just another story

I love movies. Love 'em, I tells ya! I have favorites, just like you. Those movies that I'll watch over and over again. There are others that I am happy to have seen, but don't feel the need for a second viewing. Then there are those that I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing and things would have been just fine.

I tend to shy away from big Hollywood blockbusters that are overhyped and loved by the masses because the masses have been told to love them. I have never seen any of the films in the Matrix franchise. Same goes for the Fast and Furious and Mission: Impossible series. I saw the first three Star Wars movies (Chapters 4, 5 and 6, for those of you keeping score), but that's it. And — to be honest — I didn't really like those three. To tell the truth, I don't care much for science fiction or movies based on popular comic books. I have, however, seen several entries in the Superman canon, only because my wife is a long-time fan of The Man of Steel. And, against my better judgement, I have seen a few of the Batman films, having grown up on the campy 60s TVB series. After 1989's Batman starring Michael Keaton, I kind of lost interest. Christopher Nolan's resurrection with Christian Bale did nothing for me.

I have always loved the horror genre. In my youth, I was a fan of the classics from Universal Studios, including the original Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolfman. The subsequent reboots of those titles... not so much. I don't like the whole slasher trend and even more so, the so-called "torture porn" and "body horror" films that seem more like endurance tests than forms of entertainment.

As far as films go, I like a good story first and foremost. It seems, sadly, that Hollywood is more interested in blowing stuff up than a well-conceived story. Convoluted premises and totally implausible scenarios are frustrating to me. Also, movies that are "lovingly shot" and move along at the pace of paint drying do not bring me enjoyment.

Recently, I stumbled upon two — two! — films that I thoroughly enjoyed. These films shared similar attributes. They each featured an ensemble cast that deftly brought the story and their characters to life. They felt like real people, living real lives. They offered a thoughtful peek into the lives of people that you and I could know. — just regular people experiencing regular situations in their regular lives. No explosions. No evil plots to take over the world. No diabolical schemes driven by revenge. No outlandishly intricate action that the perpetrators execute precisely the first time, achieving impossible results. No. None of that. As a matter of fact, if you ask me what these two movies are about, I'm not sure I could answer. They were just a small glimpse of the lives of people. Just people.

The first film is My First Mister, a 2001 release that served as the directorial debut (and, so far, only directorial effort) of actress Christine Lahti. It is a small movie that had limited release in its initial run. It stars Albert Brooks — this time just as an actor and not portraying a character in his own script — and Leelee Sobieski, a talented young actress, who has since left the acting business to focus on her family and budding art career. The two main characters are skillfully supported by the likes of Carol Kane, Michael McKean, John Goodman and Mary Kay Place. Brooks plays an irascible menswear salesman who strikes up an unlikely friendship with Sobieski's angst-filled goth teen. But, My First Mister is so much more than that. It's a study of humans — their actions, reactions and interactions. It's a sweet, sad, funny, poignant way to spend an hour and a half. The insightful script was written by Jill Franklyn, best known for penning the "Yada Yada" episode of Seinfeld and the single season black comedy Gravity. The performances were spot on, as was the sharply accurate dialog. 

The second movie is The Station Agent, a 2003 film, marking another directorial debut, this one for actor/screenwriter Tom McCarthy (no, not the announcer for the Philadelphia Phillies). A dozen years later, McCarthy would win an Oscar for his screenplay for Spotlight, which he also directed and which won the 2016 Academy Award for Best Picture. What brought me to The Station Agent was McCarthy also co-wrote the screenplay for the Disney animated feature Up. The Station Agent, like My First Mister, is a little, unpretentious film that offers a candid peek into the lives of ordinary people and their ordinary lives. An early entry into his huge and celebrated body of work, the film stars Peter Dinklage as a quiet man who just wants to be left alone. His co-star, the versatile Bobby Cannavale, is a gregarious hot dog vendor who doesn't want to leave poor Peter alone. Filling out this unexpected trio is Patricia Clarkson as a mentally-preoccupied artist dealing with her own internal and external issues. Michelle Williams, John Slattery and the delightfully deadpan Raven Goodwin offer suitably realistic supporting characters. The story unfolds slowly and purposely, allowing the actors to fully flesh out their respective roles and create believable, relatable and emotion-filled people, not just actors reading line that were written for them to recite. It's funny and sad, joyful and nerve-wracking, sweet and touching. The plot of The Staiton Agent is ancillary. The real focus is the characters and how they are brought to life and how they evolve, thanks to the talents of three (and more) adept and very well-cast actors. (Screenwriter/director McCarthy noted that he wrote the characters with Dinklage, Cannavale and Clarkson in mind.)

I don't recommend movies. I don't know your particular taste in movies. I don't know if you'll like a particular film. I do know that I liked — really liked — My First Mister and The Station Agent. You might, too. But, you might not. There are no explosions or car chases or monsters or space ships. Just some solid acting and solid writing. 

I liked them. You? You're on your own.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

mashed potato time

Mrs. Pincus and I had Thanksgiving dinner at our son's house this year. This has all the makings of an annual tradition, as this is the third consecutive year that we have had the holiday dinner there. As plans were beginning to be made, my son's girlfriend requested mashed potatoes as a side dish. My wife usually takes care of preparing and bringing dessert, but this time she happily volunteered to fulfill the mashed potatoes request, as well.

In past years, mashed potatoes were a cinch. Just pop open a box of instant mashed potatoes — readily available at any and all supermarkets in a variety of brands and flavors (well, all are basically "potato" flavor) —  add in some milk and, after just a few minutes of stirring — voila! — you got yourself some mashed potatoes! However, the request for mashed potatoes came with the stipulation that they be actual, real-live mashed potatoes. Like from actual whole potatoes. So, on our weekend shopping trip to stock up on required items for our Night Before Thanksgiving dessert party (now in its 40th year!), we grabbed a big bag of potatoes. Like actual, from the ground potatoes. And we were going to make us some good old fashioned mashed potatoes. Just like the pilgrims and the pioneers and our mothers made! Those cardboard boxes of  dehydrated flakes would be passed over in favor of the "Real McCoy" or the "Real McPotato," as the case may be.

Now, I will happily admit that I don't know the first thing about cooking. I can make toast — that requires a legitimate kitchen appliance, so, in my opinion, that may count as cooking. But anything that takes place on top of the stove and combines multiple ingredients in some type of pot or pan... well, that's out of my wheelhouse. My lack of cooking skills considered, Mrs. Pincus would be preparing the mashed potatoes for our Thanksgiving dinner. First, she peeled a generous amount of potatoes. Then she put the potatoes in a large pot on top of one of the lit burners on our stove top. (The pot was larger than the one I had previously used to make hard-boiled eggs. Hey! Wait a second! Maybe I do know how to cook.... a little!) To be honest, I got bored. I left the kitchen briefly and missed out on what actually took place with the potatoes and the pot and the flame from the stove. I returned to the kitchen to find my wife working the soft, now-boiled, potatoes in the pot. She asked me to "google" a recipe for mashed potatoes to see what other ingredients were to be added. I said, "Why do you need a recipe? Everything you need to know is right in the name! Mashed potatoes! It's right there!"  She gave me a look as she added a few pats of margarine and a splash or two of almond milk. (The potatoes had to remain vegan-friendly.) She continued chopping and mixing... and  mashing. It looked like fun and something I could probably do without risk of ruining them. 

Our kitchen has a lot of gadgets and implements and such, but, curiously, we do not own a proper "potato masher." Instead, Mrs. P was breaking down the boiled tubers with a metal spatula, using its long blade to cut the bulky potatoes into smaller pieces. And it seemed to be working. Very well, as a matter of fact! I wanted in! I gently took the spatula from my wife's hand and began to mimic the chopping motions I had observed. "Are you sure you want to do this?," Mrs. P asked. "Sure!," I replied with all the confidence of a contestant on Chopped who fancies himself the greatest chef in the world. I continued the task of breaking those big potatoes in to small potato pieces. 

After a long period of time — longer than I expected (a time frame based on nothing in particular) — these mashed potatoes looked like the mashed potatoes I had seen over the years. They looked like the ones my mom made often to please my demanding "meat and potatoes" father. They looked like the ones I never ate but was forced to order in restaurants when my dinner order came with my choice of two vegetables and "French fries" was not an option. Goddamn it! They looked like mashed potatoes!

We began to pack up everything we would need to take to my son's house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was decided that the mashed potatoes would make their debut in the very same pot they were prepared in. This way they could just be heated up on his stove. 

The table was set at my son's house and he was busy in the kitchen making last minute preparations. He brought every component of the meal to the table, except the pot of Pincus-style mashed potatoes, which he left on the store. Everyone would have to scoop them from the pot themselves, as his dining room table was now fully loaded with other items. There was just no room for a giant pot of potatoes. Everyone's plate accommodated a big slice of "turkey," (Three of the four people at dinner were vegetarians, so Tofurky was served as the main course. None of your fucking comments, please.) some homemade cranberry sauce (a Mrs. Pincus specialty), a chunk of pumpkin cornbread (provided by my son's girlfriend) and not one.... not two.... but three kinds of potatoes! That's right! Our first attempt at mashed potatoes faced competition from canned sweet potatoes (not yams! do not call them "yams!") and little roasted fingerlings that I thought, at first glimpse, were mushroom caps.

Everything was great! I even had seconds — an entire duplicate of my first plate. And the mashed potatoes? Well, they were eaten. With little to no fanfare. No one said: "Hey! These are the best mashed potatoes I ever had! And they are mashed so well, too!" They mostly just said: "Please pass the potatoes" because there were so many to pass.

A few years ago, I had a job interview for a position of writing a blog for a pharmaceutical company. I am not now, nor have I even been, a professional writer. But I told them, if given enough information, I think I could write a blog about anything. I told them that I had maintained two personal blogs for over ten years and had written about many topics. At the time of the interview, I had just written a lengthy post about hard-boiled eggs. And now I just wrote nine paragraphs about mashed potatoes. Needless to say, I didn't get that job. 

But I can boil eggs and, now, I can make mashed potatoes.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

you wanna be starting something

For years, my father kept his family entertained with stories from his youth. Well, maybe not my mom so much. After all, she had heard all of them long before my brother and I came along. Well, maybe not my brother so much, as he really had little time for my father and his brand of semi-believable mishagas. So, in reality, my father kept me entertained with stories from his youth.

I have often mentioned my father's propensity to "stretch the truth" in nearly everything he said. He told great stories, but later in life, I came to discover that a good 95 to 99 percent of what he said was total fabrication. So the real difference between my dad and someone like Stephen King — besides the money and fame — is everyone knows the stuff Stephen King writes about is made up and he makes no effort to say otherwise. Well, that and the fact that Stephen King is a published author, many times over, as a matter of fact. Well, back in the early 70s, my father had hoped to change that.

selections from the
Dad Pincus collection

My father was a voracious reader, although his choice of reading material was questionable. He would go back and forth between nationwide best-sellers, usually purchased in paperback form from a bookseller in a nearby discount market who sold books months after their initial release at a huge reduction in price. I would sometimes get outdated comic books and Mad magazines there, while my dad stocked up on an assortment of books that he would no doubt breeze through in the coming weeks. My dad read The Godfather and a number of Ian Fleming books about super-spy James Bond. In between, he'd sneak in several thin tomes with lurid covers featuring scantily-clad, voluptuous femme fatales pawing subserviently at the feet of some muscular, T-shirted hulk. They had slightly suggestive titles like I'm for Hire and Sinful Sisters and my dad tried to hide them from his impressionable sons — unsuccessfully, I might add. 

Inspiration

One of his favorite mainstream authors was the prolific Philip Roth. Roth was a best-selling author who wrote a book in 1971 called Our Gang. Although Roth reminisced about his childhood in other novels, I don't believe that was the topic of Our Gang. Nevertheless, I do think that it was my father's inspiration. My brother had just received a manual typewriter as a gift. He hoped it would serve to help his schoolwork appear more impressive, but actually, my brother was a budding writer, and he eventually made it his chosen career. (A career, incidentally, from which he recently retired.) One day, my father announced that he was going to write a book. Now, my father often made "announcements" and rarely followed through. He would announce "This weekend, we will paint your bedroom!" and, come Saturday, we'd go out to a local hardware store to purchase a few gallons of neutral-colored paint (we had no input into the color selection). So far, Dad looked as though he was "gung ho" on this project. When we got home, Dad would put on his "painting costume," which consisted of a paint-splattered shirt and pants (I have no clue where these came from and how they became paint-splattered) and a canvas painter's cap that he picked off the counter of the hardware store as we left. He'd parade around in his duds, announcing his plans on how to tackle this venture. Then, he'd grab a paintbrush, swipe a few haphazard brushstrokes in the middle of a wall.... and leave to go smoke a few dozen cigarettes. And read. He'd go read. My mom, my brother and I were left to cover his half-assed efforts and finish the room ourselves. So when Dad Pincus "announced" that he was going to write a book, we had heard it all before and were less than enthused. But, true to his word, he sat down at my brother's typewriter and, with no previous writing or practical typing experience, he began to bang on those keys, single finger style.

Among the tales my father liked to spin, were stories about growing up in West Philadelphia — decades before Will Smith's behavior sent him for a rehabilitative stretch under Uncle Phil's watchful eye in Bel Air. At the time, West Philadelphia was a working-class, predominantly Jewish neighborhood and the majority of my dad's pals fit into that category. He knew guys whose family ran the local candy store or car repair. My dad's father drove a trolley. But, despite their blue-collar lifestyle, they had their share of interesting adventures... according to my dad. There were scraps at school and antics on the playgrounds and trips to the nearby Jersey Shore. The stories would sometimes change details, depending on how my father felt during a particular retelling. Each one of his friends had a colorful nickname. There was "Sarge," so named because he dressed as a soldier for Halloween one year. There was "Hook," who had a rather prominent nose. My dad was given the nickname "Pinky," an obvious play on his surname. Sometimes it was lengthened to "Pinky McGee" for no apparent reason. I loved hearing about my dad's friends and the origins of their various monikers. And secretly, I was hoping to — one day — read my dad's completed book.

Inspiration

My dad selected the perfect title for his memoir-in-progress. It was to be called "No Sand Tomorrow." This was a reference to an oft-told story about a group of my dad's friends spending a weekend in Atlantic City. While cavorting on the beach, one guy — who they called "Dopey," stemming from his reputation for being not-too-bright — pointed to a posted sign and questioned its wording. "Does the beach get regular deliveries of sand?" he asked aloud. His friends appeared puzzled and they asked their pal to elaborate. He pointed to the sign and read what he interpreted as its message. "It says 'No Sand Tomorrow'," he stated. His colleagues approached the sign-in-question from the back. When they all silently read the sign, they simultaneously burst out laughing. The sign said "No Sand Throwing" and it confirmed tagging their friend as "Dopey" was right on the money.

A good portion of the day was spent typing and retyping this story. When my dad decided that he was able to properly convey this tale from his youth in a way that achieved both sentimentality and humor, he yanked the page from between the typewriter's rollers and read it to his family... over and over and over again... each time as though was reading it for the first time. Then, he retired to his bedroom to smoke and read.

Another
inspiration

Don't bother checking Amazon or Barnes and Noble or your favorite local used book reseller. You won't find a copy of No Sand Tomorrow anywhere. It never made it to publication. Actually, it never made it past that single paragraph. The rest of my dad's book was puffed away in the smoke of countless Viceroys and forgotten in the jumble of the many chapters of some pen-named hack churning out erotic sagas in a dimly-lit room.

My dad was just a guy who liked to announce things he never intended on finishing.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

world of a king

I am no fan of Stephen King. 

I have read a bunch of his books, though admittedly, not the really long ones. I read Carrie and The Shining and Gerald's Game and.... oh, I don't really remember all of them. What I do remember is that I was disappointed by almost every one of them. Stephen King is a terrific writer of the middles of stories. They are compelling and inventive. The writing is decidedly descriptive. One can almost picture the events unfolding on a movie screen.... which, I believe, is King's intention. The "meat" of King's tales are truly engrossing. However, he has a hard time wrapping things up and arriving at a satisfying ending — especially after such epic plot lines. After investing quite a bit of time reading King's indulgent, often intricate, novels, I have felt cheated by the so-called "pay-off" of most of them. (The one exception is Thinner, his 1984 book released under the "Richard Bachman" pseudonym.) 

My literary relationship with Stephen King ended when I completed The Regulators, which I read after finishing Desperation, its companion piece meant to be read at the same time. When I turned the final page of The Regulators, I closed the book, dropped it to the floor and sighed. It was then that I decided to never waste my time reading a Stephen King book ever again. That book should have ended at several different points, but it stretched on unnecessarily for countless pages of mystical back-story nonsense. I could wait to be through with it.... and with Stephen King. I decided right then and there, never to entertain another Stephen King-penned volume again. (Don't start recommending this book or that book... because I am not going to read them. I'm just not!)

Funny thing.... I enjoy some movies that are based on Stephen King books. I love The Shawshank Redemption (based on Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption, one of four novellas included in the 1982 collection Different Seasons), although the ending of the movie is way more satisfying as compared to the ambiguous conclusion of the original story. Stand By Me is another of my favorite Stephen King book-based films. (It, too, is based on The Body, a selection from Different Seasons.) Again, there are differences between the book and the movie. And, again, the film is more concise in its message. The majority of Stephen King movies are just as disappoint as their source material. (I won't include The Shining in this comparison, because they, essentially, tell two completely unrelated stories.)

Just this week I was scanning the offerings under the "horror" category on Netflix. After scrolling past countless, blood-splatters posters for obscure slasher films (I love horror movies. I hate slasher movies), I stumbled across a film called Horns starring Daniel Radcliffe. I like Daniel Radcliffe. My wife and I just binge-watched the TBS ensemble anthology comedy series Miracle Workers. The show was hilarious (Season two was better that season one) and Daniel Radcliffe was a delight. The synopsis for Horns looked intriguing, so I watched. It was tedious. It was a non-linear, overly — and unnecessarily — atmospheric mess. Radcliffe and the supporting cast (familiar screen faces like Kathleen Quinlan, Heather Graham, James Remar) were all good. Too good for the script. They all looked as though they were trying their best, but were being dragged down by the heavy-handed premise. At just a hair under two hours, I felt like I had invested an entire day into this disjointed adventure that couldn't decide what exactly it wanted to be.

Horns, I later discovered, was based on a highly-touted novel by one Joe Hill. Joe Hill — it turns out — is the nom de plume of Joseph Hillström King, the eldest son and middle child of Stephen King. And let me tell you... the poison apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I should have known immediately, as the entire set-up of Horns smacked of a Stephen King story. There was the close knit group of misfit friends depicted in flashback sequences. There was the camaraderie that can only be experienced in a small New England town. There were dark secrets of youth that smolder and eventually manifest to weigh heavy on the lives of the now-adult friends. There was an awful lot of slow-motion and unexplained, other-worldly manifestations. And there was plenty of gratuitous gore. It was the kids of It and the kids from The Body and the quirky formulaic townspeople of Derry, Maine all rolled together in Daddy's signature style. Did Joe rummage through the wastepaper basket by his father's desk looking for castoffs to crib for his own career?

Eh... what difference does it make. I was sucked in. But, as The Who once warned — I won't get fooled again.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

let the jerk-offs clean it up

I have been writing this blog, in one form or another, for nearly seven years. When I first began, I was invited by another blogger to contribute to his existing blog. I was flattered, but since my main focus was maintaining my illustration blog, my offerings were infrequent. After the untimely demise of the original blog, I created my own version. I actually enjoyed writing about the mundane things I see every day, the usually unnoticed quirks and foibles exhibited by people, the weird sights I have spotted and the funny situations I have encountered. I also began to realize that this blog has become a sort-of therapy, a cathartic outlet for frustrations and outrage. Although I am not a writer by trade (and I don't pretend to be), the act of putting aggravation into the written word can be a comforting release. But the main goal of my blog is to be funny. If you, dear reader, don't think it's funny, be assured that I do and, in all actuality, I write this thing for my entertainment, not yours.

However...

Although cloaked by the powerful anonymity of a pseudonym, I am still not entirely free to write about anything I like. Believe it or not (if you are a frequent reader of this blog - God bless you), there are certain subjects that are off-limits. You see, I know some people who read this blog regularly. People with whom I have a personal relationship. There are some topics and incidents that would elicit bad feelings — very bad feelings — if I were to elucidate in a public forum.

Oh, I can be sneaky though. I have written about touchy subjects with slight changes to the actual scenario. I have changed names and twisted around timelines, but the gist of the story remains fairly clear. Mostly, I embellish by injecting humor, but still am able to make my point and satisfy my original grievance. See, I still know who the stories are about, but the unknowing main character remains clueless. I have dropped subtle hints alluding to actual incidents and people, most of which only I am aware. A handful of readers get the reference and are suitably amused. That's the fun part.

Sometimes, I don't have the ability to cleverly camouflage the particulars in a story without revealing who I'm writing about. I have avoided publishing several stories because they are far too offensive and potentially damaging to either a specific person or my relationship with a specific person I have described. I usually get away with my cryptic references, because only I know what I mean. But I don't always have that luxury. Sometimes, I just have to completely pass on a subject in order to keep and maintain the peace. Sometimes, I have to write about how much I hate snow or a bad restaurant experience instead of a serious, personal injustice that I would prefer to scream about.

A while ago, I coined this proverb that I use quite often: "Everyone can act like an asshole, but if you act like an asshole, then you're an asshole." Some people just behave like total arrogant, entitled, self-centered jerks. But they are the first ones to be angered and offended by someone exhibiting the exact same behavior. Because of behavior like that, I am kept from writing about certain scenarios.

So, if you continue to read my blog (and I hope you will), be warned. If you are confused by the roundabout way in which I approach certain subjects, I may be writing about you.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

not to put too fine a point on it

Remember that girl in your fourth-grade class who dotted her "i"s with little bulbous hearts? Do you ever wonder if, as an adult, she still does that? Perhaps she is now a doctor with a family practice. Do you think she's writing prescriptions for Amoxicillin and capping those three "i"s with a plump, little heart floating above that vertical stroke and placed at a jaunty angle? I doubt it. I'll bet she's not using another bit of punctuation from her youth — the exclamation point. In order to show the urgency of the prescription, I'm sure she is informing her patient that it must be filled upon leaving the office and an immediate dose is of the utmost importance. I'd be willing to bet that nowhere on that prescription does a single exclamation point appear. Nowhere.

Y'know why? Because exclamation points are silly and childish and have no place in the adult world, much like a heart-shaped tittle (the technical term for the dot on the "i").

Look, I'm aware of the old adage: "Everything in moderation." I don't expect the exclamation point to totally disappear. People will continue to employ it at the end of a personal sentiment when signing a birthday card ("Best wishes, Mom!") and on banners brought to a baseball game ("Hit it here!"). But. please, can we limit its usage on every single piece of correspondence, especially those of a business or professional nature? And, if you do feel compelled to include an exclamation point in your communications, please, please, limit it to one. There is nothing more infuriating than seeing a pert little squadron of fifteen exclamation points following the eight letters that comprise the words "thank you." One can just as easily convey the gravity of an idea or the sincerity of a feeling with some carefully chosen words rather than the repeated staccato of dots with dashes balanced precariously over them.

Exclamation points should be treated like a box of Cocoa Puffs. Sure, they were great and plentiful when you were six. But, now as an adult, perhaps a wiser choice would be more beneficial. It's okay once in a while, but overuse could have detrimental results.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said: "An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke." And he knew a lot more about writing than you do.

!

www.joshpincusiscrying.com