Let me give you an idea of where things sit as of 12:54 pm today, Wednesday, January whatever-the-fuck-it-is. About six inches of snow (if not more) just commenced falling on my part of Central Jersey (This was determined quite scientifically, if executed hastily, as I dipped my erect penis into the snowfall and determined a good 3 inches left to solid ground), sending the neighbors scurrying to dig out cars and clear paths of the free kind of white powder*, like extras in some Chris Columbus Holiday piece of shit.
The neighbor kid who wears a red baseball hat that makes him look like a fat little Ryan Zimmerman could play the dicky Macauley Culkin-type lead. Speaking of snow and Culkin, how early in life do you think blow finds you when you're a 6-year-old leading man, for Christ's sake? But I digress. I was talking about the old neighborhood out my window.
Right now my Polak roommate in out there shoveling the driveway with his hippie-chick girlfriend, having already done two of the neighbors and intent (from the look of things) on getting the whole fucking street done with hand shovels at this point. God Bless 'em; I'm sure not doing it.
The garbage trucks just rolled through,too, so they've sort of flattened a path in the road for the smaller vehicles, or those that handle terribly in this kind of weather like my Saab 9-3. It's a great car and runs beautifully, but you could blindfold a Kenyan and drop him in Alaska with nare but his mesh tank-top and 80's-style running shorts and he'd handle Winter better than my fucking car. Just a fact.
All along the street people continue digging out. Those that didn't have to brave the elements at 6:30 am to get in before their asshole boss gives them shit (via cell phone from home) or decides (from his Winter vacation spot somewhere in the Caribbean) that things aren't bad enough to close the office. This is the type of dickhead who thinks the term "State of Emergency" doesn't apply, or that the hour-and-a-half delayed start will completely tank production for the foreseeable future and send his company plummeting into bankruptcy.
It's crazy. Being buried under about a foot of accumulated snow (end already, Winter) should be God's or fate's way of telling you to avoid the rat race for a day or so. Yet we really think we're so fucking clever and special that we can beat Mother Nature by driving directly into the fist of her latest right cross.
I know those of you with your eye on the almighty dollar will argue the point about making every minute profitable, stay one step ahead of the competition, "losing" a day of work. And what the fuck does that mean, exactly? I submit that a person will do the same amount of work in 4 days that they would've done in 5 if they are held responsible for completing it by a specific deadline. Worst case scenario, everybody stays an extra half hour for a couple weeks or you brown bag it for a day or two and eat at your desk. Now we are getting the work done, sparing some of our dwindling natural resources a day's use, and most importantly not putting our fucking life on the line on the Hockey Rink formerly known as Route 1.
*(I would add 'and less fun', but seeing the sun come up at age 30 only resulted in Introspective Change-my-ways moment number 6,482. Not anything fun)
Hollywood is once again looking to bastardize the work of one of the genius Authors of the 20th Century, as they've unveiled a trailer for the new Hugh Jackman vehicle "Real Steel", based on the 1956 short story "Steel" by Richard Matheson. See the trailer here
In the short story, which was one of sixteen Matheson saw turned into Twilight Zone episodes, Lee Marvin plays a boxer-turned-promoter in a future where humans have been banned from the sport, replaced by humanoid androids. In the end he must enter the ring in disguise and battle one of these machines when his unit breaks down. The results are inevitable, but the story remains human and impactful. After seeing the trailer for this remake, one wonders how bad things will get when the 84-year-old Matheson finally leaves this mortal plane and his tome can be properly rifled through like items at a dead uncle's garage sale.
Hollywood has failed miserably to translate the humanity and simple elegance of Matheson's work time and again, most recently with The Box, a full length piece of shit based loosely on his classic short "Button, Button". In the past, it has tried to bring the author's finest work, "I am Legend", to the big screen in three pedestrian efforts (1964's The Last Man on Earth, 1971's The Omega Man and 2007's I am Legend), all of which fell short of capturing the true emotion of the novel. In fact, the DVD-released alternate ending to the Will Smith version might be the closest to expressing Matheson's closing theme, so of course Hollywood didn't go with it.
It's getting disappointing as a fan of Richard Matheson's work to see what Hollywood does with original, truly great ideas. In over a half century of writing, Matheson's imagination has spawned the aforementioned 16 Twilight Zones, several Night Gallery (Rod Serling's follow-up to The Twilight Zone) episodes, countless other efforts as a producer and writer for television screenplays (as original author and on rewrite efforts), over a dozen films, and has been such a part of American Pop Culture that both The Simpsons and TheFamily Guy have paid homage.
Let's just hope Hollywood gets it right and treats one of the finest American authors we've been privieged to read and celebrate with at least a modicum of that respect. It could happen...shamefully, however, it won't while Mr. Matheson is still with us. Jersey guys get no respect!
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