TV Top Ten 2013

1. Mad Men
2. Masters Of Sex
3. Breaking Bad
4. Eastbound & Down
5. New Girl
6. Justified
7. The Newsroom
8. The Wrong Mans
9. Top Of The Lake
10. Family Tree

There were a whole slew of good TV shows this year, almost too many to whittle down the list to 10. And god knows I love making lists. Sitting here looking at my list, which I'm pretty sure is accurately listed in order although there could be a little shuffling and it wouldn't be the end of the world, I am recognizing a similar theme that runs through almost all of these shows in one way or another. It seems that in the year of television, I was concerned with men struggling to realize what they want and who they want to be in relation to the world around them. This year saw the end of the road for Kenny Powers and Walter White, two men who were very proud and found it very hard to give in to outside forces who were trying to influence the course of their lives. Both men had strained relationships with their families and partners which always threatened to bring them back to earth but never could. Their egos outweighed their ambition, but barely so, they always found a way to come out on top, even if the world was burning around them. Don Draper struggled to stay relevant, not to mention sane, at SCDP this year. He is such a complicated and enigmatic man that he is always the most magnetic, loathed, feared, and desired man in the room. Don himself doesn't know who he is and isn't likely to as the series comes to an end. What I have always found so interesting about Don Draper is his constant struggle with the world around him, he always seems to be both a step behind & a step ahead of everyone & everything around him at the same time. Trying to envision who Don Draper will become as the years go by and the world evolves with or without him will be the central question the next two years. Walter White is gone, now we want to know what Don Draper's fate will be.

The most interesting new character this year is Bill Masters, although the man and his work have actually been around for over 50 years. His work with Virginia Johnson concerning the furthering of the study of sex as a viable science takes a backseat to the man himself. He is powerful, cold, calculating, humorless, and determined; he is a man who will resort to blackmail, both emotionally and financially, to see that nothing will interfere with his work. What's great about this show is the reservoirs of depth to him that cannot be fully explored no matter how many seasons the show gets to be on the air. Like Don Draper, nobody really likes him but they recognize his value and can't help but be drawn to his ever-expanding aura, like moths to a flame. Another man who would be on the Mt. Rushmore of perpetually troublesome, misunderstood men of TV 2013 would be Will McAvoy. He thinks people like him more than they actually do, but they respect him more than they actually let on. He's unfailingly loyal and uncontrollably unpredictable. He's stubborn and always tries to talk his way out of situations that he has previously talked his way into. I grew to love Will and the rest of The Newsroom gang as the season went on, it's definitely the show with the deepest bench. Perhaps my favorite ongoing character is of course Raylan Givens, yet another man whose impulses and sense of direction for his life puts him at odds with everyone around him. Raylan is at the doorstep of fatherhood now, and while he is fearless as a deputy stalking the hills of Kentucky, he is made speechless when it comes to being a husband and a partner. He struggles to understand the basics of his job and his relationships but is so brilliant and unique that he simply cannot be overlooked. What draws me to characters like these guys is the larger-than-life shadow they cast and their fearlessness in sticking to their guns, no pun intended in this case, to do what they know is right. Their complications and struggles to maintain their self in the face of opposition is a joy to follow.

Two shows with young men thrown into pretty extraordinary situations outside of their small worlds are Family Tree with the continuously great Chris O'Dowd and the British show The Wrong Mans. The latter is about a sad-sack hourly worker who gets caught up in a world of espionage, murder, mystery and femme-fatales while still stuck with the mundanity of life working at an office and an ex-girlfriend/current boss who he is still hung up on. He learns to be heroic at the expense of his safety and eventually finds out the kind of man he wants to be and must become to earn back the love of a woman and make it out of his predicament alive. It's what an Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg/Nick Frost wrong-man-espionage movie would be as a TV show. Chris O'Dowd has a similarly soul-searching yet less perilous journey to undertake in Family Tree, where he plays a man who takes on the task of researching his family tree as an attempt to forget his ex girlfriend and move on with his life.

As much as I have praised and been drawn to a whole host of male characters this year, even more notable are some of their female counterparts. Virginia Johnson, as played by Lizzy Caplan, is one of the most captivating, magnetic, brilliant and desirable characters on TV. She is ahead of her time in so many ways but makes it seem so breezy and carefree, like she's willing to wait for the times to catch up to her, but she's not going to stop moving forward. The effect she has on men in the era the show takes place is notable for the fact that she would make men blush in the year 2013, let alone 1957. Seeing the brilliant Bill Masters rendered speechless by her stating a simple fact of sexuality that was so foreign to him shows us who the real star of that show is. Her shadow looms so large over everyone that she is impossible to forget. The amazing Elizabeth Moss pulled double duty this year, becoming the new Don Draper on Mad Men and playing the fearless detective Robin Griffin on Top Of The Lake. She is brilliant and dogged, willing to go into the homes and lives of people that everyone else is too scared to do. Her pursuit of little Tui and the fucked up small town dynamic she has to navigate is nothing short of brilliant to watch. The show is tragic and cold, but Moss is a bona-fide star. I also love the women of The Newsroom. They don't let the men in their life control them, but instead provide the real world anchor that they need to keep from floating away into another stratosphere. Olivia Munn not only has the best character name on television, Sloane Sabbath, but has become the star of the show. She steals, if not outright owns, every scene she is in. And although it has become vogue to aim our collective anger at the various wives of our brilliant protagonists, the wives are always the key to understanding, or perhaps, unraveling, the man and the empire. Betty Draper, Skyler White, April Buchannon, and Libby Masters must be understood before attempting to get to the bottom of their significant others. Too often we just see them as the nagging roadblocks to the ultimate goal for their husbands but the best shows actually explore those characters and show us what makes them tick. They're not just built on stereotypes or there to be the butt of a joke from a male character like they would be on lesser shows and for that, we're better off.

Other favorites of mine this year include Luther, Broadchurch, The Bridge, The Killing, Sons Of Anarchy, Hell On Wheels, Girls, Arrested Development, Veep and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, among others.

The Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug!

First off, I read The Hobbit novel over a decade ago and remember barely anything except that the dwarves traveled far and didn't even get to kill the Dragon.

 There were a ton of points in this movie where my brain screamed "Bilbo is fucked." Specifically the giant gold statue, but apparently he wasn't standing in the way whatever. Movie.

 Bilbo's kill count is around 7 or 8 for this movie. Pretty good for one session.

 I have a theory they brought Legolas into the story just so they could reuse their badass animation of him riding things down slopes. Most of the time those things were orcs.

 Apparently there is such a thing as being too big and badass because Smaug can't even kill a handful of little guys. Sidenote: If Smaug was a D&D enemy he'd have like 35 hit dice and be practically a god. Hold on while I copy/paste that into my notes.

 Back to Legolas, he's definitely name level, he's gotta be for all his bad ass jumping on heads and sliding on bodies and using a ranged weapon at point blank range. Get to level 9 and you can do this too.

 Gandalf needs new spells. Or does deciding at precisely the right moment to bail count as a special ability?

 Serious Question: Was Beorn played by Javier Bardem?

 What sort of half-race would happen if The Sexy Dwarf and Tauriel (or "Kate from Lost" as my friends call her) made babies? I'd like to see that. For science.

 How much XP is the Arkenstone worth? Like 30,000? 50,000? Does he have to split that with the party? 

I guess that's all I have to say, honestly I got distracted and went to make a sandwich. It was delicious.

A Day At The Farm

Knott's Berry Farm is a nice place. Not really a controversial statement, and not much of a flashy conversation starter but that was the most prevalent thought in my head as I strode throughout the suburban old-west throwback amusement park. What struck me first was how accessible Knott's is in comparison to, say, The Happiest Place On Earth. As a motorist, you simply put on your turn signal and pull into the parking lot. It reminded me of going to Ontario airport as opposed to going to LAX; you just get off the freeway and pull right up to the curb and take your time instead of navigating multiple streets & lanes and an army of rental cars and cabs to wait in line and try to squeeze up to the curb long enough for your arriving friend to hop in before you get honked at for taking too long. All that separates the grounds of Knott's from the traffic and strip malls of Beach Blvd. is a modest wooden fence. The grounds are obviously much bigger than they seem from the street, which is very evident from the heights of such rides as Supreme Scream, where you also get a view of all of Orange County for a few short seconds before plummeting back to Earth. I was pleasantly surprised by how accessible everything in the park was. From where we parked, we only had about a 3 minute walk to the front gate where there was no line and no security, simply a woman with a handheld scanner who scanned my printout (yes a printout, everyone else had tickets on their phones) and there we were.

The park, I learned, sits on the site of Walter Knott's family berry farm where they sold fruit, pies, and chicken and built a number of other restaurants and attractions to entertain people who came for the food. In addition, the park was modeled on Calico Ghost Town out in the Mojave Desert where my elementary school would frequently take us on field trips. Many of the attractions even share the name - Calico Ghost Town Railroad, Calico Mine Ride - and the scenery is the same, only Knott's of course has big colorful steel struts stretching 50 feet up in the air holding up roller coasters amid the faux ghost town motif. The mine ride gives you a little history of the California gold rush of the mid 1800's with the help of a guide who peppers his narration with quips about Disneyland and jokes like: "They mine for all kinds of nuggets here, gold nuggets, silver nuggets, chicken nuggets." There is also a joke in the Wild West Stunt Show where a bumbling Sheriff's deputy tries to avoid a fight with a bandit by offering him Disneyland gift certificates, who then stops & states, "Nevermind, nobody would want those." There is a little brother-big brother dynamic in play in Orange County, with Disneyland being the bigger, sleeker, more popular older brother with Knott's being forced to poke fun and crack jokes in order to keep up. Although, it's no secret to anyone who knows me that I would be drawn to anything that is the opposite of sleek and popular. I like going to a park that is smaller, cheaper, more old-fashioned and less crowded. I like the Old West motif much more than the fairy tale wonderland of Disney, it's more aesthetically pleasing. Instead of Snow Whites and Goofy's wandering around, Knott's has costumed men who hop on the train and pretend to hold up the passengers and improvised gunfights in the middle of the plazas. The contracted cartoon character mascots at Knott's are Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts gang, which I have no interest in and I successfully avoided Peanuts On Ice and the various Peanuts-themed rides and attractions. However, what I thought about most of the day was why Charlie Brown kept putting up with all of Lucy's shit after she continually pulled the football away right before he kicked it. But Charlie had a crush on the redhead so maybe the kid does have his priorities straight. I did find out that Schulz had a real-life unrequited love for a woman who he based the little redheaded girl off of which served as a recurring theme throughout the life of his work and as a guy with a series of unrequited crushes, maybe I'd find some connection with the Peanuts strips but I digress.

Perhaps the best part of going to Knott's Berry Farm on a Wednesday is the complete lack of waiting time for rides. The most I had to wait for anything was about 10 minutes to take a ride on a horse-drawn stagecoach. Every single other coaster and ride had zero or minimum wait time, which immediately increased the enjoyment of all those rides. I'm not a big amusement park guy, I don't enjoy spending an hour in line for a two minute ride but today, there was no excuse not to go on some of the coasters that would normally be packed. Boomerang and Silver Bullet, whose names fit with the Knott's motif but whose appearance would be more suited to sit next to the colorful loops and twists of Six Flags coasters, run smooth and fast and are very enjoyable. Then there are outdated coasters like Ghost Rider which jostles and clanks it's way around a track atop a behemoth wooden structure which physically hurt me. I came off almost limping and with a cramp in my hip from being whipped and shook around in the rickety car. And of course there are also the classics like the Timber Mountain Log Ride, on which you will get slightly wet and Bigfoot Rapids where you will get soaked from head to toe and have to walk around with a wet ass and soggy shoes for a few hours. The shows, arguably better than the rides, were more attended than the rides and enjoyed more by my parents. My parents, Native American and California history buffs, brought us to the Mystery Lodge where a figure behind a glass partition on a dark stage walks the audience through lessons his people have taught him and stories his grandmother told him. The show has a very interesting effect that they create with the use of an invisible screen and a projector that displays images onto the smoke rising from a fire. The Wild West Stunt Show, while corny and unexciting, was humorous and made me want to run on stage and jump off the roof of the fake saloon onto the mat built into the ground. Even the stage featuring elementary school singer/dancers was well attended, with cheering families and even costumed cowboys watching attentively.

Knott's Berry Farm, whose website claims it to be "California's Best Amusement Park," is, as previously stated, a nice place to visit. My visit was equal parts relaxing and exciting and the place has an overall charm that is hard to be cynical about. My last visits to Disneyland and Magic Mountain, close to a decade ago, were not very exciting if memory serves, and part of the pleasure today had to do with the absolutely perfect weather. I wore a light jacket all day and never got too warm during the day or too chilly after the sun went down. I remember waiting in line at Magic Mountain in the sweltering heat and going in & out of those ungodly switchbacks and promising myself that I would not come back anytime soon, which was a promise to myself that I kept. Knott's is probably neither California's Best Amusement Park, The Happiest Place On Earth, or the amusement park of choice for most people I know*, as evidenced by the number of times in the last week or so that I heard, "Knott's? Why are you going to Knott's?" I enjoyed Knott's, soberly of course^, and genuinely had the most fun I've had in quite a while. Maybe I'm just filled with the holiday spirit.

^I only mention this as a footnote because I think it's been years since I've heard anyone mention going to an amusement park sober. Apparently the only way to enjoy them is to be so high or so wasted that you don't remember doing anything there. #Sarcasm.
*According to the 2012 Global Attractions Attendance Report, Knott's is the 14th most visited amusement park in the North America, behind Disneyland, Disney's California Adventure, Universal Studios and Sea World but more attended than Six Flags Magic Mountain. Although, interestingly, Disneyland and Knott's are the only two in the top 20 who have declining attendance rates.

What I'm Enjoying Right Now

FAMILY TREE - Chris O'Dowd is great in the Christopher Guest created show, recently on DVD, about a man whose great aunt dies and inspires him to set off to find out more about his family. Tom is recently single and dives headfirst into the project, assembling the pieces of his family tree on his wall like a detective would while working through a murder investigation. He learns that his ancestors weren't exactly the noble important people that he had hoped, but travels all over London uncovering facts and unearthing family secrets with his bumbling but well meaning best friend Pete. His sister uses a monkey hand puppet to help her express her feelings and they have an aging, racist, somewhat distant father who spends his day watching bad television comedies, and doesn't understand why his son is all of a sudden obsessed with their family, played by the always amazing Michael McKean. Like other Guest projects, this is a mockumentary with a crew following Tom around town and Guest populates the show with his regulars and tons of goofy gags, like a Sherlock Holmes-Star Trek mash-up TV show and a poster in a posh, regal theater for an upcoming show of Avatar: The Musical! featuring a line of singing, dancing blue people. There is also plenty of "archival" footage of the Chadwick family in action in their various pursuits including sack racing, two person horse costume racing, and self portraits. It's the perfect amount of sadness, nostalgia and dry humor and almost makes me want to learn more about my family but not quite.

WE'RE ALIVE - I recently just discovered that there is a whole world of podcasts that are basically audiobooks in episodic format. Ellery Queen does a good podcast with short stories each episode read by various authors and there are a whole host of shows that play old radio mysteries. Then there are shows like this that have a continuing story each episode, in this case a 20 minute each week, complete with an entire voice cast, sound effects and music. This show is about a small group of reservists who are called to respond to some kind of riot in Los Angeles that soon becomes too big to control and are forced to hole up with their unit and help survivors of the ensuing zombie apocalypse. It's not an entirely original story, as most stories of zombie apocalypses are pretty much the same, but this is fun and the change of format adds a little bit different experience.

FOLLOW HER HOME - This book is a revelation for me. I love Raymond Chandler stories, and his private eye Philip Marlowe, the wisecracking, tough as nails detective, roaming the dark streets and back alleys of Los Angeles in the 1940's. Steph Cha's first novel is a love letter to Chandler and Marlowe and she writes a character named Juniper Song who fancies herself a detective stalking the mean streets of LA on the tail of a femme fatale and a philandering lawyer. When she gets sapped within mere minutes of being on the job, she's almost giddy at sharing an experience that Marlowe has in almost every one of Chandler's books. Cha writes, in Juniper's voice, "I was thirteen when I first read The Big Sleep. I was smitten. It was my introduction to Marlowe, to hard-boiled detective fiction, to the very notion of noir, and I could not get enough. As I grew my last three inches, I went from book to book, consuming everything that was Philip Marlowe. I savored his words, studied his manners and methods. I carried him with me like an idol. Marlowe, the honorable, lonely detective - he was my hero, and playing the part appealed to me." My experience with Chandler and Marlowe is strikingly similar and I sometimes daydream about being dropped into Chandler's world and playacting as Marlowe or at least attempting in vain to be a fraction as cool as him.

In comics, I've been enjoying a few new series including HIT by Bryce Carlson and Vanessa Del Rey about the LAPD's battle with Mickey Cohen for the soul of Los Angeles. A clandestine hit squad of officers is tasked with taking down Cohen and his cohorts using any means necessary. It's a limited series, unfortunately, so there are only 4 issues of noir, shoot-em-up goodness. I've also been loving Greg Rucka's LAZARUS, set in the future where the battle of the 99% vs. the wealthy has grown to such epic proportions that there are a small handful of Families that control everything, with each family training one member tasked to protect the family, a Lazarus. The Carlyle family consists of spoiled, preening, entitled brats who resent their Lazarus, named Forever, and plot her demise while defending themselves from other families. Finally, another author I like with a new series is Victor Gischler, writer of novels with names like Shotgun Opera, The Pistol Poets and Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse, has a new series called KISS ME, SATAN about a werewolf trying to gain back his lost soul who gets caught in the middle of warring clans of werewolves and vampire hit squads. It's a fun take on a mob story and full of awesome action and great writing.

My Year Of Nerdery Catch-Up

This year, as readers (anyone? anyone there??) will know, I started playing Dungeons & Dragons with LDB,BL co-creater Chris Santee, who serves as my esteemed Dungeon Master. If memory serves me right, we started around January or February which makes it almost a year. But just because it has been a year, doesn't mean I am remotely close to being a Dungeon Master myself. I still never remember which die to roll for damage most of the time or which abilities my character has. Not for lack of interest, it's just simply a lot of stats and figures to remember and I am terrible at math. And memory. And props to DM Sitmo because those books are dense, there's no way I would ever be able to break all that stuff down and wrangle it into a cohesive game that 5 or 6 people can play at the same time. I of course started as a human ranger named Leoendrithas Droverson, an archer raised by elves. This was a whole new world for me, elves and dwarves and XP and hit dice...it was all foreign. Frankly, I wasn't nerdy enough to understand it at first. I mean, I've seen Lord Of The Rings once but I am no means a fantasy genre enthusiast and have never played table games beyond Monopoly and Candy Land. I've never played Skyrim or seen Game Of Thrones. That became evident when we tried to play a Star Wars role playing game, for which I had to be schooled in the basics of the Star Wars world, which drew the ire and laughs of my fellow gamers. Truth be told, I feel like a complete outsider in the D&D group but that's okay. The more the game goes on, the more I am immersed in the fantasy genre world, the more I learn the lingo and character archetypes, the more enjoyable it becomes.

Of course, the aforementioned Star Wars debacle continues to haunt me and I made an effort earlier this year to right that oversight. And I tried, I really tried. This summer, I made the effort, I had all three of the original trilogy in my possession but I just didn't make it. I'm sure it's a fine world that Lucas has created, I'm just not that interested in it. As I've said before, I think I needed to see it about 15 years ago, when it was the height of technological and special effects achievement, not to mention, the height of cool. Now, it just looks hokey, the world not sufficiently interesting enough for me. By now, there's too much in the canon for me to bother catching up with. When people catch wind of me not seeing Star Wars, they give me the same response as when they find out I don't drink. "WHAAAATT!!! I want to be there when you watch it for the first time." I of course don't want to watch it, just like I don't want to go out and get drunk, but it doesn't stop people from expressing the interest in wanting me to do so. As noted in previous posts here, my interests lie elsewhere but this year and from here on out, I hope to expand my nerdy oeuvre. My collection of comics is growing, I'm going to see The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, and I've tried to limit the amount that I talk about football and Jason Statham among people whose eyes will glaze over when I do so. Gotta know your audience.

Every time a comic book movie comes out, I go to my friends to get the background on what I missed out on in decades of comics and movies. I'm slowly catching up, but every time a new character pops up in a Marvel film, I always require a primer to get the basics. I'm excited in theory about these four new series that Netflix and Marvel are collaborating on but I know absolutely nothing about any of those characters. I think Ben Affleck was Daredevil once upon a time but that's as much as I could tell you. After watching the new Thor film, I needed Chris to tell me what the deal was with The Collector and how he fits into the universe. And watching Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. has opened a whole new round of questions about what it is they do and how they fit in. And apparently the new Superman film will be Batman versus Superman, which is a mystery to me because I thought Batman and Superman were allies. But again, I enjoy delving more into these worlds because I feel like I'm catching up on what I missed out on as a child, when I was doing who knows what instead. I just need time to catch up because right now I'm pretty busy with the NFL and NBA seasons.

New Class: Geomancer

  It should be obvious that not all magic users are "Magic-Users." Formal training and spells named after great wizards aren't that commonplace. Sure, the emperor's Inquisitor's seem to be everywhere these days, searching for demon worshipers (supposedly) and (supposed) seditionists, but not all citizens with the ability to perform magic want to be Inquisitors, and not all magically talented beings are imperial citizens. Some individuals don't even consider what they're doing to be Magic, with a big m. Instead they see their abilities as gifts of spirits, or gods, or just natural abilities that if you told them no one else could perform they would be shocked.

  The Gnoll-King Cold-With-Sun was the most (in)famous of these types of base magicians because of his combined use of magic with a rare charisma not seen in many beast men to build an army large enough to take the Empire's keep at Spaw'ra in the Bone Plains. Cold-With-Sun's forces raided as far as the shores on the far side of the eastern desert and stole many holy artifacts, hiding behind great sandstorms, and removing the power of local temples to heal their congregations and passersby.

  Rumour has it that a Red Dragon from mountains that separate the Bone Plains and the Empire proper has recently taken a violent interest in the Spaw'ran keep, and whether this development proves good or ill is yet to be seen.

New class for Old School D&D inspired games based on the Final Fantasy Tactics Geomancer Job Class.

Geomancer
HD as Specialist
Saves and XP as Magic-User
Max Level: 12

This is kind of what I've always wanted instead of the D&D Druid.

Geomancers get 9 spell like abilities, one at each level starting with the one that makes the most sense for their homeland. Upon reaching 12th level the Geomancer has the option of increasing the power of his spells once more or attaining the extremely powerful Sinkhole ability.

Geomancy rules
To Hit: WIS check
Whenever a 6 is rolled on a damage die the target must make a save vs spells or suffer the spell's Special effect. Any additional 6s rolled add a cumulative -2 penalty to the save.

Geomancy progression
Level 1: Starting regional based spell
Level 2: New spell
Level 3: New spell
Level 4: All Geomancy now does 2d6 dmg
Level 5: New spell
Level 6: New spell
Level 7: All Geomancy now does 3d6 dmg
Level 8: New spell
Level 9: New spell
Level 10: All Geomancy now does 4d6 dmg
Level 11: New spell
Level 12: Sinkhole OR All Geomancy now does 5d6 dmg

Spell Descriptions

Torrent: Attack with the power of running water. Those who live near large bodies of water start with this, the pirates that sail the Narnak Blue use this spell to swamp the ships of their enemies and knock the crewman into the sea. Special: drown with globe of water surrounding creature's head. Save means unconscious.

Tanglevine: Attack with the power of plants. Vines sprout and attack the target. Special: target is held immobile as the spell Entangle.

Tremor: Attack with the power of stone. Causes the earth to spew forth missiles of rock and stone to pelt the target. Special: Target is completely encased in stone and petrified.

Wind Slash: Attack with the power of wind. This attack can be used one of two ways: as blades that sear and cut the target with a Special bonus of showing the target so they move at half speed, OR as a giant buffeting gust that has a chance of knocking the target down.

Quicksand: Attack with the power of standing water. Use swamp or Marsh water similarly to Torrent except this spell is more focused on pulling the target under the water. Special: chance for target to be poisoned or diseased by fetid water, penalty to save against this if target has already suffered wounds.

Storm: Attack with a working combination of the elements. The storm spell comes in a number of varieties, but they all have one thing in common. They all combine the power of wind with another element to surround, and at times, consume their victims. Ample amounts of both elements must be in attendance as Storm uses lots of both.

Flameblast: Attack with the power of fire. Some fire source must be present, like a torch or campfire, if used at night. The sun is sufficient during the day time unless completely obscured by clouds. Special: target is on fire and takes continual fire damage.

Mama Surge: from deep beneath the earth mama surges upwards to consume your foes. If not used near an apparent magma flow or active volcano this spell permanently creates an active volcano. Use carefully. Special: Target is consumed by lava and dies immediately.

Sinkhole: This optional 12th level spell opens a rift in space-time devouring fragments or all of your foe. Sinkhole does 6d6 damage. If all ones are rolled the Geomancer loses control of the hole and it grows to consume all creation. DM fiat on how much time is given to say goodbye to loved ones.  Special: Target is consumed utterly as the spell Disintegrate.

After writing this whole thing I realize now this class is very much like the Avatar cartoon.

Lee Loves Action Movies

Everyone who knows me knows I love two things: 1) Lists and 2) Action Movies. Thus, I will create a list right here of my favorite action films of the last 10 years. Action films are usually the butt of the joke because most people just have a vision of a shitty car chase and a bad one-liner uttered by a washed up old actor. People see Bruce Willis now in 2013 and see a sarcastic, bloated, uninterested old man doing paycheck cameo roles in movies like GI Joe: Retaliation while forgetting that for the past 25 years, he has been one of the biggest actors in the world and played arguably the most beloved action film character of all time, John McClane in the Die Hard movies. Just because A Good Day To Die Hard (which I really enjoyed) was clearly a case of Well, Why The Hell Not Make Another One, We Don't Have Anything Better To Do, it doesn't take away the fact that those first three movies are all-time greats. There are always a slew of bad action movies in theaters and on video store shelves (oh, wait...) but there are also a whole slew of god-awful dramas and comedies and every other genre. Action films just have a stigma that they will never be able to get past. There will never be a best action film category at the Academy Awards* and as much as films like Gladiator, The Hurt Locker, and Braveheart are considered action films, I want to see a movie like 13 Assassins win an Academy Award so that they have to show a 15 second clip where dozens of people are being decapitated and lying in a pile of bodies and blood. I am a complete homer for the aforementioned one-liners and car chases, it's something I loved as a kid, then became too cool for when I was a teenager and then became enamored with again as I got older. The most recent example was Lockout, which I just watched a few weeks ago, with Guy Pearce sneering & snarking his way through a space prison to rescue the president's daughter from the world's most dangerous criminals, which is pretty much the most awesome plot for a movie in recent memory. With all that said, let the list commence (in no particular order):

KILL BILL VOL. 1 - Almost all of my favorite directors are the ones who love movies and love making movies that harken back to their favorites. I can't think of anything better than getting paid millions of dollars to make a movie with your childhood idols that you wrote and directed about whatever genre you're obsessed with at the moment. Quentin Tarantino is such a director. He created a world with these movies where he could incorporate all of his favorite things about the genre and make something completely original while being an homage to its predecessors. The final battle between Beatrix Kiddo and the Crazy 88 in the House Of Blue Leaves is operatic. I think when QT jerks off, he closes his eyes and thinks about the 5,6,7,8's and finishes when Lucy Liu gets scalped.

FAST 5/FAST 6 - While the future of the franchise is in question with the death of Paul Walker, it's hard to not see the last two films as two of the best of the series, if not two of the best action films in recent memory. They did something smart with this series; they moved beyond them being "car movies" and just turned them into solid, if absolutely insane and ridiculous action movies. A "family" of rich, globe-trotting criminals chasing bad guys in airplanes and tanks and trains and, of course, cars turned out to be a pretty great conceit. This franchise, even with the loss of Walker, could conceivably go on forever and if so, count on me being there opening day for Fast 12 in about ten years.

BELLFLOWER - This is a great movie that is not necessarily an action film, but it has action film DNA running through its blood. The first half is almost a romantic drama about two buddies who love their apocalypse-prepped Frankenstein monster of a car, Medusa, and the various weapons they've built to prepare themselves for a Mad Max-like apocalypse. A girl gets involved and the second half turns into a nightmare of violence, blood and sex that is admittedly pretty haunting.

SHOOTER - Bob Lee Swagger is one of my favorite literary characters and is played here by Mark Wahlberg who is much younger than the character in the book. He's an Army sniper on the wrong end of a conspiracy and left for dead in the Middle East but returns to live in solitude in the mountains with his dog but is summoned to hypothetically surmise how the vice president might be assassinated only to be set up for the crime and forced to go on the run. The sniper is always an interesting character, akin to the samurai or the lone gunman of a thousand spaghetti westerns. A fantastic long distance shootout atop a mountain is the crowning achievement of this movie. There's nothing better than a wronged man shooting his way out, doing what he was trained to do and having it come back on those very people who turned their back on him. I think I'm getting a boner.

13 ASSASSINS - This is a movie that people who I have never heard express interest in action movies say they loved. God knows I love it when someone puts together a team and a hell of a team get assembled here, in order to fight back against an evil relative of the current Shogun. They convert a small town into a warzone by using elaborate traps and setups designed to help them fight the expected 70 soldiers traveling with the evil lord but are beset upon by over 200 armed soldiers. The entire second half of the film is the ensuing battle, where just about all of the 213+ participants end up in piles of blood, mud, limbs and bodies. This is the dirty, gritty, more brutal younger brother of the House Of Blue Leaves fight from Kill Bill. This movie is amazing.

PACIFIC RIM - I think I loved this movie more than most people. There are giant robots fighting giant sea monsters who sprout wings and fly into space and then fall back to earth. That's amazing. Watching Charlie Hunnam and the girl from The Brothers Bloom pilot a giant American robot that can pick up a battleship and swing it at something is pretty fantastic to watch. I heard people's complaints and nitpicks about the film but then I listened to Guillermo Del Toro explain how every single thing in the film has a purpose and has roots in something he wanted to honor and discounted all the complaints wholesale. They don't matter. Why worry about petty little things and little plot holes when you are rooting for humanity to destroy a race of aliens living in another dimension inside the earth who are sending monsters to destroy all of humanity? My favorite scene is when the Australians are about to be killed by a Kaiju when, who's that behind it, backlit & inert and hanging from some helicopters, it's Gipsy Danger motherfucker, about to kick some ass. This one is pure spectacle, people. Just sit back and enjoy it.

OLDBOY - I haven't seen the Spike Lee remake yet but I intend to. However, I doubt it will surpass the pure, visceral, nightmare of a film that Park Chan Wook made. It really is a nightmare, being imprisoned for 15 years and then set loose on a desperate wild goose chase for answers full of dead bodies, incest, and live squids being eaten. Korea does this kind of extremely violent revenge fantasy very well, and this is the middle film of Wook's Revenge Trilogy along with Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance and Lady Vengeance. The single shot action sequence in the hallway with a hammer is still one of the best sequences I have ever seen.

THE RAID: REDEMPTION - I don't need to say much about this one, everyone worth their salt has seen it and loved it. Gareth Evans made a masterpiece of family loyalties and pure carnage. When all the bullets run out, it turns to some of the most brutal hand-to-hand combat I've seen until there are piles of bodies lining the hallways of a slumlords high-rise. The second one looks like it's going to be even more crazy.

IP MAN - Donnie Yen plays the titular Ip Man, who is touted as teaching his signature style of martial arts, Wing Chun, to the likes of Bruce Lee. In this movie, he is a wealthy martial arts teacher beloved by his community in China until the Japanese invade and turn his people into slaves and force them to fight to prove their superiority to the Chinese. Humble, yet superior, Ip Man refuses to fight at first but soon is compelled to fight and inspires and carries his people on his back and beats the shit out of a whole bunch of Japanese guys. I don't like martial arts movies as much as some others but this one is great and Donnie Yen is a pure star.

BAD BOYS II - This is the granddaddy of ridiculous, over the top, one-liner spouting buddy cop action movies. At one point, there is a car chase where they drive a hummer down a mountain taking out hundreds of shanty homes. There is a car chase on a freeway in Miami that would've snarled traffic for weeks were it real life. If you sit back and suspend your knowledge of reality, you can enjoy this because it is insane and wonderful. Buddy cop movies are great, and Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are two of the all-timers when it comes to sarcastic banter in the middle of carnage. I hate Michael Bay but this is his masterpiece and the man knows how to make an amazing looking movie. Car chases and shootouts in Miami were made to be filmed by Bay. And remember, "We ride together. We die together. Bad boys for life."

Honorable Mentions - The last 3 Bond movies, the 4 Bourne movies, the last 2 Mission: Impossible movies, Hot Fuzz, The Dark Knight, Crank, The Transporter, Sunshine, Lockout, Dredd, Death Race, Drive, Smokin' Aces, Taken.

*Part of the reason for thinking about action films right now is the fact that theaters for the next few months will be flooded with marquee Academy Award contending films and I will be needing to balance my film diet with some action and excitement, not just watch droll, depressing, "important," Oscar bait.

Impermanence in the Face of Immortality

Do elves truly love all that lives or is that just a myth perpetuated by others, legend and lore, a false rumor on the table? Nothing is certain, but they do in a sense. It is true if you look into their eyes you can see a glimmer that'll tug on your heart, like starting into the eyes of an old flame. Love dead and buried beneath years of stacked dislike defensively built around the halcyon memories. Except elves don't fraternize, this love isn't personal. Not anymore, not this century.

All souls begin as elemental, ethereal beings with their highest physical form being elves. Elves aren't immortal, but for the other races they might as well be. Even the long lived Dwarves can't remember an instance of an elf dying of old age. Violent death is a different matter. Whenever an elf dies their soul is recycled into the birth pool of the lower races, and some is lost in the process. They believe all souls do this which might be true. When an elf kills it is to release the soul to try again at another life. They would tell you it isn't murder, and can be very snide about it honestly. Society isn't a fan of this.

Because of this connection across multiple incarnations of a soul whenever you lock eyes with an elf there's a 10% chance you've met before. Well, they've met you.

Roll d10 to find out how this elf knows you.

1. Former family member: Mother/father/brother/sister/cousin. You should hit them up for magical items. You were about to anyway.

2. Arch-enemy that would gladly see you die a thousand deaths. Except they're probably pretty busy right now. You've been gone a while now with the being dead and reborn as a lesser race and all. Where did those minions run off to? He'll have them kill you just wait right there.

3. Murderer: in a past life/lives this person killed you. You should ask why or just take revenge immediately, ya sociopath.

4. Lover: your soul-mate. Well one of them. That next Sex Point might be coming up real soon.

5. Adventuring comrade! Remember that time 3,489 years ago you slew that troll arch-mage with a broken arm, a dagger and a flock of bluejays? No? Well trust us, it was awesome. Immediately follows as Henchman.

6. You saved their life once, and now they owe you a favor. Make it good.

7. Rival! Can't resist a bet based on a competition between the two of you and they just happen to know where your mcguffin is, but if he beats you there he gets to keep it. This is when his crew shows up and they look equal to your party.

8. Business partner who's a little nervous about some old debts that hopefully you don't bring up and keeps patting the coin purse slung hidden under their shirt self consciously and looking at the door.

9. Drinking buddy that gave up the old haunts after you died and is now a traveling gourmand who can teach you hows to stretch your rations while also slightly improving their taste. Knows a ton about this location/region.

10. Roll Twice! And if you get family member/lover combo and don't want to roleplay some oedipal shit I understand. It'd be hilarious, but just re-roll I guess.

If you have any more leave a comment and we'll add it to the table.

Must succeed on an Intelligence Check or go insane with new influx of knowledge for 1d6 days. INT mod affects days spent insane.

Underwhelmed & Not All That Worried About It

"Underwhelmed" is the word I used to describe how I felt about the Robert Redford, 2014 Academy Award Nominated* film All Is Lost. It concerned one of our most beloved actors, one of the icons of the medium, surely one of the faces on the Mount Rushmore of American actors* whose face is the only one that appears in the film, a face that carried with it the entirety of the struggle of life and death and the toll it takes on a man. Robert Redford is a titan in the world of cinema, everything he touches turns to gold, for the most part, and will certainly add to his legacy with this film and his performance in it. However, the first word that came to mind once the credits roll, once that hand plunges into the ocean to grab him, was "Finally." It wasn't the worst way to spend two hours, I've seen worse films, hell, I probably saw worse films that week, but my enjoyment did not live up to the hype and I was glad to be getting on with my day. There was something about a rich, old, white man that looks like the Sundance Kid enjoying his retirement on a boat that cost more than my parents house that just didn't resonate with me. A craggy, all-American man facing certain death and looking mortality in the eye and persevering and rising above the odds and all the other things a man can do and must do in a movie like this didn't equate to greatness for me. That being said, it was a perfectly fine movie. I admire its originality and its different focus but I feel that having a movie with no dialog and only one actor in the entire thing was a gamble. However, it looks like the gamble paid off for Redford, the director JC Chandor, and the studio because I'm positive that it will win numerous awards in the next few months.

What I'm saying is, for a film that will be a certain Oscar lock, as well as a crowd favorite was underwhelming, in my opinion. I've seen many more less memorable movies before and since but this one stuck with me. I've thought about it and tried to like it more than I initially did but I didn't budge. In the long run, who gives a shit if I liked this movie or not? The answer is, nobody. Including me. However, I enjoy this time of year because a lot of quality films are released in an attempt to qualify for Academy Awards and I will see or at least try to see most of them. I like being able to talk knowledgeably about all these films when the time comes around to talk about the Oscars but this years slate has been unimpressive so far. I usually hate those people that say the movies are shitty every year** and I'm pretty sure this year will redeem itself for me, but so far, the contenders aren't living up to their potential. Gravity was excellent, however, it's grandeur and attention to detail will be lost if I ever try to watch it again on a television. This was yet another case of a film with not much plot and not much dialog relying on the performance of one of the most beloved actors of our time talking to herself and cursing and doing a lot of face acting. A lot of floating around in both films. I had no interest in seeing The Butler. Blue Jasmine was pretty good, although not as funny, not as interesting, not as good as other recent Woody Allen films. Today I watched Dallas Buyers Club which featured an emaciated, gaunt, pale and scabby Matthew McConaughey in yet another Academy Award nominated* performance for Best Actor. In this case, I am underwhelmed for a different reason. DBC is the true story of someone facing certain death and looking mortality in the eye and persevering and rising above the odds...sound familiar? As with the handful of other films that have garnered early awards recognition, Fruitvale Station, The Butler, Rush, Captain Phillips, 12 Years A Slave, Lone Survivor to name a few, it is recognized that if you make a somber, important movie about a somber, important event and dramatize it to it's full Oscar potential, you're good. Unfortunately, Matthew McConaughey's best film this year was Mud which will probably get overlooked because it's a smaller film, a smaller story and more noticeably a fictional story. This falls in line with the other movies I was more excited about this year so far and to come, Her, American Hustle, and Nebraska to name a few.

But in the end, it doesn't matter. I love movies and even if there were 100 absolutely awful movies released this year, I will just come back next year to see what else is out there. I'm not all that worried about not liking what I'm supposed to like and appreciate because of its importance. For some reason, I have never been too fond of biographies, documentaries and films "based on a true story." I like fiction because you can come in as a fan completely unbiased, completely free of that anchor that "films based on a true story" always carry with them because naturally someone will have heard the "real story" on NPR or read an article about it online somewhere and go "Psshh, well you know, that's not what really happened" or the opposite, and watch Tom Hanks be heroic when in real life, his crew is suing him for ignoring orders and putting them in danger with the threat of pirates looming for them in the open seas. I have always enjoyed fiction more, possibly because my life is unexciting and I enjoy diving into a completely new, original world as opposed to being beat on the head and reminded of how horrible some event in history was and made to watch a two and a half hour dramatization of it. With Mud, which will probably end up being in my top ten of the year, I got a movie about friendship, hero worship, love and adventure all wrapped up in an awesome small genre film without being burdened about its real-world implications. No doubt, Ron Woodruff is a real life hero, his struggle inspired and helped a lot of people, but reading the story, you can't help but think how perfect it would be as a movie. Hopefully the engravers of the Oscar statues know how to spell "McConaughey".

*Projected (Stay tuned for the LDB,BL Oscar Predictions post, coming soon, I'm sure.)
**Last year, while watching the Oscars telecast, some guy sitting next to me at my friends house, right when Argo won for Best Picture, said, "That's so fucking stupid, that's the one that won?" I asked what he thought should've won and he said, "Well...I didn't see any of the other ones but they look better than Argo." I asked, "Did you see Argo?" He, of course, said "No." So that's why I rarely trust anybody's opinion on movies.

A Quick Appreciation Of Hal Hartley

There's a scene in Hal Hartley's 2006 film Fay Grim where Parker Posey is asked "Fay? Are you okay?" This is a question that can be asked in almost every one of Hartley's films. His movies are populated with people who are always in the midst of a crisis. He makes movies about men who are too smart, too complicated, too big for the world around them. They always seem to be waiting for the rest of the world to catch up to them. They're too intelligent by far, attractive, handy, self-reliant, dangerous, deadpan humorous and always preoccupied with the inner workings of things, always waxing philosophically about life, the universe and everything else. The men in his films always encounter strong, complex women who are a match for their curious, awkward, stilted attempts at figuring out life. The romance is always a little strange, quirky before the word meant what it does now, and doomed. As with most auteurs, one assumes that his characters are slightly removed versions of their creator, and not surprisingly, Hartley married an actress he worked with in his 1995 film Flirt.

Hartley's brilliance as a filmmaker lies in his writing. Since his first film in 1988, The Unbelievable Truth, his signature style has been evident, and still continues with his latest, 2012's Meanwhile. His characters speak in a poetic, sometimes jarring start-stop rhythm as if they're performing live for an audience. They speak fast, always bouncing back and forth off each other, theatrically enunciating and gesturing, almost as if allowing for a laugh track to come in or a live adjustment to be made. Talking is what most of Hartley's characters do best. In 1998's The Book Of Life, Jesus (Martin Donovan) and Mary Magdalen (PJ Harvey) ponder humanity and whether or not to trigger the apocalypse at the millenium and argue with Satan (Thomas Jay Ryan) about opening a program on an Apple laptop computer that will do so. In Flirt, 3 separate characters live their romantic lives in 3 different cities using the same dialogue. People seem to rarely be standing still in Hartley's movies, as if stopping would be akin to drowning. In fact, most of his characters are either running to or from something. A running theme in Hartley's work seems to be men who are perceived as dangerous always trying to escape or talk their way out of trouble. In the film No Such Thing, Sarah Polley is sent to Iceland to find a monster who killed her fiance. The monster, played by Robert John Burke, a frequent Hartley collaborator, is a sensitive, lonely, misunderstood creature who is at odds with the world because of his appearance and struggles to connect with Polley's character who tries to get him to come back to New York with her. In Simple Men, two brothers, played by Burke and Bill Sage, set off to find their fugitive father, a formerly famous mad genius. They argue, talk, philosophize, contemplate and argue some more. Continuing the theme of fugitive geniuses, 1997's Henry Fool, which is still considered Hartley's masterwork, concerns a mysterious stranger who arrives in the lives of the Grim family. Henry is a loud, garish, blustery writer who claims to have written the great novel of his time. He wreaks havoc on the Grim family, both inspiring and incriminating Simon, a bland garbageman who crafts a poem under the influence of Henry that makes him an instant star in the literary world, something that Fool could never achieve. Henry makes claims of having the secrets of the universe if people would just listen to him, for his genius and his bravado are always questioned. He eventually seduces and impregnates Simon's sister Fay, played by a fantastic Parker Posey, who would get her own story in 2006's Fay Grim but not before sleeping with their unstable mother in full view of Fay. In Fay Grim, it's many years later and Fay is being hounded by numerous state, federal and international agencies who want her help finding Henry's notebooks, which they believe hold state secrets. We learn more about the absent Henry, who since the end of Fool is on the run with the help of Simon, who is now in prison. Hartley writes fast and furious, his characters almost tripping over themselves in conversation, and Posey puts in the best performance of her career and that of anyone in Hartley's films in Fay Grim. She embodies everything that's great about Hartley and will soon be back to complete the family trilogy.

While the first focused on Henry and the second told Fay's story, the upcoming third film will feature the now 18 year old Ned, the son of Henry and Fay. It was just announced that Hartley is turning to Kickstarter, which he was able to successfully finance Meanwhile through to make Ned Rifle. Ned Rifle will tell the story of young Ned setting out on a journey to find his father and kill him for the trouble he has brought to the Grim family. It pretty much marks off everything on the Hal Hartley checklist and I for one can't wait. All the principles are on board and hopefully Hartley can find the amount he needs to get this going. The world created in these two films so far is fantastically woven, full of the extraordinarily mundane right next to the just plain extraordinary. Fay Grim is shot almost completely in what I learned is called Dutch angles, with the vast majority of the films scenes tilted precariously, so every shot looks as if it's on the verge of sliding away into something else if the characters don't finish their scenes quickly enough. It's sneakily tense and straddles the line between drama and tragicomedy. Henry Fool, made in the heyday of American indie film, looks slightly more aged but lacks none of the signature wit and storytelling that makes Hartley so brilliant. He birthed a world in Fool that will be continued in Ned Rifle and I can hardly wait. If you aren't familiar, I highly suggest delving into the world of Hartley. A double feature of Henry Fool and Fay Grim is as good a place to start as any.

New Music Roundup

I've been slacking lately on music, I've mostly been content with listening to my old CDs and the stuff I have stocked up in my iTunes. I haven't got any fresh blood in there in a while since I've been so busy listening to all of my sports podcasts. Those take up most of my time. But I've got a few new album additions that will be added to the rotation:

iTunes SESSION - Frank Turner
Frank Turner is one of my new favorites, definitely on heavy rotation the last few years. The man is prolific, constantly putting out albums, EPs and collections full of stripped down punk rock flush with all the passion, heart and dedication that makes punk rock work. This small collection is culled mostly from his newest LP, TAPE DECK HEART, but the best track is the older "Photosynthesis," in which Turner sings defiantly about refusing to give in and grow up just quite yet when he is still willing and able to do what he loves, singing and playing guitar, exactly what he's doing here.

LINDSEY STIRLING - Lindsey Stirling
A friend at work turned me onto Lindsey Stirling who I found out is a strange mix of dancer, composer and violinist. Her videos display her skills at all three of those disciplines. This album is a retooled version of her debut release, layering her swooping, swirling and soaring violin over rhythmic electronic tracks. She dabbles in Dubstep (I admittedly still don't really know what Dubstep is) EDM, Hip-Hop and classical, all with no lyrics and this album is really enjoyable. I have it attached to a long playlist that I keep on all night and these songs always provide a nice change of pace. And she's cute as a button.

BLACK SWEATER MASSACRE - The Reigning Monarchs
I love this group. The Reigning Monarchs are Greg Behrendt and Mike Eisenstein but as a proud Cuddlah, I'm all about Behrendt. He is a stand-up comic and author (He's Just Not That Into You) but frequently states that if he could only do one thing the rest of his life, it would be playing music. In addition to his podcast, Walking The Room, this is his passion project. The Monarchs play an instrumental mix of vintage surf, punk, ska and even a little heavy metal; it's fun and fast and loud with truly great musicianship, not just Good-For-A-Vanity-Side-Project quality. They've put out a number of EPs and splits and this is their second full length album. It was partially Kickstarter funded and delayed a little bit but it was worth the wait. One iTunes reviewer says "Black Sweater Massacre plays and I am instantly a sunglass-wearing Cali punk creature of infinite cool" which is better than I could ever put it myself.

Weekends blah, amiright?

Not really, I had my first weekend off in about 9 months last week and it was glorious. I felt so free enjoying two days off in a row with the rest of the world.

One of the bad things about weekends, besides the constantly having to work them part, is no one on my blogroll updates on them. Seriously guys, I'm bored at work, give me something new to read! There's always Longreads of course, but I generally don't have THAT much time. I'm constantly refreshing looking for a new random table or some new, otherworldly monster for D&D. Sure i could just write my own, but I'm far too lazy for that. All the bitching being said here's a new monster:

BOOK FIEND (great name right?)

This lesser fiend looks like a wizard's lost spellbook except this of course is a trap. The clever devil uses the disguise to feed on the wonder and possibility that race through the reader's mind. It's "pages" have an illusion cast upon them that reads as whatever the victim imagined to be inside the pages in the first place. Victims are stuck in this trance until broken bu outside contact or until they die of hunger.
Barbarians and other characters with less than 8 Intelligence don't fall for the illusion and see the fiend as just a mundane book. If a player comes upon the fiend feeding on another being they can make a WIS/INT check to discern its real nature.

Magic Users could possibly command the fiend to tap into the memories and lives by making a Save vs. Magic at -2. Success means gaining a random spell of level 1d6 (stronger wizards don't fuck with the monster and thus won't lose any spells). Failure means losing a random prepared spell with another Save vs. Magic to see if that spell is burned out of their memory and unusable forever.

Any further attempts at domination must be made at a cumulative extra -2. If all spells are burned out of the character's mind then they can never cast again and go insane at the trauma of losing their connection to ultimate power.

On Returning From The Dead

The fascination with the dead returning is something that has permeated through almost every aspect of pop culture. One of the most popular shows on TV right now is of course The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead is, as previously mentioned, not a great show but it's effective. People like zombies, or more accurately, people like seeing people kill zombies. But what if the dead rose and they looked...exactly like they did when they were alive? Not covered in gore, not missing limbs or vital organs, not groaning and biting their former loved ones, just simply their regular selves?

That concept is explored in the French television show The Returned or Les Revenants if you prefer. It is set in an idyllic small mountain town in France that sits at the foot of a lake. Four years previous, a bus carrying 38 schoolchildren plunged off a cliff, killing all of them. The accident cast a pall over the town, it's impact still felt years later as the town and the families struggle to move on. We see the stress of a grief counseling session and how it takes it's toll on the surviving parents. The group struggles to drum up enthusiasm as one woman announces that she is pregnant again, and the father of a girl named Camille, who we will meet, copes with his grief by sleeping with one of his young waitresses at the bar he owns and showing up late and scoffing his way through the meeting. He receives a call from his estranged wife requesting his presence at home and everything changes from there. A mysterious young boy follows the town doctor around, a handsome young man wanders around town looking for his wife, as she doesn't live or work where she used to, a young woman returns home and frightens her distraught grandfather. They all show up exactly as they were that day four years ago, not having aged, unaware of their death, even wearing the same clothes, as if nothing has happened, wondering why everyone around them is acting so strange. The question always posed by zombie fiction is, How will we as survivors cope with a world that has changed? This show asks the question, How will the returned cope with a world that has moved on? And that distinction is much more fascinating to watch.

The Returned is, simply put, a creepy show. The little boy known as Victor is about the most eerie child I've ever seen on screen. The band Mogwai does the music and creates a moody soundscape that works perfectly for the dark, chilly goings-on. The returned seem to be able to move about as they please, disappearing and reappearing at will. They also wreak havoc on the electricity grid of their small town, lights they pass under flicker and the entire town is plunged into a blackout apparently at the fateful moment of return. As the show progresses, we'll see how the interactions will affect everyone and if the first episode is any indication, how the returned are mysteriously, inextricably linked to some of their surviving counterparts. And how the schoolchildren aren't the only ones returning. The best story so far is the relationship between Camille and her sister, once twins whose actions on that day four years ago put this whole thing in motion who now have to live with each other again, as strangers. Throw in serial killings that evoke similar murders from the past, Twin Peaks-ian levels of the darkness and secrets that lie in a small town, and an ability to create a dialogue about just what the repercussions of a situation like this would really be and we have an extremely compelling, smart, interesting show.

Quite predictably, there is an American version of this show coming soon to ABC called Resurrection, that will almost definitely not be as well made. It apparently will focus more on the religious aspect of this phenomenon, something that is only very briefly touched on in this show in a scene of dialogue between Camille's parents. The Image Comics series Revival has a similar story, where the dead came back to life for one day in rural Wisconsin but they don't come back completely normal and with the revival comes all manner of darkness on the quarantined town, both human and supernatural. This is immensely more interesting than just the last bastion of humanity hacking at rotting corpses with shovels and samurai swords while also doing battle with each other. Having to adapt and live again with someone you had known to be dead and gone and the innate struggles and horror that will come from that makes for quality viewing.

On a quick side-note, The Returned is yet another in a long line of shows that have been imported from Europe for consumption by fans of quality, epic, cinematic television. Series like Luther, Sherlock, The Fall and Wallander have all been brought to American screens with great acclaim. Two shows, Jane Campion's Top Of The Lake on Sundance and BBC America's Broadchurch, both shows about small towns (near bodies of water, interestingly enough) in the midst of an out of the ordinary violent crisis are this shows most recent counterparts. The Returned aired on French television last year but will begin showing on Sundance Channel Thursday nights starting on Halloween.

If You Are Reading This, It Means I'm Dead

At the time of this writing, I don't know what it is that will be the cause of my demise, but as I write in every update of this letter, I can only hope that it will be the noble death of a warrior. When the sole purpose for one's existence is to be a soldier, a soldier's death is the only one befitting him. I hope, insomuch as someone like me can, that nobody else but me will ever see the contents of this letter but if that is the way it turns out, then that, as they say, is that. My existence is a mystery to me, my first memory will not be much different than my last, I suppose. We have existed for such a short period of time as a race that our full capabilities will not be known for sometime yet. I have yet to hear of any of my people dying of old age and to be quite honest, I do not yet know how my body will age with time. We are born and bred, so to speak, to be warriors and that is the definition of my existence. I have thoughts in my head sometimes of living a life without a sword in my hand and a bow on my back, but I don't know yet if that will be possible. The war is over but the world is not safe, danger has lurked around every corner for my entire life. The desire to live a life away from all of that seems so distant that it's hard to think about.

I have finished some business and am hoping to start a new chapter in the city of Sharn. It is a bustling city and has been known to be home to many of my people, as House Cannith has an outpost here and as the creators of my kind, I am naturally drawn here. Many of my kind have chosen a life of darkness, embracing their role as pure warriors at all costs, sometimes even to the degradation of their own souls. I hereby state that we, as Warforged, owners of our freedom also own a soul, just as all other peoples in the land. I made a decision at one point to do good, to not follow the path of that abomination the Lord Of Blades and his kind, as I do not possess a desire to gain power at any cost. I have, at times, been forced to face my own kind in matters of life and death and fortunately I prevailed. But extinguishing the life of my own kind is not what I hoped to be doing with my freedom. I hope to embark on a new adventure from this point. I hope to gain a little bit more knowledge about my kind and work toward advancing my people's place in this world. My final thoughts at this time, as I sit in the public market and experience the city moving around me, are those of a man, yes, a man, who hopes to open this letter and update it at another time and place with more knowledge, more experience, and a more advanced place in this world. If I never update this letter, so be it. Live by the sword, die by the sword. My name is Ell. Don't forget me when I'm gone.

New Music: BANKS and The Blow

I've been pretty obsessed with the L.A. based singer BANKS lately. Dark electro-pop goodness. I'm not much of a music reviewer, but check her out. Also, here's a dope spotify playlist from her that also contains James Blake, The Weeknd and Drake. If you know me, you know I was shitting my pants when I first played it.

The Blow also came out with a new album that is self-titled, late career S/T albums crack me up. It's dope though and I recommend checking it out as well. If you have Spotify follow me and I've got these playlists up. Or don't... is that a weird thing? Am I asking for creepers? Do I care?

Mondays are for Chaos

So I run two groups of D&D and my group that meets on Monday officially became bad people about two sessions ago. When they created their characters, the Lawful/Chaotic distinction kind of put them off. Not wanting to pigeonhole themselves, they all chose Neutral. This is understandable to me, but after a couple of months of murder and mayhem it's time to call it. They've gone to the dark side. Here, I'll give a brief run-down of the events that lead up to this decision:

• They met outside a burning inn and immediately decapitated and placed the heads on spikes of the kobolds who burned said inn.
• Robbed the wizard's house in the first town they visited, fled into forest.
• 3 die in forest, remaining two duel over belongings of everyone. Halfling leaves victorious and loot laden.
• Group meets back up in town after some hand waving resurrection that the Halfling is still pissed about, group murders more kobolds, revenge cited as reason.
• Halfling strangles street tough in broad daylight.
• Group flees murder charge across ocean, gets involved in Thieves Guild and starts race riots (against kobolds). 3 days of fire and carnage follow.
• After things die down they pull off massive heist of a bank and become rich as fuck.
• Group tries hand at dungeoneering, sacrifice all of their henchman, Halfling almost becomes wereboar.
• Group flees across ocean again.
• They meet tribal peoples, don't immediately kill them, but instead argue for 30 minutes over creating a slave trade.
• Raid on Imperial outpost 1 goes off way too easily, group super confident. Sends heads and testicles back to the mainland.
• Raid second outpost with help of druid/panthers. These troops have done nothing to them, just happen to be from same country where the Halfling is wanted for murder.
• Ambushed at third outpost, 45 minute argument about creating slave trade again.

Anyway I think this is enough. They now have at least 3 factions that could feasibly be hunting them. I'll give them one thing, they make my job easy.

Brie Larson's Feet

Working at a movie theater you might be surprised to learn I get into a lot of conversations about movies. These conversations inevitably lead to arguments about who was in what movie or who directed which trilogy or whatever. When this happens I immediately go to the internet to resolve the argument because I am determined to prove to everyone involved that I am right. I am rarely right. In one of these conversations the actress Brie Larson was brought up and I can honestly tell you I still have no idea what she looks like. I had to search for her to find out who she was, and I think she was in Scott Pilgrim and possibly played Ruxin's au pair in The League. Now to the title, whenever I search an actress' name within the top search suggestions is the option for "[Actress' name]'s feet."  I find this hilarious, but a little disappointed because part of me knows it's probably for normal, sexual reasons. I like to dream that maybe it's just some large group of aficionados of shoes or the platonic aesthetics of feet.

Whatever reason here's an RPG table:

What's Up With That Foot Cult?  (Roll d6)

1. Guild of Cordwainers who are searching for the perfect pair of feet to adorn with their prized relic and leadership to bring about the return of personal luxury leather shoes.
2. Minor politicians and upwardly mobile middle class leaders operating a not so secret foot fetish club rotating nightly between each other's houses and you just found the invitation with tonight's address.
3. An Elk's lodge type thing. The foot fetish as mascot was a joke proposed long ago and now it has taken on a ceremonial significance most serious.
4. A group of misguided architects looking for inspiration in all the wrong places - notably by kidnapping young people and cutting off their feet to trace the arches.
5. Halfling worshiping hippies who drink and smoke all day while proselytizing the joys of bare feet.
6. A mad wizard who is searching the world for the latest incarnation of the Traveler or similar god whom he believes can only be found by studying the dirt gathered in toenails. (Bonus points if you decide to use The Traveler from TNG, the weirdo.)

Fun Fact: Brie Larson's Feet was almost the title of this entire blog, but we decided that wasn't a great long term name.

Movie Review: Escape From Tomorrow

  

The easiest way to describe Escape From Tomorrow would be: David Lynch does Disney World. There is all manner of evil and debauchery here behind the curtains at the happiest place on earth, problems that manifest as visions (or are they?) as well as physical ailments on one man having a very bad day in his already shitty life. He is married to a woman ("She's pretty in an Emily Dickinson sort of way") who barely tolerates him and his beer belly & Hawaiian shirts. He's the kind of guy who gets bullied by his kids. He's on vacation with his family in Florida when he gets a call from someone telling him he has been fired from his job doing who knows what. He leaves that information for a later time, wanting to let his kids enjoy one last day of vacation before they head back to who knows where. His wife nags and cuckolds him, not even giving up a kiss while enjoying a leisurely ride through the world of Winnie The Pooh. On the monorail into the park, the first hint of lechery seeps out of Jim (Roy Abramsohn), whose face devolves into a slimy grin when he sees two young, flirty Parisian teenage girls who giggle and flirt their way into the debauched mind of the bored, middle-aged, horny Jim, whose wife and kids are sitting right next to him. The strange journey that he goes on while not-too-stealthily following the two girls around the park ("Daddy, why are we following those two girls?") only begins on that monorail and doesn't end until Jim really sees what goes into making the happiest place on earth and what happens when you don't heed the warnings and blindly try to enjoy yourself.

Did I mention that this is for all intents and purposes a comedy? Writer/director Randy Moore gets plenty of shots of all the things that you see in a place like Disney World (Disney is only uttered one time in the film and it gets bleeped out); sneezing, coughing, hacking old men, obese Southerners in scooters eating chicken, lots of vomiting, lines that go for hours only to finally arrive at the cars and have the ride shut down. However, in this context, they're humorous, and watching our Jim try to navigate the sea of people and fake happiness lets us enjoy it instead of be victim to it. Moore and a small crew shot the film over a series of trips to Disney World and Disneyland and shooting among the crowds with no interruption from cast members. Abramsohn, on a recent episode of Doug Loves Movies, noted that that method was possible because the grounds are so hectic and there are already so many people with cameras that one or two cameras filming a family didn't raise any eyebrows. He noted that while Disney never gave permission to shoot there, they are aware of the film and are not going to plan any kind of interference upon its release. If they were remotely concerned about Escape From Tomorrow, the film would have never seen the light of day.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Tomorrow is the fun it has at the expense of Disney and its properties. Animatronic figures and beloved characters devolve into demonic creatures that start to unravel Jim's already fragile state of mind. A sultry woman sharing a bench in a playplace with Jim tells him over an oversized Emu drumstick as their kids play with each other that all the princesses are in fact high priced call girls and that Asian businessmen pay handsomely for private time with them. Jim witnesses this first hand and what starts out as a fun photo op for he and his son turns into a vulgar display that Jim can't believe what his eyes are seeing is actually happening. Another scene has fun showing us what really goes on inside that big Epcot globe ("It looks like a big testicle"). However, the more bizarre stuff is what really makes it interesting. A nurse clinging to the edge of her own fragile state of being, Jim's lust for the Parisians (as well as the effect they have on his young son) and their overt sexuality and infatuation with various phallic objects around the park, the threat of Cat Flu and a sinister plot involving naked women and the Siemens Corporation provide plenty to enjoy and ponder. The entire film is in black & white and it creates an eerie mood and even makes Disney janitors seem menacing. Having all the color and cheer taken out of the park makes it easier to see the weird and the creepy that is lurking in the shadows. At least for Jim. Everyone else seemed to be having a good time, and why wouldn't they, who doesn't love Disney World? Seeing Disney push a man to the brink of sanity is worth the price of admission alone. If David Lynch or David Cronenberg did tackle a project like this, it would be better and would bring the weirdness and quality to the next level but for now, we can enjoy this unique film and be glad that Disney is letting us.

It's A Popularity Contest

When we watch TV, those of us who are elitist pop culture aficionados, we seem to always be watching stuff that’s on the verge of cancellation or on the fringes of the ratings scale. We all pined for Arrested Development when it was prematurely shut down before it could even get through a full third season. But it went out like a champ, at least creatively, and reemerged seven years later as one of the most anticipated television events of the year. Among a very small portion of the population. So small that none of the networks wanted to touch it all this time so it had to go to the at-the-time uncharted waters of Netflix. Supposedly it caused a huge spike in subscriptions for Netflix but they don’t have to report their viewership so we don’t really know if that’s true. If we go on Twitter or talk to our friends or read blogs from people who live in LA or New York, shows like Mad Men and Girls dominate the conversation but the truth is, the general public does not watch those shows. If any of the shows on AMC were on a network, they would have been cancelled long ago. People watch and ABSOLUTELY LOVE shows like The Big Bang Theory and procedurals like Law & Order. The general public loves catchphrases and familiar titles. Do you know who Cote De Pablo is? Of course not. She is the star of NCIS and she will be leaving the show this season (its 11th)* and people are FREAKING THE FUCK OUT about it… but the people who are worrying about it are blue collar, middle aged and elderly people in the suburbs who don’t tweet or have pop culture blogs. Is she a good actress? Is NCIS a good show? The answer is probably not, at least not by the standards that the young, upwardly mobile, bi-coastal, Twittersphere judges pop culture by but CBS and Ms. Pablo are laughing all the way to the bank. There’s a reason they’re called “procedurals,” because they follow the same formula, the formula that people like, the formula that draws eyeballs and sells ad space. We are in or possibly coming out of the so-called Golden Age of Television. The shows that are on the Mount Rushmore of TV are over and the remainders are yet to be proven. Justified and Mad Men will go for a few more years and Game Of Thrones and Homeland will stay on and win some Emmys and then fade away but there will be multiple iterations of these bland procedurals to satiate the mass viewing public for years to come. Reruns of Two And A Half Men and sports almost always beat out what we have left standing in as quality TV. Will my parents ever care about what Don Draper‘s fate will ultimately be? Fuck no. But do they watch reality tv about rednecks who hunt for things in swamps? Yes they do. Personally, most of my favorite shows get cancelled** but there are more reality programs than ever and they’re taking over precious airtime like a plague.

This is nothing new, it’s not a novel argument, the distinction between popular things and quality thins has always been wide, for the most part. An article in Esquire cites some comparisons, the Duck Dynasty finale last season which drew 10 million viewers compared to the Mad Men finale that drew only 3 million and an unfunny midseason episode of The Big Bang Theory that drew 20 million viewers while shows from comedic geniuses like Louis C.K. and Amy Schumer have to be made for pennies because they’re always on the bubble. That article is much more interesting and in-depth than this one but I just used it as a jumping off point to start a conversation. This argument always comes up around Oscar season, as people wonder if any of the nominees will actually make any money.*** It’s not out of the ordinary for studios to spend more money on advertising campaigns for Oscar consideration than the films grossed or cost to make because acclaim is what keeps them going if they can‘t bring in superhero money. Hollywood stars aren’t the draw they used to be because by now, those stars are reluctant to jump aboard established franchises because they think their name and face is still the draw but franchise sequels are the only movies that make money nowadays. They can win Oscars by doing gritty indie films but studios would rather pay a newcomer a few dollars to be the face of an already established franchise because paying $20 million to Will Smith isn’t worth the risk anymore. A theater like Laemmle that is supposed to specialize in art-house and independent cinema rarely does, at least in Claremont, because art-house and independent doesn’t sell. There’s a reason we only show documentaries and foreign language films, films that will probably be shortlisted for Oscars, twice a week while The Lone Ranger gets 21 screenings per week. Even though people claim to like smaller films, they really don’t, but good for them for pretending to. Maybe they’ll stumble upon something good by accident on Netflix. The movies that sell tickets and popcorn for Laemmle are low to mid budget passion projects headlined by Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep that don‘t make a splash at the box office. Sometimes a film breaks through and makes a star out of someone but it’s rare. Most indie films open in New York and LA and if they do well MAYBE they’ll screen for our friends in Omaha or Fargo a month later because nobody in Omaha or Fargo knows who Ellen Page is until Juno comes to the local theater. Theaters and television networks are businesses and as much as we hate seeing shows we like get the axe and shows we hate, or worse, don’t care about at all, thrive, we wouldn’t have anything at all if they weren’t around. That’s why the old model keeps being used, the same reheated jokes and premises keep being served up, the same shows keep getting spin-offs, the same movies keep getting remade and sequelized: It’s not worth the trouble to try something new and they want to stay in business. Most people eat the same food every day, date the same kind of people over and over again, maintain the same routine because it works and it’s comfortable and it’s easy. When people break out and try something new, we get interesting art and it gets us talking and that’s when the magic happens.^

*Do you really think Louie will get 11 seasons?
**A list that includes such gems from the past few years as Happy Endings, BFF, Apartment 23, Bored To Death, The Killing and Terriers just to name a few.
***When I say “people wonder” I don’t mean people I know or talk to because nobody I know or talk to cares about box office grosses or awards shows or Hollywood trends so I have to get my info online and skirt that world via podcasts and the internet. I'm aware that nobody I know cares about this stuff but for some reason I think about it a lot and write blog posts expecting people to read about it.
^That was the most cliché sentence I have ever written.

First Date

A short story

-Have you ever thought about how you would die?
-Not really, Michael says, Not like, I think I’m gonna drown or fall off a building, nothing like that. But I always thought by the time I’m supposed to die, like 50 or 60 years from now, they might have invented something to give people so they just don’t die anymore.
-That, Janie says, or we’ll all be dead from a comet or something. Did you see that thing a few months ago, that comet that was so close to earth that it was inside the orbit of our satellites? I also always kind of thought I might die from a car accident, I mean, statistically, that’s probably the most dangerous thing I do multiple times every day. Janie sits up a little against the wall she’s leaning on, readjusts her skirt, stretches her legs. I always have these dreams where I’m driving too fast and I can’t make a turn in time and drive off a cliff.
-Do you think that’s a sign of something, are you living your life in the fast lane? What would Freud say?
-I don’t think so, I’m a pretty boring girl. Plus, I drive like an old lady, I would never be driving recklessly down a mountain road.
Janie was new to the job, today was her first day, as a matter of fact. Mike took note pretty fast as she was the only person on the staff who was under the age of 40. She was cute too, but he didn’t want to worry about that right now, he was just happy to have someone to talk to who was his contemporary. He had been introduced to her earlier in the day but he was terrible with names, he couldn’t remember hers. And he didn’t want to lean forward and turn to look at the nametag on her chest for fear she would catch him and call him out for being a pervert. So they just sat there, killing time.
-I’m hungry, I didn’t eat breakfast. I spent way too much time getting ready to come here today. I tried on about 5 outfits.
-You’re lucky, Michael offers, you have way more choices. My only choices every day are basically the white shirt… or the blue shirt.
-You’re making it work though. I like your tie, it gives it all a little extra flair. Guys look good in a nice shirt and tie.
-Thanks, he says. I’ve always envied women, you have so many choices in apparel that can look good. If men experiment too much, it can get a little touch and go.
-I wouldn’t dress like this anywhere but here, they have the whole business casual thing that is kind of limiting.
-Yeah but even with those limitations, you have a lot more to work with. You look nice.
-Well, thank you, she says. She unconsciously flattens her skirt on her legs and tugs at her collar a little bit. Are you one of those guys who likes the whole ‘women in a uniform’ thing? You know, the teacher or the secretary in the tight pencil skirt and tiny, halfway unbuttoned blouse.
-Maybe, he says with a smile. I mean, he starts, suddenly theatrically stoic, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
-Well, I guess you wouldn’t be interested in seeing my Halloween costume from a few weeks ago, she teases. When we get our phones back, I could show you, although you’re not interested so I guess I’ll keep it to myself.
He chuckles a little, keeping his voice low. Considering the circumstances, he was actually having a good time. Michael, who was basically sleepwalking through his job for the past year, was happy to have someone to talk to on this particular day. Hopefully, once they got back to work, his days would be filled with good conversation with this new, fun girl and not lunch in the break room with the middle aged moms and their stories about their husbands and children.
-You think they’ll bring us pizza or something?
-I hope so. You think we’re getting paid for today still?
-Hopefully. The ink is barely dry on my paperwork, I’m probably not even in the system yet.
-Look at it this way, he says, lowering his voice, anything that comes up in your training won’t be as bad as this right? Getting hit on by old men and counting a bucket of change from some crazy lady will seem like a walk in the park.
She slaps him on the leg and giggles. They take a look around the room. Everybody is basically doing the same thing as them, sitting against the wall, hands in their laps, occasionally leaning over to say something to their neighbor.  In this day & age, it’s weird to see people just sitting, not staring at their phone.
-What do you think they’re doing? she whispers.
-I don’t know. I thought these kinds of things are supposed to go fast, in and out.
-You’d think so. They must be after something in particular.
Janie crosses her arms across her chest and brings her legs up close to her. Mike notices and has an internal argument with himself about whether or not to give her his suit jacket. She’s clearly a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need him to protect her or take care of her. He doesn’t want to come onto her in any way, after all, a gesture like that carries a symbolic meaning with it. He finally decides to be chivalrous and leans forward to take off his jacket and offers it to her. Without any hesitation or awkwardness, she leans forward as well and accepts the gesture, grabbing the coat by the lapels and covering herself with it.
It is quite cold in the room, as the cold November air is finally creeping in. If this went on much longer, it was likely to get uncomfortable.
-How long have you worked here?
-About two years.
-Do you like it here?
-Yeah, it’s not so bad, I mean, he gestures in front of them, stuff like this doesn’t happen every day.
-I always start a job and get excited about if for a while then get bored and start to resent the job and everyone I work with.
-Oh that’ll happen too. In 6 months you’ll despise me.
She laughs and hits him on the leg again.
-We’re like the only people here who aren’t middle-aged, she whispers to him. Do you get along with all these women?
-Yeah, they’re alright. I don’t have much in common with any of them but they’re nice enough.
-How about that one, she leans in again and whispers even more quietly, she looks like a cougar.
-She’s alright, he says nonchalantly, we hooked up a couple times.
She looks at him, mouth agape, Really?
-Yeah, and they’re fake, in case you were wondering.
She is still looking at him, wondering if he’s putting her on.
-I’m just kidding, he says, with a mischievous smile.
-I was gonna say, good for you.
-It looks like something is going on. You hear that?
Everyone quiets down and stiffens up a little. We all crane our necks in an attempt to see out the windows but they’re too high up. Men walk by quickly, speaking to each other, but it’s inaudible to them. Shortly, the door opens and a man in a black knit mask places two big, flat boxes printed with a little man tossing a pizza above his head on the floor.
-Lunch, he says, and walks out of the room and shuts the door.
-His manners leave a little to be desired, she says.
-Yeah, he didn’t even ask us what toppings we wanted.
She stifles a laugh, covering her mouth while looking at him. You’re funny.
-Thank you, but more importantly, I’m hungry.
He reaches to the box and opens it up and looks at an extra large cheese pizza from the place across the street. It’s still hot even. He grabs a slice in each hand then nudges the box to the group of women sitting in the corner. The other box had already been descended upon by the cougar, she picked it up and brought it back to her side of the room. He hands a slice to Janie and she takes it and offers thanks. They sit quietly and eat their lunch, enjoying themselves, considering the circumstances. He hadn’t really noticed when it happened but they were now sitting shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee. Michael discreetly smiled to himself as he bit into his crust.
After everyone’s hunger was temporarily satiated, they all descended into a long silence, the gravity of the situation finally setting in. They were becoming restless, the women stuck in their stockings and skirts and stiff business casual wear. A couple even started doing stretches and seated yoga maneuvers.
-Do you mind? Janie asks, as she rests her head on his left shoulder.
-No, go ahead, he says, masking his elation, wondering if she could somehow sense his elevated heartbeat from the contact they’re now making.
-You smell good. Is that Burberry?
-It is, you know your scents.
-I worked at the perfume counter at Macy’s before this. She opens the jacket to highlight her outfit. I bought these clothes there the day I found out I got this job and then quit.
-Nice, you got that employee discount one last time. I always hated walking by those counters at department stores, you get assaulted by a wave of 10 different colognes and perfumes that burn your nose.
-I think I lost my sense of smell working there, except for colognes and perfumes. She crinkles and squeezes her nose for effect. My nose has mutated so it only reacts to Dolce & Gabbana and Chanel now.
-Not the worst affliction, I suppose. I love those Chanel ads with Audrey Tautou.
-She’s gorgeous. Is she your biggest actor crush?
-No, but she’s up there, he says after running a few images through his head, probably top 5. I like the same girls everyone likes, Jennifer Lawrence, Scarlett Johansson, Snookie.
-Oh yeah, Snookie does it for you, huh? she says, laughing.
-Ooh, hell yeah, he says with a straight face.
She giggles and nudges a little closer to him. He has yet another debate with himself as to whether or not he should put his arm around her. The part of him telling him he shouldn’t do it yet was in the midst of an uphill battle when his reverie was interrupted.
The door to the conference room opened and a man stepped in. He held up an iPhone to one of the women Mike had passed the pizza box to and pulled a pistol out of the back of his pants and shot her in the forehead.
He spoke through his black knit mask into the phone as he held it out in front of him. Any attempt to apprehend us in this building will result in the death of the rest of the hostages. Goodbye. He then pushed a button and placed the phone in a pocket on his vest. He calmly stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him.
The women on each side of the headshot bank teller were screaming and speckled with blood. The exit wound was small yet still hideously grotesque. It went through her and blew a jagged hole in the thin wall of the room. They scurried in both directions along the wall away from the body.
Janie had grabbed his arm and was squeezing it and hiding her face in his shoulder. Michael adjusted himself and blocked her view of the woman. After a minute or two of holding her, feeling her weep into his embrace, listening to everyone in the room crying, she finally sat up and he held her face gently in his hands.
-Are you okay, he asks quietly, looking straight at her for the first time, her eye makeup smeared and running down her cheek.
-Yeah, she says, barely audible and confirms it with a slight nod.
-I’m going to take this, okay, he says, and gently removes his suit coat from her shoulders.
She grabs his hand and squeezes it before he turns around and crawls to Mary, the teller. She lies awkwardly on her side, face down, one arm underneath her at an unnatural angle, the other sticking straight out, as if reaching for something toward the middle of the room. Mike doesn’t touch or move the body in any way, swallowing back the bile threatening to rise up his throat, ignoring the shake in his hands, and places his suit coat over her torso and more importantly, the head, temporarily covering the gore and the slowly growing puddle of blood spreading from the wound.
From his vantage point on his hands and knees, he dares to peek out of the hole blown in the thin, wood paneled wall. He looks upon the scene in the lobby of the bank for the first time in hours. He can only see in the direction facing the stairwell that goes up to the managers offices and the room that houses the safety deposit boxes.
There is nobody in his limited vision of sight and he decides to lean forward over the body to get a wider range of vision. He can see a group of men discussing something just out of range of the front door. They are in all black but a couple of them were stripping down to street clothes that they had on under their cargo pants and pullovers. Beyond them was another room containing the customers who had the misfortune of being inside the bank when it was taken over. The first action the two men took after announcing their intentions was to separate the employees from the patrons and ask for the bank manager to present herself. A man took her away while the other man separated the two groups of hostages and stood guard.
But now, it seemed there were as many as half a dozen of them.
Michael felt a wetness on his fingers and he leaned back and pulled his hand up. The pool of blood had spread and stained the thumb and index finger of his left hand. He stared at it for a moment, watching it drip to the floor as he held it up, and finally wiped it on his pants leg. He crawled back along the wall to where Janie had moved to be closer to the other women and put his arm around her and told them all it was going to be okay, acknowledging to himself that it was a weak gesture of comfort, but it was about all he could muster at the moment.
-What did you see, the cougar asked him in a loud whisper, pointing in the direction of the hole in the wall above Mary.
-Not much, he starts, quietly. They were standing by the front door talking and they were taking their black clothes off and changing into regular clothes. That’s about all.
-What do you think they’re doing? Janie asks.
-I’d guess they’re done with whatever it is they came here for.
-Well how are they going to get out then? They’re going to have a shootout in regular clothes? Why not keep the bulletproof vests and the ones with all the pockets for guns and stuff?
-I don’t know, he says pensively, as a couple light bulbs started to flicker on and off in his head. I think they’re going to try something, some kind of escape. I think they were focusing on the safety deposit boxes, they probably came for something specific and now they found it and are putting together their plan to escape.
-How do you think they’re going to do it, the cougar asks. I mean, this place has got to be surrounded right?
He nods in agreement, still trying to catch up to the thoughts running through his head.
-There’s no way they would survive a shootout going out the front door, he says.
-But that’s the only way out of the building, isn’t it, Janie asks.
-It’s the only way out from ground level, he says, and lets it sink in for a minute.
-The roof, the cougar asks, unbelieving.
-Probably not, there’s got to be snipers nearby, and besides, like you said, the building has to be surrounded. Michael cranes his neck to see if their sentry is checking on them, but he can’t see anyone. And the police would hear a helicopter coming from a mile away.
-So what then, Janie asks.
As if on cue, there is a blast outside of their building that sends a shockwave through them. The glass front door shatters and their ears are ringing from the sheer volume of the explosion in the moments following the blast. The first thought Michael has is, it must be the building across the street.
He rises to his haunches and edges across the room and finally peeks over the paneling to look through the glass top out onto the lobby. People are streaming out of the other holding pen, the bigger conference room where the guests were held. They are running out and rounding the corner and sprinting toward the shattered front door.
Michael turns back to the women in the room and for the first time all day speaks above a loud whisper, I don’t know what’s happening but they’re gone, the customers are free. They’re running outside.
Janie sits up and rushes to his side. Oh my god, she says, holding onto his arm.
-I think they blew up the building across the street and used it as some kind of diversion. I’m sure things are nuts out there.
-But how-
Janie stops short when SWAT officers in riot gear rush in. One spots them in the glass room and aims his rifle directly at them. They quickly raise their hands in a surrendering gesture, and the black-clad officer makes his way to them and tells them to get on the ground and not to move.
Face to face yet again, Michael whispers to Janie, It’s going to be okay now.
She gives a small smile and whispers back, I know.

The next day, Michael sits at the diner down the street from the bank, only a few blocks from his apartment, and sets the newspaper on the table next to the glass of water and coffee mug that his hostess is already filling up. She says she’ll be back in a few minutes and he takes a sip of the brew. He had finally been cleared to go home after giving his statement multiple times and leaving all of his contact information. When he had asked if they could tell him anything about what had happened there, the police only said that they would probably contact him soon to come to the station and talk further with detectives. He had waited at the site until he saw Janie walking to the parking lot. He caught up with her and gave her his phone number and told her to call if she needed anything. She had called him the next morning and asked him if he wanted to get breakfast.
He picks up the paper and of course, the bank heist is plastered all over the front page. He reads:

A downtown branch of Union National Bank was the site of a daring daytime heist yesterday that claimed the lives of one bank employee and three police officers. Police say that two men entered the bank at 11:47 pm and proceeded to blockade the front door, disable the security system, keep employees and bank customers hostage, and finally make an escape at approximately 4:45 pm when an explosion rocked the building across the street from the bank, causing three police officers to lose their life due to debris from the explosion. It is unclear what the thieves were after, as initial reports say there was no attempt to acquire any of the cash on hand and that there seemed to be none missing. Police have been slow in releasing information to the media and will not release any details of the investigation or the names of the victims until their families have been notified. Initial reports also cite no information on the culprits, but someone with knowledge of the incident anonymously stated that there were no suspects in custody and investigators were still trying to determine how they might have escaped. One theory is the explosion in the adjacent building was used as a diversion meant to disorient and-

He senses someone in front of him at the top of his vision and looks up into the face of Janie, freshly showered and cleaned up from the day before. She has swapped her work wear for jeans and a light sweater and looks comfortable and relaxed. He looks at this woman in front of him, a stranger 24 hours ago, their bond built on a tragedy. But having a hand to hold through tragedy, that had made it possible for them to come out of it, however ridiculous, improbable and macabre the whole thing had seemed.
She smiles and leans forward, her chin in her hands. Sorry I’m late.
-No problem, Janie. I just got here. He holds the paper out in front of him. Wanna read the story?
-Maybe later, she says and grabs a menu from its holder at the end of the table. What’s good here?