tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50991952964389800002024-02-06T19:39:42.126-08:00InfinitePotatoBlogCosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-16449628518338795152022-12-09T05:54:00.004-08:002022-12-09T05:54:19.806-08:00Is The Doctor Like Jesus?<div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgxVD2ZWi_R4bJJD0eR_LBg59l4lNvWWEgxjbWNjnZLxXE7lhRdTj5ESK80m0mIqw2zdMlxKgq5pvegB--iqy9YcufGKxafZtn-mJnUUVaPozmqMVhjBiXsB8PWJq29pHciWaoJBZvcPidpIRVnXyqC8xyVvolwS_g8L7fc_cgauh1wg7sPsrU1RcoBvg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="230" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgxVD2ZWi_R4bJJD0eR_LBg59l4lNvWWEgxjbWNjnZLxXE7lhRdTj5ESK80m0mIqw2zdMlxKgq5pvegB--iqy9YcufGKxafZtn-mJnUUVaPozmqMVhjBiXsB8PWJq29pHciWaoJBZvcPidpIRVnXyqC8xyVvolwS_g8L7fc_cgauh1wg7sPsrU1RcoBvg=w288-h400" width="288" /></a></div></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Doctor from the popular British science fiction television show Doctor Who has often been compared to Jesus due to the similarities in their personalities and actions.<br /><br />Both characters are seen as powerful, wise, and compassionate beings who are devoted to helping others and fighting injustice. The Doctor, like Jesus, is known for his willingness to sacrifice himself for the greater good and his ability to inspire others to do the same.<br /><br />One major difference between the two characters, however, is that while Jesus is a religious figure, the Doctor is a time-traveling alien. This allows the Doctor to use advanced technology and knowledge to help those in need, whereas Jesus relies on his faith and teachings to guide him.<br /><br />Despite this difference, both characters share a similar sense of determination and selflessness. They are both willing to put the needs of others before their own and will go to great lengths to protect the innocent and fight against evil.<br /><br />Another key similarity between the Doctor and Jesus is their ability to forgive. Both characters are known for their capacity to forgive even those who have wronged them in the past, and they often use this ability to help others find redemption and turn their lives around.<br /><br />Overall, while the Doctor and Jesus may have different origins and abilities, they share many important qualities that make them both powerful and inspiring figures. Both are dedicated to fighting for justice and helping those in need, and both are willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.</b></span>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-32304504639970607212022-12-07T04:10:00.000-08:002022-12-07T04:10:38.049-08:00Griffin Chronicles--Chapter Eight<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgh6BckZzaLkCxm5BiCn3_mD_GGCNUyOKi9viz7KaDIZnmR7mYyaFWztQxBblfbkRPfxYCCSsaD9PlSZhdRQSU3-ZgXuXa1DufoQOHefb6hSn_IxngtFp_bS-VX0nkDCyYNPqx2nwEeK2ArrZKIGKGOKye2X_am3i7JnbO9ai8g_2E3KkoOYXZDCK2utQ" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="187" data-original-width="320" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgh6BckZzaLkCxm5BiCn3_mD_GGCNUyOKi9viz7KaDIZnmR7mYyaFWztQxBblfbkRPfxYCCSsaD9PlSZhdRQSU3-ZgXuXa1DufoQOHefb6hSn_IxngtFp_bS-VX0nkDCyYNPqx2nwEeK2ArrZKIGKGOKye2X_am3i7JnbO9ai8g_2E3KkoOYXZDCK2utQ=w400-h234" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>When the four men emerged from the stairway, the first thing they saw was a burst of light erupting from the exhibition hall. It was followed by what sounded like a huge clap of thunder. A police officer’s limp body flew through the door and crashed into the opposite wall. The impact caused two paintings to fall, setting off the alarm again. <br /><br />The security chief and Seargent Fines both pulled their guns from their holsters.<br /><br />“Whoever is in there needs to come on out with their hands up,” Fines called. “We don’t want to have to hurt you!”<br /><br />The sound of wind filled their ears, and an icy breeze rushed through the corridor. A voice called from inside. Every one of them felt as though the voice was coming from inside their own minds.<br /><br />“Please,” it called. It sounded like a low growl but also gargled as if it were coming from underwater. “Come and try!”<br /><br />“That didn’t sound human,” the professor said. “Oh my god!”<br /><br />“Professor, calm down!” Daniel said. “It has to be human. What else can it be?”<br /><br />It stepped into the hall.<br /><br />Most of it was still bones. Black bones that looked like rock. Its left arm, right leg, left side of its chest, and the whole head was that of a petrified skeleton. The rest of it not only had new, pink flesh but also a very young and athletic build. It was looking at them with the crazy terrifying smile of a skull with a bright yellow glow coming from its eyes.<br /><br />The chief screamed and took off running. The thing held up its flesh-covered hand and a crackle of raw energy erupted from it. The chief instantly vanished into a cloud of golden mist, which the thing sucked up as if it were sipping soda. It moaned as new flesh began to grow across its bare arm. Lips and cheeks formed on its face.<br /><br />Fines pointed his gun at the creature and fired twice. The thing held up its hands. The bullets stopped in midair, dropping harmlessly to the floor. It pointed at the officer and a bolt of light shot out from its finger. It hit Fines in the head. He fell to the floor, dead.<br /><br />“Run, Professor!” Daniel said. He turned back to the stairs and could feel the professor following him.<br /><br />“Robbins!” the creature screamed. The professor froze in place. It was not that he did not want to run. The thing had forced him to stop. He slowly rose from the ground, his body turning to face the thing.<br /><br />“Stop!” Daniel screamed.<br /><br />“Daniel!” the professor yelled back. “Go! Get out of here!”<br /><br />“Robbins,” the creature said. The energy it had absorbed from the chief had made it mostly normal again. It had the face of a man in his late twenties, but he still had nothing but naked light where his eyes should be. His voice was less like a growl. Though when he spoke, it sounded like two voices were coming from his mouth. “I must consume you. I will be complete.”<br /><br />“I pulled you out of the ground,” Robbins said.<br /><br />“And I thank you for that,” the creature said. “But I must consume you.”<br /><br />Daniel watched in horror as the professor’s body was reduced to mist and consumed by the creature. He did not wait his turn. He ran into the stairwell and flew down the stairs as quickly as his legs would carry him.<br /><br />He had to get the kids and get out.<br />__________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />Tyler opened his eyes and woke with a jolt. He sat straight up and looked around himself. He was sitting in the middle of the street, surrounded by broken glass. He breathed deeply, sucking in the cold, damp air.<br /><br />“Tyler!”<br /><br />He looked up and saw Megan running toward him. He remembered what had happened now. She had to go back to the lobby and out the door to get to him. There was a police officer and a couple of other people coming toward him as well.<br /><br />“Are you okay?” Megan asked as she got to his side. He was starting to get up and she gave him her hand to brace with.<br /><br />Tyler looked down at his body. He had some tears in his clothes and there was a big patch of blood on his thigh. He had probably cut himself pretty well on the way down. Other than that, he felt fine.<br /><br />“I think so,” he said. He looked down and saw the medallion lying on the ground next to where he was. It was different now. It did not look like an old relic, but shiny and brand new. Hesitantly, he reached down and touched it. Nothing happened. He quickly swiped it up and put it into his coat pocket just as one of the policemen reached him.<br /><br />“What happened?” the man asked. He looked at the glass all around them and back up at the two broken windows in the museum.<br /><br />“The guy that set off the alarm came this way,” Tyler said. He pointed down the street. “He got into a car and went that way.”<br /><br />“And how did you get out here?” the man asked.<br /><br />Tyler shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I flew.”<br /><br />“Shots fired!” a voice called out over the officer’s radio. “Shots fired! All units to the Museum of Natural History! Shots fired on the third floor!”<br /><br />All of the cops on the street took off back to the museum entrance. Tyler and Megan followed them.<br /><br />“Are you sure you’re alright?” Megan asked as they ran.<br /><br />“I’m fine,” he said. “I still don’t know what happened, but I’m fine.”<br /></b></span><b style="font-size: large;">__________________________________________________________________________<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Daniel burst from the stairwell just as a group of officers was about to go up. He waved at them, gasping desperately for air. Tyler ran over to him and put his hand on his shoulder.<br /><br />“Dad!” he said. “What’s the matter?”<br /><br />He shook his head and looked at one of the policemen. “Don’t go up there!”<br /><br />“Where is Sergeant Fines?” one of the men asked.<br /><br />“He’s dead!” Daniel replied. “They all are! Everyone that went up there is dead.”<br /><br />“Grandpa?”<br /><br />Daniel looked over and his shoulders slumped. He had not realized that Megan was standing there. “I’m sorry, honey. Yes. We all need to get out of here right now!”<br /><br />Thunder clapped above them. Another loud crash came from outside. They all looked out to the street just a huge piece of the building had fallen on top of one of the police cars. A second later, a smaller object landed on top of it. It was a naked man.<br /><br />“Who is that?” one of the cops asked.<br /><br />“That’s him,” Daniel said. “That’s the guy that killed everyone.”<br /><br />The cops all ran out onto the front steps and drew their weapons on the man. One of them yelled for him to freeze. He sent a bolt of energy in that officer’s direction and the man vanished. The other officers responded by opening fire. The naked man held his arms out and all of the bullets slowed down until they floated six feet away from him. He dropped his arms and all the pieces of metal fell to the sidewalk.<br /><br />“I can sense it!” the man yelled. “I know it’s here! But now is not the time! I must prepare!”<br /><br />With that, he turned and ran down the street. He ran quickly at first, but then shot off into a blur of speed. The police all went after him, but by the time they had reached the bottom of the stairs he had vanished.<br />__________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />Daniel, Tyler, and Megan were sitting in the lobby in three of the chairs that were still there from dinner. It had been ten minutes since the man had disappeared into the night. An entire fleet of police cars was outside with their lights flickering in the darkness. There were police officers all over the museum. <br /><br />The coroner and a team of detectives were upstairs taking pictures and filling out reports. Another group of detectives and uniformed officers were busy trying to get fingerprints in the conference room and here in the lobby. And a detective was standing in front of them. <br /><br />He had introduced himself as Detective Isaacs. He was not dressed like the detectives Tyler had seen in the movies. This man had on a button-down shirt and a pair of blue jeans. He guessed he had been sleeping when he got a call to come down. He had a notepad and a pen in his hand and had just finished listening to Daniel give his account of what happened on the third floor. Even after the things that Tyler had seen tonight he had a hard time believing what he was hearing.<br /><br />“So, this guy was sucking people into his eyes?” Isaacs asked.<br /><br />“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “He was feeding off of their souls or something. He got stronger every time he did it. I’m telling you that it was the skeleton that we had on display! It was encased in stone when it was brought in here, and now it's running around downtown!”<br /><br />“Dad,” Tyler said. “Calm down.”<br /><br />Isaacs turned to Tyler. “And the person you saw was a different guy?”<br /><br />“Yes,” Tyler replied. “I know that his first name is Raloam. I don’t know his last name. He was here tonight with Anya Blake from the Channel Nine news.”<br /><br />“And you think that he stole something?” Isaacs asked.<br /><br />“I think so,” Tyler said. He had to will himself not to reach down and touch the coin in his coat pocket. “I don’t know what it was, though.”<br /><br />“It was a medallion,” Daniel said. “That’s the only thing missing. Well, that and the skeleton.”<br /><br />“Do you have a picture of it?” the detective asked. Daniel reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the brochures he had printed about tonight’s event. He opened it and found a picture of the medallion. He handed it to the detective. “Thank you. Okay. I’m going to put in a report on this and I’ll probably have some more questions for you tomorrow. In the meantime, you all need to go home and get some rest. DCF is working on getting a place for Ms. Robbins to spend the night.”<br /><br />“Thank you, Detective,” Daniel said.<br /><br />The man handed Daniel a small piece of paper. “This is my card. Call me if you remember anything else. Otherwise, I’ll be in touch.”<br /><br />Detective Isaacs walked away, and Daniel stood up. He looked at Tyler and Megan.<br /><br />“I’ve got a lot to do here tonight guys,” he said. “But, Tyler, I’m going to have someone take you home. You have school tomorrow.”<br /><br />“Dad,” Tyler started.<br /><br />“Don’t argue, son,” Daniel said. “It’s been a long day.” He took Megan’s hand and looked at her. “I’m sorry, honey. And I’m sorry for the way that you had to find out. Your grandfather was a very good man.”<br /><br />“He liked you very much, Mr. McDawn,” Megan said.<br /><br />Daniel smiled and turned. “Tyler, be in the parking garage in ten minutes. There will be a car there.”<br /><br />Tyler gave a little salute and turned to Megan.<br /><br />“I’m sorry about your grandfather,” he said.<br /><br />“Thank you,” she said.<br /><br />“Are you okay?” he asked.<br /><br />“I don’t really know,” she replied. “I don’t feel anything right now.”<br /><br />“You’re in shock,” he said.<br /><br />Megan suddenly opened her eyes wide and looked at him. “Oh my god! Tyler, I totally forgot! Are you okay?”<br /><br />“I told you I’m fine,” he replied.<br /><br />“But that thing blew you out the window like a cannon,” she said. “How did it happen?”<br /><br />Tyler reached into his pocket, pulled the medallion out and held it in his hand.<br /><br />“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not doing anything now. But all of the age and corrosion is gone.”<br /><br />Megan took the medallion and looked at it. “It’s beautiful. It looks brand new.”<br /><br />“I know,” Tyler replied. “There’s something about it. I felt power come out of it.”<br /><br />An older lady in a blue suit walked over to them and put her hand on Megan’s back.<br /><br />“Hi,” she said. “I’m with DCF. I need to talk to Megan for a few minutes.”<br /><br />“Okay,” Tyler said. “I have to go, anyway. Call me tomorrow from where ever they take you.”<br /><br />Megan smiled. “I will.”<br />__________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />“Do not answer that.”<br /><br />Anya looked over at Raloam. He was lying back in the seat with his eyes closed. A second later her phone started to ring. She rolled her eyes. She had given up a long time ago trying to figure out how he did that. She looked down at the display on the dashboard.<br /><br />“It’s my boss,” she said. “I have to answer it.”<br /><br />“No you do not,” Raloam said. “He is calling you to go cover the robbery. You can not take me back there.”<br /><br />“They won’t know it was you until tomorrow,” Anya said.<br /><br />“Unless the girl gave them my name,” Raloam said. “You had to introduce yourself.”<br /><br />Anya gritted her teeth. After a few more rings the phone stopped.<br /><br />“Did you kill him?” she asked.<br /><br />“What?” Raloam replied. “Of course not.”<br /><br />“I had to ask,” she said. “It looked like a pretty big explosion back there, and I’m almost positive I saw someone fall out the window.”<br /><br />“It was the first floor,” Raloam said. “He’s fine.”<br /><br />“So, he has it now?” she asked. Raloam nodded silently. “I’m still not sure that this was the right thing to do.”<br /><br />“Anya, this was not your decision,” Raloam said. “I am sorry. But it was something I was going to have to do eventually.”<br /><br />“But as on edge as you got when they showed that skeleton, I thought you would have second thoughts.”<br /><br />“It is not my fight anymore,” Raloam said.<br /><br />“What is that supposed to mean?” Anya said. “Everything you’ve searched for all these years just showed up in Birmingham, Alabama, and you just want to stop?”<br /><br />“The only thing that I have searched for is that medallion!” Raloam yelled. “I found it and I used it for its purpose!”<br /><br />“That medallion’s purpose was to create a sentry,” Anya argued.<br /><br />“And it has created one,” Raloam replied.<br /><br />“A kid that doesn’t even know what’s happened to him,” she said. “You’re not the man that I thought you were.”<br /><br />She reached over and switched on the radio.<br /><br />“If you’re just joining us we have reports coming in from the Birmingham Museum of Natural History,” a reporter was saying from the speakers. “We do not have anyone on the scene yet so we’re not exactly sure what’s happened down there. What we do know is that there has been at least one explosion, and an exchange of gunfire left at least seven people dead. We know that three of those were Birmingham police officers. It is believed that this all stemmed from a robbery attempt after tonight’s gala event. As soon as we have more information we will let you know.”<br /><br />Anya looked at Raloam.<br /><br />“Damn,” he said.<br />__________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />Tyler walked into the apartment and hung his coat on the hanger next to the door. It felt like it had been years since he had last been here, even though it had only been a few hours. <br /><br />He reached into his coat pocket and pulled the medallion out. It lay there in the palm of his hand. The gold glittered in the dim light and the red jewel gleaming at him looked like an eye staring into his soul. He had never seen this thing before tonight, but somehow he felt like he had owned it his whole life. He looked at the etching on the surface. He had seen it earlier and thought it looked like gibberish. It was not written in any language he had ever seen. He had been around ancient languages as long as he could read. However, it looked strangely familiar.<br /><br />“To the soul of a warrior,” he said to himself. “The soul of a griffin.” He did not know why he said that. He just felt like that was what the writing said. He laid the coin down on the table next to the door and went down the hall to the bathroom. He turned on the shower and started to get undressed. He winced as he pulled down his pants. He had not taken the time to look at the wound on his leg, but judging by the size of the blood stain in the fabric of his pants it was going to be pretty bad.<br /><br />He took a washcloth and wiped away the blood on his leg. There was a wound, but it was not much more than a scratch. It had pink skin and was a little red around the edges of it. It almost looked like he had gotten a bad cut weeks ago, and it was well on its way to healing. He just stared at it. There was no way that a cut like that could have caused the amount of blood he had on the thigh of his tux pants. He shook his head in disbelief. This night could not get a whole lot weirder.<br /><br />He pulled the rest of his clothes off and took a quick shower. It was nearly two in the morning and he was going to be lucky to get any sleep before time to go to school.<br /><br />When he climbed out he heard his phone ringing. It was still in his pants pocket. He retrieved it and swiped his finger across the screen to answer it.<br /><br />“Hello?”<br /><br />“Hi, son,” his father said from the other end of the line. “I just wanted to be sure that you got home alright.”<br /><br />“Yeah,” he replied. “I’m just getting a shower and heading to bed.”<br /><br />“Good. Listen, things got so crazy around here before you left. I’m sorry about that. I realize now that you had blood on your leg. Are you okay?”<br /><br />“Yeah, Dad,” he said. “It was nothing. I just scratched it chasing after that Raloam guy.” He left out the part about flying through a glass window into the street. He had managed to keep any of the cops from saying that to him and he would rather he not find out now. His dad had been through enough tonight.<br /><br />“Okay,” his dad said. “Well, take care of it. Put some peroxide on it and bandage it before you hit the sack. How was Megan?”<br /><br />“She’s okay for now,” Tyler said. “I don’t think she will be, though. It didn’t seem like it had hit her yet.”<br /><br />“I know,” the older man replied. “Poor girl. Her parents are back in Greece. I called her dad a few minutes ago to tell him what happened. He’s heading out tomorrow to get her and take her back.”<br /><br />“She’s going back to Greece that soon?” Tyler asked.<br /><br />“Well, it’ll probably be a couple of days before she actually leaves,” Daniel said. “But, yeah. I mean, probably. You really like her. Huh?”<br /><br />“I guess,” Tyler said. “Listen, Dad. I’ve got to get some sleep.”<br /><br />“Yeah,” Daniel replied. “I probably won’t be there when you get up in the morning. But I’ll see you tomorrow night.”<br /><br />“Okay, Dad,” Tyler said. “Good night.”<br /><br />“Good night, son,” Daniel said.<br /><br />Tyler ended the call and went into his bedroom, but he did not sleep.</b></span></div>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-69961144591288557982022-12-03T07:59:00.000-08:002022-12-03T07:59:44.392-08:00Griffin Chronicles--Chapter Six<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhppH0EJc7h32NUxTqzBFZOiwW6h5A25yDezj37MrTx1Hr0PZv60u5Z0a6emDaErMIRcS0BoGQaTvhhsMckKDZWiEzLyGU3qWjcj6upYMLpsaS7OR4J6dfpVNByaMG0PCQjo-UTU-vAXyA_GQ0cV4hh0MsBuUFEueL7UC-DFQjuoMMv6MYgpftdLXSVVg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="239" data-original-width="380" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhppH0EJc7h32NUxTqzBFZOiwW6h5A25yDezj37MrTx1Hr0PZv60u5Z0a6emDaErMIRcS0BoGQaTvhhsMckKDZWiEzLyGU3qWjcj6upYMLpsaS7OR4J6dfpVNByaMG0PCQjo-UTU-vAXyA_GQ0cV4hh0MsBuUFEueL7UC-DFQjuoMMv6MYgpftdLXSVVg=w400-h251" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>“May I give you a lift back to your hotel?” Daniel was saying as he stretched his arms and tried to work out the crick in his neck.<br /><br />“Not at all, Daniel,” Professor Robbins said. “I have to catalog everything before I leave.”<br /><br />The two men were propped on the rail of the third-floor balcony, overlooking the main lobby. The wait staff was busy clearing the tables while another crew broke down the stage. <br /><br />The professor was staring intently at the massive tyrannosaurus skeleton at the far end of the lobby. It seemed to be staring down at everyone as they worked, as if it were waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.<br /><br />“Isn’t it funny how things that don’t look very dangerous can be deadly?” the professor asked. “While things that look as if they are ready to kill, like our dino friend over there, are no more harmful than a wooden chair.”<br /><br />Daniel laughed. “How much have you had to drink?”<br /><br />The professor smiled warmly. “Not much, my friend. Just the ponderings of an old man, I suppose.”<br /><br />“Well, to answer your question, yes,” Daniel said. “It is funny. And some of the most beautiful can be the most dangerous. But what’s brought it up? It’s kind of some dark territory to be going to on your big night.”<br /><br />“I know,” Robbins said. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking about the rumors.”<br /><br />“Rumors?” Daniel asked.<br /><br />“Don’t pretend you haven’t heard,” the older man replied. “As much as I tried to keep it all under wraps, it got out somehow. I must have overheard at least three people talking about it tonight.”<br /><br />“I didn’t want to say anything,” Daniel said. “Look, Professor, it’s nothing to worry about. Strange things happen anytime a group has to stay out in the wilderness for a long time. Your group has been camping at the base of that volcano on and off for a decade.”<br /><br />“Two people just up and vanished, Daniel,” Robbins said. “They didn’t take anything with them. They didn’t leave anything behind. They were just gone. That’s more than just strange.”<br /><br />“And you’ve done everything you could,” Daniel replied. “What more could you have done?”<br /><br />“That’s the question that will plague me forever,” Robbins said. “Or until they turn up. I thought about shutting the site down.”<br /><br />Daniel pointed in the direction of the exhibition hall. “After a discovery like the one in there? You found a skeleton that shouldn’t exist! You found a medallion unlike anything anyone has ever seen. And you proved the existence of a civilization no one believed in. You can’t shut it down, Professor. It’s too important.”<br /><br />“Those are the same words my investors used,” he said. “I’m heading back to Greece next week. I just pray that nothing else like that happens again.”<br /><br />Daniel looked at his watch. “It’s getting late. I have to get Tyler home. You’re sure you don’t need a lift? I can have a car take you when you’re ready.”<br /><br />“Maybe in a while,” Robbins said. “I believe I’ll take a look around while your crews are finishing up with the cleaning. I don’t usually get to spend any time in a good old-fashioned museum.”<br /><br />“I’ll tell the guard staff to leave the lights on until you’re done,” Daniel said, patting the older man on the shoulder. “And a car will be waiting for you out front. Good night, sir.”<br /><br />“Good night, Daniel,” he replied.<br />__________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />The car pulled up to the curb about a block from the museum and Anya switched off the engine.<br /><br />“I don’t understand how you plan on doing this,” she said. “The cleaning crew is still in there, not to mention the normal security staff. The place is also covered in surveillance cameras.”<br /><br />“Do you think this is not something I have done before?” Raloam asked. He was pulling off the jacket that was part of his suit and loosening his tie. “I will handle this. Drive in a five-block radius around where we are now. Do that three times. Then park across the street from the east side of the building.”<br /><br />“Okay,” Anya replied. “Good luck.”<br /><br />Raloam looked at her and gave her hand a slight squeeze. “It will all be fine.”<br /><br />Anya gave him a small nervous smile. “I hope so,” she said.<br /><br />He got out of the car and threw his tie on the seat. He reached into the back and pulled out his long, tattered raincoat, and pulled it over his shoulders. He looked more like the guy that he usually was. Except this version was clean-shaven and had on nice pants. He closed the door, ducked into the shadow of the building beside them, and was gone.<br /><br />Anya let out a long, slow breath and blew the bangs out of her face. This was going to be a long night.<br /></b></span><b style="font-size: large;">__________________________________________________________________________<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br />Professor Robbins stood solemnly and stared at the paintings lining the walls of the museum’s east wing. He was just down the hall from the room where his exhibit was. A vase from ancient Rome had caught his attention, and now he was enraptured by the artwork of many of history's great Italian artists. He could not claim to be much of an art expert, nor did he know meaning of every symbol hidden in the details. He was not versed in much of the information about the artists themselves. But he enjoyed looking at these pieces.<br /><br />He came out of his trance of deep thought when he heard what sounded like footsteps coming from the room he had started. He turned and looked back in that direction. He thought he saw movement but decided it was just the shadow of a person who had just walked through the doorway. The guards were conducting rounds, or one of the cleaning crew members was trying to give him a subtle hint. They probably wanted him gone so they could get back to business as usual.<br /><br />He shrugged and walked back down the hall, intending to say goodnight to whoever had just gone into the exhibit and to head for the elevator. He came to the doorway and leaned over to peer inside.<br /><br />There was no one there.<br /><br />The exhibit hall where his items were displayed was a large, nearly empty space. It was about thirty feet in diameter. There were four display cases in the actual floor space. The two located to the left of the door contained large pieces of ancient pottery. The one at the center of the room contained the medallion he had talked about earlier in the evening. A fourth one on the right side had several photographs of objects still being uncovered at the site. In addition to these were two large cases that ran along the length of the back and left walls. These cases had various pieces of pottery, jewelry, tools, and even fragments of what were believed to be weapons.<br /><br />On the right side of the room was the showcase of the exhibit, The piece of black rock holding the skeleton frozen inside. It was standing on a small platform with a velvet rope attached to four stanchions to prevent people from touching it.<br /><br />Other than that, there was just the professor.<br /><br />He immediately turned and looked back out into the hallway. There was no one there either. He could have sworn he had heard someone. He was even sure he had seen something.<br /><br />“Hello?” he called down the hall. “Is someone there?” He looked up at the security camera peering at him from the ceiling. He waved at it.<br /><br />“Mr. Robbins,” someone called from the air. It sounded like an intercom though he did not see one anywhere. “Are you alright?”<br /><br />“Yes,” the professor said. “I thought that I saw someone.”<br /><br />“I don’t have anyone on your floor right now, sir,” the voice said. “Where did you see someone?”<br /><br />“In the exhibition room,” he replied. “But there’s no one there.”<br /><br />“I’ll send someone up, sir,” the guard replied.<br /><br />He nodded and walked back into the room where his treasures were.<br /></b></span><b style="font-size: large;">__________________________________________________________________________<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The doors were locked from the inside, but that did not concern Raloam. He knew the wait staff and the cleaning crew were still inside. That meant the main locks had not been activated yet since the doors would have to be opened again in a little while. Even if the place had been locked down tight, he had a pretty good feeling he would still be able to get inside. He had gotten in and out of tighter places than this.<br /><br />He crouched low behind a dumpster and watched patiently as a cook and a waiter took their cigarette break outside the roll-up door of the loading dock. They stood and talked casually for a few minutes before finally throwing the smoldering butts down on the concrete platform, grinding out the ember with their shoe. As they walked back inside, one grabbed the chain on the pulley and let the door slide back into place. <br /><br />Raloam listened carefully for the sound of the locking chain but did not hear anything. It was what he had thought would happen. They did not want to unlock and unchain the door every time they went out for another cigarette, so they left it unfastened until they got ready to leave for the night.<br /><br />It was too easy.<br /><br />He glided carefully through the shadows to avoid the security cameras for as long as possible. It was inevitable they would capture his image sooner or later. But the longer he could remain invisible, the simpler this task would be.<br /><br />When he reached the loading dock platform, he grabbed the roll-up door and pulled up on it gently. It raised about half an inch. <br /><br />He smiled. <br /><br />He pulled the door until it was eight inches from the ground. Then he laid down on the platform, slid inside, and lowered the door.<br /><br />The stockroom of the museum was mostly empty. The inventory was all out in the exhibition halls. There were a couple of forklifts and some pallet jacks. A messy break area was on the other end of the room, and a small office was on a balcony above it. Most of the lights were turned off. There was just enough light for a guard to be able to get a quick look around when he came through on his rounds.<br /><br />The cleaning crew would be here in a matter of minutes. They would be hauling all the tables and chairs from tonight’s dinner into this room to be picked up in the morning. Raloam needed to stay on the move.<br /><br />He slipped out the door and found himself in a hallway that looked a lot like hallways in a hundred office buildings all over this city. This was the administration area of the museum. None of the ornate lighting fixtures or fancy carpet would be seen here. The accountants and HR personnel had their offices in this area.<br /><br />He had been studying the layout of this building for weeks. He knew where to go. He moved his way down the dim hallway until he reached a double set of fire doors. Pressing the handle down on them, he hoped an alarm did not go off. It did not. At least there was not one he could hear. <br /><br />On the other side of the doors, the décor changed a great deal. A set of restrooms were on the right followed by another hallway. This one had paintings on the walls and there was the sound of a waterfall coming from the distance. He had made it into the display area.<br /><br />“Almost there,” he whispered to himself.<br /><br />The exhibition hall that held tonight’s display was on the third floor. He could not use the elevator. It had most likely been turned off for the day and would not work without a security card. The stairs were not a choice because the doors from the stairwell would probably be locked from the outside. He would be trapped inside once the first door closed behind him.<br /><br />That only left climbing.<br /><br />Once he reached the sound of the waterfall, he found himself about to enter the lobby. He looked up at the tyrannosaurus, grinning at him with its jaws full of sharp, white teeth. He looked over at the area that had been used earlier for their dinner. Some of the tables were gone but the crew was still busy breaking everything down. He looked up and saw the second-floor balcony, and then the third-floor balcony above it. Beyond that was a glass ceiling. The rest of the building could not be seen from here in the dark. The effect made the lobby three stories high but still gave plenty of room for exhibits on the other two floors. The entire lobby had been designed to hold the dinosaur bones.<br /><br />Raloam slouched behind a pillar and quickly moved to hide behind a plant next to the elevator. He checked that no one was looking. Everyone was gone at the moment. No doubt they had taken another couple of tables to another room where they would be loaded on a cart to go into the stockroom he had just come from.<br /><br />He took in a quick breath, set his foot up on the huge pot next to him, and launched his body as high as he could go. His other foot reached out and connected with the elevator housing, propelling him further. His outstretched arms grabbed the railing of the balcony. He somersaulted, landing perfectly on the carpeted floor. <br /><br />Raloam pressed his body as close to the wall as he could and looked around quickly to be sure there were no guards on this floor who could have seen him. <br /><br />He was halfway there.<br /><br />He peered over the balcony. None of the crew had yet returned. Without hesitating he jumped onto the railing and sailed into the air toward the tyrannosaur skeleton. He caught the main cable that held the bones together and spun around it, using his momentum to sling himself back to the balcony. This time when he climbed over the side he was standing on the third floor.<br /><br />He ducked into the shadows of one of the dark corners. Voices were coming from the main exhibition hall, so he slowly moved his way in that direction. When he was finally within sight of the door, he could see a guard standing in front of it talking with an older man. The older man was the professor that had made a speech at dinner.<br /><br />“What’s he still doing here?” Raloam muttered under his breath.<br /></b></span><b style="font-size: large;">__________________________________________________________________________<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>“I’m sorry,” Robbins said as the young security guard put his flashlight back on his belt. “I guess I’m just seeing things.”<br /><br />“That’s not a problem, sir,” the younger man said. “That’s why I’m here. I need to get back to the lobby now.”<br /><br />“I’ll go with you,” the professor said. “I’ve caused you enough trouble for one night.”<br /><br />The two men walked down the hallway toward the elevator together. As they went, the professor had the distinct sensation of being watched from the dim light of the corners of the abandoned rooms. He felt a shiver go down his spine. He stopped and turned. Of course there was nothing there. He chalked it up to the lateness of the hour.<br /><br />They arrived at the elevator and the guard pressed the button. After they had waited for a minute or so there was a beep from the radio on the younger man’s hip. He pulled it off of his belt and pressed the button.<br /><br />“Jones,” he said, identifying himself.<br /><br />“Stu,” a garbled voice called from the handset. “Are you still up on three?”<br /><br />“10-4,” Jones replied.<br /><br />“Cut that out,” the voice called. “You’re not a cop. Some of the motion sensors down on two just went off. It’s probably just a glitch but I need you to check it out.”<br /><br />“10…,” Jones started and then caught himself. “Okay. I’m on it.” He put the radio back on his belt and turned to the professor. “Can you see yourself down, sir?”<br /><br />“I’d like to go with you if that’s alright,” Robbins replied.<br /><br />“That’s not necessary, sir,” the guard said. “The motion sensors go off all of the time. It’s usually nothing, but we have to check out every instance or else there’s no use in having them. You go on back down to the lobby. I’ll take the stairs.”<br /><br />The elevator doors opened and Robbins nodded. He stepped inside and the young guard watched as the doors closed again.<br /></b></span><b style="font-size: large;">__________________________________________________________________________<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Raloam watched the professor get on the elevator. When he was gone the guard walked down the hall, past where he was hiding, and on toward the other side of the building. He was sure he was the one that had set off the motion sensors on the lower floor. He was just lucky that the other two men had been on this floor or the security office would have noticed that he had set the sensors here off as well.<br /><br />Raloam took his chance. He walked quickly down the hall in a slouch until he got to the main exhibition hall and ducked inside. There were security cameras trained on most of the exhibits here, but there did not appear to be one focused on the spot by the wall where he was right now. He took this opportunity to look around.<br /><br />The thing he had come for was right in front of him. But the item against the right wall was what had his attention. The blackened bones of a man frozen for thousands of years in a case of black volcanic rock. The skull was protruding from the rock just enough so that the ancient human appeared to be grinning maniacally at him.<br /><br />“Not my fight,” Raloam said to himself. “Not anymore.”<br /><br />He turned to the display case containing the medallion that the professor had been so proud of. The parts of it that still looked like gold were glistening under the bright bulb mounted over it. The rest of it had become corroded and green. He looked at it closely, barely making out the two indentations under the jewel on the front. Two small places that looked like they once held smaller jewels themselves but were now empty.<br /><br />Raloam took his coat off and wrapped a big part of it around his arm. He held his breath and punched the display case with all his might. The glass shattered into thousands of shards that flew to all parts of the room. Immediately the electronic beeping filled the air. The police station a few blocks away would already be getting a report. He grabbed the medallion and ran out the door, into the hallway leading to the east side of the building.<br /><br />If he had not taken off so quickly, he would have noticed that deep inside the black rock that used to be the recesses of the skeleton’s eyes, there was a dull glow that was slowly becoming brighter.<br /></b></span><br /></div>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-63502206332275299372022-12-02T04:46:00.000-08:002022-12-02T04:46:40.596-08:00Griffin Chronicles--Chapter Five<p><b style="font-size: large;"></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj2oJfCqC9kUe5VVN17u1yN282novmy4yKFHspjyCe5uPm46WpgJ5yPmXFPe3rLhodtFn7wONs15m-DnjpTBU2aALWS1q2ZorQZmrOvi7BqGI7ujwGhVijxswZUTOkSoJVlkWJTj-P-zCVLVmaqJ5tBQPGx_YKrU6X22U3TMm7bOpWyYEKbGMFx6sdjnQ" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="339" data-original-width="495" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj2oJfCqC9kUe5VVN17u1yN282novmy4yKFHspjyCe5uPm46WpgJ5yPmXFPe3rLhodtFn7wONs15m-DnjpTBU2aALWS1q2ZorQZmrOvi7BqGI7ujwGhVijxswZUTOkSoJVlkWJTj-P-zCVLVmaqJ5tBQPGx_YKrU6X22U3TMm7bOpWyYEKbGMFx6sdjnQ=w320-h219" width="320" /></a></b></div><p></p><p><b style="font-size: large;">A few minutes later the professor wrapped up his speech and Daniel McDawn invited everyone to move to the exhibition hall to view all the items. Everyone got up from their tables and began to make their way toward another area in the museum.</b></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Anya got up and started to follow everyone but quickly saw Raloam was not getting out of his chair. She sat back down and leaned over to look into his eyes.<br /><br />“What's wrong?” she asked. “You freaked out when they showed that skeleton.”<br /><br />Raloam looked at the waiters coming into the room to clear the tables. “I can’t talk about it now,” he said.<br /><br />“Well, I have to go interview the professor and Daniel McDawn,” she replied. “I’m supposed to be on air in thirty minutes.”<br /><br />“Anya,” he said quietly. “Do not go into the exhibition hall. It is too dangerous.”<br /><br />“Ray, that isn’t an option,” she replied. “If you can’t give me more to go on, I have to go do my job.”<br /><br />Raloam looked at her. “Fine,” he said. “Go. But keep your eyes open.”<br /><br />“I haven’t done anything else since I met you,” she said as she turned away to join the others. <br />__________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />“Tyler!”<br /><br />Tyler turned at the sound of his name and saw Professor Robbins walking toward him. Walking next to him was a girl who appeared to be around his age. She had reddish-brown hair and was wearing a blue dress with tiny sparkles. He felt his back straighten and tried to will his eyebrows not to raise. He did not think he was successful.<br /><br />“Professor,” he said, shaking the older man’s hand again. “I enjoyed your speech.”<br /><br />“Thank you,” the professor said. “I’m much better at digging than speaking. But I do enjoy showing off what I’ve been working on.” He motioned to the young woman standing next to him. “I would like for you to meet my granddaughter. This is Megan Robbins.”<br /><br />Tyler shook her hand lightly and smiled. “It’s nice to meet you.”<br /><br />The girl smiled and Tyler had to control his breathing. Her smile was beautiful and her green eyes lit up. He could see the same sparkle he had noticed in her grandfather’s eyes earlier. But this time it had a different effect on him.<br /><br />“It’s nice to meet you, too,” she replied.<br /><br />“Professor Robbins,” a voice called out. The three of them turned and saw another woman in a black dress carefully jogging toward them. Tyler recognized her as a woman he had seen on the news a few times since he had gotten to town.<br /><br />“Ms. Blake,” he said. “I was wondering where you were.”<br /><br />“Yes, sir,” the woman said. “May I speak with you for a few minutes in the lobby? My cameraman is setting up and I’d like to get a couple of lines from you for the ten o’clock news.”<br /><br />“Of course,” Robbins said. “Megan, why don’t you and Tyler head into the hall and have a look at the exhibit?”<br /><br />“Okay, Grandpa,” she replied. He went off with the reporter and Tyler turned to her.<br /><br />“Would you like to get something to drink?” he asked. She nodded and Tyler turned to one of the waiters walking by with a tray. “Do you have anything other than champagne?”<br /><br />The waiter nodded. “That is sparkling grape juice on the left, sir.”<br /><br />Tyler took two glasses and handed one to Megan. She thanked him and took a sip.<br /><br />“So, what did you really think of my grandpa’s speech?” she asked.<br /><br />“It was very interesting,” Tyler said. He sipped his drink and looked back at her. She was looking at him with a laugh in her eyes. “Okay. It was boring.”<br /><br />She laughed. “I know. He’s been practicing all week, so imagine having to hear about ancient artifacts and petrified skeletons every night for hours.”<br /><br />“I see your point,” Tyler said. “But it can’t be that bad. I’ve grown up going to things like this my whole life. I’ve heard speeches about everything from mummies to birds.”<br /><br />“This is not my kind of thing,” she said. “I’m much more comfortable with my hands in the dirt.”<br /><br />“Oh, are you planning to be an archeologist as well?” Tyler asked.<br /><br />“Yeah,” she replied. “I already think of myself as being one. I spent the summer with Grandpa in Greece. I was there when they finished uncovering that skeleton.”<br /><br />“Really?” Tyler asked. “That whole thing is kind of interesting. How is it possible that it wasn’t destroyed by the lava? I mean, not even part of it.”<br /><br />Megan finished her drink and handed the glass to one of the waiters as he walked by. “Do you want to know what I think?”<br /><br />“Sure,” he replied.<br /><br />“Well,” she said. “It had to be magic. It’s the only explanation.”<br /><br />Tyler stopped. He hoped that all that beauty was not just a cover for ten tons of crazy.<br /><br />“Magic?” he asked.<br /><br />“I know you think it's nuts,” she said. “But there were some bizarre things that have happened on the site. Some noises and lights came from that cave at night. And two people turned up missing.”<br /><br />“Really?” Tyler said. “I hadn’t heard anything about missing people.”<br /><br />“They don’t want it to get out,” she said. “Grandpa is afraid it will hurt the exhibit. They’re doing a whole search party thing back in Greece. But he’s trying his best to keep it out of the news over here.”<br /><br />“And no one has any idea of what happened to them?” Tyler asked.<br /><br />“No,” she replied. “Everyone went to bed one night and when they woke up there were two team members that were just gone. They didn’t take anything with them, and the site is at least thirty miles from the nearest town.”<br /><br />Tyler’s father walked by and stopped when he saw his son.<br /><br />“Tyler,” he said. He looked at Megan and smiled. “Who’s your friend?”<br /><br />“Oh,” Tyler said. “This is Megan. She’s the professor’s granddaughter.”<br /><br />“Well, it's a pleasure,” Daniel said. “Listen, Ty. I have to go down to the lobby and talk to Anya Blake with the local news.”<br /><br />“Okay,” Tyler said. “She already came and got Professor Robbins.”<br /><br />“Good,” Daniel said. “Have you two seen the exhibit yet?”<br /><br />“Well, I have,” Megan said.<br /><br />“Of course,” Daniel laughed. “You were probably there when they dug this stuff up. Well, would you please make sure that my son takes the time to look it all over? He needs a little culture.”<br /><br />“I have culture, Dad,” Tyler said.<br /><br />“Right,” Daniel said. “Zombies and aliens. Anyway, go look at the stuff.” He patted Tyler on the back and headed toward the lobby.<br /></b></span><b style="font-size: large;">__________________________________________________________________________<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br />“Tonight’s gala at the Birmingham Museum of Natural History is meant to serve two functions,” Anya Blake was saying as she gazed into the camera lens pointed at her. “The first is to display several of the unique findings of Professor Jonah Robbins and help bring awareness to the things he has been working on for several years. Another reason for this event is to raise funds for the new museum, and for Professor Robbins’ excavation which is continuing in Greece.” She turned her attention to the waiting professor, just out of view. The camera moved so that he was now in the shot. “Professor, what would you like to say to the average person in this city that will compel them to come out in the coming weeks and months to see the things that you’ve brought here?”<br /><br />Robbins smiled. “Well, this is my passion,” he said. “So, of course, I’m a bit biased. But I think there is a little bit of a history lover in all of us. These relics are links not only to the past but to a civilization that we believed to be a fairy tale until just a few years ago. I would think that anyone, not just those of us who attend galas and functions of this sort, would find a lot of interest in seeing these sorts of items.”<br /><br />“Thank you,” Anya said. She turned to Daniel who had just stepped up behind the professor as he spoke. “Also with me is Daniel McDawn. He is the curator of this museum, as well as many others all over the world. Daniel, you have museums in New York, Chicago, and London. What made you decide to come to Birmingham?”<br /><br />“Well, I don’t remember having any discussions about why I shouldn’t come here,” Daniel said. “Birmingham is a great place. The people who live here are just as deserving of a nice place to get a little culture as anyone else in any other part of the world.”<br /><br />Anya turned back to the camera and began to make some closing remarks so she could send the newscast back to the studio. Daniel and the professor stepped away and began to make their way back toward the exhibition hall.<br /><br />“I’m glad that’s over,” Robbins said with a chuckle. “I don’t believe I’ll ever get used to being on camera.”<br /><br />“It’s easier than being in front of a crowd,” Daniel said. “At least you can’t see the audience.”<br /><br />“As I said before,” the professor remarked. “I’d rather be somewhere with my hands in the dirt.”<br /><br />They were laughing as the elevator doors slid apart to reveal Tyler and Megan standing there with a noticeable amount of nervous distance between them.<br /><br />“I thought you were looking at the exhibit,” Daniel asked. He gave his son a little smile that told him he knew he had other interests.<br /><br />“Well, we did,” Tyler said. “We were thinking about going down the block for some ice cream or something.”<br /><br />“That sounds like fun,” Robbins said. He gave Daniel a sly wink. “Perhaps we’ll join you.”<br /><br />“No!” Tyler exclaimed a little more quickly and louder than he had intended. “I mean, that’s okay, Professor. There are a lot of people upstairs who want to talk to you.”<br /><br />Daniel laughed. “Okay. But be back here in an hour. It’s already getting late and you’ve got school tomorrow.”<br /><br />Tyler nodded and they watched the two men get onto the elevator. The doors closed and he chuckled.<br /><br />“Your grandfather is great,” he said.<br /><br />“He is,” Megan said. “He works too hard. But he loves it so much.”<br /><br />“And he’s good at it,” Tyler added as they walked toward the front door of the museum. “I don’t know much about that sort of stuff. But that skeleton is really amazing.”<br /><br />“Really creepy,” Megan replied.<br /><br />They got to the front door just as Anya Blake was stepping back inside. They could see the news van driving away down the street.<br /><br />“Hi,” Anya said. “Aren’t you Daniel McDawn’s son?”<br /><br />“Yeah,” Tyler said. It came out sounding more like a question than a statement. “You’re the reporter on the news.”<br /><br />“Anya Blake,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”<br /><br />“You, too,” Tyler said. He looked and there was a large man with long hair dressed in an expensive-looking suit stepping out of the shadows behind her.<br /><br />“Hello,” the man said.<br /><br />Anya turned and looked at him. “Ray. I thought you’d gone upstairs.”<br /><br />“I was waiting for you,” he replied.<br /><br />Anya turned back to Tyler. “I’m sorry. This is my date, Raloam.”<br /><br />Tyler looked up at the man’s eyes and felt a cold shiver travel down the length of his spine. There was something about those eyes.<br /><br />“Hi,” Tyler said. “Have we met before?”<br /><br />“No,” Raloam said. “I do not believe so.”<br /><br />“You kids leaving?” Anya asked.<br /><br />“Yes,” Megan said. “I’ve heard enough about this. Professor Robbins is my grandfather.”<br /><br />“Oh,” Anya said. “Yeah. I guess there’s only so much of this kind of thing one can stand.”<br /><br />“Well,” Tyler said, opening the door for Megan. “It was nice to meet you.”<br /><br />“Very nice to meet you as well, Tyler,” Raloam said. </b></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>__________________________________________________________________________<br /></b></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Anya's smile faded as the two teenagers stepped outside and headed down the sidewalk.<br /><br />“So that’s him?” Anya asked.<br /><br />“Yes,” Raloam replied. “That is him.”<br /><br />Anya sighed deeply and turned to face him. “Jesus, Ray! He’s a child!”<br /><br />“I told you all about it,” Raloam replied calmly.<br /><br />“You said he was young,” Anya said. “You said nothing about him being a little kid!”<br /><br />“I have studied him, Anya,” Raloam said. “He will be eighteen in a matter of weeks. This is normal.”<br /><br />Anya turned back and watched the two kids moving down the street. “There’s nothing normal about this.”</b></span></div></div>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-55890809203564132012022-11-30T06:44:00.005-08:002022-12-05T04:48:05.275-08:00Griffin Chronicles--Chapter Seven<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4XJmWXm90T6Nzt1EEQKCHUqVfzRlZciX5s6nnmvU4cZQ2j82GMibV_qSq4lSo2ycN_AFxCgyLGF_dpcKONYw-XsC8a_zPFBqsOHbwdBYacA4plvnhA1IRE5_kAPqhVHDBIb4ccqfXTSTV7FmQ9LVPKZ6LzjLTFXOugAaLCUEq9GwqH2VuFBC4szUfRQ/s591/ice%20cream.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="374" data-original-width="591" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4XJmWXm90T6Nzt1EEQKCHUqVfzRlZciX5s6nnmvU4cZQ2j82GMibV_qSq4lSo2ycN_AFxCgyLGF_dpcKONYw-XsC8a_zPFBqsOHbwdBYacA4plvnhA1IRE5_kAPqhVHDBIb4ccqfXTSTV7FmQ9LVPKZ6LzjLTFXOugAaLCUEq9GwqH2VuFBC4szUfRQ/w400-h254/ice%20cream.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>Tyler put the last spoonful of ice cream in his mouth and placed the spoon back in the dish. He looked over to see Megan smiling as if she had a secret.</b></div><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br />“What is it?” he asked.<br /><br />“Nothing,” she replied.<br /><br />He took his napkin and wiped his mouth. That only seemed to make it worse. She was almost laughing out loud now.<br /><br />“What is so funny?” Tyler asked. He was getting ready to do a nostril check.<br /><br />“You’re grunting,” she said.<br /><br />He cocked his eyebrows in confusion. “Grunting?”<br /><br />“Yeah,” she replied. “You’ve done it the whole time we’ve been here. Whenever you take a bite of your ice cream you make little grunting noises until you swallow.”<br /><br />Now it was Tyler’s turn to smile. He had been told this before. However, it was a little more embarrassing to be told by a pretty girl.<br /><br />“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that I really like this ice cream. I just can’t help it. It just does something to me!”<br /><br />Now she really was laughing. He thought that it was a good sign that he was able to make her smile and laugh this much. He laughed as he began to make mock grunts and pretended to continue eating.<br /><br />Tyler looked out at the street just as the sleek green town car slid up beside the curb. The headlights went out and the door opened. Daniel McDawn got out and adjusted the collar of his coat before heading toward the door of the diner. Tyler reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his phone. He glanced at it and rolled his eyes.<br /><br />“I guess we missed our curfew,” he said.<br /><br />Megan followed his eyes and saw Daniel just as he was stepping inside and taking a look around. He spotted them seated at the counter and made his way toward them.<br /><br />“What time is it?” she asked.<br /><br />“Ten minutes after eleven,” Tyler replied.<br /><br />“Did you get lost?” Daniel said when he reached them. He sat down next to Tyler and motioned for the waitress.<br /><br />“No,” Tyler said, a slightly embarrassed groan coming out with the word. “We were just talking and the time got away from us.”<br /><br />Daniel smiled. “It’s okay. I knew where you were.” He looked at the waitress when she came over and ordered a cup of coffee in a to-go cup. “But, Megan, I need to give you a lift over to the museum. Your grandfather is having a look around, but I’m sure he’ll be ready to head back to your hotel soon.”<br /><br />“Okay,” Megan said.<br /><br />The waitress came back with Daniel’s coffee and he took a sip. Tyler motioned to the ice cream dishes in front of them.<br /><br />“So,” he said. “You got this?”<br /><br />Daniel’s eyebrows went up a little. “Do I got this?”<br /><br />Tyler rolled his eyes a little. “Are you going to take care of this?”<br /><br />“Are you asking if I’m going to pay for your ice cream?” Daniel asked.<br /><br />“Yes,” Tyler replied.<br /><br />“Why would you ask a girl out for ice cream if you don’t have any money to pay for it?” Daniel replied. He looked over at Megan. “Is this the kind of bum that you want to go out with?”<br /><br />Megan smiled.<br /><br />“I have money,” Tyler said. “I would just rather not spend it.”<br /><br />“Oh, I see,” Daniel said with a chuckle as he pulled his wallet out of his coat. “I’ll pay your bill but only if you use your money to take Megan out to dinner this weekend.”<br /><br />Tyler looked down at the counter and shook his head.<br /><br />“Nice, dad,” he muttered.<br /><br />“You weren’t going to ask her out again?” Daniel asked as he laid a few bills down next to his coffee cup.<br /><br />“Not in front of you,” he replied.<br /><br />“It's okay, Tyler,” Megan said. “I’d like to see you again. On Friday?”<br /><br />Tyler nodded without looking up. Daniel laughed and patted his son on the shoulder as he got up and tilted his head toward the door. Tyler and Megan got up and followed him outside.<br /><br />“That’s strange,” Daniel said as he opened the driver’s side door. Tyler followed his gaze back to the museum.<br /><br />“What is?” he asked.<br /><br />“That light on the third floor,” Daniel replied. “It’s blinking.”<br /><br />“Maybe there’s a bulb that needs to be replaced,” Megan said.<br /><br />“That’s not what it looks like to me,” Daniel said. “The light is almost blue.”<br /><br />Just then Tom Petty started singing “Free Falling” from inside Daniel’s coat. He reached in and pulled out his phone.<br /><br />“Hello?” he said into it. Tyler’s attention went into overdrive when he saw the look of panic that washed across his father’s face. “How long ago did it start? Okay. Where is Professor Robbins? Call me as soon as one of them radios in. I’m on my way!” He turned to Tyler. “Get in!”<br /><br />Tyler and Megan climbed into the car and Daniel spun it in the opposite direction so hard that they were all thrown to one side. As they sped back down the street toward the museum Tyler thought he could hear the sound of police sirens. They seemed to get louder.<br /><br />“Dad,” Tyler said. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”<br /><br />“The alarms are going off,” Daniel said.<br /><br />“The motion alarm?” Tyler asked. “Those things haven’t worked right since you bought them.”<br /><br />Daniel shook his head and Tyler could see his grip on the steering wheel was so tight his knuckles were white. “Not the motion alarm. The alarm on one of the display cases went off. Those are not that sensitive. They’d only be activated if someone broke the glass.”<br /><br />It only took them a few seconds to make the two blocks back to the museum. Daniel pulled up to the curb, ignoring the fact that it was not only a no-parking zone, but also that he had pulled across the lanes so that he was now facing the opposite direction. He climbed out and began jogging up the steps toward the door. Tyler and Megan got out and began climbing after him.<br /><br />“Stay here!” Daniel said. “It may be dangerous!”<br /><br />“Dad, it can’t be any more dangerous than a city street in the middle of the night!” Tyler argued. By then Daniel had gotten to the door and was fishing through his keyring to find the right one. He almost never used the front door.<br /><br />“Fine!” he said. “You’re right. But you’re staying in the lobby!”<br /><br />He found the right key and opened the door just as three police cars came speeding around the corner and skidded to a stop.<br />_________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />Jones stopped on the stairs connecting the second and third floors. The high-pitched whine of the alarm had pierced his ears and nearly sent him tumbling. He pulled the radio off of his hip and pressed the button.<br /><br />“This is Jones,” he said. “What is that alarm for?”<br /><br />“I don’t know, Stu,” a voice came over the radio. “It’s one of the glass alarms. It’s centered on three. Can you head back up there and check it out?”<br /><br />“10-4,” he said. His supervisor on the other end did not say anything in return so he guessed he was ignoring his trucker lingo.<br /><br />Jones walked back out into the third-floor hallway and immediately noticed that there were glass shards all over the floor outside of the main exhibition room.<br /><br />“There’s glass on the floor by EX-3,” he said into his radio. “I’m going to go check it out.”<br /><br />“No, Jones,” his supervisor said. “I’m sending Howard up there to back you up. Wait for him.”<br /><br />“Whoever it was isn’t on here anymore, Chief,” Jones said. “I’ll be fine.”<br /><br />“Jones, wait for Howard,” the radio repeated.<br /><br />Jones shrugged. He put his radio back on his hip and pulled his revolver out of its holster. What the Chief did not know was not going to hurt him. He stuck close to the wall until he got to the door. He spun around the edge of the doorway with his weapon held out in front of him with both hands. He thought about yelling “Freeze”, but decided against it. His heart was pounding, and his head was swimming with adrenaline.<br /><br />There was no one there.<br /><br />He lowered his weapon and looked around the room. There was no one hiding in any of the corners and there really was nothing to hide behind. He saw the display case was destroyed, and evidently whatever item had been inside was gone. He pulled out his radio again to tell his boss what he had found. Then he decided to wait until Howard got up here since he was not supposed to be in this room.<br /><br />That was when he noticed it.<br /><br />At first, it was not something he saw. It was more like something he felt. There was a low buzz that seemed to come from deep inside his body. After a few seconds, it evidenced itself as a low hum that filled the room. Eventually, it centered itself on the display of the skeleton on the wall in front of him. The sound was coming from everywhere, but also specifically from there. It was the strangest sensation he had ever felt. That was when he noticed that the eyes appeared to be glowing.<br /><br />“Oh my god!” he said to himself. He decided that he did not care how much trouble he was in. He pulled the radio back off the clip. “Chief! Something’s up with the skeleton thing in the new exhibit! It's glowing and humming! I swear to God!”<br /><br />“Jones, I told you not to go in there!” the chief’s voice screamed over the radio. “Howard! Are you almost there?”<br /><br />“I’m headed up the stairs now,” a deep voice called from the handset. “I’ll be there in a minute.”<br /><br />“Hurry up,” the chief said. “Jones is seein’ things.”<br /><br />“I’m not seeing things, Chief,” Jones said. “There’s something going on with…”<br /><br />He did not finish his sentence. As he stared at the display the humming grew almost deafening before the entire thing seemed to explode. The room filled with a light so bright it was impossible to see anything. The sound caused his eardrums to instantly rupture, and he felt the blood run down the side of his face.<br /><br />The light slowly dissipated. There was now simply a long, brilliant, white beam from the eyes of the display. It was running across the room and connecting with his chest. He was completely enveloped in a sort of golden mist. He looked down and found himself floating nearly three feet from the floor.<br /><br />Jones looked over and saw Howard had finally made it to his location. He was looking from the display and back to his limp body as he screamed into his radio. Jones could not hear what he was saying, but he was sure that the chief would believe him now. As he hung there helplessly, he saw another beam erupt from the display and hit Howard squarely in the chest. It picked lifted into the air as well, and caused him to hang there just like him.<br /><br />The two men floated motionless like two lifeless dolls for what seemed like hours. However, it only took a matter of seconds for the process to complete. The golden cloud grew thicker as their solid substance faded. After a time there was nothing in the room but the cloud, and it was dense enough that it could not be seen through. It was slowly pulled into the skeleton’s eyes like a vacuum cleaning up a mess.<br /><br />When there was no sign left of the two men, the black rock that encased the skeleton began to crack.<br /></b></span><b style="font-size: large;">_________________________________________________________________________<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br />“I mean it, Ty,” Daniel McDawn said as he jogged toward the security office. “You and Megan stay in the lobby!”<br /><br />“Okay, Dad,” Tyler said. He watched his dad disappear down the hall. He immediately started looking around the lobby. They were mostly alone. There were a few members of the crew were standing around. Evidently, they had been cleaning up when the alarm went off and security had gotten too busy to evacuate them.<br /><br />Behind them, the doors were opening again and several police officers were coming in and running off to various places in the building.<br /><br />“What are you doing?” Megan asked.<br /><br />“Don’t you want to know what’s going on?” Tyler asked.<br /><br />“Where is the security chief?” one of the policemen said.<br /><br />“I’m not sure,” Tyler said.<br /><br />“He’s in the security office,” one of the guys on the cleaning crew called out. Tyler turned toward him.<br /><br />“Do you know what’s going on?” he asked.<br /><br />“There’s a security radio in the kitchen,” the man said. “One of the guards called in from the third floor. He said there was broken glass in that new exhibit. He got cut off after that.”<br /><br />“The third floor?” Megan asked. “Isn’t that where my grandfather’s exhibit is? Where is he?”<br /><br />“Who?” the crewman asked.<br /><br />“Professor Robbins,” Tyler said. “The man that spoke tonight.”<br /><br />“Oh,” the man said. “I think I saw him in the security office.”<br /><br />“I’ve got to find him,” she said.<br /><br />“Okay,” Tyler said. “Calm down. I’ll take you there.”<br /><br />“Wait a minute,” the police officer said. “Who are you guys?”<br /><br />“I’m Tyler McDawn,” Tyler said. “Daniel is my dad.”<br /><br />“Well, you’re going to stay right where you are,” the man said. He turned to another officer standing a few feet behind him. “Let’s get some guys up on three and at least one man on every exit. I’m heading to the security office.”<br /><br />The other man started talking into his radio as they both jogged off toward the office side of the building. Tyler looked at Megan and saw the tears beginning to build up in her eyes.<br /><br />“Tyler,” she said. “I have to get to him.”<br /><br />Tyler nodded and took her by the hand. “Come on,” he said. They ran off in the other direction.<br /></b></span><b style="font-size: large;">_________________________________________________________________________<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br />“Professor, I haven’t got a clue what I’m gonna find up there,” the security chief was saying as Daniel stepped into the security office. “I can’t take you up there.”<br /><br />“I’ve worked for the past decade on that exhibit!” the professor said. “I’m not asking you!”<br /><br />“What’s going on?” Daniel asked. He looked around at the banks of monitors until he found the one for the third-floor exhibition hall. It was black. “The camera went out?”<br /><br />“Yeah,” the chief said. He was a short, overweight man with an angry disposition. He sighed as he walked out into the hall with the other two men in tow. “I haven’t gotten a feed from that thing since the alarm went off. Jones and Howard were up there but I can’t raise them on the radio.”<br /><br />“You’re headed up there?” Daniel asked.<br /><br />“I have to,” the chief said. “I’ve only got three other men and they're searching the rest of the building. The Doc here wants to go with me but there could be anything up there.”<br /><br />“It’s okay,” Daniel said. “We’ll all go.”<br /><br />“Wonderful,” the chief replied. “So if something happens to two of the most important men in the city I can be the one to answer for it.” He looked over Daniel’s shoulder and breathed what seemed to be a sigh of relief. “Good. At least they’ll take some of the burden.”<br /><br />Daniel turned around to find two police officers headed toward them. One of them was about the same age and build as the chief. The other one was a young and wiry man who seemed to be a little anxious.<br /><br />“Are you Daniel McDawn?” the older officer asked.<br /><br />“I am,” Daniel said.<br /><br />“Sargent Joe Fines,” the man said. “You had an alarm get tripped?”<br /><br />“Yes, sir,” Daniel said. “Two men have gone up but we lost contact.”<br /><br />“I’ve got people on their way and I’m heading there myself,” Fines replied. “I think it would be best if you all just stayed here until we have an all-clear.”<br /><br />“I think we’re all determined to go see what’s going on,” Daniel said. He saw the professor’s steely gaze and did not want to see the old man put into handcuffs.<br /><br />“I’m with you, Fines,” the chief said. “Mr. McDawn and Mr. Robbins, you should both either stay here or head back to the lobby.”<br /><br />“We’ll be fine, Chief,” Daniel said. They went into the stairwell and headed for the third floor.<br /></b></span><b style="font-size: large;">_________________________________________________________________________<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br />Tyler opened the door to the security office. It was empty. The monitors were showing various parts of the museum, but the only people that he could see were on the screen for the lobby where the few cleaning crewmen still hanging around and the two police officers left behind to guard the door.<br /><br />“We must have just missed them,” Tyler said.<br /><br />“Where would they have gone?” Megan asked.<br /><br />“Upstairs, I guess,” he replied.<br /><br />“Can we go up there?”<br /><br />Tyler shook his head. “There are cops up there with their guns out, Megan. They wouldn’t know that we’re coming. We could get shot.”<br /><br />Just as he said that he saw a dark blur move down the side hall at the end of the one they were in. He placed his hand on Megan’s shoulder and moved her aside. He stepped around her and looked toward the end of the hall.<br /><br />“Tyler?” Megan asked.<br /><br />“Hey!” Tyler yelled after a moment. He took off down the hall with Megan right behind him. When he reached the intersection he slid to a stop and started down the other hall in the direction he had seen the image. Halfway toward the door leading back out to the lobby, he came to a complete stop so quickly that Megan nearly barreled him over. She followed his gaze.<br /><br />At the exit door was a man dressed in a long black coat. He looked at them. There was a small smile on his face that made them both shiver.<br /><br />“I know you,” Tyler said.<br /><br />“He’s the guy that was with the reporter,” Megan added.<br /><br />“Yeah,” Tyler said. “Rayla, or something.”<br /><br />The man rolled his eyes. “Raloam,” he said.<br /><br />“Did you do all this?” Megan asked.<br /><br />“You mean set off the alarm?” Raloam asked. “I guess.”<br /><br />“What did you do?” Tyler asked.<br /><br />“Follow me, Tyler,” Raloam said. “I have something for you.”<br /><br />Without warning, he stormed through the door and down another hallway. Tyler shot out after him, and Megan tried her best to keep up. To Tyler’s surprise, the man did not head back to the lobby. He veered off toward the east wing of the building. They finally emerged in an area that was mostly taken up by a large classroom and a conference room. Raloam went into the conference room. <br /><br />There was a loud crash. When Tyler got to the door he found Raloam had used a chair to break one of the huge windows that overlooked the street.<br /><br />“I’m sorry I had to make you chase me,” Raloam said. “But I couldn’t stop until I got here.” He reached inside his coat and pulled out a small bundle wrapped in a handkerchief. “This is all that I took. I’m giving it back now.” <br /><br />He tossed the bundle and it landed with a thump on the conference table. With that, he turned and leaped out the window. Since they were on the first floor he had no more than a ten-foot drop to the sidewalk. Tyler ran to the window and caught sight of him just as he was climbing into a dark-colored car. It sped off.<br /><br />“That was weird,” Megan said.<br /><br />“I know, right?” Tyler replied.<br /><br />Megan walked over to the conference table and looked at the handkerchief. She unfolded it. Inside was an old coin. Tyler could tell it was the medallion they had seen in the slide show earlier that night. He stepped closer and looked at it more carefully. He saw the red jewel in the center and the writing etched across the surface. Near the bottom was another smaller jewel and an indention next to it as if it had once held something similar.<br /><br />“So, why would he steal something if he’s just going to turn around and give it back?” Megan asked.<br /><br />“I don’t know,” Tyler replied. “But I guess we should take it back to my dad since this is what all of the fuss is about.”<br /><br />He reached out to grab it. As soon as his skin made contact with the surface Tyler felt an intense burning sensation run up his arm and throughout his entire body. He felt like millions of volts of electricity were running through his bloodstream. He screamed loudly, but the sound was covered by what felt like an atomic explosion that threw him into the air.<br /><br />Tyler crashed through one of the other windows and fell hard on the sidewalk outside. He could hear Megan’s screams in the distance, but he could not move. He looked up just in time to see that the medallion was sailing toward him. The surface of it was glowing like a hot ember that had just been shot out of a campfire.<br /><br />Then everything went dark and he passed out.</b></span><br />CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-20360816960631582422022-11-29T07:16:00.001-08:002022-12-01T04:05:20.504-08:00Griffin Chronicles--Chapter Four<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBc9zZjUUSGaiDjs1wkHOS1dIPEx-LB73gWsZkKq6ZdaYe1jGYYnq5o2qbmbx5UUDUJPRlaaOuuX25PFsLACH6_jVn8YnQfQNqLsRQ5rCsg906CyPOVBIpSr4Bp4k_eNjNUlSwq_ANmecIUJoqA5ezwZNnaSBr5Z2o2mAaSUxlqJaAD3AQ4yfCta5VQQ" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBc9zZjUUSGaiDjs1wkHOS1dIPEx-LB73gWsZkKq6ZdaYe1jGYYnq5o2qbmbx5UUDUJPRlaaOuuX25PFsLACH6_jVn8YnQfQNqLsRQ5rCsg906CyPOVBIpSr4Bp4k_eNjNUlSwq_ANmecIUJoqA5ezwZNnaSBr5Z2o2mAaSUxlqJaAD3AQ4yfCta5VQQ=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Anya handed her keys to the valet as Raloam went to the man at the podium situated by the museum steps.<br /><br />“Name, please,” the man said.<br /><br />“Well, her name is Anya Gates,” Raloam said. Anya stepped up next to him as he placed his arm around her.<br /><br />“And guest,” she said.<br /><br />The man looked down at the tablet in front of him, slowly scrolling his finger across the screen. He tapped it a couple of times and looked up with a smile.<br /><br />“Of course, Ms. Gates,” he said. “I have a note here that says that you’re expecting a crew later this evening.”<br /><br />Anya gave a little laugh. “Not a crew. Just my cameraman. He’ll be here around nine thirty to set up for the ten o’clock news.”<br /><br />“Of course, ma’am,” he replied. “We’ll take care of it. I’ll let you know when he arrives.”<br /><br />“Thank you,” Raloam said and moved to walk up the steps. Anya reached out and grabbed him by the elbow. She gestured to the man with her eyes. Raloam looked upward as if he had forgotten something. He reached into his coat and slid a bill into the man’s hand. They smiled and started up the stairs.<br /><br />“How much did you give him?” Anya asked.<br /><br />“Ten bucks,” Raloam said. “Not that he’s going to be able to use it. Everyone in the city has switched to credits.”<br /><br />“Really, Ray,” Anya said. “You’re not new to modern life. You still can’t remember to tip?”<br /><br />“I’m not a people person,” Raloam said.<br /><br />Another man in a tuxedo opened the front door for them and they moved into the main lobby. Several people were already moving about the room, and the wait staff were serving drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Anya immediately reached out and took a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter.<br /><br />“Is that wise?” Raloam asked. “You’re going to be on television in two hours.”<br /><br />“It’s one glass, Ray,” she said. “I’m not going to get drunk before doing a report.”<br /><br />“I hope not,” he replied. “Not if you’re planning on getting that anchor position that you’ve been hoping for.”<br /><br />“Are you going to have any?” she asked.<br /><br />“Not tonight,” he said. “I want to stay focused.”<br /><br />“Do you see him yet?”<br /><br />Raloam exhaled slowly, looking around the room. “No. He’s here, though. I can feel it. But he’s in another part of the building.”<br /><br />Anya nodded, sipping her drink and taking a look around as well. Her senses were not as finely tuned as her companion’s, but she had sharpened her skills over the past few years.<br /><br />“Do you want to find him?” she asked.<br /><br />Raloam shook his head. “I don’t want to give any reason for us to have to leave before the time comes,” he said. “We don’t need to be seen in closed-off parts of the building. My guess is that he’s in one of the offices upstairs, getting ready for the banquet. We’ll bide our time.”<br /><br />__________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />“Dad, the photographer is ready.”<br /><br />Daniel McDawn turned away from the conversation he was having with the caterer. He nodded and held up his index finger.<br /><br />“Go ahead and open three cases of wine. Be sure everyone has a drink,” he said. “We’ll start seating for dinner in about twenty minutes.”<br /><br />The caterer nodded and left. Daniel joined his son in front of the ornate desk to be used as the background for the picture. He hardly ever came into this office. He was not the a man who sat around making calls all day. He had opened museums around the world because he loved museums. So when he had the opportunity to be here, he took advantage of it and spent his time on the floor.<br /><br />A man Tyler had not met was standing by the door. Daniel gestured for him to join them in the picture. The man came over and stood beside the two of them.<br /><br />“Tyler,” Daniel said. “This is Professor Jonah Robbins. He’s the head of the team that made the discovery we’re showcasing tonight.”<br /><br />Tyler reached out and shook hands with the man. He was taller than his father, and very thin. He was older as well, most likely in his late sixties. He smiled warmly, and Tyler could see his smile was genuine as he had a light dancing in his eyes. This was a man who was realizing something he had worked for his entire life.<br /><br />“Pleased to meet you, Tyler,” Robbins said. “Your father has said a lot about you.”<br /><br />“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” Tyler said.<br /><br />Robbins laughed. “Good. I assure you.”<br /><br />“Okay,” the photographer called out to them. They turned their attention to him. “Smile!”<br /><br />The three of them grinned as the camera flash went off. He took one more for good measure and gave them a thumbs up.<br /><br />“So, are you planning to get into the museum business as well?” Robbins asked.<br /><br />Tyler shook his head shyly. “No, sir. I’m not much of a history buff.”<br /><br />“Tyler wants to be a writer,” Daniel said, placing his hand on his son’s shoulder. “He’s been writing short stories since he could hold a pencil.”<br /><br />“Well, that’s impressive,” Robbins said. “Have you ever had anything published?”<br /><br />“They put a couple of my stories in a magazine when I was younger,” Tyler said. “But they were kid magazines.”<br /><br />“Tyler, don’t ever put a but on your accomplishments,” Robbins said, that little light shining in his eye again. “Be proud of the things you’ve done. Don’t feel like you have to justify their importance.”<br /><br />Tyler smiled. That was the same thing his father said to him often. He did not know why he had to make things seem less than they were. He suspected it was because he thought people already thought he was a snob because of his father’s wealth. He never wanted to sound like he was bragging.<br /><br />“Thank you, sir,” he said. The older man smiled and patted him on the back.<br /><br />“My granddaughter is here tonight,” he said. “I think that she is about your age. If you don’t mind, I’d like you to spend a little time around her. She feels awkward at events like this.”<br /><br />“I know the feeling,” Tyler said and they all laughed.<br /><br />Robbins turned to Daniel and shook his hand. “Mr. McDawn, I thank you again for your hospitality. I’m looking forward to tonight.”<br /><br />“I’ll see you downstairs in a few minutes,” Daniel said. He called out to the hallway for one of the security men and instructed him to see the professor got to the exhibit hall. The guard nodded and the two men left together. Daniel turned to Tyler. “You don’t have to babysit the professor’s granddaughter, Ty.”<br /><br />“It’s alright, Dad,” Tyler said. “I don’t mind. We all have to do our part. Right?”<br /><br />“Right,” Daniel said. He looked his son in the eye and straightened his tie. “Look at you. A grown-up.”<br /><br />“Big boy clothes and everything,” Tyler replied with a laugh.<br /><br />“Your mom would be proud of you,” Daniel said.<br /><br />Tyler looked down and then back to his dad with a smile. They did not bring up his mother often. It was a sore subject for both of them.<br /><br />“Thanks, Dad,” he said. It was all he could think of to say. With his father’s arm across his shoulder, they stepped out into the hallway and moved toward the elevator.<br /><br /></b></span><b style="font-size: large;">__________________________________________________________________________<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br />There were about five hundred people on the guest list for the gala. As the glass elevator dropped down into the main museum building, Tyler could see that almost all of them had made it, most of them bringing a guest. With all of the service personnel moving around, there looked to be more than a thousand people. The guests were in the main banquet area outside the exhibit halls. The wait staff was already starting to serve dinner.<br /><br />Tyler and his father stepped off the elevator. A young lady met them there and walked them to the table set up by the podium on the stage. A huge banner hung across the entrance to the area that said “The Birmingham Museum of Natural History Welcomes Professor Jonah Robbins”. There was also a slide show projected onto a blank wall with pictures of the professor and various other men and women working on the excavation site in Greece. There were huge holes dug at the foot of a mountain, and into the rock face itself. Pictures of various artifacts Tyler could tell very little about flashed slowly on the screen. Vases, pots, bones, coins, and some that looked like little more than rocks.<br /><br />“What exactly did he find, Dad?” Tyler asked as they were seated at their table. Their salads were already there, waiting for them.<br /><br />“Well, it's a little more than I can explain five minutes before the program, Ty,” Daniel said. He took a sip of the water in front of him. “Just wait. The professor will explain everything.”<br /><br />Daniel McDawn had hired John Larrington to serve as the master of ceremonies at the gala. Larrington was the face of WIET’s “Good Day”, a morning news and entertainment show. He was exactly as one would have imagined. His hair and suit were perfect, and his smile was irritatingly permanent. He showed his glowing white teeth at every chance he got, and he gave himself plenty of chances.<br /><br />At precisely eight o’clock, Larrington marched to the podium and switched on the microphone. He introduced himself and made a few jokes about the museum and several of the members of high society who were in attendance. Tyler was not sure how funny his father thought the jokes were. Especially the dinosaurs being bored into fossils by tonight’s speakers, or that he was going to the mummy room to cruise for chicks. Tyler just rolled his eyes. His father looked at him and gave a smirk and a wink. His father may have been a well-off museum mogul, but he still had a good sense of humor.<br /><br />Finally, Larrington turned his attention to Daniel McDawn. He thanked him for bringing such positive attention to the city, and for all the work he had already put into the community. Tyler did not know to what community work he was referring. His father was a charitable man, but since they had arrived in the city he had barely left the museum for much more than a few hours of sleep.<br /><br />Daniel got up and took over the podium. He leaned into the microphone and thanked Larrington, joking about his having the nicest teeth outside the Tyrannosaurus exhibit.<br /><br />“I would like to thank you all for coming tonight,” he said. “It hasn’t been very long since we opened the doors on this establishment, and to already be having an event of this magnitude is really something.”<br /><br />“I’ve had the honor of managing six museums of various kinds worldwide. They have all had the standard exhibits you would expect to find at any other museum in any other major city. We’ve had permanent exhibits of rare fossils, and the remains of many extinct species. A lot of artifacts from different periods in history, such as armor and weapons, can be found here and at our other facilities. We’ve had many exhibits that have visited us for a short time, with art from famous artists like Van Gogh, Da Vinci, and Worhol.<br /><br />“However, the fact that Professor Robbins has uncovered an entire city at the base of what was once an active volcano is tremendous. There have been stories about the city of Dartha for generations, and we’ve always thought it was just an old tale. Something to tell your children in the old days to frighten them into behaving. Be good, or you’ll be burned like they were in Dartha. But now we know that the city was real. And while we have a long way to go in understanding what happened to it so long ago, I’m proud the professor has allowed us to become the permanent home to some of the things he has uncovered so far.<br /><br />“And now, to talk more about his discovery, I’d like to turn the stage over to Professor Jonas Robbins.”<br /><br />The room erupted into applause as Daniel stepped back from the microphone. Professor Robbins got up from his chair and walked across the stage. He shook Daniel's hand and turned to the audience. Daniel sat down in his chair and glanced at his son.<br /><br />“That was good, Dad,” Tyler said.<br /><br />Daniel smiled. Tyler knew that his dad was accustomed to speaking in front of a crowd. But Daniel had always made a point to congratulate him on his accomplishments, so Tyler tried to do the same.<br /><br />“Thank you, Daniel,” Professor Robbins said as he pulled his glasses and notes from his coat pocket. “I’m not sure of which I’m more envious of. Your wealth, your youth, or the fact that you know more about history than I do.” The audience chuckled.<br /><br />“You’re the one with the Ph.D.,” Daniel called out and the professor nodded with a smile.<br /><br />“Ten years ago my team and I decided that we believed the city of Dartha to be a real place. Since that time I have spent most of my time in Greece. We made the initial discovery of evidence of a human presence in the fields on the very boundaries of the country. These remains appear to be no less than three thousand years old. After that, we went about trying to prove that what we had discovered was indeed the lost city we were in search of.”<br /><br />The professor began a long speech about the legend of Dartha. Tyler had heard the stories before. His father was a huge fan of classic Greek mythology, and he can remember a lot of books lying around his office on the subject. He had always liked looking at the pictures of Zeus and Hercules, and listening to stories of the gods and goddesses. The city of Dartha was only mentioned in a couple of those stories. But Daniel had books that were completely dedicated to the subject.<br /><br />The actual story, as it was told to Tyler, was not very complex. There was a city that was more advanced than any other city in the country at the time. It was believed it was helped by magic. There had been an old mage that most people agreed went by the name of Kalan. He protected the city with the magic he got from the spirits of ancient warriors and animals.<br /><br />That was all that was known of the city. The rest of what had been in Daniel’s books was speculation of what became of it. A lot of people believed the city had been at the foot of what the citizens believed to be a mountain. It was a volcano that erupted, burying the city in hot lava. Another belief is that the valley it rested in flooded and buried the city under a massive amount of mud. Of course, some believed that either one of these could be true, but that the disaster was brought about by a magical battle between Kalan and someone else.<br /><br />“Now I want to show you a couple of the items that have been uncovered,” Robbins said. He had been speaking for about twenty minutes and showing several pictures of the excavation on the screen. “There are twenty different things that will be on display in the exhibition hall, and hopefully there were be a few more joining them over the next few months. But one or two items are of particular interest to me, and I would like to tell you about them.”<br /><br /></b></span><b style="font-size: large;">__________________________________________________________________________<br /></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Raloam sighed and Anya shot him a look that quickly told him to be quiet. He was not good at this. Sitting in one place for a long time and listening to someone talk was one of the most difficult things he ever had to do. It was in his nature to move. It was also in his nature to stay away from crowds. He was completely out of his element here.<br /><br />But this was the part of the night he had been waiting for.<br /><br />“The first item is a medallion that I find extraordinary,” Professor Robbins said. Instantly, the image of his excavation team on the wall vanished and was replaced by a round, ancient-looking coin, scarred with time. In its center was a small red stone that was dull with age, but still seemed to shine.<br /><br />Raloam inhaled deeply.<br /><br />Anya looked at him. “Is that it?” she asked. He nodded but did not speak.<br /><br />“This medallion would not have been used as currency,” the professor said. “It most likely was a decoration or a symbol of wealth. The stone in the center is pure ruby, and there is a carving on the back of it. You’ll be able to see it more clearly when we move to the hall. But the carving appears to be writing although no one on my team can identify the language. There is also a cat or a lion drawn above the writing.”<br /><br />“Or a griffin,” Raloam muttered. Anya was the only one that heard him. She reached over and squeezed his hand.<br /><br />“Patience, Ray,” she said. He sighed.<br /><br />“Most of the other items found were relics of the time,” Robbins continued. “Pottery and jewelry of many different types. And we found a lot of bones. But the other item I find the most interesting is this.” The image on the wall changed to a huge chunk of black rock lying inside a display case. After a moment the audience was able to see that there was a clear outline of an entire human skeleton encased in the rock. “This rock was once red hot lava. This was found in a small cave inside the mountain that used to be a volcano. We aren’t sure who this person was, but it is clear to us that he died by being covered by the lava. What is amazing is that the bones were not disintegrated by the heat of the liquid rock. Every bone in the human body has been accounted for. All of them are perfectly preserved and encased in this rock.”<br /><br />Anya winced and realized that Raloam was squeezing her hand to the point that it hurt. She yanked her hand away and looked at him. He was staring at the image on the wall so hard it looked as though his eyes would set fire to the building.<br /><br />“Ray,” she said. “What’s wrong?”<br /><br />“Gods!” he whispered loudly.</b></span>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-12898634108731338342022-11-29T07:15:00.000-08:002022-12-02T04:59:20.031-08:00Griffin Chronicles--Chapter Three<div class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNJ8DMCJgFd92px6wSK_b_GBGZ16XDbQS_uaDSiekUzE2peZNoPPVAKIQ8hF4vxswgSKOHiFkKRn8ndVxlhtj-e13MrvC5rVpSWLkQgRbOlgc_z71g4AompKJdtZVNDYUY7gmY2xw_za3iNcLycbu_ycZfvWYfUYFolhrpmktNokYSL9J6sX_atgf3Xg/s532/mugger.PNG" style="clear: left; float: left; font-size: large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="339" data-original-width="532" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNJ8DMCJgFd92px6wSK_b_GBGZ16XDbQS_uaDSiekUzE2peZNoPPVAKIQ8hF4vxswgSKOHiFkKRn8ndVxlhtj-e13MrvC5rVpSWLkQgRbOlgc_z71g4AompKJdtZVNDYUY7gmY2xw_za3iNcLycbu_ycZfvWYfUYFolhrpmktNokYSL9J6sX_atgf3Xg/w400-h255/mugger.PNG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Raloam slid behind one of the pillars holding up the overpass above him. He could feel his heart pumping furiously and imagined it matching the thumping of the cars passing overhead. He closed his eyes to calm himself, listening to the sound of the dust falling every time another vehicle drove by. Slowly, he opened his eyes.<br /><br />That was stupid.<br /><br />He cursed himself silently. The kid had seen him, and that was not supposed to happen. It had never happened before. He knew his skills were beginning to fade, but he had thought he still had it in him to go unnoticed by a child. He had been following him for ten years and never left so much a hair or shadow to be found.<br /><br />He cursed again.<br /><br />He peeked around the corner of the pillar toward the bookstore where the kid had been a few moments before. He was gone now. He pulled his greasy ponytail off his shoulder and let it hang behind him. He ran his fingers over the scruffy stubble on his face. He could not screw up now. It had been too long to let it all fall apart now.<br /><br />He reached into his tattered coat and pulled his watch out of his pocket. The chain had broken long ago but the mechanics were still running after all of these years. He pressed the small button that let the face open and looked at the time. It was almost four o’clock. It was time to prepare for tonight. He was supposed to pick up Anya at seven.<br /><br />All thought stopped at the distinctive click that perked his ears. It had come from behind him. He had not heard anyone walk up, and that was another mistake he would not have made in the past. <br /><br />Now that he was alerted, his senses kicked in. He knew exactly what position the sound had come from. He could also see in his mind that there were three other bodies scattered behind him at different points. He knew where they were within an inch.<br /><br />“Hey, weird Jesus,” a voice called from behind him. He could practically see the gun in his hand. From the sound it made when the wielder pulled the hammer back, it had to be a nine-millimeter. From the high-pitched sound of the voice, it was held by a young Hispanic male of about twenty-two. He was probably even holding it sideways.<br /><br />“I don’t want any trouble,” Raloam said.<br /><br />“Well, you got some,” the young man said. “I saw that watch you just put in your pocket. I want it!”<br /><br />“Okay,” Raloam said. “That’s not a problem. Just let me get it.”<br /><br />“Move slow, Scruffy,” another voice called out. This one came from his right, but still quite a good distance behind him. The owner of the second voice was older than the gunman.<br /><br />Raloam held his hands in the air and slowly moved his right hand back into his coat to retrieve the watch. He took a breath and centered himself. He closed his eyes and felt his heart rate slow almost to a complete stop. He tuned his ears, listening to the breath of the men behind him. The sound had gone from extremely nervous and fast to extremely slow.<br /><br />What he did next felt like he was in slow motion. It was as if someone had turned down the speed for the entire world. He pulled the watch from his pocket and turned around to face his attackers. Four men were standing ten feet behind him. Six or seven feet of space separated each man. They all appeared to be standing completely motionless, like gangster statues. This was good. It was just like practice.<br /><br />The watch left his fingers with precise accuracy and struck the man with the gun square in the forehead. He slowly began to fall. His hand released its grip, and the gun fell at a snail’s pace to the ground. It landed with a thump and an exaggerated explosion filled the air. Raloam could see the bullet make its way from the barrel of the weapon to the shoulder of one of the other men. He screamed and began his descent to the pavement.<br /><br />Raloam launched his body into the air and put both feet onto the chest of one of the remaining men. He stood on the man for a second before reaching down and landing a punch on the man’s temple. He looked over to see that the final man was just beginning to react to the gunshot. He swung one leg out and connected it with his nose. The man sailed through the air, crashing hard into one of the concrete pillars.<br /><br />Raloam stepped off of the man and looked around. It had all happened in less than three seconds. The passing of time seemed to catch up again and he could hear the cars passing overhead once more. The man with the gunshot wound was groaning, his blood spilling all over the ground. Raloam picked up his watch from the ground and wiped the dust from it before returning it to his pocket.<br /><br />He knelt on the ground next to the man who was bleeding and pulled his hand from the wound. The man looked at him and started to draw back but Raloam put his hand on his throat.<br /><br />“Relax,” he said. “I won’t hurt you unless you cause me to.” The man grimaced but allowed him to continue. He grabbed the man’s shirt and ripped it down the front and looked at where the bullet had struck him. “You’re going to be alright. The bullet passed through and it didn’t hit anything. Do you have a phone?”<br /><br />“Yeah, man,” the thug replied.<br /><br />“Call an ambulance. Your friends will be waking up soon. I think the one I landed on has a couple of cracked ribs.”<br /><br />Raloam turned and began walking away, back toward the street.<br /><br />“How did you do that,?” the man called from behind him. “Who the hell are you?”<br /><br />Raloam pulled his last cigarette out of his shirt pocket and put it between his lips as he kept walking. “Don’t worry about it,” he said.<br />__________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />“Jesus! Where have you been?”<br /><br />Raloam stepped into Anya’s apartment and pulled his coat off. “I got held up,” he said.<br /><br />“Well, I didn’t know that the plan was to just show up when everybody else got there,” she replied. “I thought that we were gonna check the place out first.”<br /><br />“We are, Anya,” he said. “Would you relax? We’ve got some time.” <br /><br />He watched her walk toward the bedroom and he realized that she was dressed for the occasion. Anya usually dressed nicely, as her job required her to have a certain amount of style. But usually, it was just a nice top and a skirt, or possibly a pantsuit. Right now she was wearing a black dress that came down to her knees and exposed a lot of skin up top. Her blonde hair was pulled up in a way that looked like it had been easy to do classic and stylish at the same time. <br /><br />“Anya,” he said.<br /><br />She stepped back into the hallway and looked at him as she put on her earrings.<br /><br />“What?” she asked.<br /><br />“You look nice,” he replied.<br /><br />She rolled her eyes. “Like you notice things like that anymore.”<br /><br />“I’m still a guy,” he said with a grin.<br /><br />“At your age?” she said, laughing. “Ray, you’re barely human.”<br /><br />Raloam looked at the mirror next to the front door and ran a hand through his hair. He could once see nothing but solid black. Now he had several gray hairs on his head, and more appeared in his beard every day.<br /><br />“Ray,” Anya was saying. He looked over at her and raised his eyebrows. “Are you going to get dressed? You can’t go like that. You look like you haven’t showered in days.”<br /><br />“I haven’t,” he replied. “That’s the look that I’m going for.”<br /><br />“Well, we’re not supposed to stand out tonight,” she said. “Now, I went through a lot of trouble to get us into this thing. The least you can do is look presentable. And I want you to shave!”<br /><br />Raloam nodded and went into the other bedroom. His bedroom. Although he lived here he could not quite call it home. He always referred to it as Anya’s. It was mostly because she did not charge him any money to live here. She had told him a long time ago that he was welcome to stay with her for as long as he needed. He knew that most people said things like that without any real meaning behind it. But with Anya, it had been sincere. She had gotten him off of the streets. And even though it had been his choice to live on the streets in the first place, it was nice to have somewhere to go.<br /><br />He closed the door and went to the closet. He did not have a lot of clothes. He spent most of his time alone, melding himself into the homeless community of the cities he resided in that it did not make much sense to carry around a lot of extra things. But he kept some here for those times when he needed to mix into other classes of society. Tonight he would be with the high rollers, so he would have to look like one.<br /><br />He had a tuxedo, but he was not going to wear that. He thought the museum event was going to be fancy, but he did not want to look like he was going to the prom. He reached into the back and found the black Armani. It was covered in a plastic dry cleaning bag he had left there to protect it from dust. He had only had a chance to wear it once since buying it a few years ago. He hung it on the closet door and stepped into the bathroom.<br />__________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />“Wow,” Anya said when he finally emerged from the bedroom ten minutes later. “You clean up nice.”<br /><br />Raloam smiled as he clipped his cufflink into place. “Thanks,” he said.<br /><br />She brushed his lapel and adjusted his tie. “I’m still amazed at how fast you can do that. You even shaved.”<br /><br />“Well, I trimmed. I told you there was nothing to worry about,” he said. He pulled his watch out of his pocket and opened it. “Look at that. Plenty of time.”<br /><br />“Yeah,” Anya said. “Enough time for you to take me to dinner.”</b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-5a82b074-7fff-31a2-53f1-e3d6010dfa33"><br /></span>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-50606159412519771622022-11-28T13:51:00.002-08:002022-11-29T07:16:02.312-08:00Griffin Chronicles--Chapter Two<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2T8QRyOepcLJSGzorpF_HG38W2NgM_SYP4onoJI1g_xUbTiAgKR49Hy1NLp6FPatAQNwq4k0f9WwVYUZHgOYbIFvr_m_5lliF60Mshbwud3e9fmVWu3oZeZeF_7pqjHQ_we5aEfPDlJQdFtsknhSI-SPRQnZ8SBRNfbAMkItfPXw7U_9w9EDH-G3h0A" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="626" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2T8QRyOepcLJSGzorpF_HG38W2NgM_SYP4onoJI1g_xUbTiAgKR49Hy1NLp6FPatAQNwq4k0f9WwVYUZHgOYbIFvr_m_5lliF60Mshbwud3e9fmVWu3oZeZeF_7pqjHQ_we5aEfPDlJQdFtsknhSI-SPRQnZ8SBRNfbAMkItfPXw7U_9w9EDH-G3h0A" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Tyler’s first day of school was much like the other first days he had experienced over the past few years. The main differences were that no one in this school was required to wear a uniform, and he did not see anyone drinking coffee. In each of his classes, the teacher would make him stand up while they announced his name, reported that he was a new student, and instructed everyone to make him feel welcome. Since many of the same people were in most of his classes, he felt as though he had been introduced to the same people at least five times.<br /><br />After school, he made his way to the front door of the building and stepped out onto the steps. Most of the other students went out on the other side because that was the street where the bus stop and student parking lot were located. There was also a driveway for parents to pull in to pick up their children. Tyler had glanced out that door as he passed by. There were no limos, Mercedes, or BMWs out there. That was another difference.<br /><br />He reached into his coat pocket to get his phone. He did not know why he had picked this coat. It had been raining this morning, so he had naturally decided he needed a raincoat. He did not think he should have shown up for his first day in a three-hundred-dollar coat from J. Crew. Most of the other kids looked like their clothes had come from GAP, and he now wished he had gone for that look, too. No one said anything to him about his clothes, but he had caught a couple of glances and heard some whispers. He guessed that was what they were talking about.<br /><br />Just as he was dialing the number to get a taxi to come and pick him up, the door opened and he was nearly knocked down the steps by the boy coming out. The guy had a stack of books in one hand and was carrying a cardboard box filled with wires and other bits of computer hardware under his other arm. The boy never saw Tyler, but Tyler saw him as he was about to blindly step off the steps and crash to the sidewalk. He put his arm out and stopped him just as he held his foot out into thin air.<br /><br />“Hey!” Tyler said, a bit loudly. “You’re gonna fall!”<br /><br />The boy stopped and took a step back. He looked at Tyler with a confused look in his eye.<br /><br />“Uh, thanks,” he said. “It’s hard to see with all of this stuff .”<br /><br />Tyler took the box from him and tucked it into the crook of his arm.<br /><br />“Here,” he said. “I’ll help you. Where are you headed?”<br /><br />“Huh?” the guy said. “Oh! I’m just going to my dad’s store. It’s a block that way.” He pointed down the street.<br /><br />“Okay,” Tyler said. “Let me carry this for you. I wouldn’t want you to have an accident.”<br /><br />“Thanks,” the kid said. He still sounded confused and even a little bit nervous. “I’m Stan. Uh, Callahan. Stan Callahan.”<br /><br />Tyler held his hand out and Stan took it. They shook.<br /><br />“I’m Tyler McDawn.”<br /><br />“Oh, I know who you are,” Stan said. “We have lit together.”<br /><br />“Third period?” Tyler asked. It was a genuine question. He still had not memorized his class schedule.<br /><br />“Yeah,” Stan said. “And you live in my Grandfather’s building.”<br /><br />“You’re Grandfather lives in the Simmons building?” Tyler asked.<br /><br />“No,” Stan replied. “He owns it. He’s Daniel Simmons.”<br /><br />“Oh,” Tyler said. “Wow! I think I met him last weekend when we were moving in.”<br /><br />“You did,” Stan said. “He told me about you. He said you looked like a smart guy.”<br /><br />“Well, I wish you had introduced yourself earlier,” Tyler said. “I haven’t really met that many people since I moved to town.” They started walking down the steps and turned in the direction Stan had indicated.<br /><br />“I wouldn’t want to wreck your reputation,” Stan said, smiling shyly.<br /><br />Tyler cocked an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”<br /><br />Stan made a gesture toward Tyler’s clothes and pointed at his shoes. “You’re one of the rich kids. You could be popular at this school. You don’t need to be seen hanging around me. I’m just a techie nerd.”<br /><br />Tyler smiled. “Stan, I’m not like that. Really. That kind of social ladder stuff doesn’t phase me. I make friends with people I want to be friends with.”<br /><br />“Well, you may not be like that but everyone else is,” Stan said. “Like right now. If someone saw you and I walking together, people would hold that against you later.”<br /><br />“Screw ‘em,” Tyler said. “I told you. I don’t care about stuff like that.”<br /><br />“Well, then you’re a rare breed,” Stan said.<br /><br />“Maybe,” Tyler replied. “Besides, if your grandfather owns the Simmons building then your family has to be pretty well off.”<br /><br />“Yeah,” Stan said. “He is, anyway. My dad owns a used bookstore down the block. But I guess you can call my family rich. They want me to go to some fancy boarding school that’s like fifty miles from here, but the science department sucks. I had to beg them to let me go to school here.”<br /><br />Tyler glanced down at the box that he was carrying. He had already seen the wires in it. Under it, there appeared to be a couple of circuit boards and some other various metal and plastic objects. “What’s in the box?”<br /><br />“Oh, it’s just some supplies,” Stan said. “I’m building a computer.”<br /><br />“You’re building a computer?” Tyler said. “You say it like it's easy.”<br /><br />“It's not hard,” Stan said. “I mean, I’ve got some old ones at my house that I’ve taken apart a bunch of times. I know how they go back together. I’ve been trying to learn how to write programs.”<br /><br />Tyler grinned. “And, you’re seventeen?”<br /><br />“Fifteen,” Stan said shyly. “I skipped the eighth and ninth grades.”<br /><br />“That’s cool,” Tyler said. “I know how to use a computer well enough to update my Gram and watch the cat playing the piano on YouTube. That’s about it. Unless you count playing Xbox games.”<br /><br />They both laughed as they crossed the street to the bookstore. Just as they reached the sidewalk, Tyler happened to glance back to the side they had just come from. A man was standing in the shadows of an overpass about a block away. He looked like he had long hair that was pulled into a ponytail and then draped over his shoulder, so that it was visible from the front. He had on a long black coat, like Tyler’s raincoat but much older and worn. He was staring at them.<br /><br />“Tyler?” Stan asked. He followed Tyler’s gaze and saw the man, but he was turning away and headed down the street. “Somebody you know?”<br /><br />“He looks familiar.” Tyler did not know why he said that. The man did not look familiar. He was sure it was no one he had ever seen before. But at the same time, he felt like it was someone he was supposed to know. “It doesn’t matter. Is this your dad’s store?”<br /><br />They went inside. The place was exactly the kind of place Tyler imagined it would be. It was small, and filled with bookshelves. There had to be at least twenty shelves that were ten feet long and seven feet tall. They were filled on both sides with books that looked anywhere from almost new to almost dust. A desk was in the front corner of the store, not far from the door. A thin man was sitting at that desk, typing away on a laptop.<br /><br />“Hi, Dad,” Stan said, setting his books down on the desk. He took the box from Tyler and set it there as well.<br /><br />The man looked up from his computer screen and smiled. He adjusted his glasses.<br /><br />“Hi, son,” he said. “Time got away from me. I didn’t realize that it was after three o’clock already.”<br /><br />“My dad is a writer,” Stan said to Tyler. “He writes for the Tribune. He usually does his writing here at the store.”<br /><br />“Who is this?” Stan’s dad asked.<br /><br />“This is Tyler,” Stan said. “Today was his first day. He helped me carry my stuff here.”<br /><br />“Oh,” Mr. Callahan replied as he reached a hand out to Tyler. “Well, that was good of you, Tyler. Do you mind if I ask where you’re from?”<br /><br />Tyler accepted the hand and shook it. “Atlanta, most recently,” he said. “My father runs the natural history museum downtown.”<br /><br />“Ah, yes,” Mr. Callahan said. “Daniel McDawn. I’m covering the gala tonight. Which reminds me, Stan. You need to get home quickly and change if you’re planning to go with me. Your mom picked your suit up from the cleaners this morning. Tyler, is there something wrong?”<br /><br />Stan’s father was referring to the wide-eyed look of panic that had just come across Tyler’s face. He pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at the time.<br /><br />“I’m fine,” he replied. “It's just that I forgot about the gala. I’m supposed to be home by four to meet my dad. I’ve got to go!”<br /><br />“You’re never going to make it to the Simmons building by four,” Stan said. But Tyler was already gone. He was running down the street and trying to dial his phone at the same time.<br /><br />__________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />“Hey, kid!” Tyler stopped and wheeled around, sliding on the heel of his shoe. The taxi was coming to a stop about half a block behind him. “Are you the one that called a cab?”<br /><br />“Yes!” Tyler yelled breathlessly. He jogged to the car and slid into the back seat. He was surprised to see that this was the same taxi that he was in this morning, and the same man was driving it. “I need to get to the Simmons building.”<br /><br />He closed the door and the man guided the car away from the curb and back into traffic. They made their way toward the other end of town at a steady speed. The traffic would not pick up for another hour or so, but there was always a heavy stream of cars at all hours.<br /><br />“You’re my first fare to ever call for an on-the-go pickup,” the driver said with a laugh. He looked in his mirror and noticed that Tyler was still pretty red-faced and breathing heavily. “You okay, kid?”<br /><br />“Yeah,” Tyler said. “I’m just out of breath.” The truth was that he had asthma. He did not usually worry about it because it only flared up when he got out of breath. He did not play any sports, so it was not usually an issue. He hardly ever carried his inhaler with him, and today was no different. Had he known that he would be forced to run ten blocks he would have grabbed it.<br /><br />“Well, we’re gonna have to take the long way ‘round,” the man said. Tyler groaned. “Sorry, but they’ve got a big chunk of downtown closed off. The mayor’s makin’ a big speech today.”<br /><br />Tyler remembered hearing about it on television this morning while he was getting dressed for school. The mayor was appointing a task force to tackle the rising crime rates in the city. From what he heard, Birmingham had nearly three hundred violent crimes in the past year, and two-thirds of those had ended in death. He had to hand it to his dad. Going to a violent city with one a low graduation rate, much less a terrible economy, and opening one of the largest natural history museums in the world had to be risky. He had a lot riding on this museum, which in turn had a lot riding on the gala tonight.<br /><br />Sure enough, Tyler looked in front of him and saw nothing but brake lights stretching for at least three blocks. A lot of people must have decided to park here and wait out the speech. It was scheduled to last a couple of hours but Tyler knew it could not last too long because the mayor and his wife were supposed to be appearing at the museum gala tonight.<br /><br />“Stupid,” the driver muttered as he made a left-hand turn to an area between two buildings that Tyler was not even sure was meant for cars. “This guy don’t do nothin’ but sit on his butt and take his pay! The only time you hear from him is when he’s doin’ stuff like this. Holdin’ up traffic and stuff!”<br /><br />The driver did not seem to care for the mayor.<br /><br />“If you ask me, I’d say that he’s the whole problem!” the driver continued.<br /><br />“The mayor?” Tyler asked. He did not know why he cared. He guessed he was just trying to keep his mind off of the fact that they had just cut around a stopped school bus and had driven with one wheel on the sidewalk for at least ten feet.<br /><br />“Yeah,” the man behind the wheel replied. “This town was something back in the day. Low crime rate. Lotsa jobs. Not a whole lotta folks standin’ in line down at the soup kitchen. Then this guy gets in office and it all goes ta crap. You follow politics?”<br /><br />“Not really,” Tyler said. “I took a government class last year. But that was back in Atlanta.”<br /><br />“Ah, yer just a kid anyway,” the man said. “You’ll be worryin’ ’bout this stuff in a few years, though.”<br /><br />__________________________________________________________________________<br /><br />It was a pretty quick trip and Tyler found himself easing across the seat and opening the door after only ten minutes. He looked down at his phone. He was late, but he was not as late as he had feared. <br /><br />He gave the driver his driver’s license just like he had this morning. The driver slid it through his reader and another green “accepted” appeared on the screen. Tyler thanked the man and stepped out of the car onto the sidewalk in front of the Simmons building. He nodded to the doorman in the long red coat who smiled and opened the door for him.<br /><br />“Good afternoon, Mr. McDawn,” the man said with a light trace of an English accent. “I’ve just gotten a call from your father.”<br /><br />Tyler looked at him and winced. “You have?”<br /><br />The man grinned. “Yes, sir. He’s in quite a state.”<br /><br />Tyler rolled his eyes. “Wonderful,” he said.<br /><br />Five minutes later he approached the door of the apartment he shared with his father. He heard a beep and a click as the lock let go of the door. He turned the knob and went inside. His father was standing ten feet away, having heard the door.<br /><br />“Tyler,” he started.<br /><br />“Dad, I’m not that late,” Tyler started. “The gala doesn’t even start until eight.”<br /><br />“Yes, son,” Daniel McDawn was saying. “But I have to be there at six. I have a photographer coming to take pictures of the exhibit and the caterer already has people there setting up for the banquet.”<br /><br />“Well, go,” Tyler said. “I can get there on my own. I made it to school and back. Didn’t I?”<br /><br />“We’re supposed to show up together,” he replied. “There will be reporters taking a lot of pictures when I get out of the limo, and I would like to arrive with my family. That’s you, Ty. Your tux is in your room.”<br /><br />Tyler shook his head and made his way through the apartment toward his room. “I don’t see why this thing is such a big deal. You had parties like this all the time in New York and London.”<br /><br />“This is different,” Daniel said, halfway following his son down the hallway. “You don’t realize what we’re unveiling tonight. The excavation in Greece has uncovered some really remarkable things, and we get to display some of the highlights right here.”<br /><br />“I know the drill, Dad,” Tyler was saying from inside his room. His tuxedo was hanging on the closet door and he began pulling off his shoes to get dressed. “I’ve seen all of the fossils and mummies before. I grew up in museums.”<br /><br />“This is more than just fossils and mummies,” Daniel said as he stood in the doorway. Tyler was busy pulling on the tuxedo pants and Daniel looked at his curly hair. “Aren’t you going to take a shower?”<br /><br />Tyler rolled his eyes and pulled the pants back off. He turned and walked into the bathroom and closed the door.<br /><br />“What’s different about it?” he called through the door.<br /><br />“This is evidence of ancient stories that even the Greeks didn’t believe in,” Daniel said. He heard the shower start running. “I don’t have time to go into the stories right now, but I’m going to talk about it tonight. I gave you a copy of the press release.”<br /><br />“I didn’t read it,” Tyler said.<br /><br />“Oh, right,” Daniel replied. “I forgot that you don’t like to read books without pictures.”<br /><br />“You’re talking about comics, Dad. And I haven’t read one of those since I was fourteen.”<br /><br />Daniel grinned. “Anyway, this is an important step in my career. I’ve run several museums, but this could be the one that I’m known for after this exhibit opens. And it could help to bring a lot of positive attention to this town.”<br /><br />The shower stopped and a couple of minutes later Tyler stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He folded his arms across his chest. He did not like to be seen without a shirt on. He still felt like he was underdeveloped for his age. He guessed he looked fine, but he wanted some definition in his arms and chest.<br /><br />“I’m sorry I was late, Dad,” he said. “I’m proud of you and everything is going to be fine tonight.”<br /><br />Daniel smiled. “I know it will. But it’s hard not to be nervous about things like this. By the way, I was so flustered when you came in that I didn’t ask you about school. How was your first day?”<br /><br />“It was fine,” Tyler said. “Teachers, classes, lunch. You know.”<br /><br />“Did you make any friends?”<br /><br />Tyler rolled his eyes but laughed at the same time. “What am I? Twelve?”<br /><br />“Well, did you?” Daniel asked again with a chuckle.<br /><br />“I met this one kid named Stan,” Tyler said. “His grandfather owns this building and his dad writes for the newspaper. He’s going to be there tonight.”<br /><br />“Good,” Daniel said. “Make sure to introduce me.”<br /><br />“I will,” Tyler said. “Now go away and let me get dressed.”<br /><br />Daniel turned and walked toward the door of the bedroom. “Okay, but hurry. The car will be here in half an hour.”<br /><br />Tyler promised he would. He closed the door behind his father and started getting dressed for the evening.</b></span><br />CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-49934503379441349982022-11-28T09:47:00.005-08:002022-11-29T07:15:50.561-08:00Griffin Chronicles--Chapter One<span id="docs-internal-guid-e431ecad-7fff-5326-f895-8d826f02497f"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjA27uzl3CFDr9QVi4dcvWd9bl2D-NAWBoIqDyl-Z9sJ5ZE7AjB8TrooDTRbKqvDcnKwJ3w6-7o-8yJTNvbQECyVD6WrypkJLmpivHOQTM9rsa31VgO6ADCySGHyDaohRz6OLlZzzpoiPBGaBd6s8dAwwAFQKYo1xACHXT3oHjtAQXNsv2J7LGn3Zb3og" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="408" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjA27uzl3CFDr9QVi4dcvWd9bl2D-NAWBoIqDyl-Z9sJ5ZE7AjB8TrooDTRbKqvDcnKwJ3w6-7o-8yJTNvbQECyVD6WrypkJLmpivHOQTM9rsa31VgO6ADCySGHyDaohRz6OLlZzzpoiPBGaBd6s8dAwwAFQKYo1xACHXT3oHjtAQXNsv2J7LGn3Zb3og=w267-h400" width="267" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Tyler rubbed his eyes slowly, trying his best to get the thudding pain pushing against them to ease up. He had taken three Aspirin before he left home, but they did not even begin to touch the fire burning in his skull. He reached into his backpack and got his sunglasses. It was a cold, rainy day, and he was pretty sure he would not see the sun at all, but he needed to turn the brightness down a little. In his mind, he could almost see the little bar at the bottom of a television screen, and he willed the notch to move to the left.</b></span></span><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>“Late night?”<br /><br />Tyler lifted his head off the headrest and looked at the man driving the car.<br /><br />“No,” he said. His voice sounded a bit rough, and he cleared his throat. “No. I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’m just a little nervous.”<br /><br />“Big day today?” the man asked.<br /><br />“I’m new in town,” Tyler answered. “This is my first day at this school.”<br /><br />The man nodded, and began talking about how he was always nervous on his first day of blah, blah, blah. The only thing Tyler hated about riding in a taxi was small talk. The smell and the filth of sitting in the same backseat as a million other passengers were bearable. It was the constant chatter that he hated.<br /><br />Tyler would not normally be in a taxi. Most of the time, he would either drive himself unless he was in a new city, which happened a lot. If he was unsure of where to go, his father would have one of his drivers take him where he needed to go. His cars were not as fancy as you would imagine. They were usually either a late model town car of some sort. His father hated limos, and he refused to buy anything that was not made in America.<br /><br />Today he was in a taxi because he was going to a new school. Tyler’s father was an investor with interests in several museums all over the world. Over the past six years, they lived in four of the biggest cities in the world. London, New York, Tokyo, and Atlanta. Last year his father got involved in a group opening large exhibits in smaller cities. That led them here, but there were no private schools within fifty miles of Birmingham, Alabama. <br /><br />That suited Tyler. He hated going to school with a bunch of rich, spoiled brats, even though he realized he was one of them. His father hated putting his son into a public school and promised it would not be long before they were on to something else.<br /><br />Tyler decided that it did not matter. Public school might be a nice change of pace. He hoped he could at least meet some people his age that cared about more than how much money everyone else’s parents were worth. But he also knew that if he wanted to make any friends at all, he had better not show up for his first day of school in a town car with one of his father’s drivers behind the wheel. He didn’t know enough about the city to drive himself, so a taxi was the next best thing.<br /><br />The car pulled up to the curb outside the school, and Tyler looked at the rain pounding on the window, and the puddles forming on the sidewalk. He sighed as he pulled his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans.<br /><br />“How much is it?” he asked the driver.<br /><br />“Seven fifty,” the man said. He sounded a little put out, and Tyler guessed he had realized he had not been listening to him for the past several miles. It was enough to make Tyler feel a little bad but not enough to warrant an apology. That would probably make it a little more awkward.<br /><br />“Seven dollars and fifty cents?” Tyler asked. “That’s not a whole lot for an eight-mile trip.”<br /><br />The driver chuckled. “I forgot you said you was from outta town. We don’t do dollars in Birmingham. We got the credits. Comes out to ’bout twenty-three bucks.”<br /><br />Tyler sighed. He was used to Atlanta, where they were still doing both. Smaller cities like Birmingham had been easier to roll over to the new system.<br /><br />The credit system started a couple of years ago, but it takes time to get an entire planet to accept the same currency. He had not had his money transferred since getting to town. He hoped his father had put some credits on his account for him. <br /><br />Tyler pulled his driver’s license out of his wallet and handed it to the driver who swiped it through the machine mounted on the dashboard. Instantly, the image from Tyler’s government file was displayed on the little screen. Beside it was his name and a green light with the word “Accepted” written on it. Tyler let out a little breath. His father thought of everything.<br /><br />“Alright, Bud,” the driver said. “You’re good to go. Welcome to Birmingham. Good luck to ya.”<br /><br />Tyler let a slight smile pass through the haze of pain pounding through his head and stepped out of the taxi.<br /><br />Before he could get two feet from the curb, his hair was already a soaking mess. He pulled his umbrella from his backpack and opened it. A gust of wind nearly pulled it from his hands as he got another grasp on it. This time he clutched it like he was welding a Samurai sword. <br /><br />The wind was blowing hard enough that the rain seemed to come from the side. Tyler was tempted to turn the umbrella toward the wind and use it more like a shield, but he decided it would not be a good idea. He was not sure how many people might be watching from the school windows. He held his umbrella above his head and got soaked.<br /><br />He finally reached the front door and stepped into the main hallway. Umbrellas and raincoats were lining the wall, dripping the morning rain all over the linoleum floor. A “Wet Floor” sandwich board sign was standing in the middle of the floor, and he guessed a janitor with a mop would be there within a few minutes. Tyler closed his umbrella and propped it along the wall with the others.<br /><br />“Are you Tyler McDawn?”<br /><br />Tyler had been in the middle of adjusting the collar on his raincoat when he heard his name. It took a second for him to register. He had not expected anyone at this school to know who he was. He looked up and saw a young girl leaning against the wall. She looked to be about fourteen and had blonde hair down to her shoulder with a dark streak of black right where it parted. She was thin, wearing a pair of skinny jeans and a sweatshirt with a panther, the school mascot, emblazoned across the front.<br /><br />“I’m sorry?” Tyler asked.<br /><br />The girl chuckled. “I asked you if you were Tyler McDawn?”<br /><br />“Uh, yeah,” he replied, adjusting his backpack onto his shoulder. “Yeah, I am.”<br /><br />“I’m Donna,” the girl said. “I’m on the welcome committee. I’m supposed to welcome you to Western Heights High.”<br /><br />Tyler looked around and smiled. It was just the two of them in the hallway. It was not the biggest of welcoming committees.<br /><br />“You’re the welcoming committee?” he asked.<br /><br />“No,” she replied. “I’m on the committee. There were two other girls here a few minutes ago. You’re kind of late.”<br /><br />Tyler pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at it. “The rain slowed me down. But it’s only three minutes after eight.”<br /><br />“School starts fifteen minutes before eight,” she said, laughing. “It’s no big deal. Mrs. Edwards told me to hang out for a few minutes to see if you showed.” She made a gesture in his direction. “You did.”<br /><br />Tyler smiled. “I did. Thanks for waiting. What happens now?”<br /><br />“Well, I’m supposed to take you to the office to get your schedule and then take you to your first class.”<br /><br />Tyler gestured down the hall. “After you.”<br /><br />__________<br /><br />They walked down the hall past a series of posters advertising a car wash fundraiser for the cheerleading squad, a bake sale for the debate club, and a menu of the cafeteria lunches for the entire month. The school was nice, even though it was not as fancy as the schools he was used to attending. If he had walked this far down a school corridor in the past, he would have already passed a lounge, a huge library, a theater, and a cafe. So far, he had seen a few classrooms, two banks of blue lockers, and the restroom. He could see a sign at the end of the hall leading to an auditorium.<br /><br />“How many kids are in this school?” Tyler asked.<br /><br />“I dunno,” Donna replied. “Three or four hundred, I guess.”<br /><br />“Really?” Tyler said. “That’s not that many.”<br /><br />“This side of town is mostly businesses and stuff,” she said. “Most people live over on the east side, or out in the suburbs. There are schools out there, too.”<br /><br />“What grade are you in?” Tyler asked.<br /><br />“I’m a freshman,” she replied. “You’re a senior?”<br /><br />“Junior,” he said.<br /><br />“I’m a teacher’s aide in Mr. Eldrige’s fifth-period class,” Donna said. “That’s a junior algebra class. Maybe you’ll be in it.”<br /><br />“Maybe,” he said. “I took junior algebra last semester, but I’m not sure if the credit will carry over.”<br /><br />Donna looked confused. He had forgotten what it was like to be a freshman. All that talk of credits and semesters went over your head the first year of high school. She would not start to comprehend all of it until next year.<br /><br />They came to the office, which was further from the front door than he thought it would be. Tyler had always imagined public schools as having guards at the door and bars on all the windows. He had seen a few too many movies.<br /><br />They walked inside an office that struck Tyler as small. They were in a small reception area with a desk that had a young red-haired lady behind it. She was on the phone and indicated she would be with them in a moment with a finger. The call was not business related since she was telling the person on the other end of the line about what kind of salad she had eaten for lunch the day before, and what kind she was planning to have today. <br /><br />Other than the reception desk, the room was filled with a couple of chairs and filing cabinets. On the opposite wall, there was a Norman Rockwell print of a young boy sitting outside of an office much like this one. The boy had a big purple black eye and a huge grin on his face, and the title written at the bottom of the print was “The Shiner”.<br /><br />The young lady that liked to eat salad for lunch hung up the phone and glanced at them before turning her attention to her computer. “May I help you?” she asked.<br /><br />“Ms. Lacey,” Donna said turning and motioning toward Tyler. She had her hands completely covered by her shirt sleeves and was grasping them tightly. This was a nervous young girl. “This is Tyler McDawn. Mrs. Edwards said to bring him to the office when he got here.”<br /><br />“I’ll let her know he’s here,” Ms. Lacey said. “Thank you, Donna. You can run along to class now.”<br /><br />Ms. Lacey picked up the telephone again and began speaking as Donna nodded and moved back toward the door to the hallway.<br /><br />“Thanks for the welcome committee, Donna,” Tyler said as she opened the door. “It was nice meeting you.”<br /><br />“Nice meeting you, too,” she replied shyly. Something about the girl said to Tyler that she did not get a whole lot of thank yous and compliments. She did not seem like she knew how to accept them. <br /><br />Donna walked out of the room and closed the door. A second later another door on the other side of the room opened and Mrs. Edwards stepped out of it.<br /><br />“Mr. McDawn?” the woman asked, looking down at a piece of paper in her hand, glancing up in his direction.<br /><br />“Yes, ma’am,” Tyler said. “Tyler.”<br /><br />“Come in my office, please,” she said. She did not seem very happy, and Tyler dreaded getting off on the wrong foot with the school’s principal. He walked into the office with her and sat in the chair she indicated across from her desk.<br /><br />Betty Edwards was not a short woman. She was a bit shorter than Tyler who, at seventeen, had already nearly reached six feet. She was a black lady with a flat-top hairstyle that had probably gone out about fifteen years ago. But she knew what hairstyle worked for her, and she kept it.<br /><br />Her office was not large, but it was efficient. There was nothing that seemed out of place. No papers lay strewn across her desk. No books turned the wrong way on the bookcase. A place for everything and everything in its place, as they say.<br /><br />“First of all, I would like to start by reminding you that the school day begins at 7:45 AM,” she said as she sat down beside her small, but well-cared-for wooden desk. “I believe I mentioned that to your father when he registered you last week.”<br /><br />“That may be true, Mrs. Edwards,” Tyler responded. “I apologize for being late. My father has a lot going on with the new exhibits opening at his museum this week. I’m lucky that he took the time to register me at all. If he could have left it up to me, then he probably would have.”<br /><br />“Your father is a busy man,” the principal said as she looked over something on her computer screen. Tyler supposed that she had his file up in front of her. “He owns a museum?”<br /><br />“He doesn’t own it. He’s an investor and works as curator for several museums,” Tyler said. “The one here in Birmingham is his newest one. It’s also the biggest one that he’s ever built.”<br /><br />“Why would he choose to build it here?” she asked. “We’re not a large city like New York or Los Angeles. We already have an art museum.”<br /><br />“Well, the new one is a museum of natural history,” Tyler replied. “He’s starting to get into a phase of giving access to things people haven’t had before. I guess this city hasn’t had a way to see a lot of historical artifacts or works of art. He’s big into education. That’s why he’s always had me in the best schools.”<br /><br />“Until now,” Mrs. Edwards said, the slightest hint of a scowl crossing her face.<br /><br />“I’m sorry?” Tyler asked.<br /><br />“You were about to say that your father has always had you in the best schools until now.”<br /><br />Here it comes, Tyler thought. He was used to it. People expected him to be a snob or well-to-do jerk everywhere he went just because his father had a lot of money. Tyler did not think of himself that way. While it was true that he was used to having pretty much anything he wanted available to him, he always thought of himself as being normal. <br /><br />After all, it was not his money. It was his father’s. But, then again, he had never had to live in a lower-income home, so as far as he knew he may actually be a well-to-do jerk.<br /><br />“I wasn’t going to say that,” Tyler said. He felt his pulse speed up a bit.<br /><br />“Mr. McDawn,” Mrs. Edwards said, and Tyler could tell this time that she was not happy. “I have been the principal of this school for six years. I was the vice principal for three years before that. And before that, I taught nearly every class we offer. I hand-picked every teacher in this building, and I review all of the curricula taught to my students. I can assure you that even though this is a public school, the education given here is just as good, if not better, than the one provided by your Ivy League private schools.”<br /><br />“I wasn’t trying to…,” he started, but she began again.<br /><br />“And while we’re on the subject of your past education, let’s talk for a minute about Trailwood Academy in New York.”<br /><br />Tyler sighed. He was starting to wish that his father was here. He was usually too busy to deal with things like this, but he had a way of talking to people that eased the tension.<br /><br />“Yes, ma’am?” Tyler replied.<br /><br />“Were you expelled from that school?” she asked.<br /><br />“I was,” Tyler said. “But I wasn’t given a fair chance to tell my side of the story.”<br /><br />“All it says on your record is that you were in an altercation with another student, and there was a knife involved,” she said.<br /><br />“I know,” Tyler said. “May I tell you what actually happened?” Mrs. Edwards nodded and leaned back in her chair. “Two guys got into a fight. It wasn’t anyone I knew. It was just a couple of freshmen fighting over a girl or something. They started yelling at each other in the hall, and a whole group of people gathered around and started trying to get them to fight. One of them jumped on the other, and they started crawling around on the floor, beating each other. One of them got hit pretty hard, and there was some blood. I jumped in to try and break it up.”<br /><br />“And one of them had a knife,” Mrs. Edwards said as if she knew the rest of the story.<br /><br />Tyler nodded. “It wasn’t a big one. Just a little pocket knife. But he stabbed me right here.” He pointed to a space between his third and fourth rib on his right side. “The doctor said that if it had been my other side, it would have hit my heart and killed me.”<br /><br />Mrs. Edward drummed her fingers on the top of her desk for several seconds. She looked at Tyler and then back to the information on her computer screen. She picked up a pen and made a note on the paper in front of her.<br /><br />“Why would you be expelled for that?” she asked.<br /><br />“The school had a zero-tolerance policy for fighting,” he replied. “They just said I should have let the staff handle it.”<br /><br />“Well,” she said. “That’s more information than I could find in your file. But I also haven’t been able to find anything different from what you just told me. I talked with your father last week. I like him. He seems a bit eccentric and spends a lot of time studying history. He may not have a very good grasp on how things work in the real world…outside of history books.”<br /><br />“You’re right about him,” Tyler replied.<br /><br />“However,” Mrs. Edwards said. “He did tell me the same story you just did, and I’m inclined to believe him. You have to understand that it took a lot of meditation on the subject before I agreed to let you attend this school. When I heard about your altercation, I almost sent a notice of protest to the school board immediately. There hasn’t been an incident of violence in this school since I took over as principal, and I wasn’t about to let you be the one to break that streak.”<br /><br />Tyler looked from the woman and down to his hands that were lying, clasped together, in his lap. “You don’t have to worry about that, Mrs. Edwards,” he said. “I’ve never liked violence. But, I can tell you, that experience had an effect on me. I’ve been seeing a counselor for the past few months since it happened. The threat of violence sends me into a panic.”<br /><br />“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mrs. Edwards replied. “At least you’re dealing with it well. I’ve seen your transcripts, and your grades are very good. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders. So, I’m going to say welcome to you. I hope you enjoy our school.” She stood up and held out her hand. Tyler stood and accepted it with a handshake.<br /><br />“Thank you,” he said. “I’m sure I will.”</b></span><br />CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-964043442495741152022-06-21T06:18:00.002-07:002022-06-21T06:18:31.455-07:0045 Movies For 45 Years: 1990<div class="MsoNormal"><div><b style="font-size: large;"><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUB_wxKYTfhiOCJefnARtQzzoQSshTGwUeA9vyFf-7aqFAVLQ3QMw0AhYAV5YKotO4dd9BGwydSiQ9rxvy-OtGrtv0stqWzHfdeMxeztYLh0rdR5skYXLg6exnjpBdHvaiOQNLYzb7HDFS/s1600/Untitled.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUB_wxKYTfhiOCJefnARtQzzoQSshTGwUeA9vyFf-7aqFAVLQ3QMw0AhYAV5YKotO4dd9BGwydSiQ9rxvy-OtGrtv0stqWzHfdeMxeztYLh0rdR5skYXLg6exnjpBdHvaiOQNLYzb7HDFS/s1600/Untitled.png" /></a></div>1990 was a big year for me since it was the year that I officially became a teenager. I have some pretty vivid memories from that time. I was beginning my journey into nerdom. I was falling in love with movies. I went to the theater often, which was not as often as I would have liked since I still depended on my parents for transportation. Our closest theater was a 30-minute drive away. Oh, and I didn’t have a job. I was a frequent customer of the local video store. Perusing the shelves of films was one of my favorite ways to pass the time.</b></div></b></div></b></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div>But I have some specific memories of films I saw that year. I know I went with my mom and cousin to see <i>Dick Tracy</i> on my birthday that year. <i>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles</i> was also a huge deal for me. I saw it twice and spent my meager allowance on the novelization and the comic book adaptation.<br /><br />When I look back on that year, there is one movie that has embedded many images into my mind. It has steered the course of my taste in films since and stands out above all the others.<br /><br /><i>Total Recall</i>.<br /><br />It was a Schwarzenegger vehicle and probably the first movie of his that I ever actually sat down to watch. I remember <i>Terminator</i> being on in the background a few times as I grew up. As a kid, it didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t see <i>Total Recall</i> in the theater. Of course, my parents weren’t taking a 13-year-old kid to see an R-rated film. But a few months after its release, it started airing on one of the premium movie channels that we had.<br /><br />I remember that it was a perfect storm one evening. My mom was at work. She worked in a hospital, and she had the 3 pm-11-pm shift. My dad was getting ready to leave for his job as a firefighter. My brother and I were getting ready to spend the evening at home all alone. We’d been fed, and I was popping some popcorn and flipping through the TV Guide to figure out what I was going to watch. I saw that <i>Total Recall</i> was about to come on. I had seen the commercials, and I knew I wanted to see it. Being the honest kid that I was, I went to my dad as he was leaving and asked if it was okay if I watched it. He thought about it for a minute and said, “Yeah, but don’t tell your mom.”<br /><br />YES!!!<br /><br />Now a little about the movie itself. <i>Total Recall</i> is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick called <i>We Can Remember It For You Wholesale</i>. Of course, it starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, and Michael Ironside. It was directed by Paul Verhoeven, the same guy that had brought us <i>Robocop</i> a few years before and would make <i>Starship Troopers</i> a little while later. The concept grabbed me immediately. Arnold plays a regular guy who works as a construction worker. He has all these dreams of being something bigger than he is. He sees an advertisement for a company called “Recall” that specializes in putting manufactured memories in your brain. The idea is that if you don’t have time to take a vacation, you can have the memories of a vacation put in your brain. It's the same thing. He goes through with the procedure and things go a little sideways. He discovers that he is a spy and he has a mission to complete on Mars.<br /><br />I went back and watched this movie again a little more recently, about the time the remake with Collin Farrell came out a few years ago. The special effects don’t hold up, and the story gets clunky toward the end. It suffers from a classic problem where a movie has a great story but it needs to wrap up so quickly for no other reason than it’s time to wrap it up. But, even today, I can watch it and get lost in that world. Some of that is Verhoeven’s vision. He had a way of world-building that gave us futuristic satire of our society that made you think. He did it in Robocop as well. You see the things happening around the character and you think to yourself…”Yeah, I can see that happening”. But it is also a product of Philip K. Dick’s mind. He could tell such big stories in just a few pages. And when it is handled by the right filmmaker, it can deliver something truly amazing.<br /><br /><i>Total Recall</i> may be considered to be a middle–of–the–road sci-fi flick in most critics’ eyes…but it is the one film from 1990 that left the biggest impression on me.</b></span></div>
CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-47726063617826075312022-06-08T14:20:00.001-07:002022-06-08T14:20:05.915-07:0045 Movies For 45 Years: 1989<div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9UkiU0z3whZ50-EMGeRv9jNiLZgxu7X80EcrM9OSKDDB7qCzJRaFi_h-1SHYsHov7rI1D2IAiwX7TfOCzBJrSU9fiAu8clPFVe4q0XITNvEBmu0Y0SHfq-pdlkcsJBxqC14HnsdutffUpsyML1Y9ZT-vKLuO6wQUn-Le7GNCqjg9f6_J4diN5YpXb9A" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="213" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg9UkiU0z3whZ50-EMGeRv9jNiLZgxu7X80EcrM9OSKDDB7qCzJRaFi_h-1SHYsHov7rI1D2IAiwX7TfOCzBJrSU9fiAu8clPFVe4q0XITNvEBmu0Y0SHfq-pdlkcsJBxqC14HnsdutffUpsyML1Y9ZT-vKLuO6wQUn-Le7GNCqjg9f6_J4diN5YpXb9A" width="160" /></a></div></b></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>1989 was the year that I turned 12 years old. I was getting to be the age where I was all in on films. I drove my mom crazy when I begged her to buy me some magazine at the grocery store that cost $4 just because the cover briefly mentioned a movie that I was excited about. We didn’t have 50 websites giving us up-to-the-minute details behind the scenes as we do now. We got our news in spurts. So, if there was a tiny mention of something we were into, we had to be on it.<br /><br />It wasn’t plausible to get my mom to buy every magazine on the rack at Food World. So, many Saturday afternoons saw me at the local convenience store, sitting on the floor next to the magazines and comics, reading what I could until old Mr. Smith told me to go home.<br /><br />This is probably the hardest installment I’ve had to write since I started this project. There are so many movies from 1989 that I love. And unlike a lot of the ones that I’ve written so far, where my favorite movie from a given year wasn’t discovered until years later…1989 was the first year that I can remember falling in love with many of these films from the word “go”. Some had to wait until the following year to see on video because movie-going in my rural town was a pretty big outing and not something did every weekend.<br /><br />Why is it so hard to pick a winner for 1989? Because I love so many of the titles that came out that year…especially in the summer. <i>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</i>, <i>Back to the Future Part II</i>, <i>Honey, I Shrunk The Kids</i>, <i>Ghostbusters II</i>, and even <i>Look Who’s Talking</i>.<br /><br />See? See how hard that is to choose? No? Well, you’re not a dude that’s about to turn 45. Because if you were my age…that’s some Sophie’s Choice level stuff right there.<br /><br />So…I asked myself which movie from that year has meant the most to me over the years? Did any of them shape the way that I watch movies? Did any of them affect the movies that I love now?<br /><br />Yes, one of them did. <i>Batman</i>.<br /><br /><i>Batman</i> starred Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Jack Palance, and directed by Tim Burton.<br /><br />It wasn’t the first comic book movie ever made. Several of the Superman films had already beaten it to the punch. But it was the first one that came out when I was of an age to care about it. I became a regular viewer of Entertainment Tonight, hoping to get a glimpse of a costume or any breath about the production. When the Batmobile was unveiled, it was the greatest thing I’d ever seen.<br /><br />I wasn’t a huge consumer of comic books. I wasn’t the kid that went to the comic book store every weekend and bought an armload of the newest titles. I got an allowance of $3.50 a week. With that money, I went to the local convenience store and bought four things. A Snicker’s bar, a Sunkist soda, a copy of the latest Superman title…and Batman.<br /><br />The only exposure that I’d had to an on-screen version of Batman up to that point had been the campy version from the 60s that starred Adam West and Burt Ward. It was entertaining as I watched it in reruns. But even as a kid I knew that Batman was supposed to be a darker character.<br /><br />If you want to make a dark movie, Burton is the man for the job. Although, at that point in his career, that might not have been as widely known as it is now. His claim to fame was directing <i>Pee Wee’s Big Adventure</i>. You don’t remember the genius that movie was, but you need to revisit it. It was well done. But what he could do with the visuals of this film given what he had to work with at the time was incredible. There aren’t a lot of special effects here. We didn’t have CGI, so most of what you saw was practical. They used real cars. They used models. They built actual sets. And what we got was a very dark rendition of Gotham City that looked like a comic book page had sprung to life on the screen.<br /><br />The film was out of time. It was assumed that it was set in the present day (of the time) since Batman had a lot of advanced tech to work with. But the cars and the clothes looked like sometime in the 30s. In this way, Burton created a universe that became synonymous with the Batman franchise and utilized in most of the later films. It inspired the animated series, which I argue is one of the best cartoons that has ever been on TV.<br /><br />One thing that I love about this film is that it is not an origin story. So many times we’ve seen film versions of comic book heroes come along and we get a long, drawn-out story about how the hero came to be. Sometimes we get that story over and over again in various films. But, Burton didn’t want to make a movie about how Bruce Wayne became Batman. He wanted to make a movie about Batman fighting the Joker. So, he took the origin that could have been a whole movie of its own and broke it down into a short flashback scene. It’s all that we needed. We got the whole story of Batman’s birth in that scene that took less than three minutes. It was brilliant, and it’s something that I wish we could see more of today.<br /><br />When Michael Keaton was announced as Batman, it went over my head. My 12-year-old self didn’t know enough about Hollywood to care who was playing the characters. I know now that it was a decision that hated by many fans. He was a comedic actor. But he was an excellent Bruce Wayne. He was a little less excellent as Batman. But that black rubber suit that they built restricted his movement, so I think he gave the same performance as Batman as anyone else would have.<br /><br />Jack Nicholson played the Joker. His performance is legendary. He took the character that we knew from the comics and told us to forget all that. He played Joker as a 30s-style gangster that lost his mind. He still wore the colorful costumes, and had a maniacal laugh, but he wasn’t jumping all over the place and acting cartoonishly the way we’ve seen before. This version was much more along what we saw in <i>The Killing Joke</i>.<br /><br />What we have today is a Hollywood that churns out comic book movies like it’s all they know how to make. And I’m not complaining about that. We get a lot of good movies that way. The MCU hasn’t put out a bad film yet. But something they all have in common is that they depend greatly on CGI to tell their stories. Batman didn’t have that problem. Burton proved that all you need is a good concept, a decent script, and a great cast to make a film that will be the template for others for decades.<br /><br />And, it’s my favorite film from 1989.</b></span>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-64663318551580914552022-05-16T07:03:00.006-07:002022-05-16T07:03:56.032-07:0045 Movies For 45 Years: 1988<div class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMFgpUBWy2UKS_VdHeD7OOxUhFR3Yp87UPW-QTpBZwzEI_yeBPxmS9Iam5zlFcWI9Gb3GxXihDhHnundennrNq7xQMbfFdF_C83SQva-_M5Ax6_De15zXEw6yyy9c2y1Fjwc4Zna8LkMqvgfs54Ux6dxtBtcR3od0I9REw7pWpXB-WNlxBnYNknqu2Zw/s298/diehard.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="201" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMFgpUBWy2UKS_VdHeD7OOxUhFR3Yp87UPW-QTpBZwzEI_yeBPxmS9Iam5zlFcWI9Gb3GxXihDhHnundennrNq7xQMbfFdF_C83SQva-_M5Ax6_De15zXEw6yyy9c2y1Fjwc4Zna8LkMqvgfs54Ux6dxtBtcR3od0I9REw7pWpXB-WNlxBnYNknqu2Zw/s1600/diehard.PNG" width="201" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The summer of 1988 was a milestone of a year for me. I finished elementary school when I graduated from Ms. Bouchet’s homeroom class. The following fall I would be a big kid, and I’d start taking classes across town at the middle school. Yes, in the south, we don’t usually call it Jr. High…we call it “middle school”.<br /><br />And my love of movies was just beginning to kick into full gear. I wasn’t just obsessed with movies themselves anymore. I was quickly becoming enthralled in the production aspects as well. I know that year brought us the classic <i>Who Framed Roger Rabbit</i>. For a long time…that was it. I didn’t need anything else. A movie filled with live-action AND cartoons? Yes! Please, yes!<br /><br />I devoured magazine articles that told how all the special effects were done. I was amazed at the lengths they went to make a cartoon rabbit drink out of a real whiskey glass. It was amazing!<br /><br />As I have grown, I still have a fond appreciation for that film. I watch it every now and again to scratch that nostalgic itch. But several other films came out in 1988 that I also consider among my favorites. Tom Hanks was getting <i>Big</i>…Michael Keaton was grossing us out in <i>Beetlejuice</i>…and Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman had the classic Rain Man.<br /><br />It wasn’t until a few years later that I started to grow an appetite for action movies. By the time I was 15 or 16, I was hooked on films that had heart-thumping shootouts, car chases, people hanging from buildings, explosions, and everything else you’d associate with brainless popcorn films. One thing that I’ve noticed is that many of the action flicks I loved as a teenager seem to be cut from a template. There is a pattern that most of them follow that leads to them becoming successful. It’s a quality that has only been done perfectly one time; in the movie that created the cloth from which all others are cut.<br /><br /><i>Die Hard</i>.<br /><br />Die Hard stars Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Alan Rickman, and Reginald VelJohnson. It was directed by John McTiernan, who was mostly known for the film he’d directed the year before… <i>Predator</i>.<br /><br />Bruce Willis was a fairly well-known person in 1988. He was in a pretty popular comedy/drama called <i>Moonlighting</i> at the time. But, in my opinion, this movie solidified him as a leading man in film.<br /><br />Willis plays John McClane, a cop from New York who flies out to LA to spend Christmas with his family. His marriage has been on the rocks lately, and he’s hoping to get back into his wife’s good graces. His wife is Holly McClane (Bedelia). She has recently taken a job as an executive for the Nakatomi Corporation. They are having their Christmas party when John arrives. When he gets there, he goes to the bathroom just in time for some terrorists, led by Hans Gruber (Rickman), who want to steal the bearer bonds that the company has in their vault. They take the party-goers hostage except for John. Iit is up to him to stop the terrorists from killing any innocent victims and save his wife.<br /><br />Before I tell you what I think of the movie (love it), I want to give you a bit of background info that I’ve always found interesting.<br /><br /><i>Die Hard</i> was based on a novel called <i>Nothing Lasts Forever</i>, written by Roderick Thorpe in 1979. In the book, the main character’s name is Joe Leland. He is a retired New York City cop. He flies out to visit his daughter who is working for a big corporation, and they're having their Christmas party. The rest of it is pretty much the same. He even swings through the window just like Willis does in the film.<br /><br />This is where it gets a little interesting. <i>Nothing Lasts Forever</i> was the sequel to another novel that Thorpe wrote in 1966 called <i>The Detective</i>. That book was made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra as Joe Leland. He had in his contract that if they ever decided to make a sequel to that film, he would get the first opportunity to reprise his role. So, honoring the contract, Fox offered the lead role in <i>Die Hard</i> to Frank Sinatra. Can you imagine ol’ Blue Eyes, in his late sixties, crawling through the ductwork in his undershirt and with his bleeding feet? It would have been something altogether different.<br /><br />Luckily, Sinatra turned the role down. It was retooled into what we have now. Bruce Willis was chosen mainly because he was new and he was a lot cheaper than some of the big stars that were eyeing the role.<br /><br />The rest is history. <i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Die Hard</i> is the perfect action movie. It has the gunfire, explosions, and fight scenes that you’d expect. But this was one of the first times I remember seeing humor so perfectly woven into a film in which the stakes were life and death. Willis had so many one-liners that it’s impossible to remember them all. And those little jokes did not detract from the tension. They actually made it feel more real. It made John McClane seem more like a real person. And that made the movie that much more intense.<br /><br />And what can I say about Alan Rickman? He was one of my favorite actors. So many movies that I love he was a part of and just made them so much better by doing what he does best. The slow, methodical way he delivered his lines with just enough of an accent to make them seem more menacing was incredible. And this was the first movie that I ever remember seeing him in. If he had not been there, I don’t think this film would be the classic that I think of it as being today.<br /><br />I really can’t do anything but gush over this movie. I watch it at least once a year. It was so well received, they made another one a couple of years later that was very good as well. It wasn’t AS good as sequels usually aren’t. But it was strong and stood on its own.<br /><br />The third one though…wow! We’ll have to see in a week or so, but I think that one has a chance of making it on this list as well.<br /><br />Then we get the stories of movies written to be <i>Die Hard</i> sequels and ended up becoming their own thing. You can see the origins coming from that original film. <i>Under Siege</i> (<i>Die Hard</i> on a ship). <i>Speed</i> (<i>Die Hard</i> on a bus). The list goes on.<br /><br />And then there are the movies that were supposed to be other things and eventually were rewritten to put John McClane in them. <i>Live Free or Die Hard</i> and <i>A Good Day to Die Hard</i> both suffer because of that.<br /><br />But there was a teenager that just happened to be in the room one night when his dad turned on the TV and started watching <i>Die Hard</i>…and that kid was hooked on stupid blow-em-up flicks ever since.</span></b><p></p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><br />CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-75414252689467670232022-05-12T08:20:00.004-07:002022-05-12T08:20:45.424-07:0045 Movies For 45 Years: 1987<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTI7xLuUf3N8HJrajVSPEGtB3TaJqx8VTbvYQerei-6tYifKVS1GquRYqu1h1cSGW3RjKol_MZVKlnuPek-1KpFHzaop7uaEFp3jXRXVJbrOgJckqBjwUm_35S5ukO241LXQYeZMYklSPtFYIdeDbv2OyiSuT0tCsCGgOy0fD8zep5iwLb_tJoxRliLw/s1564/ernest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1564" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTI7xLuUf3N8HJrajVSPEGtB3TaJqx8VTbvYQerei-6tYifKVS1GquRYqu1h1cSGW3RjKol_MZVKlnuPek-1KpFHzaop7uaEFp3jXRXVJbrOgJckqBjwUm_35S5ukO241LXQYeZMYklSPtFYIdeDbv2OyiSuT0tCsCGgOy0fD8zep5iwLb_tJoxRliLw/s320/ernest.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><p></p><p><b style="font-size: large;">In 1987 I had been alive for a solid 10 years. I distinctly remember going to a barbecue on my birthday, as we usually did since it was also the 4th of July. I walked to the sitting area on my uncle’s deck overlooking the lake and announced to my grandparents that I was a decade old. It didn’t impress them that much, especially since they had over 50 years on me.</b></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The year I turned 10 was a pretty big year at the movies. Leonard Nimoy was working his directing chops with <i>Three Men And A Baby</i>. Michael Douglas had a <i>Fatal Attraction</i>. And Mel Gibson and Danny Glover started a franchise that spanned four films with the original <i>Lethal Weapon</i>.<br /><br />The movie that came out that year that had the most of an impact on me is kind of embarrassing to admit. I may have to turn in my cinephile card once I admit how big of a fan I am of <i>Ernest Goes To Camp</i>.<br /><br />When I was a kid, I was a big fan of Ernest P. Worrell. If you’ve never heard of him, you need to go to YouTube and at least watch some of the old commercials that he used to appear in. It was a weird thing that happened in the 80s because usually, a character that appears in commercials is owned by a brand like Flo or Mayhem. This time, the character was owned by an ad company and was licensed to advertise all kinds of products. The ones that I remember the best were for Mello Yello.<br /><br />Ernest was played exquisitely by Jim Varney. He was the quintessential redneck, complete with a denim vest and ball cap. And in the commercials, he used to address his unseen neighbor, Vern, whose point of view we were usually looking at him through. He tortured Vern, continuously terrorizing him with his attempts to “help” him. He usually ended up demolishing a part of Vern’s home or injuring him in some way.<br /><br />Ernest first transitioned to film in <i>Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam</i>, which went straight to video in 1986. It was a weird movie in which Jim Varney played multiple characters, only one of which was Ernest. Varney was a master of faces and voices. You can tell by watching his performances that Jerry Lewis had a huge influence over him. Future comedians such as Jim Carrey drew inspiration from him…whether or not they admit it.<br /><br /><i>Ernest Goes To Camp</i> was the first theatrical movie to feature Ernest. The story is something that we’ve seen a few times. Ernest gets a job as a cook at Camp Kikakee. Being a perpetual 13-year-old boy at heart, he becomes fast friends with many children attending the camp. When the camp is bought by a big corporation that plans to demolish it, he and those kids go to war to save it.<br /><br />This movie is hilarious. There were a lot of movies that followed with Ernest in the title where Varney reprised his role, but this one was very different. The later movies tended to have more slapstick and almost skit-like things thrown in. They almost turned Ernest into a cartoon character and put him into situations no human could survive. But here, it was almost like all the characters around him were from a different kind of movie than he was. Ernest stood out because he was in normal surroundings. There weren’t any monsters coming after him like in <i>Ernest Scared Stupid</i>. He wasn’t saving Santa like in <i>Ernest Saves Christmas</i>. And he wasn’t becoming a basketball phenom like in <i>Slam Dunk Ernest</i>.<br /><br />This movie had a ton of comedy which was great for the 10-year-old me that loved watching the commercials every time they came on. But later on, when the camp is closing and Ernest seems to be losing his friends, I discovered that there was more to this character than just a lot of sight gags. And I discovered the genius of Jim Varney, whose career I would follow until his death in 2000 at the age of 50.<br /><br />A lot of people look at the name Ernest on a movie poster and automatically assume that it’s going to be some stupid comedy that kills a few brain cells every minute that it’s on the screen. And if you’re watching some of the later direct-to-video films, then those people would probably be right. But this first movie was an exception. This is a heartwarming story told through the eyes of an exceptionally funny character played by a talented comedian. I strongly recommend you take 90 minutes and give <i>Ernest Goes To Camp</i> a shot. It is my favorite movie of 1987.</b></span>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-65392142587087329732022-05-03T08:15:00.003-07:002022-05-03T08:15:47.602-07:0045 Movies For 45 Years: 1986<span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4fRyY-Gdj6tOZ6TOYOgACBVd115FZGYaKbYzoL57-s30h7-aMZdYcOhq8iomcEm-oapkh1fZiIAvGsXWp83Pcim6SqmJ9n35kT1ypmPgeB-7rfPFpzKnYgC9ji5AKGTq6dnt16Vk6zG7jJWzJsdBojTpR21rRSrryg4WNy3S_svTQekJfHoKQ1lJhSg/s799/stiv35poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="540" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4fRyY-Gdj6tOZ6TOYOgACBVd115FZGYaKbYzoL57-s30h7-aMZdYcOhq8iomcEm-oapkh1fZiIAvGsXWp83Pcim6SqmJ9n35kT1ypmPgeB-7rfPFpzKnYgC9ji5AKGTq6dnt16Vk6zG7jJWzJsdBojTpR21rRSrryg4WNy3S_svTQekJfHoKQ1lJhSg/s320/stiv35poster.jpg" width="216" /></a></div><b>1986 is a year that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. Not because of any particular movie that came out, but because of something that happened in the news.<br /><br />When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. I read every book that my library had about the space program, the planets in our solar system, the moon, NASA…you name it. So, when I was I the third grade and we got the news that a teacher was going to go into space and conduct classes for us on television. I was thrilled.<br /><br />That was the year the <i>Challenger</i> exploded a few second after blast off. The entire crew died.<br /><br />That we saw it happen made it so much harder to deal with. It was a defining moment in my life. It was the moment that I realized that not all the stories had a happy ending.<br /><br />I just wanted to take a moment and acknowledge that at the top of this entry. But this blog is about movies, and there were a few of them in 1986.<br /><br />Sigourney Weaver was fighting <i>Aliens</i>, Ralph Macchio was back in <i>The Karate Kid Part II</i>, and Matthew Broderick was making comedy history with <i>Ferris Bueller’s Day Off</i>. But, for the second time in this series the film that made the biggest impact on me was a <i>Star Trek</i> movie. <i>Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home</i>.<br /><br />I wrote a while back about the fantastic movie that I thought <i>Star Trek II</i> was. <i>Star Trek III</i> has never been one of my favorites, even though it was the story of how Spock came back from the dead. But it was successful enough for Paramount to trust Leonard Nimoy to fill the director’s chair one more time. <i>The Voyage Home</i> is the third part of the <i>Star Trek</i> trilogy, which a lot of fans call <i>II</i>, <i>III</i>, and <i>IV</i>. They have a story thread that runs through them, starting with the death of Spock, then the destruction of the Enterprise, and finishing up here as the crew returns to Earth and takes on a new ship.<br /><br />The difference in this movie and the others is that it is a comedy, though the premise doesn’t seem very funny. In the 23rd century a mysterious probe show up out of nowhere and starts evaporating the Earth’s oceans. It is threatening the life of the planet. Just as this is happening, the Klingon Bird of Prey that the Enterprise crew took over in the last movie show up. Spock does a little bit of magic reasoning and figures out that the probe is trying to communicate with what it thinks is the main life form of Earth, humpback wales. They were prominent in the oceans the last time the probe came around a few million year ago. But by then they’re all gone. So, Kirk decides to do what any of us would do…go back in time and scoop up a couple of whales.<br /><br />So, we get a funny movie about Kirk, Spock, McCoy and company walking around in San Francisco in 1986. Most of them are human, but their reality is so far removed from what life was like in their ancient past that it’s hilarious to see them try to blend in. A lot of the comedy comes from watching Spock doing the nerve pinch on a bus punk, McCoy resurrecting a bed-ridden old lady with some future medicine, Scotty causing a paradox by inventing future materials, and Checkov asking various passersby where he can find the “nuclear wessel”.<br /><br />As far as plot…there isn’t really much. This movie was supposed to be a light-hearted romp and give fans a welcomed breather after the heavy plots of the last two films. The crew had dealt with the death and resurrection of their friend. This time, they were looking for whales in the past.<br /><br />That’s all that I really have to say about it. It’s not the best <i>Star Trek</i> movie…but of all the movies that came out in 1986, it is the one that had the biggest impact on me. I love <i>Star Trek</i>…and I love time travel. Some of the best <i>Star Trek</i> episodes had to do with time travel, and this was the first film that dealt with it. It wasn’t the last, and it didn’t even do it the best. That distinction belongs to <i>First Contact</i>. But, if you want to have a fun adventure with the crew of the <i>Enterprise</i>…er, <i>HMS Bounty</i>…<i>The Voyage Home</i> is the way to go.</b></span>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-34435984556221849202022-04-25T09:05:00.003-07:002022-04-25T09:08:56.144-07:0045 Movies For 45 Years: 1985<p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibDbXxUVu7QwbKb0EdmaSdT-q4tvSdFKNT3255fuOBmTsS1-z8vntJIpOwIkjpBE68YtmWPORSrYFs85HVka2ZMbq4IR9eXSnhBXu9XARoSvawrdjd9T3fAJls1WIJDD6u8JJjKMOay4BXFOHGrz9wVpB0RXbQv12vYPDv1Dxp2iJTJ-IWJNPGqvmv1g/s653/bttf.PNG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="653" data-original-width="438" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibDbXxUVu7QwbKb0EdmaSdT-q4tvSdFKNT3255fuOBmTsS1-z8vntJIpOwIkjpBE68YtmWPORSrYFs85HVka2ZMbq4IR9eXSnhBXu9XARoSvawrdjd9T3fAJls1WIJDD6u8JJjKMOay4BXFOHGrz9wVpB0RXbQv12vYPDv1Dxp2iJTJ-IWJNPGqvmv1g/s320/bttf.PNG" width="215" /></a></span></b></div><p></p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">1985. There were a lot of good movies that came out that year. Stallone was back in two of them, <i>Rambo: First Blood Part II</i> and <i>Rocky IV</i>. Oprah had her acting debut in <i>The Color Purple</i>. And the world was learning that <i>Goonies</i> never say “die”.<br /><br />It was the year that I turned eight years old. I was in the third grade. I had developed a fascination with reading. I read every book that I could get my hands on. My town’s public library was one of my favorite places, followed closely by my school library. And not only had I discovered a love of reading, but I had also discovered a love of science fiction.<br /><br />One of my favorite books of that time was a “choose your own adventure” story. You would read the first couple of pages of the book and you would make a choice. The page that you read next would depend on your choice. It was great because you could go back and make different decisions and have a whole new story. This particular story had to do with time travel. I thought that the concept of traveling to the past or the distant future was intriguing. I used to run around in the woods behind my house pretending I had been transported to a prehistoric time when dinosaurs still lurked around every corner.<br /><br />It should be no surprise to anyone who knows me that the movie from 1985 that affected me most was <i>Back To The Future</i>.<br /><br />It was a classic and unexplainable trope in some of the old goofy sci-fi stories that a teenage boy would be friends with some crazy old inventor usually called “Doctor” or “Professor”. It was a way to have a story for kids about someone their age having an adventure with technology that they couldn’t have created on their own. The Professor made the shrink ray or the clone maker. In this case, the Doc made the time machine.<br /><br />Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, is friends with Doc Brown who created a time machine out of a DeLorean. The Doc’s machine runs off of plutonium, which he stole from some Libyan terrorists. They track him down as he’s showing off his invention. The Doc gets killed, and Marty jumps into the DeLorean to get away, accidentally sending himself back in time 30 years to the year 1955.<br /><br />Once he’s there, he finds that his presence has disrupted history from occurring the way it should and that his existence in the future is in jeopardy. So, he gets Doc’s younger self to help him solve the problem and send him back…to the future.<br /><br />I get worked up just thinking about this movie. The premise is a little goofy. Yeah, it’s weird for a 17-year-old kid to be friends with a man in his sixties or seventies, but it works to get us to the part of the story set in the 50s.<br /><br />If there is one thing that this movie gets right, it’s the feel of the 50s. You can almost believe that Marty went there. The clothes, the music, the colors, the advertisements…all of it is there to create a sense of nostalgia. This movie wasn’t made for me. This movie was made for parents and people just a little older than them. My mom was born on November 25, 1955, which is just a couple of weeks after the timeline of the movie. People that were a little older than that would remember this time from when they were kids. That’s who they were shooting for.<br /><br />Even though it has its roots in science-fiction and has a few scenes with special effects, it’s a pretty small film. Once Marty is transported to 1955, the movie depends on the story and the characters to carry it, and not on special effects or CGI. And the characters delivered. Crispin Glover is a weird guy and no one else could have played the role of George McFly. He was a coward that Marty helped to find his backbone. He not only ensured that he and Lorraine (Lea Thompson) would get married, but he made their future better. Thompson was great as Marty’s mom, even though it was creepy that she tries to “get with” Marty….**shiver**.<br /><br />And who can forget Thomas F. Wilson as the big bully, Biff Tannen? Everyone has known a Biff in their life. He’s the guy that thinks he’s the greatest at everything, but he’s just a tiny weasel in a big suit.<br /><br />Fox and Lloyd hold this movie together. Even though there was an age difference, they are one of the best comedy duos of all time. They have a chemistry between them that worked not only in this film but was the best part of the two sequels that came later. It seems so strange to find out that Fox almost didn’t play Marty. Eric Stoltz was originally cast because Fox was busy making Family Ties. They nearly filmed the entire movie with Stoltz in the lead but just realized that the chemistry wasn’t there, and the movie wasn’t working. They were able to work out a deal with NBC to get Fox at night and on the weekends. They reshot almost the whole film. If that had not happened, then this series would not be the well-loved classic that it is today.<br /><br />I quote this movie so much it’s accepted by my family as part of my dialogue. How many times have I gotten into a car and said “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”? It’s a number that is too high to attain. “This is heavy” is a staple of mine as well.<br /><br />And, yes, the paradox stuff doesn’t quite work out. We know that if you changed history and it was something that caused you to not exist that it would be pretty instantaneous. You wouldn’t watch a picture of your family slowly fade and then see your fingers and hand disappear. But this is a family comedy, not a straight-up sci-fi film, so it works.<br /><br />So today I’d have to say that <i>Back To The Future</i> is not only my favorite time travel movie of all time, but it is the most defining movie for me that came from 1985.</span></b>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-32598210901726610522022-04-20T06:18:00.002-07:002022-04-20T06:18:34.714-07:0045 Movies For 45 Days: 1984<p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg47PVLvolhNR21Dgh-MaUngoT9iBdpAe52S6ULiKrX5KZ7KVEL4qVQ2TnzZbSSFkyilvGX4doFT4Lp9EUMeaQi5sVRTprzfRYih1zSHj6sRXazvI7zqdFciW4M7F3YbjeLYAQtl__-qUOOPFne0X56SvqjzUPGbwaLYgLPeMCqrRjccV-S2dk9BmETFw/s3000/ghostbusters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg47PVLvolhNR21Dgh-MaUngoT9iBdpAe52S6ULiKrX5KZ7KVEL4qVQ2TnzZbSSFkyilvGX4doFT4Lp9EUMeaQi5sVRTprzfRYih1zSHj6sRXazvI7zqdFciW4M7F3YbjeLYAQtl__-qUOOPFne0X56SvqjzUPGbwaLYgLPeMCqrRjccV-S2dk9BmETFw/w266-h400/ghostbusters.jpg" width="266" /></a></b></span></div><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>By 1984 I was old enough to notice there might be some good TV shows and movies that didn’t involve cartoon animals and Muppets of various sizes. I spent hours in front of the television in the company of <i>Sesame Street</i> and <i>Captain Kangaroo</i>. But I started to pay attention a little more often when my parents watched their shows. I started noticing things like <i>The Incredible Hulk</i> and <i>The Dukes Of Hazzard</i>. Live-action entertainment was beginning to pique my interest.<br /><br />And it was a pretty good year for live-action movies. <i>Indiana Jones</i> was exploring the <i>Temple Of Doom</i>, theaters were full of <i>Gremlins</i>, and the crew of the Enterprise was back in <i>Star Trek III</i>: The Search For Spock.<br /><br />Several of the movies that came out in 1984 are on my list of some of the best ever. One of these days I'll make my top 100 list and all of the ones I just mentioned will probably be there. 1984 also had <i>Beverly Hills Co</i>p, The Karate Kid, Police Academy, Footloose, Romancing The Stone, and Splash. All are fantastic movies, in my opinion. Some of them spawned franchises. Some are classics today. But one film released in 1984 affected my childhood more than any of the others…<br /><br /><i>Ghostbusters</i>.<br /><br />I didn’t see the movie until after it had been out for a couple of years. I remember that my dad was going to watch it when it aired on HBO a few months after it had left theaters and invited me to watch it with him. But seeing the lady in the library burst into a scary monster was all that my seven-year-old eyes had to see to realize that it wasn’t the movie for me. I hid in my room until he called me back a couple of hours later to show me the giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man rampaging New York City. That did get my attention, but not enough for me to brave that monster again. At least not for a while.<br /><br />It was a year or so before The Real Ghostbusters started coming on TV on Saturday mornings. I started watching that cartoon from the first episode. I loved every second of it. The idea of a group of men that could battle ghosts with proton beams captured my imagination. I had my mom buy me action figures for my birthday and made up my own stories. I bought myself a proton pack with a beam made of Nerf and ran around in the woods behind my house pretending to be on an adventure with Peter, Egon, Ray, and Winston. Slimer was always hovering over my shoulder, waiting to eat every crumb I might have dropped on the ground.<br /><br />I was a full-on Ghosthead. And I had never watched the movie.<br /><br />It wasn’t until the announcement of <i>Ghostbusters 2</i> that I finally got brave enough to give the original another shot. I went to the local video store and rented it. I was probably 10 or 11 at this point. So when I saw that library ghost this time, she was not nearly as scary. I didn’t even think she looked real. I let out a deep and satisfying sigh of relief, sat back, and enjoyed one of the best movies ever made.<br /><br /><i>Ghostbusters</i> is a paranormal, science fiction, horror-themed film. But, first and foremost, it is a comedy. They could have made a scary version of this same story, but the decision to make it funny and fill it with actors that had cut their teeth on Saturday Night Live was genius. It gives us a jumping-in point with the audience because we know that this stuff isn’t real. It doesn't even look real on the screen. By making it funny, we forgive some of the less than stunning special effects.<br /><br />Not that all the effects are bad. Some of them are pretty good for 1984 standards. Stay Puft looked as real as he could. The images of some of the ghosts that escaped and ran loose in the city looked pretty good. The two gargoyles didn’t look great. They were going for a whole Harryhausen kind of stop-go animation that I never thought looked quite right even at the time. And it completely takes my kids out of the movie today.<br /><br />The characters make up for so much of that. We know exactly who these guys are from the very beginning. The personalities of Peter, Ray, and Egon, played by Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, and Harold Ramis, were telegraphed so well that they each filled a needed slot. We had the brain, the tech guy, and the street smart. Dana and Louis, played by Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis, were also great. Moranis adds the comedy sidekick character that he has always done so well.<br /><br />The one character that I felt for was Winston, played by Ernie Hudson. He was intended to be played by Eddie Murphy. Hudson stepped in after Murphy bailed. He thought he was one of the main characters throughout the movie. Eventually, his character was re-written so that he appeared halfway through the film and given only a handful of lines. Hudson took a bit of a hit with that. But, to his credit, he’s the one that still makes himself available at <i>Ghostbusters</i> events whenever he can.<br /><br />So, as far as sci-fi/horror it lacks some substance. The story is pretty simple and would be weak if taken seriously. But the fact that this is the bottom layer of a cake in which the top layer is a comedy works just fine. It takes the edge off and makes it so that even though we’re watching the fate of the city, as well as that of the world, we’re having a good time.<br /><br />It was followed by a sequel a few years later that takes a lot of flak I don’t think it deserves. How often do you get a sequel that compares to the original? Not very often. But it was fun.<br /><br />And then there is the story of the 2016 reboot that got its legs knocked out from under them before given a chance to stand up. I went to see it in the theater. It was not the terrible movie the critics make it out to be. It was funny and a lot of fun. It doesn’t compare to the original, but I never expected it to. I hope that they get a chance to do another one, but that may be hoping for a lot.<br /><br />So, in a year when so many of my favorite movies were released, I can say that only one had as big of an impact on who I am as this one. <i>Ghostbusters</i> will always be my favorite 1984 film. It possibly makes my top ten list. Maybe one day I’ll make that list and find out.</b></span>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-74409455262704635262022-04-20T05:05:00.000-07:002022-04-20T05:05:03.059-07:0045 Movies For 45 Years: 1983<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQDDgUPE91rB3VgdCpUb8DzAX9OrMAOwEYgolCUTsC7pAEKbc4J8rLcpIVq_bH5xm0DeILkmQ_A_YQIRG_FuoJbVuJ7Pi0wbH_F0v2C6YbNLHZdu2nBxH1ukS0U4n1EMep8dTmoWC8jwtfVN48upsfcdkJnxik8V4uD_OOkfjgWPjO84PXVb-YUMHXeg/s320/jedi.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="213" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQDDgUPE91rB3VgdCpUb8DzAX9OrMAOwEYgolCUTsC7pAEKbc4J8rLcpIVq_bH5xm0DeILkmQ_A_YQIRG_FuoJbVuJ7Pi0wbH_F0v2C6YbNLHZdu2nBxH1ukS0U4n1EMep8dTmoWC8jwtfVN48upsfcdkJnxik8V4uD_OOkfjgWPjO84PXVb-YUMHXeg/s1600/jedi.png" width="213" /></a></div><div><b style="font-size: large;">I turned six years old in 1983. That was the year that I started the first grade. That’s pretty much the only thing that I remember about being 6. I went to school, and I watched a lot of <i>Sesame Street</i>. I wasn’t watching many movies at the time, but there were a lot of them coming out that year. John Travolta was <i>Staying Alive</i>, Matthew Broderick was playing <i>War Games</i>, and 007 was back in <i>Octopussy</i>.</b></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br />I looked at the movies released in 1983. I tried to ask myself the tough questions. Is this your favorite movie of the year, or are you just saying that because of the others? Well, as I looked through the list once…twice…three times…there is no doubt that my favorite film of 1983 is <i>Return Of The Jedi</i>.<br /><br /><i>Jedi</i> is the final installment of the original trilogy of <i>Star Wars</i> films. And, other than a couple of terrible <i>Ewoks</i> TV movies and a short-lived cartoon called <i>Droids</i>, it was the last we would see of the <i>Star Wars</i> universe for over 15 years.<br /><br />It is my favorite movie from that year, but it is the weakest film in the trilogy. The level reached in <i>Empire</i> could not possibly have been matched or brought back down with satisfaction. Audiences had already expected how the story would end, and nothing that Lucas could have done was going to scratch the itch just right. So, we got the Ewoks…which were a weird species to enter the franchise. They were small, cute, teddy bear-like creatures that threatened our heroes with cannibalism and defeated an army of Storm Troopers with sticks and stones.<br /><br />The story was a lot more loosely constructed than the last two had been. It was as if the studio decided that it would be three films and three films only. The trilogy was the king. Had it been fleshed out into four installments, it may have connected a little better.<br /><br />But for its faults, it still has some great moments that are some of my favorites from the entire series. The scene in Jabba’s palace is a classic. The death of Yoda still makes my eye twitch when I see it. And the unexpected revelation that Luke and Leia were siblings…a revelation that was probably a shock to Lucas as well, since no one believes that he had planned that from the beginning.<br /><br />Watching Vader sacrifice himself to save Luke was a wonderful scene as well. I don’t know if that one moment of goodness should absolve him of all the death and torment he had caused in his life, but it worked for the story.<br /><br />So, every story has its ending…and while <i>Jedi</i> wasn’t a perfect ending to <i>Star Wars</i>, it is still a great installment in the franchise. And it is by far my favorite movie from 1983.</b></span>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-34912728832236107912022-04-15T05:03:00.001-07:002022-04-20T05:04:01.651-07:0045 Movies For 45 Years: 1982<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3pB-fBSaD-NZIU7VUtd8UQ6NEzhQBY9a2ZJze763Uu159avrnN_xzjq4WBVF1b6ReayYXlQ3opRJBGU0Jq_c5PmrPGOTp2lVHhKK4qsy0bHPusZusX3Oc2v3MwIEKodiuFPw7YUThsYgfS6D9V-t1dyY6g84FgZ4QbCffdRC8U2q0VLXTwUt1gzANTg/s450/khan.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="303" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3pB-fBSaD-NZIU7VUtd8UQ6NEzhQBY9a2ZJze763Uu159avrnN_xzjq4WBVF1b6ReayYXlQ3opRJBGU0Jq_c5PmrPGOTp2lVHhKK4qsy0bHPusZusX3Oc2v3MwIEKodiuFPw7YUThsYgfS6D9V-t1dyY6g84FgZ4QbCffdRC8U2q0VLXTwUt1gzANTg/s320/khan.jpg" width="215" /></a></span></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I was enrolled in a church-run school when I was very young. They had classes for children as young as three. They had three kindergarten classes, but two of them were just daycare or preschool. When I turned 5, in 1982, I went to 5-year-old kindergarten. The real deal. By this point, I thought I was a “big kid”.<br /><br />The year that I became a “big kid”, there were a lot of movies that came out. People believed in aliens again with <i>ET: The Extra-Terrestrial</i>, teenagers were learning some very bad things while watching <i>Porky’s</i>, and Stallone was taking on Mr. T in <i>Rocky III</i>.<br /><br />Remember that in 1979 the Italian Stallion was in the ring with the USS Enterprise to earn the top spot on my list. <i>Rocky II</i> won that battle. In the rematch, the decision goes the other way.<br /><br /></span></b><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>My favorite movie of 1982 is, hands down, </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan</i><b>.</b><br /><br /><b>I have loved all things </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Star Trek</i><b> since I was ten years old. The pilot for </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Next Generation (TNG) </i><b>was shown on television every day for a month. So, I watched it because it was the 80s and there wasn’t much else to watch. I fell in love with Star Trek, which I now see as a miracle because the first season of TNG might contain some of the worst </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Star Trek</i><b> episodes ever made. As I was watching one evening, my dad came into the room. I casually mentioned that I had never watched an episode of the original series. He told me that they showed reruns late on Saturday night on our local TV station and I could stay up and watch if I wanted.</b><br /><br /><b>The world of </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Star Trek</i><b> opened up after that. I decided that I had to devour every morsel of </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Star Trek</i><b> that was available to me. Before streaming media, that meant I had to wait until it came on TV. I would record episodes onto blank VHS tapes and watch them over and over.</b><br /><br /><b>I went to my local video store and rented the movies. There were only four of them, but I cycled through them about 12 or 13 times before my dad jury-rigged a way for me to copy them onto some blank tapes using two VCRs…a very illegal thing to do according to the FBI warning at the beginning of the film. But my dad probably saw it as saving him a lot of money in the long run.</b><br /><br /><b>My ten-year-old self knew that these films were meant to be in a particular order. When I started watching them, that’s exactly how I did it. However, after I had seen all four about three times each, I started focusing on my two favorites, II and IV.</b><br /><br /><i style="font-weight: bold;">Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan</i><b> is the continuation of an episode of the original series entitled</b><i style="font-weight: bold;"> Space Seed</i><b>. In that episode, Kirk and the crew meet a man who is a molecularly engineered super-soldier named Khan, played by Ricardo Montalban. At the end of the episode, Kirk leaves him stranded on a planet where he can’t hurt anyone.</b><br /><br /><b>After some disappointing reviews of </b><i style="font-weight: bold;">Star Trek: The Motion Picture</i><b>, Paramount made some changes before moving ahead with a second movie. They decided to make this film a sequel to that famous episode. We meet Khan again at the and learn that Kirk stranded him and his crew on the wrong planet. Instead of being left in the Garden of Eden, he was stranded on an inhospitable, and barely survivable desert planet.</b><br /><br /><b>Chekov, who is now the first officer of another ship, finds Khan. They immediately recognize each other. True Trek fans see the problem here since Space Seed was a season one episode and Chekov didn’t become a member of the crew until season two. </b><br /><br /><b>Khan hijacks their ship and sets out to get his revenge on Kirk for his fifteen years of exile. He is also determined to steal the terraforming Genesis technology.</b><br /><br /><b>This movie is miles above <i>The Motion Picture</i> as far as quality. The characters feel more genuine, and the whole thing feels more like the original series. And it hearkens back to old naval military films…you know the ones that I’m talking about that have submarines stealthily making moves to hide from one another before one of them blows the other out of the ocean. This had that same kind of thing going on…but with starships.</b><br /><br /><b>In <i>Space Seed</i>, William Shatner had one of his famous fistfights with Montalban. In <i>Star Trek II</i>, Kirk and Kahn are never in the same place. All of their communication comes from view screens and comm channels. And yet, the chemistry and suspense are still there. This movie made us realize that Star Trek might be able to pull off a film series after all.</b><br /><br /><b>The biggest thing that happened in<i> Star Trek II</i> is inarguably the death of Spock. Watching the film now that many years have passed, I can see where it was telegraphed from the beginning. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…or the one” were uttered early on. Someone was going to sacrifice themselves for the safety of the crew. It turns out it was Spock.</b><br /><br /><b>We know now that Spock's destiny was to return to life a couple of years later when <i>Star Trek III</i> hit theaters. But when that scene occurred, the audience didn’t know that. Leonard Nimoy even said that he didn’t know he’d be back. Everyone thought that this was it for the character.</b><br /><br /><b>I even remember the first time that I saw it, which would have been sometime around 1987 or 1988. Star Trek was still new to me, especially the original series. But I was glued to that screen. And when Spock weakly placed his hand on the glass to say goodbye to his friend…I had tears in my young eyes.</b><br /><br /><b>“It’s no big deal,” my dad had said. “They bring him back in the next one.”</b><br /><br /><b>Relief washed over me, mixed with the anger. I had my first spoiler experience.</b><br /><br /><b>A few years ago, the film <i>Star Trek Into Darkness</i> tried to emotionally manipulate us by recreating the famous death scene. This time it was Kirk that sacrificed himself, and Spock was trapped on the outside. It didn’t work. At least not for me. The main reason was that the reboot movies take place early in the careers of the Enterprise crew. That movie was set at the beginning of their original five-year mission. In that universe, Kirk and Spock had only really known each other for a couple of years. And they didn’t like each other very much. In the original (Prime) universe, the death scene took place about 15 years after the series. These two men had spent over a decade exploring the galaxy side-by-side. They were brothers.</b><br /><br /><b><i>Star Trek II</i> is not only my favorite movie released in 1982…it is my favorite <i>Star Trek</i> film out of the 13 released to date.</b><br /><br /><b>“Of my friend, I can only say this: Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most.... [voice breaks] human.” --James T. Kirk</b></span></div>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-35255834103197360092022-04-13T05:02:00.001-07:002022-04-20T05:03:06.003-07:0045 Movies For 45 Years: 1981<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSLIFe256g6qN8_o9b1mlPgU2p8nNaxe2hFqa9LteevKBRDmVaPjJ-v_DuA9ZbkYb4ib31SpOovvRsmzLTfFUn3myl5akQZf-V6mWZpfU-BTWZaY7J3MSFRS7mSp_fu53bDZRkEC4MeTCxYpaflze5CuM-6rnGtMhF2SFVM4U88n67Jtxsplu_rNpGpA/s1500/81UOBSDQh0L._AC_SL1500_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1036" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSLIFe256g6qN8_o9b1mlPgU2p8nNaxe2hFqa9LteevKBRDmVaPjJ-v_DuA9ZbkYb4ib31SpOovvRsmzLTfFUn3myl5akQZf-V6mWZpfU-BTWZaY7J3MSFRS7mSp_fu53bDZRkEC4MeTCxYpaflze5CuM-6rnGtMhF2SFVM4U88n67Jtxsplu_rNpGpA/s320/81UOBSDQh0L._AC_SL1500_.jpg" width="221" /></a></b></span></div><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>I started kindergarten in 1981. That’s the biggest accomplishment that I can think of. I started going to a place where I had a regular diet of cookies, Kool-Aid, and crayons.<br /><br />Yes, I ate crayons.<br /><br /><i>Chariots Of Fire</i> got the Academy Award for best picture. <i>Mommie Dearest</i> got the Razzie for worst picture. Christopher Reeve was back in the tights in <i>Superman II</i>, 007 was drinking another shaken martini in <i>For Your Eyes Only</i>, and Terry Gilliam directed the cult classic <i>Time Bandits</i>.<br /><br />I am a huge <i>Superman</i> fan, and I have the tattoo to prove it. And <i>Superman II</i> is superior in many ways. But this list is about more than just nostalgia. I have to determine what my favorites are. And if I’m being honest, there is one movie that came out in 1981 that would get more rewatchability. I’m, of course, talking about <i>Raiders Of The Lost Ark</i>.<br /><br />After <i>The Empire Strikes Back</i> came out, Harrison Ford was officially a big star. The ending of <i>Empire</i> had left his character’s fate up in the air. He wanted to have Han killed off so he could move on to something else. He got together with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to make a movie that was something completely different than Star Wars.<br /><br /><i>Raiders Of The Lost Ark</i> has Ford playing an archeologist by the name of Indiana Jones. He travels the world collecting artifacts that have been lost and taking them to the university where he teaches. He is allowed to search for the lost ark of the covenant, a biblical object said to contain the original stone tablets on which were written the Ten Commandments. The film also stars Paul Freeman, Karen Allen, and John Rhys-Davies.<br /><br />Most <i>Star Wars</i> fans know that when Lucas made that movie he was trying to make a modern-day version of the old <i>Flash Gordon</i> serials he had watched as a kid. <i>Raiders</i> was no different. There used to be a lot of serials that contained adventurers looking for lost artifacts and getting into fights with smugglers and pirates and things like that. The famous character <i>Alan Quartermaine</i> had several stories and films with comparable adventures.<br /><br />I saw this movie many times when I was a kid, but the images are not as spectacular and flashy as <i>Star Wars</i>, so a lot of it washed over me. I remember that it came on television a lot. I would get sent out of the room before the “face-melting” scene at the end. I didn’t have a context for the whole thing. But I knew that <i>Indiana Jones</i> had a whip and ran from a boulder.<br /><br />I was in my late teens when <i>The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles</i> came on TV. I enjoyed that show, and it made me want to go and watch the trilogy all over again. So, I went to the video store and got a couple of strange looks because I rented all three movies. I went home and had a movie marathon. For a short while, I became obsessed with <i>Indiana Jones</i>. I read some novels and devoured the TV show when I could.<br /><br />Until then, most of my movie watching was science fiction and superhero stuff. When I saw this, I realized that there were all kinds of adventure stories out there that were a lot of fun. It led me to the classic movies channel to watch some of the movies that had inspired it. Thanks to Raiders, I was introduced to Erol Flynn. And I watched Bogart in <i>Treasure Of The Sierra Madre</i> for the first time.<br /><br />Raiders is my favorite of the original three. I’m not a huge fan of <i>Temple Of Doom</i>, but I enjoyed <i>The Last Crusade</i>. But over and above all that, the first will always be the best.<br /><br />I’m not even going to talk about <i>Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull</i>.</b></span>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-27222773409201803942022-04-12T05:01:00.001-07:002022-04-20T05:02:11.967-07:0045 Movies For 45 Years: 1980<p><span style="color: #0e101a;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQh9dDA1nCoqNkyJMO1orBfqYD9hobGy6CA9n_6urjqR7zYrqmq7CI4k5Aviw0m0Q3RK9igIUYFSvZBAzkanTcC_eIaTowQKJbtF_c11M6uzm__BLFOPIjbOyBHcs-Zg2x7EfFmhNfW0VGltb11tShYZokoCCG4R8J8Qdnr11cJraAxJerRHy1IQvww/s396/The_Empire_Strikes_Back_(1980_film).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="254" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQh9dDA1nCoqNkyJMO1orBfqYD9hobGy6CA9n_6urjqR7zYrqmq7CI4k5Aviw0m0Q3RK9igIUYFSvZBAzkanTcC_eIaTowQKJbtF_c11M6uzm__BLFOPIjbOyBHcs-Zg2x7EfFmhNfW0VGltb11tShYZokoCCG4R8J8Qdnr11cJraAxJerRHy1IQvww/s320/The_Empire_Strikes_Back_(1980_film).jpg" width="205" /></a></span></div><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The year that I turned three years old because I have a picture of myself with tears in my eyes sitting next to a birthday cake that said “Happy Birthday, You Big Dummy”.<br /><br />That seems like a cruel thing to say to a small child. But there was a little context to it. One of my favorite things to do when I was little was to sit on my grandfather’s lap and watch television. “Paw-Paw” watched all kinds of things, and I’d watch with him no matter what it was. Sometimes it would be <i>Sesame Street</i> to please me. Other times it would be <i>The Andy Griffith Show</i> or <i>All In The Family</i>. His favorite was <i>Sanford And Son</i>. The slogan on the cake was from that show, but my three-year-old mind didn’t get the joke. So my feelings got hurt.<br /><br />1980 was a good year for film releases. Dolly Parton was working <i>9 to 5</i>, Clint Eastwood was back in <i>Any Which Way You Can</i>, and Dan Akroyd and John Belushi were on a mission from God in <i>The Blues Brothers</i>.<br /><br />I didn’t have to think about this one very much at all. My very favorite movie from 1980 was most definitely The Empire Strikes Back.<br /><br />After the success of <i>Star Wars</i> in 1977, it was pretty evident that there would be a sequel. George Lucas laid the groundwork for a series in that first film. This time he was able to build on it. He handed the directing reigns over to Irvin Kershner, and he focused more on the special effects required for this installment.<br /><br /><i>Empire</i> picks up about three years after the Death Star destruction we witnessed in A New Hope. The Rebel Alliance has gained strength, but the Empire is beginning to regain some footing. Luke goes to Dagobah to train with Yoda, the last remaining of the old Jedi, in the ways of The Force. He leaves to go and rescue Han and Leia after they are taken captive by Darth Vader. In the ensuing fight, Luke learns a secret about who he is.<br /><br /><i>Empire</i> is the very definition of the second part of a trilogy. It dives right into the action. We don’t have to spend time introducing characters because they were established the first time around. As a result, we get a huge battle scene in the first 20 minutes. We see AT-ATs for the first time. And once the battle is over and the story slows down for a while. <br /><br />Yoda explains The Force to us in more detail than Obi-Wan was ever allowed to do. We also get to see so many different environments in one film. The ice planet of Hoth, the jungle planet of Dagobah, and the heavenly views of Cloud City were the main ones.<br /><br />It’s hard to name one thing that I love about <i>Empire</i>. It is my favorite Star Wars movie. I love that it’s almost like an episode. It picks up where the last one left off. And at the end, we’re left completely hanging.<br /><br />As I said in my review of <i>Star Wars</i>, George Lucas is not a very good writer or director. That’s what makes Empire so great. He wrote the story for the film. But the script was written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan. Kershner directed it and took it to a whole other level. Lucas focused on the stuff that he is good at…world-building.<br /><br />Out of the original trilogy of films, this is the most quotable, has the best battle scene, and lays the foundation for everything else that came after it. The original Star Wars had the ships and aliens and creatures and all of that good stuff…but Empire introduced all the giant mechanical weapons, more ships, more droids, and just made that universe so much bigger.<br /><br />I looked through the list of films that came out in 1980 and tried to be sure that I wasn’t looking at that year with a bias. But having gone through the list three times, I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that no other film from the year that I turned three has had more of an impact on who I am than <i>The Empire Strikes Back</i>.</b></span>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-62664151942676159392022-04-07T05:00:00.031-07:002022-04-20T05:11:46.998-07:0045 Movies For 45 Years: 1979<p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj2ywV64lKd8ecx2QUyhXg5onz_FulYZF6sBn6tLMtJ5nk5pGa6NLlGJeZ8-wiLEXVQpfHRxvwmckqp2q7sIwsGEoiJUT1AQx3GUADsqU2EYI_ypgtsflPoorjI1hIC8uJbDgXHQhl73OsO5sSoS-7jAOxnPa44lV1e9Hf0scsLeyHHWOY45lDh3Ayrg/s613/rocky.PNG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="430" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj2ywV64lKd8ecx2QUyhXg5onz_FulYZF6sBn6tLMtJ5nk5pGa6NLlGJeZ8-wiLEXVQpfHRxvwmckqp2q7sIwsGEoiJUT1AQx3GUADsqU2EYI_ypgtsflPoorjI1hIC8uJbDgXHQhl73OsO5sSoS-7jAOxnPa44lV1e9Hf0scsLeyHHWOY45lDh3Ayrg/s320/rocky.PNG" width="224" /></a></span></b></div><p></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>1979 was the year that I turned two years old. My dad transferred from Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, to Columbus, Mississippi. And less than a week before Christmas, my little brother was born.<br /><br />The box office was pretty active as well. 007 was back again with <i>Moonraker</i>, Francis Ford Coppola had another hit on his hands with <i>Apocalypse Now</i>, and Sigourney Weaver was running from Xenomorphs in <i>Alien</i>.<br /><br />I’ve had to do a lot of thinking over this year. I had to dig down deep and be honest with myself over a couple of films to find what makes this spot on my list. It was the year that <i>Star Trek: The Motion Picture</i> was released. If you know anything about me, it is that I am a <i>Star Trek</i> fan. I don’t mean that I "kind of" like the show a little bit. I mean I had a couple of years in high school that the only literature that I read was <i>Star Trek</i> novels. I watched <i>The Next Generation</i> every evening at 9:00 pm even if I had seen the episode 12 times.<br /><br />So, I sat down today to write this blog entry with every intention of writing about that film. But, to be sure, I pulled up the Wikipedia page that showed all of the movies that came out that year. Remember that when I started this project, I was going to talk about my favorite films from every year I’ve been alive. I don’t want to write about the movies that made the most money. I don’t even want to write about the movies that I think are the most well made. Some things may end up on my list that may not be as good as others that came out that year…but this is about the movies that impacted me the most. And for 1979…<i>Star Trek: The Motion Picture</i> is not my favorite.<br /><br />My favorite film of 1979 is <i>Rocky II</i>.<br /><br />I’m not a sports guy. I never played a sport in high school. I was the last one picked to play anything in gym. I don’t even understand football enough to carry on a conversation with a true fan. For me to say that I love a franchise of sports movies is saying something. But I am a huge fan of all the <i>Rocky</i> films. The original isn’t on my list only because it came out a year before I was born. And I was a grown man before I finally sat down and watched it. But after I did, I felt the need to consume the entire series. I love each one of those films, even though the fourth one was mostly montages. And in the fifth one, he didn’t even get in the ring. And I was more excited when <i>Creed</i> came out a couple of years ago than most of my friends thought was necessary.<br /><br /><i>Rocky II</i> is an example of a perfect sequel. It brought all of the players back to the stage. It stars Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa, Talia Shire as Adrian, Burt Young as Paulie, Burgess Meredith as Mickey, and Carl Weathers as Apollo Creed. They felt genuine. They felt like they were the same people as before. Sequels can be irritating when they wink at the audience with in-jokes and references to the original piece. <i>Rocky II</i> felt like a true continuation of the first film.<br /><br />Apollo Creed beat Rocky in the original by a split decision. <i>Rocky II</i> finds him obsessed with the thought that America thinks Rocky could have won. He challenges him to a rematch. Meanwhile, Rocky is dealing with the new fame that has found him and tries to build a life with Adrian.<br /><br />What I like about the Rocky series is not so much the boxing…it’s the heart. The character that Stallone plays feels like a real man. He is not the brightest bulb on the tree, but he has so much courage and integrity that it is hard not to feel as if he’s someone that you know. In a way, he is someone that you know. He’s the guy that we all secretly want to be. He’s a guy that started with nothing; living in a hole-in-the-wall apartment and making ends meet by boxing for a few bucks in a church basement. He’s such a nice guy that he can’t even do his job as an enforcer for a loan shark correctly because he doesn’t like to hurt people.<br /><br />The second time around Rocky is finished with boxing. He has money to burn after his famous near-win in a championship fight. But Creed wants a rematch so bad that he launches a smear campaign to force Rocky back into the ring. Rocky obliges to clear his name. I won’t spoil the ending in case some haven’t seen it.<br /><br />I can’t say enough good things about this whole series, but this one, in particular, is probably one of my top ten movies of all time. And it is my favorite sports movie ever. The first movie is about a guy that had nothing in the world and created a name for himself. This one is about a man who didn’t let fame and fortune stand in the way of his principles and created an empire.<br /><br />So, yes, my favorite TV franchise of all time launched a film in 1979. And while Star Trek had the special effects and the starships and the phasers and all of that…I don’t feel that it can beat <i>Rocky</i> in the story department. There are only a few movies that have characters with as much heart and depth as the <i>Rocky</i> films. It's lucky for me that the second of the series was good enough to make my list.</b></span>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-13870578873311030182022-04-06T04:58:00.001-07:002022-04-20T04:59:08.033-07:0045 Movies For 45 Years: 1978<p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></strong></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmUjeCJXGorCdes26wUcM-peF-SDUpCBulErqJNtADDRnbpBwS_sBgDi9mBCO0Di2LpHuOpTa6hTciJUpHZgSpbO_WUbIeHKi_Ehgyq7W91YLZkzzj_PnylFI9y3NvT46vllxZtUDJ6zzAChKnTlJr-3WlmXQ764Z4TWVMdDFMqVj7yBGbDRCq2BSN8g" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="207" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmUjeCJXGorCdes26wUcM-peF-SDUpCBulErqJNtADDRnbpBwS_sBgDi9mBCO0Di2LpHuOpTa6hTciJUpHZgSpbO_WUbIeHKi_Ehgyq7W91YLZkzzj_PnylFI9y3NvT46vllxZtUDJ6zzAChKnTlJr-3WlmXQ764Z4TWVMdDFMqVj7yBGbDRCq2BSN8g=w259-h400" width="259" /></a></span></strong></div><p></p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I had my first birthday in 1978. It was a big day for my family because it meant that my mom and dad had gotten through their first year of parenthood without killing me. I have no idea what cartoon character was on my cake. I don’t know what decorations my mom put up for my party. I’m not even entirely sure that I had a birthday party. My dad was in the Air Force when I was a baby, and I believe we still lived in Ft. Walton Beach, FL, which is the same place where I was born. It was a good four-hour drive from most of my extended family. I doubt they all made the trip just for some cake and ice cream.<br /><br />1978 was also a big year for movies. John Travolta had another hit in theaters when he donned his leather jacket in Grease. Clint Eastwood was taking care of business in Every Which Way But Loose. And Michael Myers was chasing down Jamie Lee Curtis for the first time in Halloween.<br /><br />It wasn’t until December that one movie, in particular, came out that has since found its way into the list of films that have had a profound impact on my life. On December 15th, we learned that a man could fly when Superman hit the screen.<br /><br />Superman stars Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Marlon Brando, and Gene Hackman. And it was directed by Richard Donner.<br /><br />I have to confess. I was a huge Superman fan when I was a kid. I read Superman comics, watched Superfriends every Saturday morning, and even watched a lot of reruns of the old black and white series starring George Reeves on Nickelodeon. I had a ceramic lamp of the Man of Steel my mother made for me. It sat on my desk in my bedroom. And even after the lamp part broke, I still kept the statue part as a decoration. I wish that I had that statue now.<br /><br />My obsession with the Last Son of Krypton didn’t die out as I grew up as most things tend to. I didn’t read comic books as much in my late teens and early twenties, but I still consumed as much as possible. The day that the animated series hit the airwaves was a happy day for me.<br /><br />And when I was 19, I had the “S” shield tattooed on my right shoulder. Yes, you read that correctly. I have a Superman tattoo.<br /><br />So, as soon as I was old enough to watch this movie, I was placed in front of it as often as it was on television. That must have been fairly frequent because I remember seeing it many times as a kid. My first few viewings washed over me. I didn’t understand a lot of what was happening with the Marlon Brando scenes. I remember being amazed when Reeve showed up in that costume and commenced saving the day. Looking back now, I realize that it was almost a full hour into the film before we see that famous costume, but I didn’t know that back then.<br /><br />Getting Superman to the screen was a pretty big endeavor. There had been a lot of issues involving the film rights to the character that dated back a good five years before the movie finally came out. Finding the right people to make the film had been daunting as well. Mario Puzo, the man who wrote The Godfather, penned a 400-page script. That is an obscene length, much less for a simple story based on a comic book.<br /><br />The production had its share of directors attached to it as well. Steven Spielberg was Puzo’s choice. He turned it down but said that George Lucas would be a good candidate. Lucas was tied up making Star Wars at the time. Finally, after a few location changes and script alterations, Richard Donner was hired. He wanted to start from scratch. The script had grown to 550 pages. He had it rewritten, which probably didn’t make Puzo very happy.<br /><br />Burt Reynolds, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Charles Bronson were just a few actors considered for the role of Superman. Ultimately, Donner decided he wanted someone unknown to fill the red boots. He wanted the audience to look at the character and see…the character. If it had been someone huge like Schwarzenegger, no one would be able to see anything but Arnie in tights.<br /><br />Reeve got the part. Even though he didn’t show up to the audition in a muscle suit as requested. He was in great shape, and his posture and look just resonated on the screen. He truly looks like Superman. And I always thought that making some beefcake play the part would have been a big mistake anyway. Superman isn’t strong because he’s big…he’s strong because he has superpowers. He doesn’t have to be big to have that.<br /><br />The rest of the cast plays out pretty well. I’ve always thought that Margot Kidder may not have been the best choice to play Lois Lane because she’s too loud and off-putting. I find it hard to believe that this Kansas farm boy would fall for her. She fits the part of a 1970s newspaper reporter, so I guess it does work in that respect.<br /><br />Gene Hackman is a fantastic actor. He is one of Hollywood’s living legends, and he has earned that distinction. But I’m not that big of a fan of his portrayal of Lex Luthor. In the comics, Luthor has evolved over the decades. While he was simply a mad scientist of some sort in the early days, he has since become a powerful and threatening foe for Superman. Hackman portrayed him as a conniving and smarmy crook bent on gaining real estate to make himself rich. It’s not representative of the character. But, in the late 70s, they were going for laughs instead of depth. The sad thing is that we have never gotten a true transfer of Luthor from page to screen. The closest we’ve ever come to the real thing was Michael Rosenbaum’s portrayal of a young Lex Luthor on Smallville.<br /><br />Comic book movies are more popular than ever. Marvel releases several films and TV series every year. DC is doing its best to keep up. And there are all sorts of other comic book properties making their way to our theaters and living rooms every year. From The Avengers to The Walking Dead, adaptations of comics have proven to be a huge industry. And more importantly, we have proven that superheroes are something that we aren’t going to get tired of any time soon.<br /><br />And all of that can point to 1978 as its origin. When Kal-El’s tiny ship crashed into that Kansas field, it changed a lot about movies. Superheroes have regularly found their way to us since then. And it all started when Christopher Reeve sailed over the Earth, smiled, and drifted into our hearts.</span></b>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-40777814947177006522022-04-05T04:56:00.001-07:002022-04-20T04:57:55.202-07:0045 Movies For 45 Days: 1977<p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqmhwrwwb6ODvgv5yt_DiTe6hTFrsrJYFXRSUzsvq63Ia4ncJk0C3BI13miCHtRXQbzzNEjbHY7uBqASBzRM0kphkhOprOlNLsCRIhwBcx4IpQbDbYwj6NbTks3KbQS8kRxleXDA-kKCFS/s1600/QxKphyg.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqmhwrwwb6ODvgv5yt_DiTe6hTFrsrJYFXRSUzsvq63Ia4ncJk0C3BI13miCHtRXQbzzNEjbHY7uBqASBzRM0kphkhOprOlNLsCRIhwBcx4IpQbDbYwj6NbTks3KbQS8kRxleXDA-kKCFS/w254-h400/QxKphyg.jpg" width="254" /></a><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On July 4 of this year, I will be turning 45 years old. That is a big day for any person. It seems bigger to the person actually making the milestone than to the people around them since everyone has a 45<sup>th</sup> birthday eventually…unless they die before they get there. And barring any unforeseen circumstances over the next three months I will probably be blowing out those candles on Independence Day.</span></b></div><p></p><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">But I want to conduct a little experiment with myself. I am a movie guy. I love movies and I love television. I have been this way since I was a child. To me, there has never been a more pleasant and satisfying pastime as sitting and letting a story wash over you the way that a movie can do. The two or three hours that you spend watching a film are the culmination of hundreds of hours of work by many individuals that poured their heart and soul into that project. The actors, the director, the camera guys…all the way down to the guy that sweeps up after everyone has left...have all built their careers on making stories for us to consume as entertainment.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">This year, as I approach the big Four-Five, I have decided that I want to go on a journey. I want to find out what the 45 most important movies are to me. What are the 45 movies that I love more than anything in the world? And to do that I am going to start in the year that I was born and do a review of my favorite film from that year. I will post an entry for my favorite movie out of every year that I’ve been alive. These are not the top movies of those years. These are not the classics that are on the “movies you should see before you die” list. These are my favorite movies and the ones that have had an impact on my life.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A lot of the earlier ones I obviously didn’t see until later in life. And by no means have I seen every film that has come out in the last 45 years, so my list may change in the future.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The year that I was born was 1977 and a lot of things happened on the silver screen that year. John Travolta had <i>Saturday Night Fever</i>, Woody Allen was back with <i>Annie Hall</i>, 007 was taking us on another thrilling adventure with <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i>, and Burt Reynolds was eastbound and down in <i>Smokey And The Bandit</i>. But there was one movie that was released that year that has been more of a part of my life than almost any other movie that will be on my list. Of course, I’m talking about <i>Star Wars</i>.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">When it originally came out it was known as <i>Star Wars</i>, though fans today refer to it either as <i>Episode IV</i> or <i>A New Hope</i>. I can’t imagine that there would be anyone reading this blog that has never heard of this film, but it is a fantasy story that takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It’s the story of Luke Skywalker, a farm boy who lives on the planet Tatooine. He intercepts a message from Princess Leia, one of the leaders of a rebellion against the evil Empire, on its way to a former Jedi knight by the name of Obi Wan Kenobi. The message contains the plans for the Empire’s newest weapon, a planet-destroying space station known as the Death Star. Now Luke finds himself embroiled in a battle that will decide the fate of the galaxy, and a road that will lead him to become the last Jedi warrior.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">When George Lucas dreamed up this movie he came up with so many concepts that have been borrowed and reused hundreds of times in the decades since. But a lot of the storytelling elements that make this movie so great were themselves borrowed from things that have come before. This is more than just a science fiction story. Those kinds of stories are a dime a dozen. This movie is a perfect storm that occurs when you take a story that we’ve heard before and throw in a few dashes of things that we’ve never dreamed of.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">This movie had a princess, a wizard, a pirate, starships, swordfights, a couple of monsters, some soldiers, and everything in between. It introduced us to Storm Troopers, TIE Fighters, X-Wings, and lightsabers. We hear sounds that resonate even today. There is no other sound in cinematic history like the sound of a lightsaber being turned on.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">And then there is Darth Vader. In this first film, he is terrifying. Dressed all in black and wearing a mask that completely hides his face…I can remember the way my little heart thumped in my chest the first time that I saw him. The sound of his breathing sent a chill down my spine. Vader was a dark lord of the Sith, the evil mirror image of the Jedi. Lucas took the scary away from him in later films, but in this one he was perfect. I remember watching his first step into the frame in those opening scenes and having horrible thoughts about what was under that mask, and being convinced that he was going to pull it off and scare me.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">This movie also did things with special effects that had never been done. Not only that, they had never even been thought about. You’ll find in future blogs that I don’t really think much of George Lucas as a writer. But I stand in awe at his ability to create an environment and to figure out how to show us on the screen what he’s seeing in his mind. When I watch this movie now it is usually some sort of remastered version that has doctored all of the effects shots to make them look more modern. Back then I was watching a VHS that had been recorded off of television. You could see the blank squares around the X-Wings and the TIE Fighters during that famous dog fight and in the battle around the Death Star. We notice all of that when we go back to it now. All we saw then was that this world was unveiled before us. We were being transported to this galaxy and it was amazing.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The movie that we got wouldn’t have been the same without the cast. Mark Hamill was the only one that could play Luke. Sir Alec Guinness was a veteran actor that brought credence to the project, even though he thought that it was all rather silly. Harrison Ford went on from here to become one of Hollywood’s A-List actors and he’s still working today. James Earl Jones was the perfect resonating voice of Vader. And the late Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia…</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">When I heard of her passing I mourned as though she were family.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Many, many filmmakers have tried to do their own version of <i>Star Wars</i>. Even Lucas tried to catch lightning in a bottle a second time when he made his prequel trilogy 20 years later. But nothing has equaled what we got in the summer of 1977.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">There are a few movies throughout the history of cinema that are true game-changers.<i> Star Wars</i> changed the way science fiction and fantasy unfolded before us. There is no question that it takes the prize as my favorite movie from 1977.</span></b></div>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-16757737585577502192021-05-11T10:10:00.005-07:002021-05-11T10:11:52.420-07:00Chronicles<p><span style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuPthTxAyL_mXCeO2P_02OV58b8_laH3xiHNeuwoUN4B3_ME3MW7vPr42-fkKGJw9EyNfcqCX2O29WPbbTUwodjN6zb5W4aXJRYToNpS7Xq7Isi3_c_N_RdoDYOpnLmMbB3W7q2mnfXPsH/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="960" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuPthTxAyL_mXCeO2P_02OV58b8_laH3xiHNeuwoUN4B3_ME3MW7vPr42-fkKGJw9EyNfcqCX2O29WPbbTUwodjN6zb5W4aXJRYToNpS7Xq7Isi3_c_N_RdoDYOpnLmMbB3W7q2mnfXPsH/" width="320" /></a></b></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Writing is something that I have had a love/hate relationship with my entire life.</span></b><p></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-cad99388-7fff-bb03-5211-5e84d4cb576e"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>I wrote my first short story when I was in the second grade. We had to go to the front of the room and read our story to the class. I had written some stupid little tale about a boy that gets into some antics at school. I read it to the kids in front of me, the same ones that were normally teasing me and making fun of me, and I created a room full of laughter.</b></span></p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>That was it for me. I wanted to be a writer.</b></span></p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Over the last couple of years my writing has waned. I don’t really do much of it anymore. Even promising myself that this blog was going to happen 3 times a week, I don’t always follow through.</b></span></p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>I never follow through.</b></span></p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>I do have some finished works. A few short stories and some plays that I wrote when I was in high school. But when I was a kid I wanted to be a novelist. And it never happened.</b></span></p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Depression is a beast. It keeps you from completing things. And then it is caused by not completing things. It is this double headed monster that just keeps eating you, letting you respawn, and then eating you again. A circular prison of regret, remorse, and trepidation.</b></span></p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>I’ve decided that I want to tell my stories. I have had some superhero stories bouncing around in my head since before superheroes were being done to saturation. And I may never sell a single word. But I’m going to write them down and then we’ll see what happens.</b></span></p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The Griffin Chronicles is a trilogy that I have had laid out in my head for about 25 years. And over the last few years I’ve come up with some crumbs that might just evolve into something. I hope you’ll take the journey with me. As I write my chapters I will publish them on this website. I invite you to read them as they are available and please...please...PLEASE feel free to give me your honest criticism. I can’t afford editors and all that jazz so I’ll be depending on you to make sure that my story makes sense and that it is engaging and...good.</b></span></p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Look for chapter one to be available sometime next week.</b></span></p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Wish me luck...</b></span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5099195296438980000.post-53176531924648319862021-02-17T06:02:00.001-08:002021-05-11T10:11:24.855-07:00Old Trees<p><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiINYQRNcAYvzODuY8LOQTMqHvBDl2F1LBHkKYTDqNrsmc9KfZ4WW0vTJ3s_4d741pebXQDuXlfIoGZ2U_bAOn1d5tmRKuWlY88ccoRWE2SN-5O6FCBH23lkwbtoByjonRzTwZqzl9LQ-B/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="334" data-original-width="510" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiINYQRNcAYvzODuY8LOQTMqHvBDl2F1LBHkKYTDqNrsmc9KfZ4WW0vTJ3s_4d741pebXQDuXlfIoGZ2U_bAOn1d5tmRKuWlY88ccoRWE2SN-5O6FCBH23lkwbtoByjonRzTwZqzl9LQ-B/" width="320" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The best part about growing up in a small southern town is that you have just enough of the amenities of modern life without having to give up the things about the country that most folks cherish. It wasn’t like we were living out on the prairie somewhere and going to the general store was something that you only did once every five or six months. At the same time, if I wanted a quiet stroll in the woods or to play down by the train tracks then those things were readily accessible as well.</b></span><p></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-9c432ded-7fff-ab10-d2c6-d83949625535"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>As teenagers we had our hangouts. We didn’t go to the movies every weekend because Vincent didn’t have a theater. The closest one that we had was about 20 miles away in Sylacauga. A ticket was $1.50 so there were plenty of times that our parents chose that for our entertainment. But when you start hanging out with friends you tend to stick closer to home. The fact that the gasoline is being paid for out of your pocket instead of a weekly allowance might have something to do with that.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But when I think of hanging out in the truest sense of the phrase I really think of where I preferred to spend my alone time. I’ve always been a person that was very comfortable spending time alone. There is something about the silence when no one expects you to be “on” that I’ve always enjoyed. Not that I don’t like being around people. My family is still the most important thing in my life. But ever since I was a child I’ve cherished the solitude that came in being by myself.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>One of the places that a kid can seem to find a moment of peace is either in the branches or at the foot of an old tree.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Small town America has no shortage of old trees. As I said, we had a fast food place. We also had a decent video store with no shortage of classic horror (another favorite pastime of mine). But being nestled in the foothills of Appalachia, there were trees everywhere. Some of them were put there by mother nature and some of them were planted by the hands of a human. Many of them were purposely placed next to a building or had the structure designed around it to keep it intact.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>We loved our trees back then.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I can think of a couple of my favorites as I sit here. I would have to say that at the top of my list was the giant oak tree that used to be right in front of the high school. It wasn’t old in the way the ancient redwoods are old. But in my teenage mind it was a relic of another time. It had been planted back in the 40s when my grandparents had been students at the same school. As a matter of fact there had been more than one occasion that my grandmother said to me “We planted that tree” when we would drive past the school. That made me think that she had actually dug the hole that the sapling had been placed in. Thinking back now I seriously doubt that was the case.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This was one of those epic trees that you find is just part of the construct that is your life. That tree was always there. When my mom would drop me off at school in the morning I would walk by it and run my hand across it’s trunk. I spent more than a few afternoons sitting beneath it with a book. It was a common target during class pranks. But while you would expect someone to deface it with a can of spray paint or something, we all had too much respect for it. The worst it ever got was a little toilet paper and some shaving cream. </b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It was a majestic elder that presided over us throughout our lives. And then the corporate designers came in sometime around 1989. They had been hired by the school board to update our school. They wanted it to look less like a high school from the 1960s...which is the thing I liked most about it...and become a modern center for quality education. According to their blueprints the only way they could make that happen was if they removed the old tree.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>We signed petitions. We had parents stand up in school meetings. There were battles the scale of which could not be done justice in a movie with both Morgan Freeman AND Michelle Pfeifer. In the end we won and the construction company redesigned the entire new layout to keep the tree intact.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>One year later it was discovered that the tree was diseased and was a risk of falling and killing us. You’d think they would have checked that out first. The tree came down.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>You win some...am I right?</b></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqYWPmIn7uc0SZLvr-7dHysuyxF-1XanBP-TUJx5xyiQerFYH-aBT6HkvY5sBAShm303G1JD8OQiGsrwvIvL4fiRjBMCvLu8SWillIUoma-ZcdjF9KSNYYS3AeQPsd2_mB6HO4IHUm85zm/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqYWPmIn7uc0SZLvr-7dHysuyxF-1XanBP-TUJx5xyiQerFYH-aBT6HkvY5sBAShm303G1JD8OQiGsrwvIvL4fiRjBMCvLu8SWillIUoma-ZcdjF9KSNYYS3AeQPsd2_mB6HO4IHUm85zm/" width="160" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Another old tree that I reminisce about sometimes is an old elm tree on my grandfather’s property. It is still there...or at least it was the last time I was there. It was right on the edge of his front yard next to a retaining wall. That meant that you could climb up easily on the yard side and then make your way over to the other side and find yourself easily twenty feet in the air. That made for a lot of fun for a kid that had a death wish and wanted to hurl himself off a branch and risk breaking an ankle when he lands. I know this because it is something that I did plenty of times.</b></span></span><p></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>This memory is also the reason that I would never allow my kids to play around this tree.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>It’s really hard when you have kids that want to climb everything that might get them more than a foot off the ground. You find yourself grasping at straws to keep them occupied enough. One of my go-to solutions was usually storytelling.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Storytelling is a nice way of saying that I lied to them.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>“You can’t climb that tree, Austin,” I said.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>“Why not?” he replied.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I fumbled for a reason that wasn’t a simple </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">because I told you not to</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></b></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>“There’s a witch in there,” I said. </b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Austin was skeptical but I had Gracie’s undivided attention.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>“Really?” she asked.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>“Yeah,” I said. “There’s an old witch that lives in that tree. If you climb it you could fall right into her stove.”</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Okay, typing it out now I see how horrible it was. But it worked. That tree never caused an injury in my family.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>I can’t say the same for the old crabapple tree that was on my other grandfather’s property. That tree caused two generations of “butt-whippings”.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0DHSJPiRxYGr5cTG3WvjqHMiNiuN7GDCvYAt24b8c2PzKRoSo55kU0y_u1A8sJPhthuiGwMAgmw9d2bh4MLth_skPMa4cZl1CSSSOK4t7Scdu0Xe43ueU3Bt2-d3O6NIkqyYg8FjTRG8_/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="651" data-original-width="486" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0DHSJPiRxYGr5cTG3WvjqHMiNiuN7GDCvYAt24b8c2PzKRoSo55kU0y_u1A8sJPhthuiGwMAgmw9d2bh4MLth_skPMa4cZl1CSSSOK4t7Scdu0Xe43ueU3Bt2-d3O6NIkqyYg8FjTRG8_/" width="179" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>The one most directly related to me happened the time that my grandmother caught myself and my little brother pulling crabapples out of the branches and hurling them at one another. Now, my grandmother has always been under the impression that crabapples were good for eating. She used to make jellies and things like that out of them. She was wrong. Crabapples, or crap-apples as I call them, are disgusting. The only thing that God ever put them on this planet for was to hurl at your little brother.</b></span><p></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>But, my grandmother and her switch had different plans. I can still feel the stripes on my legs.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>Turns out, my dad had a run-in with that tree when he was a kid, too. The story goes that he got into trouble at school for something and there had been a phone call made. So, by the time he stepped off the school bus the jig was up. He got home and took off toward the barn and climbed that tree.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>My grandfather, being a rather patient man, got a chair from the porch and placed it under that tree. He took his belt off and sat down. Then he and my dad had a stand-off. My dad sat in the tree for hours and my grandfather sat there at the foot of it for the same amount of time. When it had gotten good and dark and my dad’s stomach was sufficiently empty he climbed down. He bent over and accepted his licks and went on with life.</b></span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>There’s a lot of memories in those old trees. Some of them are good and some of them are bad. All of them are just pages in the story of our lives. And they’re all bonafide and southern fried.</b></span></span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>CosmicPotatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11213779849376710919noreply@blogger.com0