The Economy, Empty Malls & Revolutionary Road

We have returned from a much-needed but also thoroughly exhausting trip to New York. The flight seems to get more draining every time, and going from warm weather to frigid cold is a real shock to the system.

Due to the wintry conditions and a bout with a nasty cold, So Jene and I didn't get to do as much as we would have liked. But call us doe-eyed losers, just being in the city reinvigorates us somehow. The cliche about distance allowing for clearer vision and truer appreciation applies in our case. NY is absolutely the most diverse city in the world with the most energetic and edgy people.

Seeing DEFIANCE at the Ziegfeld was a treat, not so much for the movie but the Ziegfeld itself, which seems ever more special as large single-screen theaters all but disappear from nearly much of the industrialized world. We also caught an Indonesian film called THE PHOTOGRAPH at the MoMA, which is a great place to see films. It was the first movie from Indonesia I've ever seen.

The general feeling from seeing friends and our brief stay seems to be the same as what must be in other financial capitals. People are anxious about the economy, many people have lost jobs, and there's less foot traffic in stores. But cities are, by definition, crowded places, so the impact of a recession may not be as obvious.

This was far from the case in a small town about 2 hours north of NYC. We went to a small mall just to walk around. Granted this mall was always a small one and never drew huge crowds, but it seemed to have less shoppers than stores at 11AM on a Sunday morning. We wandered into a rather large OLD NAVY and found just 2 other shoppers. This emptiness actually spooked us a bit and spoke volumes about the current recession.

The downturn in the economy impacts everybody, and we've definitely been affected. Fortunately, we have long lived beneath our means, and I rarely buy things. I'm just not as hung up on things as the average person. I'm not into gadgets at all. I honestly couldn't care less what our furniture looks like, what car we drive, etc. And on those rare occasions when I do go to malls or stores, I'm never gripped by an intense desire to buy anything.

So what?
The last thing I want to do is preach to anyone about the evils of materialism or tell them what to do with their money---I'm just a schmuck with a typewriter, after all, and the only money advice I have for anyone is for them to give their money to me.

So what's the point of all this? Simple. Sam Mendes' REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, which I also saw during the trip, is a piece of crap.

Sure Leonardo DiCaprio is a great actor, and ditto for Kate Winslet. I've long been a fan, and they have plenty of other movies, in which they show off their acting chops. But they stink in this movie because the movie tells a story that's without substance.

SUMMARY OF REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
Winslet's character gave up acting to be a housewife. DiCaprio's character works as a marketing guy for the same company his old man worked for and hates it. After some domestic disputes fueled by resentment and dissatisfaction with their dull middle-class existence in 1950s suburbia, Leo and Kate decide they will leave their familiar life in the 'burbs behind and go live in Paris, where they can be true to themselves. They vow to pursue passion & whim, and escape the drudgery of middle-class suffocation & convention. This plan seems so perfect, however social pressure and lack of courage ultimately derail it. They never get to live in Paris. The wife is devastated. Husband is also sad.

THREE REASONS IT SUCKED
I'm sure plenty of people found the picture to be poignant. God knows there are more than enough people who hate their jobs and being in the rat race. Still, I found the film to be cloying, irritating, and disingenuous. Here are three reasons why:

First, its structure is as follows: Characters are miserable, miserable, miserable, miserable, and then they die.

Second, its central conflict is hinged on pseudo-angst.

What do I mean by that? This is all a bit difficult to describe clearly, so I'll use an analogy. This film is like people who say that they would have been 'artists' but were dissuaded by their parents from pursuing their dream, and thus were forced to settle for a more stable and secure profession.

Both the film and such people cling to reasoning that is, at a certain level, disingenous.

The truth is, no person can dissuade or persuade anyone else to go into or out of the arts (that is unless they hold a gun to the other person's head). People become artists because they simply do (for a million+ reasons). It's not because someone persuaded or dissuaded them.

Likewise, if a person really wants to move to Paris, he or she will do so. (This is especially so for bourgeois Americans at a time when the dollar was so much stronger than the franc.) And if a person really doesn't want to, he or she won't. That's all fine. But it becomes annoying when the person, and a rather privileged one at that, doesn't, and then the blame is placed on 'society'.

Third, the film makes its rather obvious point in a clumsy manner.

It actually takes itself so damn seriously and thinks its message is so damn profound and above the audience's head that it uses a supporting character, a neighbor's grown-son recently released from a stint at a mental hospital, to spell out over and over (profundity apparently needs to be translated for mass consumption) the ennui the couple is going through. He declares, "You two are being stifled by this empty existence..."

The scene that follows is even more inane and has the couple reflect on their encounter with this clear-seeing madman. They tell each other: "He is the only one who sees things as we do. The madman is the only one who understands us..."

Some of this clumsy storytelling has to do with adapting a book, but this truth-seeing madman character could have been dropped, or at the least, the ensuing scene (described above) should have been cut.

Having trashed this movie thus, I'll add that for whatever it's worth, all this is not to discount stifling conformity of 1950s life and real social pressure. Peer pressure and conformity are real and powerful social forces. No one questions this. Conformity was stifling in 1950s American suburbs for many people who were really creative on the inside and is still resonant today. We get it.

Just don't try to pass off a nothing-of-a-movie that's mostly about bourgeois whining as if it's saying something new, poignant, or... (sorry, can't help myself here)...revolutionary.

SHAMELESS PLUG for Fellow Writer and Actor

I'm still in the old Mei Gwok. It's cold but comfortable. Biggest cliche in the world, but true. There's no place like New York...

Recently heard from an old friend, another talented writer from NYU, who is now in Ventura, CA. Her name is Tania Weissberg and she wrote this episode of SUSHI PACK, a cartoon on cable TV.



I also found out that NELSAN ELLIS, an amazing actor who was in my experimental short film ANTIGONE 5000, is not only a regular on Cable TV's TRUE BLOOD but will appear in a major supporting role in THE SOLOIST, a feature film starring JAMIE FOXX and ROBERT DOWNEY Jr.



I thank him for his amazing gung-ho attitude doing ANTIGONE 5000 with me back in the day. We ran the production out of my living room and shot it in the woods out in Jersey over the GW Bridge. He never once complained even when we were shooting in the freezing cold. Out of all the actors I've worked with, he's the one whom So Jene, my wife, pegged to be a star. And he's clearly on his way. The guy is amazing.

Anyway, here's to those of us who keep plugging away at writing and acting and making personal movies despite and against all the odds.

I've also finished up a screenplay to shoot as soon as I'm back in the U.S. It's a script I wrote about five years ago and just sat on looking for perfect conditions and waiting for money to materialize. What a stupid of waste of time that was. The material is good. I just reread and polished it up today. It reads well, which makes me wonder what the hell I was doing just sitting on it all this time.

My hiatus in Hong Kong has given me renewed perspective. This time around, I'll shoot with a goddamn camcorder if I have to.

Anyway, kudos to you, Tania and Nelsan. You guys rock!!!!

Rice and the Trailing Male

I spent yesterday afternoon with Phillipe walking around Mui Wo and eating some good squid. I am so happy and grateful to be able to see him here in Hong Kong.

During our long walk and talk, he mentioned that there is a label for the existence that I've found myself in.

What is that label?

TRAILING MALE

I was a little surprised that there was a name like this, but also a little pleased at how clever the description was in describing my and other people's situation.

The fact is, I am in Hong Kong because my wife's career has brought us here. My VISA clearly states this reality.

But, this hasn't affected my life in quite the same way that it may have other men's.

Why?

My career was already quite non-traditional to begin with, and hence, it hasn't been derailed or disrupted in the same way that it might have been had I had a more traditional suit job.

And aside from the fact that I miss some aspects of my life back in NY, I think I've adjusted rather well to life here and to my existence as a 'trailing male.'

I'm managing to earn a few bucks doing Korean-to-English translations, am writing my third novel, and have begun making short films and keeping this blog. In addition, I've managed to learn enough Cantonese to get by and carry on simple conversations with Cantonese people who speak little or no English.

That said, do I feel lonely and isolated sometimes?

Absolutely.

Do I feel completely emasculated?

Not really.

The truth is I really don't think it's as big a deal as some other people do.

Of course, there are plenty of people out there who do think it is quite quite a big deal.

For instance, last Sunday, I went to JUSCO and bought three bags of Japanese rice before heading to my Cantonese class, which is in Wanchai and subsidized by the HK government. The class is actually quite terrific with an amazing instructor and about 500% better than the Cantonese class I took at the Tsim Sha Tsoy YMCA, which was a complete waste of time with an instructor who was excellent only at being inept.

Anyway, I was a little late to the class, and hence, ended up making an entrance, lugging the bags of rice, in front of the 25 or so other students.

The instructor saw my entrance and made a comment about how HK society had changed so much in recent years and the status of men had depreciated so much that men were now reduced to shopping for rice and lugging it home for their wives and families.

It was a semi-humorous and completely innocuous comment, especially given the fact that the class is usually conducted in a very casual, fun atmosphere with jokes exchanged in good spirit.

But then, during the rest of the class (breaks and the end of class), about half a dozen of my classmates (mostly Indians and a few Filipinos) went out of their way to tell me what a good husband I was for buying rice for my wife and how rare this was. Basically, they made such a big fuss that I couldn't help but become a little startled.

My buying rice seemed to be something completely foreign to them, when to me, I had simply bought the rice because it was convenient to do so then. I'd simply consolidated my going to class with doing an errand.

Anyway, I used to do grocery shopping all the time back in the U.S. without anyone making a big deal out of it. And here in HK, I do most of the grocery shopping and the cooking and cleaning for my wife and myself. I work from home, so I try to keep the place clean. It's just not that big a deal for me.

The point is, this business with the rice brought home two things:

1) As modern as HK and other parts of ASIA seem to be at times, the grip of tradition still lingers strong, especially when it comes to conventional gender roles. Call me naive, but the U.S. seems much more progressive on this front.

2) You can't let other people dictate how you live. That only makes people miserable.


That's my three cents for today.

Having said that, I do truly hope and pray that those 3.5 people out there who read this blog do not start to think less of me for being a.....

...trailing male.

Another Writer from the Bronx

Just reread BROTHER ONE CELL by Cullen Thomas.

It is a recollection of the 3.5 years that Thomas, an American from Long Island, spent in a South Korean prison for trying to smuggle hashish into the country.

I'd read the book back in NYC after hearing a clip about him and the book on NPR and thoroughly enjoyed it back then.

Here is a link to the amazon page for the book.

http://www.amazon.com/Brother-One-Cell-Cullen-Thomas/dp/0143113119/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224477768&sr=8-1


Rereading it after stumbling on it at the Hong Kong Central Library, it occurred to me just how much and well Thomas really 'got' Korean culture. I guess being in uncomfortably close contact w/ Koreans inside the prison and Thomas' relatively young age at the time (he was 23? or so?) allowed for that.

On top of all that, I realized that that there is a connection between Cullen Thomas and myself.

You see, after I got my MFA from NYU and had dug myself into a financial hole by making my 16mm feature film debut w/ FREE COUNTRY, I scrambled to find some source of employment and was hired as a staff writer for CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, a reference publication that's published out of a strange building in the Bronx, some 10 minutes away from Yankee Stadium.

For the next several years, I'd trek to the Bronx every day and sit in a cubicle and write 3-5 page bios of prominent people in the news based on newspaper clippings compiled for each person. It didn't pay much, but I got to read a lot of newspapers and actually learned a lot.

I also stole time from my workday and started writing my first novel BOY GENIUS there in that little dark cubicle in a forgotten corner of the Bronx.

Anywa, to make a long story short, it turns out that Thomas, too, had worked at CURRENT BIOGRAPHY as a staff writer after serving his 3.5 years and being sent back to the U.S.

There were only about 5-6 staffwriters when I was there, and Thomas was not one of them. I can't really figure out the timing, but I have a hunch that Thomas was there just before I got there. Who knows? Maybe I got the job that he left??

Whatever the case, I've since written two novels and Cullen Thomas has published BROTHER ONE CELL.

Kudos to him!!

As for all those other aspiring writers out there, the lesson here is a simple one.

Go to NYC.

Go to the Bronx.

Get a job as a staffwriter at CURRENT BIOGRAPHY.

It's better than an MFA.