...Kind of A Thing...

I just recently watched The Third Man starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. It is a great film noir set in post-World War II Vienna. And it has one of the best sad endings ever filmed. I am not sure why, but I really enjoy sad endings. It could be that my first movie going experience (that I remember) was seeing The Empire Strikes Back at a drive-in when I was 3 or 4. That film has an uplifting (kind of) sad ending, but a sad ending nonetheless. 

It’s not that I have problems with happy endings. I do enjoy a happy ending from time to time, but I think it the risk involved with creating a sad ending that makes me enjoy them so much more. Seriously it takes a lot of balls to make your audience sad when the movie is over. You know that the executives in charge tried over and over to get the director and writer to change the ending to something more likable. A happy ending is also much easier to tack onto the end of a movie. “Oh they get back together and fall in love…” Barf. 

Here’s a quick rundown of some of my favorite sad endings:

- The Killing (1956) Dir. Stanley Kubrick
- The Departed (2006) Dir. Martin Scorsese
- Casablanca (1942) Dir. Michael Curtiz
- Dancer In The Dark (2000) Dir. Lars Von Trier
- Million Dollar Baby (2004) Dir. Clint Eastwood

I do not read a lot of comic books. I head to the comic shop every week, but I only have a couple titles that I read on a monthly basis. Usually I am searching for new titles from favorite writers or artists, or appearances in other books by people I truly love (ala Darwyn Cooke). That said I picked up the first issue of Vertigo’s Daytripper 10 months ago because of the involvement of Gabriel Ba. 

I first became aware of Ba because of his work with Gerard Way on Dark Horse Comics The Umbrella Academy, and was actually slightly disappointed that Fabio Moon’s (Ba’s brother) artwork was the focus. That disappointment lasted exactly one issue. By the end of issue one I was hooked, and wanting to know more about Bras de Oliva Domingos, a Brazilian writer who continues to die. 

For ten issues Ba and Moon created a beautiful and dream-like world for Bras and their readers that makes Daytripper easily the best mini-series of the year. The brothers have won numerous awards in the past, and they should win more for this series. It is the best comics work I have read since Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s work on All-Star Superman. 

Daytripper is emotional and gripping. Each issue appears to contain an ending for Bras, but the reader is still compelled to pick up the next issue to find out where he will end up next. This amazing series is ending this month, and back issues should be available at your favorite comics shop. 

Load up on half-hour sitcoms. Either buy them, go to the library, get Netflix, or schedule your evenings around them. They are the perfect amount of time. That 22-25 minutes is about all the time you will have before all hell breaks loose again. Don’t even think about getting a 90-minute movie done in less than two hours and hour-long dramas can be tempting fate as well. Stick to the sitcom and you will be fine. 

Detroit has a hard life. A former mayor in prison. A former city councilwoman in prison. A firestorm that torched hundreds of buildings. One of the highest unemployment rates in the country. All this and Detroiters still have to endure the hardships of their sports teams.

Here is a rundown starting in 2008
- The Lions go 0-16 in 2008. 
- The Tigers dwindled a seven-game lead with a month to go finally losing to the Minnesota Twins in a tie-breaker, in extra innings last season. 
- The passings of former Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell and Pistons owner Bill Davidson. The latter leading to the team being put up for sale and rumors of the team moving. 
- Even the most stable team in Detroit collapsed when the Red Wings lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals to the Pittsburgh Penguins at home in 2009.
- Earlier this season Tigers pitcher Armando Galaragga had a perfect game stolen from him when umpire Jim Tracy made the wrong call on the final out. Leading to a 28-out “perfect” game for Galaragga.
- Finally the recent first week of the NFL season found Lions receiver Calvin Johnson catching an apparent game-winning touchdown only to have the catch ruled incomplete by a strange and little-known rule.

The last couple of years have been rough, but Detroit has little (outside of the Lions) to complain about. Here is a breakdown of the four major sports teams in Detroit since 1978 (when yours truly was born):

Detroit Red Wings
Four Stanley Cups (1996-97, 1997-98, 2001-02, 2007-08)
Six Conference Championships
19 straight seasons in the playoffs starting in 1991
24 playoff appearances (No playoffs from 1978-83)
Notable players: Steve Yzerman, Niklas Lidstrom, Sergei Federov, Pavel Datsyuk, Chris Chelios, Henrik Zetterberg 

Detroit Pistons
Three NBA Championships (1989, 1990, 2004)
Five Conference Championships
21 playoff appearances (No playoffs from 1978-83)
Notable players: Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Bill Laimbeer, Chauncey Billups, non-crazy Dennis Rodman, Grant Hill

Detroit Tigers
1 World Series Championship (1984)
2 American League Championships
3 Playoff Appearances
Notable Players: Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Kirk Gibson, Jack Morris, Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera

Detroit Lions
Um.
8 Playoff Appearances 
Notable Players: Barry Sanders

The eight championships have Detroit sitting behind only New York City (15) and Chicago (nine) in total championships for cities with all four major sports teams. Detroit would be behind Los Angeles also if they still had a football team. If you take out the stretch from 1978-83 when neither the Pistons or Red Wings made the playoffs then it doesn’t look all that bad. In fact things look OK (minus the Lions) for Detroit sports fans. I mean we could be living in Atlanta or Phoenix (one championship each), right? 

Now if we could just get some jobs around here.

I am recently a new father. Here’s a tip they don’t teach you:

You will not have time to take care of your hair.

You have three options: 

1) Shave your head.

2) Let it go crazy. You’re a new dad who cares?

and

3) Wear hats. Every damn day.

I went with option three because I have a beard, and I am not cool enough to pull off the beard with a bald head. So make sure you have hats, or clippers or the guts to not give a shit when you visit the doctor’s office, the grocery store, the post office, or when people decide to visit you. You want people to think you have things under control, and hats will help. Believe me. 

Also, hats are simple. Just put it on your head and you’re good. 

I work in a bookstore, in a college town with thousands of students. Occasionally these students wander their way into the store looking for books for classes. Sometimes they are looking for textbooks (we don’t carry textbooks) and sometimes they just need those classics for a literature class. The sad part is that some of the students are downright stupid. They might attend one of the best universities in the country, but they dumb. A recent interaction with someone looking for books about King Arthur’s apprentice Merlin reminded me of the best (and worst) student I have ever dealt with:

A guy comes up to me and asks if we have “The Great Gatsby.” He needs it for a class, and I tell him we have had a bunch of kids in looking for it so I figured it was. I grab the book, hand it to him and he asks if we have the movie. Probably. So we are moseying over to the DVDs, and I am telling him the movie is bad and he will probably need to read the book anyway when he says this:

“‘The Great Gatsby’ was written by only one guy?”

I’m sorry? Written by one guy? Now I was nice. I said, “Yep,” handed him the DVD and walked away.

What I probably should have said was that in fact F. Scott Fitzgerald was the pseudonym of a super group of writers. Bored with their own novels on the poor and warring peoples of Europe and the United States; Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck and Erich Maria Remarque joined forces to create Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway and the rest of the rich folks of East and West Egg. 

There was some bickering. Hemingway wanted the story to take place in Chicago, but Steinbeck felt that the New York City area best fit the ideals of the Jazz Age. Remarque was the main creator of Carraway and felt that Hemingway took too much credit for making the character “American.” In Remarque’s eyes all Hemingway did was make Carraway “a kid from Minnesota.” In the end they hunkered down in a cottage of Hemingway’s on the shores of Lake Michigan near Charlevoix, Michigan and created one of the classics of American literature. 

The last argument the group had was over the name for their little group. Steinbeck fought hard for the name “Gerald Von Herbert,” but Remarque and Hemingway both thought it was too German sounding and would therefore hurt sales. In the end they opened a phone book and found a man named Scott Fitz and they threw the “gerald” on to appease Steinbeck and the “F.” because they thought it was classy.

Sadly the student may have believed that, and I am pretty sure he bought the DVD instead of the book. I like Robert Redford, but that movie is awful. Especially awful when you are have to watch it for a class in high school.