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Sorry about that.
You might wonder what creative does at a company such as ours and if you can’t even imagine what that might be then that’s why you’re not a part of creative. It’s kind of a self-fulfilling thing and it’s best for you not to dwell upon it. Do not sweat it, don’t give it another thought, we’re here to take care of that kind of thinking so you can just sit back and relax. Leave all the creating biz-wax to us. Because believe me, we’ve got it all well under control. I guess that is our message and we do a not so surprisingly effective job of communicating it to the number-crunchers, the sales guys, the higher-ups who just kind of grin, exchange fist bumps, and proceed on their unencumbered ways.
But I don’t mind sharing one thing with you, not at all, in fact it’s the primary reason why I bring any of this up in the first place. You see, a big part of my responsibilities here is coming up with those succinct one line movie summaries that appear on your TV screen whenever you press the Info button pertaining to said movie. We call them zingers. Somebody has to write them, they don’t just magically appear, they certainly don’t come as part of some movie studio’s package deal with us, and what’s more, my boss doesn’t want me to copy some of the more long-in-the-tooth zingers that have been zinging around out there for quite awhile, quasi-intellectual property that was produced by some other unit’s creative brain trust and that now in effect constitutes copyrighted material. That’s got something to do with our legal department, our honchos in the ponchos, who are paid handsomely to anticipate incoming shit storms and take proper measures to avoid them, and sometimes those boys’ ingenuity put us creative types to absolute shame. Now that’s something I’m sure you can imagine! So the mandate from above is simple – keep it concise and original.
That can be tougher than you might think.
As the fates would allow, it just so happens that my great-grand uncle was a fairly successful actor who appeared in many films that require such informational descriptions and I’ll bet you don’t know his name but if you saw his mug in all likelihood you’d be taken aback, you’d swear that you’ve seen that face somewhere before, and it’s lingering glare might actually disturb you, you might in fact even want to punch it, but you probably wouldn’t be able to put your finger on exactly where you saw it if I gave you all the time until next spring’s coming thaw.
You see, my great-grand uncle had a role in a holiday classic, perhaps a relatively small one, one that required no speaking of any lines whatsoever and only the appropriate retention of a somber beaten-down scowl, but he’s right there in the credits, he sure is, and so I should be rightfully proud.
So… the size of my great-grand uncle’s little stitch upon the rich tapestry of artistic film in this country? In truth, not much. However, his impact on the emotional psyche of the American people from his performance in one single film?
You should be the judge of that yourself.
You know, it’s tough sometimes, being privy to this prime nugget of family accomplishment, yet not really being able to leverage it into a potentially more advantageous position, to garner some kind of tangible benefit. It’s like possessing a large shiny family jewel yet regrettably choosing to stick it away in a safety deposit box for no one else to ever see. Actually, it’s not even as good as that, because at some point, if it really comes to it, you can at least take that jewel out of storage and sell it for whatever the current market will bear. But our possession? Fleeting, fading away, frustratingly intangible, an empty box of staid air.
It doesn’t help that we look nothing alike. I’m green-eyed, sandy-haired, soft, while he was dark, angular, sinister – it’s little wonder that he landed so many old western roles playing poor defeated Indians or some downtrodden renegade as I bet he had a little aboriginal blood running through him due to his birth way down under. That’s right, he came on over from Australia and all by his lonesome so he’s a self-made man, everything he got on this soil he earned through his own ethic, by hook or crook or that god-awful look, and word has it that he could act any part required of him other than honest law-abiding man, a role he apparently never much fancied on-screen or off.
Well, as you might imagine I’ve tried to use this tiny thread of golden lineage many times over the years to my advantage. On the playground, in the classroom, whenever I found myself in a position of shaken confidence or bruised ego. I used it to impress teachers, to out-brag braggarts. I’ve even used it on girls. Not exactly a solid pick-up line but a damn sure icebreaker over martinis in a darkened lounge. Why, you don’t mean that old Monkey Face do you? a dazzling blonde brazenly responded and I couldn’t help but grin in embarrassment flashing my big chimpy teeth. Quickly I finished my drink and then knuckled my way out of the joint.
Maybe it’s a good thing that we don’t look too much alike after all.
Once I was at this holiday party and not too surprisingly the hostess put the DVD on. I was feeling a little insecure so despite my initial mild consternation and since I had already knocked down more than a few I scooted up to the front of the couch and leaned toward the screen pointing, smiling big, saying there’s my boy.
Just as I’d hoped I’d aroused the curiosity of the cute girl sitting next to me and she asked like, hey dude, what do you exactly mean? You got a man-crush on somebody? And I just leaned back and with coolish matter-of-fact pleasure explained precisely what I had meant, no man-crush, just Hollywood blood lines, and the room fell uncomfortably quiet as if some foolish scoundrel, that would be me, had loudly proclaimed his passing of at least one liter of a hot wicked gas. They all settled back into their seats, hands folded, jaws clenched, the TV dialogue now loud and almost scolding, and awaited with apprehensive twitching nostrils the stench that never came.
Talk about a tough audience.
Somehow I managed to excuse myself and wandered back into the kitchen where some semblance of a conversation between three individuals whom I’d never laid eyes upon was meekly continuing and I mercifully attempted to join right in and maybe even pick it up a bit. I fixed myself a stiff one, all the time smiling and nodding, clinking the ice in my glass while slowly sliding closer and closer to the freedom of the front door.
I mentioned that the official zinger mandate is to keep it concise and original. But then what of accuracy? What about making it a truthful summation of the crux of the flick? I mean, take fifty people, show them the same exact film, and then see what each one comes up with, what each viewer independently determines as the absolute bottom line meaning of the film. Maybe you wouldn’t be surprised at the wide range of such interpretations but you’d sure be entertained. And maybe that’s why we have such a hard time in this society with the truth. Because it aint universal, it’s often just a shifting point of light throwing sparks off into the dark, and it’s constantly evolving just like you and me.
But I really do give it my best. I’m absolutely serious about my duty, unless the film in question is a grand comedy, and then I’m serious in my attempt at delivering a cleverly non-serious zingerooski. And as for the flops, those horrific wastes of both time and money, the you can’t be serious endeavors that somehow still made it out of the can and onto the silver screen, I aim for both the succinctly obvious and verbally economical. I won’t waste any more of my time with them and neither should you!
When it comes to my family I’m actually the one who “low keys” the whole “we had a relative in the movies” thing. I mean, the guy is my mother’s mother’s uncle so we don’t even share the same last name, not by a long shot. And she only remembers actually being with him a few times back when she was mere toddler and years later when he was invited to her wedding he sure didn’t show. No RSVP, no nothing. The guy kept his distance and family recollections are both somber and few.
Not to mention the fact that the guy’s been dead for about as long as I’ve been alive. But you know human nature, what is deemed as potentially valuable but currently unusable is eventually decomposed and later reinvented and then you can reassess its usefulness once again. You should hear my sister, eighteen months my junior and orbiting way out there in zany land, speaking of him as if they used to take afternoon tea together on the gently lapping shore of a summer lake, and she loves to make reference to her inheriting his steely gray eyes and sharp jutting cheekbones – well good for her, I guess.
Sometimes I wonder if the guy even knew my family existed. He obviously didn’t care. And yet still my mother hangs his portrait in our living room at the same spot that it’s claimed for years. Other pictures and paintings have come and gone, wallpaper has been peeled and reapplied, furniture bought and rearranged, and yet his gaze still reigns supreme, watching, overseeing, and over time that beginning of a smile that I have always detected but never seen fulfilled persists, seemingly awaiting the pay-off of a joke, and he never was able to just come right on out with it and grin. When I die and enter that white light I wonder if his beaming countenance, at long last consummated with an overdue laugh, will be there to greet me?
I seriously doubt it but then again, maybe I’m a part of that pay-off.
My modus operandi is usually to come up with three zingers per film. I’ve found that it helps to build from a good foundation. The first one, the brick and the mortar, is the easy one, the one for the simple-minded and those who really only want to be entertained or perhaps distracted from the reality of their own lives. Most of these folks would just as soon go to a cock fight or a demolition derby but somehow they learned to operate the remote control and found themselves running through the TV listings, pressing the INFO button, hoping to locate some good action shit or at least a little harmless T &A. So here’s an example of one that I whipped up for these folks:
A young American male born on Independence Day is sent off to Vietnam to kill some gooks.
Now the second one allows me to jump up the evolution ladder a couple of rungs leaving the smelly Neanderthals far below scratching their bellies and laughing at just about anything. I can now conjure the proper alignment of words that will ultimately speak to the masses, to those of average intellect and insight, in other words 92.76% of America, and hopefully produce a more popular choice. I submit for your approval:
An innocent young man goes to war and comes back a changed man.
And then there’s the last one, there’s my truth, the least obvious and yet the eternally redeeming gist of the film. It’s heart, the true spirit. Oh, I know, this is really just a matter of opinion and opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got at least one, but can we at least agree that some stink more than others? So this is where I allow my ego to seep on in and I succumb to the urge to sermonize:
War is fucking hell.
Nobody will ever see that one. It’s just for me. But I’m thinking that there are quite a few folks out there that would likely concur.
Or how about this trifecta?
A couple of lonely cowpokes get all homo up in them wooded hills.
Two men struggle with their identities in this poignant tale based on the Annie Proulx short story.
Regret.
And finally…
Some really cool 3-D animation but where’s the ass-kickin’?
A disabled soldier is sent on a mission to another world and becomes caught in a philosophical battle between this new society and the one from which he came.
Too much butter and not enough salt!
Okay – it’s probably time to stop beating around the bush and get real with you. Get down to the true reason for my little soliloquy. As a start let me just give you the old zinger that’s been making the rounds out there forever – you’ve probably even seen it yourself.
Frank Capra’s heartwarming holiday account of small-town Americana.
Now I’m sure having just read the above you’ve already begun to form a mental picture in your head. You’d have to be a deaf, dumb and blind member of al Qaida to not have something stirring inside there, the pursuit of a Jolly Jihad notwithstanding. Is the proper image starting to come together yet? Well, if not, here’s more. A few years ago I actually read the following eye-popping zinger and the swiftness of its creator’s dismissal is still much discussed among our ranks.
A small town banker contemplates suicide on Christmas Eve.
Wonderful. Make sure the entire family tunes in. Pop some corn, melt some butter. Make sure grandma gets real comfortable. Sit back and enjoy!
And now, just for the hell of it, I humbly present to you a couple of my very own created for personal reasons mind you:
A loveable blubbering drunk crosses the dunce line once too often.
It was just another role, a paycheck, don’t blame old monkey face.
Listen, the guy had a wonderful career. Over 350 films spanning a fifty year period. He had a slew of uncredited movie roles where he played with stunning believability town drunks, despondent Indian chiefs, gun-slinging rascals and could always be counted on to provide a memorable face in a hostile crowd. Bartender, Bartendee, and my personal all-time favorite, overly-excited lemonade vendor, which begs the question, what sane parent would allow their child to purchase some freshly squeezed from a man who looks (and probably sings) a lot like Tom Waits?
But that’s not all. Towards the end of his fine career he enjoyed success in the dazzling new world of television with roles on Daniel Boone and Perry Mason. The man even appeared in Bob Hope’s Paleface and John Wayne’s Ride Em Cowboy and received proper credit in both.
This guy was no three-role flunky pining for Actors Guild benefits. He may not have been a so-called movie star but I’ll tell you this - the guy could act.
But I won’t mention his name, I’m tired of the name-dropping, I’m tired of what it never really got me. I hope you at least find my honesty refreshing. Just google a few of the facts that I have already related to you: Bob Hope, Pale Face, John Wayne, Ride Em Cowboy, drunken Indian chief. See if you can figure it out on your own.
And still the bells jingle and the pretty paper wraps gifts. For the wee-folk Christmas approaches so slowly but for so many of us aged children now entering into this twilight of sweet remembrance it passes far too soon. If you’re lucky along the way you may get caught up inside one heartfelt carol, one moment of real gratitude and bliss, zing, but it can never last and for it to mean what it needs to mean why should it? Better for it to come, go, and leave a void that reminds.
It’s a late Saturday afternoon and as a gray gentle dusk quickly descends I can’t decide if these sudden shadows are comforting or alarming. I’ve got my Beaujolais chilled and my cheese sliced and my crackers are all lined up and so by the time the credits roll at the end of the broadcast I’ll be adequately fortified to admit this real hum-dinger of a zinger:
My great-uncle once removed etcetera etcetera knew the truth and didn’t do a goddamn thing.
