All I Need!

  My first gig after moving to Mandan, North Dakota was self-publishing a small, free newspaper. It was originally conceived as a local arts and crafts sort of thing, but quickly morphed into an open forum (it was called The Heart River Open Forum ) for poetry, short stories, essays, artwork, cartoons, and my monthly movie reviews. Here I am in the basement of our first house in Mandan, carefully crafting an issue, pink shirt, balding head, and all. I wish I still had that Macintosh Quadra 605.   At the time, for me, the paper was mostly a way to feel like a neo-Roger Ebert. What I most fondly remember about it now is how excited the mostly Left-leaning people of Bismarck/Mandan were to have this cool bit of alternative media in their midst. My post box was regularly stuffed with submissions. This was during the mid-nineties. It was the Clinton years and it was North Dakota. Lots of people were hungry to have their voices heard. My favorite contributor was Jon Twingley...

  In my tweens and teens, I fancied myself as a photographer in more ways than spying on Anny, the neighbor girl. I also learned how to develop film and make prints in a darkroom. The darkroom was in my sixth-grade classroom, built by the students out of cardboard refrigerator boxes. (I guess that makes me eleven or twelve here.) That was during the early seventies. Those were such innocent times. Students, parents, and teachers thought nothing of an adult male teacher spending time alone with students in a four foot by eight-foot darkened enclosure after school hours. (Nothing inappropriate ever happened—that I remember. I probably should’ve skipped this aside altogether.) I’m not sure who took this photo of Princess and me. I’m guessing Cheryl snapped it, probably with a Kodak Instamatic. This was long before I got my job as a paper goods supply warehouseman and bought my Pentax K1000 SLR with zoom lens. What I find most interesting about the shot is how Princess—who I’ve alway...

  This is another favorite from my Prairie Independent days. I’ve always loved the conversational tone I found. Fun fact: it was almost rejected by the paper because the publisher was uncomfortable with my use of the term “dick flick.” Knocked Up . Hmm, I think a better title would have been Snuck Up because this baby snuck up on me twice. When I first heard the title, I thought, “Oh great, another stupid sex comedy about some guys spending every waking moment trying to get laid and then one of them has to deal with the nightmare of getting unlucky.” Then I noticed it was by the creator of Freaks and Geeks , a TV series I’ve loved completely ever since a friend loaned me her DVDs for a long road trip. That got me interested. (The fact that I disliked the 40-Year-Old Virgin didn’t deter my interest either.) So, I finally got around to seeing it with my wife and was pleasantly surprised. I loved every minute of it. From start to finish, I was either smiling or laughing or ...

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  Of swords and hands - Kill Bill Are my tears due to the greatness of Kill Bill or the cumulative effect The Bride’s journey has had on me over the years or my having had kids of my own? After The Bride has triumphed over O-Ren Ishii – her greatest rival – in the falling snow, I’m unable to move. When Bill wonders if she knows her daughter is still alive, I weep. As The Bride follows her path of revenge towards Bill, she charts a classic trajectory of going after what she wants, first the wrong followed by the right way. Duels in wintery Japanese gardens are typical of what happens to heroes at the midpoint of their journeys, halfway to discovering the wrongness of their ways. For The Bride, it’s an empty, unsatisfying, false victory. Watching her beaten and bloodied figure collapse on a bench, her sword falling from her hand, I’m unable to move because I read her thoughts. O-Ren deserved to die, but not by having the top of her head sliced off from six feet away by a sharp...