The Dead Are Trying My Patience

The Dead Are Trying My Patience
my review of Land Of The Dead

George A. Romero’s twilight opus, Land Of The Dead, is a subtle allegory on the current situation involving the Middle East. It revolves around a simple gas station attendant, which could be discerned as Iraq, but with a minority face that one could relate to and still be patriotic; he’s a black man who longs to understand this new world around him and his lot in it. The setting is a small, quiet neighborhood populated by other content to be simple folk that is quickly interrupted by well armed white men who’ve come to raid their resources for a near by city of glutton, paranoia, and vice. The invading city then sells this booty to it’s people at an over inflated price just so that they can maintain the consumer lives they were accustomed to since before the “unpleasantness” happened. The black gas station attendant, who is not given a name, then proceeds to lead his people to overthrow the corrupt powers that be.

Meanwhile two enforcement officials in charge of said raid are also at odds with how things are working and where they fit in. The first we see questioning his motives is Cholo (John Leguizamo), an Hispanic smack talker, who believed that what he was doing was earning him a position amongst the social elite, that he was working for a greater good for himself and his comrades. Once denied his piece of the pie by the very lord, Mr. Kaufman played by a confused Dennis Hopper, he was trying to keep in power and thusly restricted from movin’ on up said Hispanic steals his governments most dangerous weapon and holds the city ransom.

Enter the star of the film, Some Whiteguy, played by some white guy. Just kidding the hero’s name is Riley and he’s played by Simon Baker who actually is just a white guy on and off screen. He’s called in to both thwart Cholo and squash the simple gas station attendant’s uprising when all he really wants to do is go to Canada and be left alone. What ensues is some of the most clever and engaging dialogue and character interaction mixed with elaborate and truly believable action on epic set pieces the silver screen has ever seen.

Psych! That’s not what it’s about. Well, in a way it is. There are references to the War, but, really; really, really it’s an unimpressive zombie flick. That black gas station attendant is a zombie, he’s dead. The movie’s premise is that Romero’s earlier movies are true and in real time. We now live in an alternate present where zombies have proliferated until there are only a few cities in the world that are safe and secure anymore. The living raid towns overrun by the walking dead for food and medical supplies. That is until the station attendant figures out that with just a few vague grunts he can lead other undead to sack a corrupt (which I assume has to be coincidental) city and feed on the non-dead’s flesh. John Leguizamo lends the only perceivable personality to the film, and his character is only there to steal the city’s super weapon, an A-Team rigged RV that shoots pretty fireworks. That’s not a joke. Sadly, he even out acts Dennis Hopper who is basically some crotchety lord what hides out in a tower. The rest of the cast it just a hodge-podge of stereotypical characters, which is pretty much typical of horror and most other mainstream genres.

On that point: It should be noted since so much regard is paid to Romero’s move to have a black man in the lead in the original Night Of The Living Dead at a time when that was more than a big deal, that the two most prominent black men in the movie are one: the “leader” gas station attendant zombie whose first order of business once new found cognition sets in is to pick up a gun and start ending innocent lives. The second is Mr. Kaufman’s man-servant. Yep, man-servant, even dressed as a maitre d’ in a white jacket and black bow tie. Though he is not killed, or at least we don’t see it, he does run off “Amos and Andy” style from his master at the threat of boogins overtaking the two.

As for Riley, our hero, like I said, all he really wants is to go to Canada, suck down some Molson and tell ‘em all to go to hell. There’s even a moment where he has the chance to take out some zombies and to do so would save many innocent lives, but, instead, and this where the movie finds it’s heart, looks in the eyes of the mindless dead and tells his squad of rogues to back down and do nothing, because “They’re looking for a place to go, same as us.”

Despite some pretty good special effects and plenty of gore, ultimately the movie blends in with the rest of the overcrowded and run of the mill of the genre Romero helped to create. The biggest problem is Romero doesn’t know how to top himself. Already the idea of dead walking requires so much suspension of disbelief that to ask someone to go along with zombies organizing and rebelling using tactical goals to overcome a corrupt system is asking too much. And because why? So they and their zombie children have a safe place to play and meander? Were the movie longer would they eventually build schools and stores, houses of worship? Would they begin producing artists and standup comedians whose biting social commentary tell how it is from the undead perspective (now normal livin’ folks walk like dis, while us zombies be walkin’ dis way)? Would that gas station attendant have lead his “people” to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and give what would be his famous “I have a Zombie dream” speech?

Assumedly, the whole idea of making stupid zombies less stupid would be to create a better platform to terrorize movie goers, yet throughout the film we are positioned to sympathize with the flesh eating monsters. It’s as though the audience is supposed to look on with stern face and quiet tears and reason why we can’t just let them feed off human flesh in peace. It’s what I want for my children.

In short I didn’t like the movie. Be that as it may there is one redeeming quality and it is very subtle and doesn’t involve Iraq, nor does it make better the movie. Actually, I’ve already stated why it made the movie bad. And though it didn’t make me like the movie one iota better it did make me respect the creator. George A. Romero gave birth and life to the zombie flick. Zombies are what made him and why we horror lovers revere him. If he sees fit in his golden years to pay a little of that reverence back to his creation by giving the dead a soul, a flicker of light behind their eyes to look back in his, well, what can I say, but, more power to him. I just hope he doesn’t make another one.

This is Jody Thrill and I’ll see you at the movies.

That name is only funny if you know my middle name is Hill, and even then its pushing it.

Love Will Keep Us Together

None of this had occurred to me until after the divorce, until I guesstimated the length of their marriage and put it next to my younger half-brother’s age. Twenty years. It then dawned on me that my mother’s first marriage to my biological father was three years long. I was three at the time of that divorce.

I know that I’m not the reason my mother and father got together. They met in a park. I had nothing to do with it. I’m not the reason they got divorced either. He was a liar and abusive. He would run out for weeks and come with no explanations or apologies. I think I’m just the reason they got married.

This one, this entry, it is not catharsis. It is not part of the healing process that can be writing. I’m not hurt, I’m fine. I’m just disappointed. I don’t bring this up because I want someone to feel sorry for me, or for us. I’m not reaching out. I’m making a point.

In ways I may be the reason she and my stepfather got together in the first place. I don’t care how modern times were or are, a single mother who wants everything for her child is looking for a father. They met in high school years and years prior. I don’t think they kept in touch, but just ran into each other. Mama and I were couch surfing. He put us up for a while, which turned into twenty years.

When you come out of a bad relationship you tend to go for the opposite-type person on next go ‘round. This is called the overcorrection and it can put you in as much danger, if not more, than what you meant to avert.

My stepfather owned his home, kept a steady job (he’s had the same job for as long as I’ve known him), and he was quite content with his station in life. He never yelled, he never laid a hand on her or me. Then mama got pregnant. I may have been the reason they tried dating but my brother was the reason they got married.

Two things you should know: My mama isn’t one to just roll over and accept whatever as her lot in life. In moments of extreme displeasure I’ve seen her silence a restaurant full of people, staff included. I’ve seen her put fear in the hearts of two criminals even as they were safely locked away from her behind bars. Mama could be a force of righteousness; you’d do well not to come between her and her cubs, you’d do very well, indeed, to never tell her she’s wrong when you damn well know that’s not true. I’m just saying. The second thing is this. My stepfather was not a bad man to her or I, just the wrong man. Nothing is no one’s fault. This isn’t the Lifetime Channel. It’s more complicated than that.

My stepfather was content where he was, right where he was. He never came with us to the movies, or to museums and libraries; plays and orchestras. Mama’s world, or rather the world she wanted for her boys, was huge. That’s a good thing. My stepfather’s world was smaller, pragmatic, based on stability more than ambition or desire. This is not a bad thing. Mama was raised poor; my stepfather was raised dirt poor. For what he had he considered himself successful. He has every right to. I’ve seen his family, and were it not for he I couldn’t imagine a decent person to spring from such a trashy, ignorant well.

Just as my father was no man for my mama, my stepfather was no husband to her; not for the goer that she was. I remember they kissed once. The only time they went out on “dates” was on Valentine’s Day. Even then it was just dinner, in town, then home, then TV. Count it, folks. Two decades of marriage equals twenty dates. Put it this way, next month you and your boyfriend or girlfriend go out to dinner every night from the 1st to the 20th, then never again for twenty years. Oh, and your only aloud to kiss once. Oh, and you can only have sex a handful of times at the beginning. Do this and we’ll talk. They kept separate bedrooms for most of mine and my brother’s lives. She said it was because he snored too loud. This wasn’t far fetched. He snored like giants of old. But then you think about it, mama could sleep through tornados.

He was no father to me. This is fine. It really is. I was old enough to know that I didn’t have one. And from what I understood when you don’t have a daddy then you don’t have a daddy. You can’t just sprinkle magic dust on someone and poof they gave birth to you, poof you now share blood and blood bonds. He was good to me, though. We liked each other and we still do.

I bring this up only to comment more on the marriage. He was, and is a father to my brother. He took him to baseball games, basketball games. He taught him home repair, car repair. I still can’t drive stick; I’m a 27 year old man. To my mother’s dismay he always looked at my brother as his and I hers. Like towels or bathrobes.

It was in this time I began to bully my brother. To be frank it was outright physical abuse. I remember throwing him down stairs. I remember picking him up by his throat. I poured boiling water on his back. Everyone thought I hated him. Mama thought I was jealous and acting out. You know, because maybe I wanted a father; you know, because of the towel thing.

This isn’t confession. I’m going somewhere.

I regret the abuse. I didn’t hate him, I loved him. I wasn’t jealous. It had never even crossed my mind. What I was was fat and dark skinned. What was crossing my mind was that at school and in the neighborhood everyone was calling me Taco, The Fat Mexican. I was getting chased through woods on bicycles. I was getting rolled down hills. I was getting my ass beat by boys much older and bigger than I could hope to overcome. What was really going on was that I began snapping at the only thing smaller than me, which was my baby brother who I loved and did not hate. This is important.

Do this. Tally up her time with my father and the couple years of wondering around trying to find a home for herself and her son. Add that to her time with my stepfather. It’s over twenty-five years of a man present, right there, but no love in sight. Not the kind we’re talking about. Not the kind with embrace, passion or quirkiness. Not the kind that teaches you to forgive your partner’s differences. Twenty-five years. A quarter of a century.

I know it’s not his fault, but if it weren’t for my brother you could knock twenty years off that passionless sentence. Take me out of the picture and she gets the whole shebang back: youth, life, and a better chance at a real lover who dispenses real love. I’m just speculating, I know. I say this because the idea, the chance to knock off some of those years had come and gone.

Here’s the hard part. Here’s the point.

Since ultimately my mother did divorce my stepfather, my brother’s father, couldn’t she have come to this conclusion much sooner? I mean she is intelligent; she’s not one to roll over and accept whatever as her lot. The answer: yes. Thirteen years sooner, actually. We went out for dinner in Roswell one Saturday. It’s a couple towns away from where we live. It was just her and me. On the way she took the long route, the scenic route through neighborhoods and apartment complexes. I was twelve. We ate and she kept asking if I liked it around there. Sure, I said. She said maybe we could find an apartment. I felt something was up. “All four of us in an apartment?” I asked. “No.” She said. “Just me, you and [my brother].” Despite all implications of this dialogue she was, for lack of a better word, enthused. She was cautious to be sure, but enthused. All I could think of was my brother who I loved and did not hate. “What about [my brother]?” Was all I said in response.

She knew what I meant. He had it great, better than any of us. He was seven and had his mama, and his daddy who both loved him very much. He had me. He had us all under one roof, in the same home. It would have killed him and that would have killed me. In that moment at some restaurant in Roswell, GA. I only thought of his little heart. I could not bear it to burst as I, and mama, knew it would and eventually did. Her eyes glossed a bit, and her shoulders fell. She looked at me, picked them back up, and smiled. “It was just a thought.” She said.

We went home, picked up my little brother; Saturday was movie day. I think we saw “Wildcats” with Goldie Hawn. My brother asked his father if he wanted to come with. My stepfather said no, of course, but he told him to have a good time. Mama bought us candy and cokes. Thirteen more years.

My point is this: love can lock as much as it can embrace; punish as much as please. It is as much the nail in your foot as the light of your life. There is no blues song for this. There is no reality show depicting this kind of family as predominant as it is. Love, the idea—the feeling, is protean and ungraspable. We sit alone or with some new lover and think to ourselves or each other, dreamy eyed, of all great notions we’ll embark on in the name of love. But in the end you can’t imagine what all you’ll have done for it, by it, because of it. And, furthermore, what it will have done to you. I don’t mean to preach. I’m just saying.