So, not only is this one of the more fucked up and twisted stories that people tell children, it gets more and more twisted and fucked up the farther back you go, until eventually there were no rats and there was no flute or fiddle and the "pied piper" was actually just a fucked up dude who murdered a bunch of kids in this town back in the 1200s and left their carved up corpses in the woods.

So, is the moral of the story "always keep your promises"?

No, the moral is "sometimes you're poor and live in a shitty little German city and then some asshole kills your kid" the end. Except it isn't REALLY the end, because eventually the Brothers Grimm will retell the story of how your kid was murdered and add a moral twist, making the murderer the victim and eventually it'll be a cartoon starring Porky Pig and the murderer will be a character in The Flash comic books and no one even knows that you or your dead kid even existed.

So I haven’t said much about how I feel about this.

For some reason it’s hit me particularly hard. I don’t know why. It’s weird.

I’m generally not overly invested in my celebrities. If someone I really respect or love dies, it bums me out. I was bummed when Mr. Rogers died. I was bummed when Joey Ramone died. And when Stanley Kubrick died. But those were all heroes of mine. They were people I looked up to and emulated.

A couple of weeks ago Brad Renfro died. I remember Sandra telling me on the phone. I was like "Pfft. So? Fuck Brad Renfro." I didn’t really care. He was a junkie and an actor I didn’t particularly like. Whatever.

So then I find out that Heath Ledger died and precedent indicates that I shouldn’t have particularly cared. I’ve never been interested in Heath Ledger. I’ve only ever seen him in one movie (Brothers Grimm) and that movies wasn’t particularly good. I certainly didn’t have anything against the guy, but I didn’t particularly like him either. Up until recently, I had pretty much no opinion about him.

By "up until recently" I mean that I had no opinion about him before I saw the trailer for The Dark Knight.

I remember when it was announced that he was going to play The Joker and I was skeptical . I was skeptical but I also trusted Christopher Nolan and the people who made Batman Begins. I trusted their vision and if they thought this Heath kid was capable of doing The Joker justice, then I was willing to give them (and him) the benefit of the doubt.

I should explain something.

As a child and young man I was a fan of comic books. I’d go so far to say that I was obsessive about comic books. It comes with being a socially awkward child (and teenager and adult) and I was no exception. Like most comic book fans, I had my favorites. I liked The X-Men and Wolverine and Spider-Man. I generally leaned towards the slightly more real world, capeless Marvel comics. I wasn’t particularly into Superman or The Flash or The Green Lantern or the other DC characters.

But then there was The Joker.

The Joker was (is) my all time favorite literary character. Not just comic book character, but favorite fictional character of all time. He beats out R.P. McMurphy from Cuckoo’s Nest and Willy Wonka and Raul Duke and Kilgore Trout. I won’t go into why I loved The Joker so much. I’ve covered that before. If you wanna read why I love The Joker so much, read this entry.

Needless to say, it was going to take a lot to live up to my desire for the ultimate Joker cinematic experience.

So yeah, I was skeptical. I saw the same preview pictures everyone else did, and gobbled them up like the juicy little marketing tidbits they were.

I began to get excited. It looked to me like there might be a chance for this one.

Then there was the first trailer. The teaser with just his voice. It was weird. My first reaction was negative, just because it was so… different. When Mark Hamill did the voice of The Joker on Batman the Animated Series (which was, in the opinion of many a comic book fan, myself included, the definitive interpretation Joker) his voice was such a defining part of his character. It was the element that was missing from the comics, and Mark Hamill somehow managed to perfectly embody not only everything that was great about The Joker we knew from the comics, but all of the other aspects of his character that had never really been considered before.

So it was a weird choice to introduce Heath Ledger’s Joker with only his voice. Like I said, my first reaction to it was negative. Not that I disliked it, I just didn’t know what to make of it. To me, he almost sounded like Jack Nicholson playing The Joker in Tim Burton’s first Batman film. Specifically, Jack in the scene where he’s impersonating Jack Palance’s spit sucking, clenched teeth voice and saying "Because Bob… you’re my number one… guy!"

But after I’d watched the trailer again. And again (and again and again) it started to grow on me. I started to get even more excited. I could hear more going on in his voice than just the jarring non-Mark Hamill-ness of it and the similarity to that one line of dialog from Nicholson. I actually listened to what he was saying, and while it wasn’t much, there was certainly a desperate insanity to it that gave me chills.

That was nothing compared to the exhilaration I felt watching the second trailer.

A lot of people freaked out when it was announced that Heath Ledger was playing The Joker. It was a fan backlash I hadn’t seen since Tom Cruise was cast as Lestat in Interview with the Vampire. Nerds and geeks everywhere were getting up in to an unwashed, trench coat fury in the basements of parents everywhere, furiously posting their displeasure on message boards everywhere. As with Cruise and Lestat (before Tom Cruise’s abilities as an actor were overcast by his apparent retardation and lack of sanity ) I had faith. I believed that the people in charge of creating the film in question were capable of delivering. Tom Cruise was amazing as Lestat, and judging from that second trailer, Heath Ledger appears to have embodied The Joker in ways I doubted were possible.

In the maybe forty seconds I saw of Heath as The Joker, I saw things that made my heart swell with psychopathic Joker love. I went from hoping for a great Joker movie to a mind numbing, orgasmic need to SEE THIS MOVIE. The joy I felt in seeing what was certainly going to be, if not the definitive, at least a fucking brilliant realization of my favorite fictional character.

And I was proud. It seems silly, but I was proud of Heath Ledger. While people were pissing and moaning about this pretty boy Brokeback actor playing The Joker, I had faith that he could do it. And, with that trailer, it looked as though he really DID do it, and it made me proud.

The next year was pretty much laid out for me, movie wise. Sure, there were movies I was looking forward to. But nothing compared to the excitement I felt about seeing The Dark Knight. For me, Batman Begins was as good a Batman Year One movie as we were ever going to get. It had it’s minor flaws (the biggest of which was that goofy title… though it wasn’t as bad as the title Batman Forever, which sounds like a name they’d give Batman The Musical: On Ice, starring Clay Aikin as The Joker and Elton John as Batman) but it exceeded anything I’d ever hoped for in a Batman film. With this trailer, it looked as though The Dark Knight (a much better title) was gearing up to be as good a Batman/Joker movie possible. And pretty much my entire summer centered around the release of this movie.

I was comfortable with that. I was happy. Totally content and at comfortable with letting my excitement build. I knew that by the time a couple weeks before the release rolled around, I’d be on the verge of losing my mind excited. I was looking forward to going into that theater and feeling my heart jump into my throat the first time The Joker stepped on screen.

Then everything changed.

I’d be lying if I said that the first thing I thought when I heard that Heath Ledger had died wasn’t "Goddamnit, I hope this doesn’t fuck up Batman." That was my first thought. My second thought was "Jesus, Terry Gillium can’t catch a fucking break!" and then I thought "What a tragedy. He was a year younger than me and he had a baby. What a tragedy." Which was then followed by the thought "God fucking damn it, this IS going to fuck up Batman!"

It’s callus and selfish, but it’s true.

As time went on and I thought about it more and more, I became sadder and sadder. Something about it was really sitting wrong with me. It shouldn’t have. It went beyond just the possibility that they might push The Dark Knight back into next year.

I really started to think about who Heath Ledger was.

First and foremost, he was my age. We’re both at the age where you’re expected to start defining who you’re going to be for the rest of your life. Brad Pitt was 30 when he blew me away as Early Grayce in Kalifornia and suddenly went from being another pretty face to a real, respectable actor. When he "grew up." Johnny Depp was 30 when he played Giblert Grape and proved that he was not only devastatingly attractive, but also an extremely talented and worthy actor. It seems that actors need to hit that 30 year mark before they’re really taken seriously. Even when a young actor puts in an amazing performance, it seems that they’re still something of a novelty until they’re 30. Look at Leonardo Dicaprio. Before Gangs of New York, he was still the kid in the Tiger Beat posters. As much as he tried to shake the image, it took Martin Scorsese to launch him into adulthood as an actor. To me, that was the performance that solidified him as a real actor. Sure, he was great in Gilbert Grape, but I still thought of him as a kid, like Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense, never sure if he was actually going to became a "real" actor. Sure, there was Titanic and Romeo and Juliet and The Basketball Diaries, but even then he was still just that kid from Growing Pains.

Leo was 28 when he did Gangs of New York. Heath was a few months shy of 29 when he died, and I believe that his performance as The Joker was going to be the one that convinced people (or, at least, me) that he was a real actor. Not just a celebrity or a pretty face, but an honest to God respectable working actor. Someone I could see making movies for years to come. Good movies. Solid movies. He’d done his time as a pretty boy. He never fell into the ego trap that seems to have swallowed up Toby Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal and most of his peers. You never got the feeling that Heath thought he was hot shit or overly important. He seemed content to show up, do his job, and go home at the end of the day, happy he was doing what he loved. Even though I wasn’t watching his movies (not out of any conscious effort, it just never worked out that way) I respected the way he conducted himself both as an actor and as a celebrity. He seemed like he tried acting as a passion and a job and wasn’t particularly interested in playing the part of a celebrity. But he wasn’t a prick about it. He didn’t throw tantrums when people took his photo and he didn’t make a big production out of his personal demons. Yes, he apparently went through a period of drug addiction. But I never knew about it until his death, and that’s how it should be. I don’t want to know that actors and musicians are drug addicts. I respect his discretion. He didn’t let the drama in his personal life bleed into his work.

The fact that he was on the verge of becoming that respectable, adult "real" actor when he died is really heartbreaking. The fact that we’re in the same age group (I’m a year and a few months older) makes it that much harder to digest. Here’s a guy who is on pretty much the exact trajectory that I long to be on. A guy who really made it. He made it on his terms and was just about to get the recognition as a creative force to be reckoned with in the film industry. I believe that was part of the reason I was so excited for his performance as The Joker. I wanted desperately for him to succeed because it made me feel good that a guy who was my peer (age wise) was going to really make it and become a respectable artist. Someone who was so good that he actually scared Michael Caine with his performance. He was going to get to that point that he could really do whatever he wanted because people believed in him. Beyond just being admired, but really respected. I so desperately want that for myself and it made me feel good to see someone at least in some ways on my level make it.

The circumstances of his death are confusing and hard to pinpoint. On one hand, I’m glad he didn’t commit suicide or die because he was a drug addict. I’m glad that they didn’t find any illegal drugs in his house or in his system. Part of me is glad at least. I’m glad that he was able to go out with some dignity and without scandal. In his life, he conducted himself with discretion and humbly, and I’m glad that he was able to carry that through in his death as well, even if reporters and paparazzi swarm around his coffin (and Michelle Williams and their baby girl for Christ’s sake) like vultures.

On the other hand, it might have been easier to be able to just write him off as another sad, dead junkie like poor Brad Renfro. I wouldn’t have to feel this bad if he’d just offed himself or pulled a River Phoenix and partied himself to death. But the fact that he died because of a bad mix of completely legitimate cold medications and insomnia drugs is just fucking tragic. It’s really tragic. He died at the threshold of his career and life because of a stupid fucking accident. That’s what really kills me. It’s just so stupid and fluky. It’s one of those things where you think that God must just reach down and pluck random people off the earth for His entertainment.

That’s what makes this tragic.

Going to see The Dark Knight is going to be a totally different experience than it was meant to be. What was once mind blowing excitement is now sad. I’m still excited, but it’s laced with sadness now. Because I know that this is going to be THE Joker movie that I’ve wanted all my life, and I know that from this point on, Heath Ledger is going to be the definitive cinematic Joker. Jack Nicholson was never really The Joker. Jack Nicholson was just Jack Nicholson with silly make up on, pretending to be Bugs Bunny. Heath’s performance of The Joker is going to be the one that perfectly marries the Joker I’ve always known and loved with the full potential of motion pictures. And then he broke the mold. There’s no bar raising because no one is going to be able to play The Joker again. This is going to be it for The Joker’s foray in movies. No one would dare try and do it again. From here on out, Heath Ledger is the only person who can play The Joker and now even he can’t do it again.

And maybe that’s better. Obviously I’d much rather he were alive and well and moving onto a long career and a happy life. But because The Joker is such a near and dear character to me, maybe the fact that he’s going to get this one amazing performance and then that’s it, possibly forever. It’s almost beautiful in a morbid and tragic way.

This is all assuming that his performance is as good as I believe it’s going to be. And I really do believe it will. I have to. Not just because I’ve wanted this Joker performance for so long, but because it will at least put something beautiful on top of this otherwise completely tragic death. At least we’ll have that swan song.



Currently Listening To: R.E.M. - The Great Beyond

I don't mean to be a hater or a negative nancy... but is there any chance we could slow down on the Captain Jack Sparrow portraits? It really is getting to be a bit much.

kthnx

Mood: hmm
Listening to: When the Music's Over - The Doors

Ya know, if I was ever going to do a mafia movie (which I'm sure I'll do at some point, because I want to do at least one movie for every genre, though I have no ideas for a mafia movie or a western) I'd have a scene in it that recreates the execution of John the Baptist in the Bible

In case you're unfamiliar, here is your bible lesson for the day:



<font size="+1">Herod the Lesser, son of Herod the Great (the guy who ordered all boys in Bethlehem under the age of two killed, hoping one of them might be Jesus) was kickin it with some of his Roman homies on his birthday, when in walks this super hot dancer chick. The dancer chick name was Salome, who was Herod the Lesser's stepdaughter, and the real daughter of Herodias, who was Herod's wife and his brother's ex-wife or something like that. Buncha freaky Romans is what they were. Anyway, so this Salome chick did some seriously sexy dancing and impressed Herod so much that he said that he would give her anything she wanted. She said that she wanted John the Baptist's head delivered to her on a platter. Since this was Bible times, Herod didn't really have the option of being all like "uh... fuck YOU beeyotch... I was gonna give you something like, an X-Box or a car or new puppy or something" he had Johnny Baptizle (who he just happened to have tied up in his basement) beheaded and did, indeed, bring her his head on a platter</font>.



In my movie, there would be this celebrity. A singer or something like Bono or Don Henley. This celebrity dude is organizing all these protests of big businesses that this big time mafia dude has a lot of money invested in. So the mafia dude sends some of his goons off to smack the guy around and intimidate him into backing down. He's not looking to KILL the guy or anything, just scare him enough to get him to turn his attention elsewhere. I mean, killing such a public figure would be opening up a whole can of worms that the mafia dude doesn't want to deal with.

Meanwhile the mafia dude is celebrating his birthday with a bunch of his mafia brothers and goons and shit. The brothers hire these two strippers to come and put on a private show for the mafia dude (who's name just might be Herold, though that might be a little TOO obvious) and Harold falls madly in love with one of the strippers.

The stripper he falls madly in love with has an agenda though. Her mother used to be a groupie and was once in love with the activist singer. The activist singer blew her off though and the mother never forgave him for it. So she sends her 19 year old daughter in to get the mafia guy horny and drunk enough to participate with the plan.

The stripper and Harold, the mafia guy, are doing lines of coke and getting religiously fucked up, and the mafia guy asks the stripper to come to bed with him. She says that she will on one condition. He says "anything" and she tells him that she wants the singers head with a bow on it.

The mafia guy says that he'll do it, because he doesn't want to look bad, going back on his word, in front of all his goony goons and whatnot. So he calls up the guys who are on their way over to smack around the singer and tells them to whack him and bring the head back.

When they do, Herod and the stripper have mad monkey sex while the head of the singer dude sits on dresser, watching them, with a bow stuck to the blood in his hair.

And that's all I've got.

I just decided all that just now. It's probably actually a pretty stupid idea for a scene in a bigger movie. Maybe a short film. Yeah, a short film. A short film called 'Harold and Simone'

Mood: creative
Listening to: Rats - Pearl Jam
Watching: Jarhead

double gah

okay, so I'm doing this portrait drawing thing, right?

I've got two portraits I have to do before Christmas. One for a friend of Sandra's parents and one for my sister in law.

I did the one for the sister in law last night, only to find that (right around when I was just about done of course) that because of the eraser I used to erase the grid, the paper diminished a bit and made it so that the graphite showed up just a BIT darker everywhere I had erased... so basically I had this shadow of a grid over a lot of the picture. It was totally ruined. Only after about five hours of working on it.

I was pretty choked.

But I sucked it up and started over again tonight, redrawing the same picture again.

I'm looking at the picture just a few minutes ago and I hate it. I really do. It just didn't turn out well at all. There's something out of whack with the proportions and I've over shaded and sonofabitch, I'm just really unhappy with it. I've been trying to fix it as best I can, but it's a lost cause.

I'm going to have to start over.

This sucks big dick. I'm TIRED of drawing this kid.

So I think tomorrow I'm gonna draw something for me instead and give myself a break for obligatory drawing.

I suppose if I were getting paid it would be a different story. I'd have finished a long time ago and would have kept doing it over until I was happy with it... but this is a favor kind of drawing and it's hard to stay motivated for it.

So I'm gonna draw up a bad ass Devil's Advocate picture tomorrow. I've put together a composite in photoshop of what I want to do, and then I'll print out each individual piece of the picture on it's own and make a bitchin collage.

[link]

That will hopefully give me the space I need before i have to sit down and try AGAIN to draw this kid.

Triple gah