stuck in a marriage he can’t fathom with a woman he can’t stand just because he knocked her up during a one-night stand?  The guy who would rather watch bowling on TV than hear about the day you had at school (think Al Bundy)?  That would be me.  I work all day, and most of the folks I encounter in the world make me want to vomit up shit on a near-constant basis, so having to come home and hear high-pitched, squeaky voices clamoring “Daddy, daddy!” doesn’t put a smile on my face; it makes me wish, in this particular phantasm, to be back at the office staring at the laser beams emanating from the copy machine. 

Furthermore, I’m impatient, frequently forgetful, often inattentive and insensitive to the needs of others, and enjoy noise and silence in precise alterations too much to have my little bulwark against the world invaded by ankle-biters.  Furthermore, I like to drink prodigiously, be out until the small hours, swear a great deal and watch violent movies that have lots of nudity.  I’m not giving that up for anyone.  And I’m certainly not spending my wakeaday hours watching the same five animated movies with Junior.

If you don’t want to see tits, my advice is to stay away from my home.  There will be no “family-friendly” section in my Blu-Ray library unless it specifically involves more advanced fare like Mary Poppins. 

Genetics

I make no bones about the fact that I suffer from anxiety and depression, for which I am medicated and have achieved a more even-keeled existence over the past few years.  Not only that, but to no one’s surprise at all, I was diagnosed as ADD when I was nine, for which I was also medicated.  All such conditions have a high concordance for being passed on between the generations.  Furthermore, cancer, high blood pressure, strokes, arthritis and senility run high on both sides of my family.  As do alcohol abuse and Germanic screaming matches. 

My cutting sense of humor would hardly balance out the darker side of that potential genetic stew.

No kid is going to out-me me

“I see so much of myself in Junior,” goes the common refrain.  Some people think it’s cute, but it’s not so to me. 

I don’t want to see a little bit of myself in a little human being.  I’m all me, and frankly that’s all the world will ever need.  Period. 

“My kids are my world…”

Ugh, if I have to hear or read this tired bromide just one more time on a dating website, I’m going to burn down the nearest McDonald’s Playplace a la The Wicker Man.  OF COURSE your kids are your fucking world, dipshit!  It’s like saying aloud that you need oxygen, water and food to survive.  It’s a given and need not be repeated. 

I think the reason that so many people say aloud how much they looooooooove their kids is that deep down, they’re actually trying to convince not me but rather themselves of the fact.  I believe this actually presents an existential crisis for some parents: All those lost hours of sleep, lost time, money spent and countless sacrifices made for the sake of the offspring must, surely must, be for something.  No one wants to believe that they’re bad parents or that they didn’t do a good job of raising a child.  Or that having the child cut off so many other potential paths.  And so they talk themselves into a self-reinforcing schema that because their kids are their “world,” that it was all worth it. 

Even if it wasn’t. 

Maybe it really was all a major mistake.  Imagine looking at yourself in the mirror, hating being a parent, but being stuck with the duty.  While I no in any way advocate for such a course of action, I can actually understand when mothers or fathers simply vanish into the ether one day without a trace.  It’s a way of fallaciously trying to reclaim the carefree days of yore, which are gone forever.  (My siblings and I have discussed how our father seems to be engaging in revisionist history about our childhoods, when he seemed so frequently to be cranky and annoyed with us but now talks glowingly of what “enchanting” kids we were.) 

I actually think I’d have a lot more respect for a lot of parents if they just came out and said something to the effect of, “You know, my kids are a royal pain in the ass and they cost me a fortune and they annoy me almost all of the time, but I’m kind of stuck with em and so I do the best I can and we manage to actually have some pretty good times together.”  If I saw that on a woman’s dating profile, that type of honesty might catch my attention—certainly my respect.

A little while back I was visiting with a friend from high school, who took me on a tour of his adopted Southern hometown.  In one of the more awesome soliloquies on the subject of parenting I have yet witnessed, my friend let loose with the following:

“Kids ruin everything.  They ruin your house, they ruin your marriage, they ruin your body, they ruin your sleep, they ruin your bank account.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids, but if I had it to do all over again, I’d just be one of those assholes.”

To this I had but one response: silent respect. 

OK, two responses, the second of which was turning to my friend, a wicked smile upon my lips, and the retort, “I am one of those assholes.”

I love being that species of childless asshole who does what he wants when he wants and with whom he chooses and without regard for little humans under my care.  I am not at all interested in trading off. 

What if you meet the love of your life and she wants kids but you don’t?

I find this question to be extremely presumptuous.  Firstly, it assumes right away that I am immediately in the wrong for not wanting kids, a prejudice which I am working hard to fight at every available opportunity.  Secondly, I would turn this query upon its head: What if she meets me but I don’t want to have kids?  Why is it automatically assumed that the male in question must make the sacrifice in this particular equation? 

I believe firmly that people should stick to their convictions, including—and especially—where procreation is concerned.  Compromising my decision for the sake of an “ideal” mate would—while ostensibly romantic—ultimately doom not only my partnership/marriage but also the psychological well-being of my theoretical children.  The day would come when this alternate-universe EFA looked down upon his children, whom he never wanted to have in the first place but for the sake of “winning” their mother, and realize that the trade-off was not worth it.  The marriage would suffer and ultimately end, resulting in yet another broken home.

Compromise is a good thing, and it’s what all relationships are ultimately built upon, but when it comes to the issues of procreation, there can be no such thing when one partner wishes strongly to have children and the other does not.  It is best for both persons—and for the sake of any theoretical offspring—to part company and/or just be friends. 

The good news is that there are many, many potential mates for both those who wish to have children and those who do not.  I thought I was the “only one,” but in the course of my interactions with friends, colleagues and others, I find there are more and more of “us” who wish to purposely remain childless.  There’s someone for me other than the ad hominem Lawyer out there. 

As there is for you.  You don’t ever have to “settle” on this issue.  Ever.

Who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?

By even the most conservative estimates, raising a child from birth to age 18 costs roughly in the neighborhood of $250,000.  That’s right, a quarter of a million smackers just to get them to voting age.  This doesn’t take into account college and the inevitable “helping out” that even the most independently minded among us need from time to time in college and entering young adulthood (or beyond).  Worst job market in a generation, and many of my gen have had to move home at one point or another (myself included).  A parent’s duty doesn’t end the day you turn 18; it’s a lifelong ride not just of finances, but of guidance in one form or another.

But back to the monetary issue.  By not having the responsibility/necessitating of spending a quarter mil on one—or several times that for each ensuing unit dropped—I will have built up a pretty decent nest egg for my retirement years.  No, I may not have my disappointment-of-a-son there to help me get into my adult diapers, but with the cash saved by not procreating, I can afford hospice care and the best damn drugs money can buy (legal or otherwise).

Also, frankly, I don’t plan to live long enough to become senile.  I’ll take any disease you can throw at me, but as soon as I start to lose my marbles, my personality, what makes me uniquely me, just take me out back of the barn and put a bullet in my skull just like they did to Candy’s dog in Of Mice and Men.  People who want to live to a “ripe old age” typically do so to ensure that their “legacy” is intact with grandchildren. 

You can burn it all ten minutes after I’m gone. 

Except for my writing, that is.    

There are too many of us already

By even the most conservative estimates, the population of Planet Earth will top 11 billion by 2050.  Eleven billion!!!!  Aside from the obvious facts of an ever-increasing populace competing for fewer and fewer resources, the effects of the biosphere and overcrowding, my choice to not have kids will, ultimately (and sadly) not make much of a difference in the grand scheme. 

But I know I’m not the only one.  I know there are more like me out there (I’ve met you!) who also wish to remain childless and do their part for the greater part of humanity and the planet’s health in general.  You’re not alone; I’m one of you!

And you know what, if I’m ever saddled with the notion of wishing to shepherd a young person to adulthood, I could always adopt.  Nurture is often as important—or more so—than nature.  Consider how many children grow up unplanned and unwanted.  They could use good homes too.  I’m not only pro-choice, I’m also pro-adoption rather than pro-creating.  You can still be a parent without being a biological gamete-spreader.  Consider giving an unwanted child a home instead. 

For ’tis better for one child to be born into absolute love than for a million children to be born into absolute apathy.  (You can quote me on that.)

Aren’t you worried about disappointing your parents?

In a word, no.  Next question.

What about continuing your “legacy”?

When I was in the Australian Outback in 2011, I learned that that Aborigines have a vastly different approach to death than do we here in the West (or the Far East, for that matter).  When a member of the tribe dies, the elders order a week of mourning, whereupon the tribespeople wail and moan, some even cutting open their flesh to allow the grief to “flow out” of their bodies.  When the tribe elders declare the period of mourning over, the deceased is never mentioned or spoken about again.  As a nomadic hunter-gatherer people, where all that matters is the next supply of food and shelter against the Outback’s unforgiving landscape, climate and dangerous fauna, such luxuries as lineage and legacy simply have no place in the continued health of the tribe.  (Even more existentially devastating, if a member of the tribe is injured too egregiously, even if young, he or she is tied to a tree and left behind so as not to hinder the clan’s survival.) 

In the visitor center for the famous Ayers Rock—which the Aborigines call Uluru—photos of the dead are covered over so as not to offend the Aboriginal sensibilities.  In fact, such is the Aboriginal preoccupation with leaving the past and the dead behind that movies and television shows broadcast throughout Australia are preceded by a warning message that the program “may feature deceased Aborigines,” so that any who are watching can change the channel in time lest they see a deceased tribesman. 

Such a view of death is about as striking a counterpoint as one could imagine from American and Eastern traditions especially, where people are taught to revere their ancestors and their heritage and to pass on the traditions and names of those who came before unto posterity.  Hearing how the Aboriginal Australians deal with the inevitability of death hit something of a nerve in my being.  All around me I see people obsessed with their “footprint” and what they leave behind for their inheritors.  As no one shall pick up for me when I’m gone, I almost want my leavetaking from this mortal coil to be along the lines of the Outback style.  I wish for no public funeral, no wailing over my corpse, no Bible verses, no stone marking where my bones resideth.  I want it to be just like when I go off on a walk or a drive without telling anyone where I’m going or when I’ll be back.  

My epitaph can be short and simple:

“EFA has gone for a walk”

Or, “Here layeth EFA, the porn guy”

While such is my wish for my physical body, since I’m a writer, which of necessity requires a tremendously portioned ego, it’s only my hope that when I’m gone, my “work” might help out future persons possibly not yet born.  The words, the ideas, are what’s far more important from our ancestors than their physical remains—or their lines.  Maybe I’ll leave something behind for the greater knowledge and edification of humanity…or maybe my oeuvre will be forgotten ten minutes after I’m gone. 

It’s out of my control.  And I won’t be around to know it anyway. 

I’d rather live my life while I’m alive than worry about a future I can never experience.  

Guns, Germs & Steel

I’m an unapologetic misanthrope, which means that while I am incredibly fond of a great many individual persons, I am incredibly cynical about people.  Since the dawn of our species, and especially since the advent of civilization, homo sapien has found more and more reasons to slaughter one another in ever-faster fashions.  Think about it: The technology to wipe out every single living thing on Earth in seconds is now almost a century old!  We’d been working up to the splitting of the atom for thousands of years as the ultimate weapon.  The fact that no nuclear devices have been used in war for seventy years is, frankly, astonishing. 

Oh, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t tried to end humankind time and again throughout our history.  Jared Diamond’s book, Guns, Germs & Steel, explains, in excruciatingly candid and researched detail, why Eurasian peoples were able to conquer almost all of the known world over the past three millennia and how, on a long enough time scale, we’ll eventually wipe each other out completely.  No culture or microculture in the world is without its bloody history of exterminating enemies.  The only difference in the 21^st century is that genocide tends to be frowned upon, and it happens simulcast on the Internet instead of in books written years or even centuries after the fact.  Nowadays the bloodthirsty ways of our species are on CNN. 

There have been, on average, nearly two wars going every year since recordkeeping began.  Humanity has never been without war and never will be.  These figures don’t even take into account violence committed for personal gain and/or psychopathic reasons and not in the name of the state.  We’ve been killing each other for a long, long, long time.  We’re quite good at it.  And no conflict in history has ever halted wars.  A century ago this year began the Great War in Europe, foolishly misnomered as the “War to End All Wars.” 

It’s not going to get better.  With more of us, no matter how “civilized” we’ve become over the centuries, more wars are inevitable, especially as resources become scarcer and the populations grow larger.  To say nothing of the rape of the environment and the holocaust of the world’s biosphere and species at our hands. 

Why would I elect, purposely, to continue this farce?  To unleash upon the planet another carbon-producing, resource-taking, polluting unit?  To continue on our species’ sad, violent legacy? 

The answer is simple: I shan’t.  My part in the tragedy that is the human chapter on Planet Earth ends with me.  I wouldn’t dream of bringing children or grandchildren into a world where the oceans are dead, the rainforests are gone, murder in the name of religion remains a way of life and most people can’t even point to their home city on a map. 

Silence is assent; I choose dissention.  My theoretical descendants, if they ever existed, would thank me.  

Hymns for the Fallen

A few weeks ago I pitched the culture editor at my new employer, The Washington Times, about doing a story on the National Memorial Day Choral Festival, in which I had the rare opportunity to sing this past Sunday thanks to my friend and fellow USC Men's Chorus alum, Dan, who works for MCI out of Phoenix.  It was a very fine concert, and an even finer way for someone like myself--who never served in the armed forces--to honor all of those living and deceased who have.

The Times culture editor accepted the pitch and allotted me 500 words.  The situation was complicated by the fact that I was in the midst of moving from Illinois to DC at the time, so almost all of my interviewing had to be done from roadside Starbucks's and in my parents' home in New Jersey while picking up some final effects to bring to my new home in the District.  But I'm a writer and an intrepid reporter, and despite such hassles I made my deadline and turned in my 500-word opus ahead of zero hour.

Alas...Memorial Day came and went, and despite my "gently" prodding the culture editor at the office all this past week, the piece did not run.  (This I've confirmed via constant searching in the story queue, endless Googling and the lack of a "hey, please send me your invoice" email.)  Before it becomes even less timely, I am self-publishing (to be read: this story has by now lost any chance of a real publication) my writeup, along with photos of myself with the story subjects taken this past weekend at Kennedy.  It was an absolute honor to work with these gentlemen, all of them distinguished veterans of the armed forces and lifelong musicians and educators, on such a special event.

This is just a small sample of what I can do...of what I will do in my capacity with the Times.

Intrepid reporters never say die; rather they learn to no longer taste the bitterness of disappointment--typically masking it with alcohol.

****

Hymns for the Fallen

WWII veterans to lead Memorial Day concert at Kennedy Center

By Eric Althoff

Weston Noble has a unique claim to infamy.  In 1945 he entered Adolph Hitler’s underground bunker, sat behind the Fuhrer’s desk and…proceeded to put his feet up. 

“I wanted to ‘play the role a little bit,’” Noble, 91, laughs.  “[The bunker] wasn’t even locked.”   

Berlin had fallen to the Russians only a month prior; Noble’s tank battalion was the first American unit to enter the Third Reich’s heart. After his moment of Fuhrer playacting, Noble ran back to his jeep, grabbed a wrench and proceeded to break off a corner of Hitler’s marble desk as a memento to send home. 

Alas, the desk piece never made it stateside, nor, sadly, did millions of young men.  This Memorial Day weekend, those lost will be honored at a special tribute concert at the National Memorial Day Choral Festival at Kennedy Center.  Noble, a lifelong musician and 59-year educator at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, will serve as one of several esteemed guest conductors.

Dr. Craig Jessop, himself a retired Air Force officer and former director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, will serve as the concert’s artistic director for the fourth time. 

“I have a very close affinity and appreciation for our veterans, those still living and those who are no longer here,” Jessop said.  “I think it’s a very appropriate way to honor the men and women who have given their lives for this country.  For me this is a very personal and very satisfying way to serve and give back to those who have given so much.”

Jessop, the founding dean of the Caine College of the Arts at Utah State University, will conduct the Air Force Symphony Orchestra and a “festival choir” composed of various individual choruses from around the country. 

In addition to Noble, Jessop will be joined at the conductor’s podium by Col. Larry H. Lang, commander and conductor of the Air Force Band, and Col. Arnald D. Gabriel, who conducted the U.S. Air Force Band, Symphony Orchestra and Singing Sergeants from 1964 to 1985.  Gabriel will lead the ensembles in “Hymn tothe Fallen” from Saving Private Ryan and the march from the D-Day film TheLongest Day.  The latter holds a special place for Gabriel, who landed on the beach at Normandy 70 years ago next month.  He will fly to France to commemorate the anniversary, which includes a concert in Paris and a ceremony at the cemetery on the beach, where Gabriel will conduct the same pieces from the Kennedy Center event.

Asked if it seems like seven decades since that fateful day, Gabriel chuckles good-naturedly and says, “God no!  I’m 89 this month and still going strong.” 

In addition to flying to France, the Alexandria resident’s busy early summer includes leading the Virginia Grand Military Band at Arlington’s Schlesinger Hall on May 24.  That ensemble comprises both active duty and retired personnel.

Of such a busy schedule, Gabriel responded, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

http://www.kennedy-center.org/events/?event=ROXAQ

Myself with Weston Noble, 91, May 24, 2014.

With Dr. Craig Jessop. May 24, 2014.

With Col. Arnald D. Gabriel, 89, backstage at Kennedy Center, May 25, 2014.

With Dan Schwartz, college chum from the USC Men's Chorus and MCI's tourmeister.

Hollywood Days and Night(mare)s: Mr. Orange’s Mountaintop

I have a little rule when it comes to interacting with celebrities in public, and it’s one I’ve tried to impart to others.  Call it EFA’s Law of Unmutual Attraction.  It basically goes like thus:

Ask yourself this question: If places were switched, would you want to be pestered?

More colloquially, it comes down to basic manners.  I’ve been out at a number of restaurants in Hollywood where celebs frequently dine.  Most of them are too haughty for my tastes, but one of them, Koi, in West Hollywood, I’ve been privileged to dine in free of charge (or nearly free of charge) a handful of times over the years thanks to my friends David Schoner and Heather Colache.  It’s a long story, but they made the acquaintance of the general manager, Mark, at a film commission expo in Santa Monica.  He had, at the time, an idea for a television show about Atlantic City during Prohibition.  If this concept sounds familiar, it’s because his “partner” in the creative process was none other than Mark Wahlberg, who then—or so I’ve been told—ran off with the concept to Scorsese and HBO, and the rest is history.  Mark the Manager was left in the lurch and, last I’d heard, he and Marky Mark were no longer speaking; he has since left Koi. 

Anyway, Koi is one of those spots where paparazzi basically stake out the sidewalks on La Cienega Blvd. awaiting the famosos inside to perform the oh-so-photo-worthy act of handing their tickets to the valet and thereafter driving off in their Porsches/Mercedezes/DeLoreans.  I once saw Cindy Crawford exiting Koi, the incessant flashbulbs washing out her skin as she and her date made their way to the getaway car.

Now imagine having that happen to you daily, or even several times a day.  Don’t get me wrong, movie stars and other celebrities are paid handsomely—and then some—for the relatively little amount of work they actually do, but on a humanistic kind of level, I actually do find myself sympathizing when they go on talk shows and bemoan constantly being hounded by photogs and gossip columnists (did I actually just use the term “gossip columnist” like it’s the 1930s????) and have bottom-feeders digging through their trash in the search for used dong bags and incriminating love letters from politicians on a constant basis.  There’s no privacy, no anonymity.  You can’t even go to Target to buy a Nerf ball for your million-dollar test-tube baby without being followed by a coterie of Perez Hilton’s minions. 

As much of my personality as I air in public, there’s still a large side of my life that I keep just for myself.  It seems nearly impossible to imagine dodging cameras and microphones everywhere you go, all asking the same banal questions and capturing the same lame Kodak moments in the hopes that you’ll spill your coffee and be captured for all time in an awkward “oh-fuck-that-burns” grimace.  I actually kind of understand guys like Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn when they finally just lose their shit and punch out a paparazzo.  (Remember what Michael Jackson once sang: “Leave me alone!!!!”)  It’s also a reason why I understand and respect the odd celebs who up and leave behind the hubs of L.A. and New York.  Sandra Bullock spends most of her year in Austin, where she is considered a part of the community rather than community property. 

So back to my initial premise, being at Koi: Even though I knew that Cindy Crawford, whose poster I had in my bedroom when I was 14, was dining mere tables away, it never even occurred to me to try and say hello.  Restaurant managers in L.A. live and die by their discretion and keeping the “undesirables” at bay; I’m a veteran (and current soldier) in the restaurant industry, and there’s a certain code of honor when it comes to making guests feel welcomed and comfortable.  This goes doubly for the famous and the infamous.  The one and only thing that matters in that situation is the color green, i.e., the better your treatment of the guest not because they’re a celebrity but because they are your guest means bigger tips and more return business.  This is true for any customer, but celeb-handling is a delicate game in the hospitality industries.  They know that you know who they are, so it need not be said.  Nor do they need to be fawned over.  They get fawned over all day long by flatterers and fans who kiss their asses; sometimes they just want a good meal with their “real friends” without being gawked at by the plebs.  L.A. and NYC restauranteurs who understand this enjoy repeat business and generous tips.  So it is with Koi. 

So I say an emphatic no to bothering someone when they’re dining.  If you want to show your appreciation to a celeb for all the joy and/or masturbatory fantasies they’ve brought you over the years, do what I’ve done: send em a drink (the story of sending Norm MacDonald a cocktail will be posted another day).  If you get waved over in thanks, then you can go say hi, Cindy.  The same goes for stalking someone’s home or office.  It’s rude and obnoxious and will ultimately result in your not getting to meet the person.  If you live in L.A. the odds are so in your favor of running into a celebrity casually that you don’t even need to stalk!  Just live your sunny California life, and I guarantee you that sooner or later, you’ll probably find yourself at the deli next to Ben Stein (that happened to me) or have Christian Slater come into the toy store you’re working at and he being kind enough to sign your girlfriend’s birthday card (which happened to my friend Tiberius). 

(My favorite all-time strangest celeb run-in was encountering Max Weinberg, of all places, on a shark cage tour on Oahu’s North Shore, but that too is for another time.)

I’ve been fortunate enough not only to bump into celebrities on the street or backstage at shows, but also to work with them, be in plays and productions with them, to say I was “on the same bill” as George Wendt, William Atherton, Malcolm McDowell, Michael York.  All incredibly friendly, polite gentleman, all of whom had great stories in answer to my questions about working with Stanley Kubrick, being on the giant set of Day of the Locust, etc.  People love it when you ask them about their work.  Don’t you like it when someone at a party inquires after your business or trade craft?  Why should actors and famous musicians be any different?  Actually, I’d wager they welcome pointed, thoughtful questions far more than the typical Oh my god, I loved you in Carnivore Flying Fish From Mars 6: The Spawning! What was it like to be eaten by mutated, laser-shooting piranhas?  How awesome was it that you got to fondle Susan St. Patricia’s boobs onscreen and get paid for it? 

Those can be fun stories too, but you gotta know when to time em.  Bring that up later in the conversation, and chances are Malcolm McDowell will spin yarns about filming the orgy scene from A Clockwork Orange that will make your fucking head spin.  He told me about it, and some other day I’ll tell you about it too.

Maybe. 

To sum up, then, I firmly believe that saying hi or engaging a celebrity in conversation is contextual.  (Paul Newman infamously talked about being asked for an autograph while taking a leak by the guy in the urinal next to him.)  Be polite and friendly.  Of course, deep down they’re mostly narcissistic, insecure little children whose mommies never loved them and whose daddies got drunk and beat the shit out of them, which is why they do what they do in order to attain the accolades and love of millions in surrogacy, but remember, they’re people too, who sometimes are truly interested in telling you how great they are, but at others time just wish to be left the hell alone. 

Enter me.  Sometime in 2008 or 2009, when I lived in Altadena, I used to take hikes up above the top of Lake Ave., which abuts against the foothills of the lovely San Gabriel Mountains.  There are miles and miles and miles of trails in those foothills that go up as high as Mt. Wilson, at 5,712, and the site from which most of Southern California’s television and radio is broadcast.  The trailhead at the Cobb Estate atop Lake Ave. was about a mile and a half from the “Love Shack” where I lived for seven-plus years at Lake and Altadena Dr., so I used to hike up into the San Gabes from the Cobb Estate on a fairly regular basis and trudge up to the site of the long-demolished “White City” on Echo Mountain.  A hotel was built there in the late 19th century, a marvel of engineering for the time, but time, the fires and the remoteness soon took their toll, leaving behind only a few fragments of the hotel’s foundation, tennis course and tracks for the electric rail line that shuttled guests up and down Rubio Canyon. 

My absolute favorite time of day to be there was later on, especially in the spring and fall, when, on a clear day, you can see as far away as the San Bernardino Mountains to the east, south across the San Gabriel Valley all the way to the spires of distant Long Beach, and west to Palos Verdes and even Catalina Island, a good 30 miles offshore from Santa Monica.  The sun descending over the Pacific turns the distant waters red and orange as the dry winds mellow in the mountainous altitudes.  The view is truly something to see, especially when Los Angeles’s notorious smog layers take the day off.  

One such evening, I pulled my wagon up to Echo Mountain just as the sun was converging with the waters out beyond the Channel Islands.  I’d made good time, but I was puffing and thankful I’d make it to my favorite spot at the top of an old, broken stone staircase in time for sunset. 

As I walked toward the staircase I noticed a lone man seated on a slab of concrete that once served as the loading platform for the incline train that ferried visitors to the White City up Rubio Canyon.  The angle of body and the repose of his face clearly indicated that he was in contemplative, mindfully peaceful mode.  His forehead was high, the skin of his face slightly weathered and taut, but his look betrayed a practiced calmness.  His eyes had a keenness about them that was both piercing and familiar. 

Very familiar, as it turned out. 

The man’s eyes turned to me as I approached.  I’d seen him in many films.  Films I loved.  Filmed I would have given anything to ask about. 

His visage betrayed the realization of knowing that I knew who he was. 

I simply nodded my head and said hello.  He gave a quick “hi” in response.  I continued on past him and ambled up the steps to my favorite spot.  I unslung the backpack from my shoulders and pulled out a bottle of water.  As I settled into my spot, angled myself towards the west, the sun fired the ocean.  It was just the two of us at this particularly busy spot, the only sounds of human activity the constant stream of traffic passing along the 210 freeway in the valley below.

If I were Tim Roth, the absolute last place I’d ever want to be harried would be atop Echo Mountain at sunset. 

And so we two, a fine English star of screen and stage, and a New Jerseyan just trying to make an honest buck or two, sat not 30 feet apart, separately but equally human, and sharing silently this elegiac experience of another’s day finity.  Probably contemplating the same things: life, love, death, art, family, sex, the meaning of it all. 

If Mr. Orange had just shut his mouth at the end of Reservoir Dogs, maybe Harvey Keitel wouldn’t have shot him in the head.  Maybe he’d even have lived long enough to get to a hospital. 

Maybe. 

Maybe not.

A view from my "special seat" atop Echo Mountain taken at another date. Photo by Eric Althoff.

Postscript:

Not long afterwards, I pitched a story to Pasadena Magazine about interviewing Tim Roth, who by then, I had learned, was indeed a fellow Pasadena resident.  His turn as the villainous Emil Blonsky in the The Incredible Hulk was soon to hit theaters.  My editor, Sarah, gave me her blessing and go-ahead.  I was able to track down Mr. Roth’s publicist and sent a press inquiry…which was respectfully declined.  (I was actually scooped by Los Angeles magazine, whose profile of Roth ran the following week.)  Had I gotten the chance to actually do the interview, I would have brought up the time we “met” atop Echo Mountain.  Maybe someday I will get the chance.