To give a guess that there are a hundred billion stars in the heavens would most likely be undershooting. A hundred billion dead stars, now, merely light over light years to be viewed from our orbit maybe over shooting. But not knowing for sure leaves you with this: the potential for any possible out come.
We are not complicated creatures honestly.... Although forged by the dust of falling stars we are no beautiful snowflakes all hand crafted a hundred percent removed from all others. No just the opposite in fact. every few generations or so you will see a carbon copy of sorts. a face almost the same as some lost aunt... the voice perhaps of a grandfather. In this same vein the madness or personality failings of someone who shares the blood. The potential is there.
A Hitler in your blood line could rise again... maybe the agenda would be new but the building blocks line up perfect for the same exact possible drive.
The potential is there, always.... It's is in fact called genetic memory. It's why little Pam has great- great grand pops eyes. Why John can sing his heart out with out a lesson.
It's why your kid goes of the rails and goes against everything they have been taught about life and the world and behave like the worst of your blood line... best forgotten...
Potential to paint a masterpiece... write a best seller... give an Oscar worthy performance... compose the next big hit... choreograph the most beautiful dance... get addicted to smack... become a rapist and serial killer... become a hatemonger....
Our nature is on the same switch God has on the Universe itself... and living to your Potential... switching to Kinetic could be positive or negative. Self improvement is facing what is in you and pushing past it. Free will is choosing to channel your potential.
But never forget the monster under the bed... in your closet.... in your head.... very well could be you.
Just a thought...
Anthony S. Thomas
"It was always with in you it will always continue... and it shouldn't surprise you at all. You know."
~Billy Joel
Friday, May 30, 2014
Monday, May 12, 2014
Write what you know...
It has been a very long time since I posted a blog here. The reasons are many... the under riding view I have of this medium is one. I dreamed of writing books as a child... novels, comic books and readable things of the type and or in the same vein,Yet I do this in the and for the generation who is attempting to kill print as I understand it.
Paper between fingertips, the smell of print ink, the ruffle and anticipation of a turned page. Space occupied a shelve protecting finished wood from collecting dust. The other major issues I must admit are that I have been distracted and I have been going through a change or two... metamorphism is a slow and some what consuming action. It is costly and confusion and many time belies logical accurate .
As my Smart Phone puts it while my largish cartoon callused abuse it's touch screen for the answer of how it truly functions: I'm a bit of a Caveman.
Although to date rarely does a luckier Troglodyte lumber the earth. I have the love a beautiful woman in my wife. Smart, strong, health and creative children by the dozen... which oddly is less of an exaggeration than some one who is unaware of me may imagine and extended family and friends who range from the famous, infamous, ultra talented and roguishly mentally questionable reprobates you would ever want to party with.
Still, I put fingers to keys here after all this time for the oldest reason that anyone has ever attempted to tell a tale: Self expression is the orgasm of the soul... and we all need a release of some kind.
I find myself frustrated and confused in a way that the young wild child I was could never have perceived of or dreamed possible. I find myself at the cross roads of more conflicting points of distention that the fact that I'm here to experience it reconfirms my belief in a God of some kind.
The perfectly placed atomic super structure that is the lives of myself and my loved ones set in to orbit just so... Just so as to be all at once the hardest and saddest time of our evolution and the happiest and most prosperous.
My wife and I sit in this house... no this home... that is for once truly is solidly ours from the soil beneath it to the clouds forming above it's well repaired towering chimney. A step closer in our quest to create a legacy for those who bare our names and amalgams of our forms and faces.
Although we do this with the pride befitting of the leap this is in the efforts we put forth the sacrifices we've made. This is perhaps the most separate we have ever been since the beginning of our relationship in this lifetime perhaps since we became whatever the hell we are as two people pair-bounded for life time after life time. This dance we do through good times and bad feels a lot like a sit out. This is not without reason.
We have both come to the point that our individual heath is challenged and changing... in some ways failing us both. I can honestly say for me this has put a tint on my very being that has been profound on who I see myself as today. A man who had excepted his own legend and mythologizes is now forced to see the cracks in the armor that formed and protected him in one of the roughest places in the Continental United States and every where else he dared to venture.
I am an introvert by nature although my charms and arrogance has always served me well in the crowded room... this blow pushed me back to the truest place inside me... my truest nature... I fell back into myself in perhaps many of the ways that count the most and I have been there almost continuously since I came face to face with my mortality.
My wife at the very same time is facing something far harsher than death itself... a crisis of identity. Our near eight year age difference and growing up on opposite faces of the same coin that is the City of Newark, our trails where very different and our approach to our time was different. I was the introvert rushing to cram everything in before my life expectancy. She was the exhibitionist slowed more constrictions and barriers. We fell in love and fell into the live we created with each other and created life together. This a the heart of things was who she became mother... wife... and one day her health took aim at what she truly feels beyond the movies shes done is her life work.
Her illness whispers in her ear your are Mother Nature herself no more. True... rather accurate or not imagine... the artist who may lose his hands. The photographer who may loses his eyes. The writer who has no stories to tell anymore. The singer without a voice.
She is suddenly faced with the question of who she is beyond what she had been all her adult life a creator of life. Then faced with the question indeed and inevitably who she is beyond the titles she have coveted so.
Her condition is an emotional altering one and her questions are just even without the stigma of running high octane. Who is she as a singular human being?
As I emerged from self induced status I as much as said publicly I just wanted the world to stop and hide in the only safe place I truly believed existed... my home which is not a building... my soul mate... my wife... Just as she needed most to begin answer these burning questions.
We are stranded because of this... thus all the hairline imperfections that must exist in every foundation are all glaringly clear... not that they had gone unnoticed before just things seem less magnified.
But that's what happens when you feel or fear or in fact are looking at the sand spiraling the hour glass... magnification. So now the restricted exhibitionist sees the book of her life and realizes
it's been more about the people around her and what she does for them... willingly... heroically and the retrofitted introvert who was always rushing, slowed to a crawl and began trying to root in to the earth that is she. However the sheer weight of this action and the everyday actions or inaction of everyone and everything around has come to her attention under that magnification and it is overwhelming in combination.
Somewhere beneath this mass, the year of shared joy and tragedy and daily struggle lies the woman who doesn't truly know herself outside of it all and the man who in many way is turned in because he has lost some faith. Faith in himself and the structure he has help build on their collective shoulders.
This is one of many of the hard things I must except myself... I have been taken down a peg or two.. and my faith is tested.
As she and I tug-a-war over everything as all couples must do the theme lately has been selfishness and selflessness. A question of perception and predicament seen by two people ravaged by an alter state of being.
The boy who seeks to find himself in the lost girl... the lost girl who needs not to be lost... who knows who the boy is... after all he was found in her.
I asked my wife once what I was without her and the kids. She asked me recently who she was at all.
We are both broken... we are both afraid... we are both searching for something that equals for us as separate people meaning.
How odd that these similar places has been a bit of a wall between us of late. Hopefully our healing will bring us back to a harmony we have enjoyed more often than turbulence we have endured from time to time.
Anthony SAINT Thomas
P.S. I love you baby... when it's easy when it's hard...
Paper between fingertips, the smell of print ink, the ruffle and anticipation of a turned page. Space occupied a shelve protecting finished wood from collecting dust. The other major issues I must admit are that I have been distracted and I have been going through a change or two... metamorphism is a slow and some what consuming action. It is costly and confusion and many time belies logical accurate .
As my Smart Phone puts it while my largish cartoon callused abuse it's touch screen for the answer of how it truly functions: I'm a bit of a Caveman.
Although to date rarely does a luckier Troglodyte lumber the earth. I have the love a beautiful woman in my wife. Smart, strong, health and creative children by the dozen... which oddly is less of an exaggeration than some one who is unaware of me may imagine and extended family and friends who range from the famous, infamous, ultra talented and roguishly mentally questionable reprobates you would ever want to party with.
Still, I put fingers to keys here after all this time for the oldest reason that anyone has ever attempted to tell a tale: Self expression is the orgasm of the soul... and we all need a release of some kind.
I find myself frustrated and confused in a way that the young wild child I was could never have perceived of or dreamed possible. I find myself at the cross roads of more conflicting points of distention that the fact that I'm here to experience it reconfirms my belief in a God of some kind.
The perfectly placed atomic super structure that is the lives of myself and my loved ones set in to orbit just so... Just so as to be all at once the hardest and saddest time of our evolution and the happiest and most prosperous.
My wife and I sit in this house... no this home... that is for once truly is solidly ours from the soil beneath it to the clouds forming above it's well repaired towering chimney. A step closer in our quest to create a legacy for those who bare our names and amalgams of our forms and faces.
Although we do this with the pride befitting of the leap this is in the efforts we put forth the sacrifices we've made. This is perhaps the most separate we have ever been since the beginning of our relationship in this lifetime perhaps since we became whatever the hell we are as two people pair-bounded for life time after life time. This dance we do through good times and bad feels a lot like a sit out. This is not without reason.
We have both come to the point that our individual heath is challenged and changing... in some ways failing us both. I can honestly say for me this has put a tint on my very being that has been profound on who I see myself as today. A man who had excepted his own legend and mythologizes is now forced to see the cracks in the armor that formed and protected him in one of the roughest places in the Continental United States and every where else he dared to venture.
I am an introvert by nature although my charms and arrogance has always served me well in the crowded room... this blow pushed me back to the truest place inside me... my truest nature... I fell back into myself in perhaps many of the ways that count the most and I have been there almost continuously since I came face to face with my mortality.
My wife at the very same time is facing something far harsher than death itself... a crisis of identity. Our near eight year age difference and growing up on opposite faces of the same coin that is the City of Newark, our trails where very different and our approach to our time was different. I was the introvert rushing to cram everything in before my life expectancy. She was the exhibitionist slowed more constrictions and barriers. We fell in love and fell into the live we created with each other and created life together. This a the heart of things was who she became mother... wife... and one day her health took aim at what she truly feels beyond the movies shes done is her life work.
Her illness whispers in her ear your are Mother Nature herself no more. True... rather accurate or not imagine... the artist who may lose his hands. The photographer who may loses his eyes. The writer who has no stories to tell anymore. The singer without a voice.
She is suddenly faced with the question of who she is beyond what she had been all her adult life a creator of life. Then faced with the question indeed and inevitably who she is beyond the titles she have coveted so.
Her condition is an emotional altering one and her questions are just even without the stigma of running high octane. Who is she as a singular human being?
As I emerged from self induced status I as much as said publicly I just wanted the world to stop and hide in the only safe place I truly believed existed... my home which is not a building... my soul mate... my wife... Just as she needed most to begin answer these burning questions.
We are stranded because of this... thus all the hairline imperfections that must exist in every foundation are all glaringly clear... not that they had gone unnoticed before just things seem less magnified.
But that's what happens when you feel or fear or in fact are looking at the sand spiraling the hour glass... magnification. So now the restricted exhibitionist sees the book of her life and realizes
it's been more about the people around her and what she does for them... willingly... heroically and the retrofitted introvert who was always rushing, slowed to a crawl and began trying to root in to the earth that is she. However the sheer weight of this action and the everyday actions or inaction of everyone and everything around has come to her attention under that magnification and it is overwhelming in combination.
Somewhere beneath this mass, the year of shared joy and tragedy and daily struggle lies the woman who doesn't truly know herself outside of it all and the man who in many way is turned in because he has lost some faith. Faith in himself and the structure he has help build on their collective shoulders.
This is one of many of the hard things I must except myself... I have been taken down a peg or two.. and my faith is tested.
As she and I tug-a-war over everything as all couples must do the theme lately has been selfishness and selflessness. A question of perception and predicament seen by two people ravaged by an alter state of being.
The boy who seeks to find himself in the lost girl... the lost girl who needs not to be lost... who knows who the boy is... after all he was found in her.
I asked my wife once what I was without her and the kids. She asked me recently who she was at all.
We are both broken... we are both afraid... we are both searching for something that equals for us as separate people meaning.
How odd that these similar places has been a bit of a wall between us of late. Hopefully our healing will bring us back to a harmony we have enjoyed more often than turbulence we have endured from time to time.
Anthony SAINT Thomas
P.S. I love you baby... when it's easy when it's hard...
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Friday, October 7, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
This post is a remake of a post on Urban Code well maybe it's more like a sequel or a re-imagining...
Quite sometime back I use to do a blog (of the same title as this one) in the online magazine Urban-code.My tech was second rate, I was one novel in and as the magazine was mostly about the underground and local art scene I stuck to subject matter and rarely got anything out in a timely fashion. We may in fact find that nothing will change here lol.
But, the point I was building to was a blog I posted on Urban-Code about 'Bringing back the midnight movies'. I bring this up now because of the rash of Hollywood Horror movies that are retelling classic horror flicks who have made their mark on the surface culture.
On average remakes are fine, if you allow for the public's diminished memory of the source material or do such an incredible job you completely override the original in the minds of your core audience. This is extremely rare, in fact so far I personally can only give the honor of overriding the original as well as allow the time for the power of the original to lose cultural steam to ONE film maker:. John Carpenter.
His remake of the 50's era Sci-Fi film 'The Thing' is 'The Best Remake Ever'... in my piss poor 'Comic-Book Guy' of the Simpson's impression. There is a reason for this being so rare... most horror and for the most part ALL sub-culture films don't come from the Hollywood machine to this day.
They are or have been independent and or genre movies later distributed or bought out by Hollywood. An action that worked out well for everyone involved. Hollywood got to make it's money on the franchising of a project, genre filmmakers, actors and sometimes writers gained a level of fame and notoriety. The target audience got films they felt was meant just for them. But something happened along the way.
Grind house, exp/blaxplotain, monster movies, horror flicks, tasteless comedies and over the top action/ kung-fu flicks to name a few started to be made in studio more and more and the genre artist in a generation was relegated to straight to DVD status. Right before this occurred the near extinction of single private owned theaters, single studio owned theaters and drive-in theaters was under way due mostly to the introduction of the multi-plex. In some cases we didn't noticed the difference Hollywood hires a primo comic and a comic writer and you got a Hollywood Comedy as high or low brow as you desire. You get a few guys and gals who can play crazy, tough and have nicely timed fight moves you have an action movie. This hasn't worked as well with horror. For years now studios have pooled money into continuing the mythology's of horror caricatures that hit via sequels. The new plan are the REMAKES.
Most will agree that this is a little bit of a bad idea. If any of these classic horror flicks are to be remade you should probably be sure the source material isn't constantly in the minds of your core audience. A Nightmare on Elm ST, Friday The 13th and Halloween are the biggest horror franchises since the Universal Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf-Man movies of yesteryear. They all have a series of sequels and have been passed down to new generations of horror fans much like Grimm's Fairy-tales. None of these three remakes aren't awful films they have just been released into the shadow of an entity that Hollywood barely understands. Many of the other remakes are just plan terrible or would have held it's own better as a NEW MOVIE without the title of a classic.
If the mid-night movies begin to make a come back we may very well get the next Freddy and or Jason. Even the Scream series gets it and points out the issue with the remake monster.... "Don't fuck with the original."
The other backlash of this movement is that genre filmmakers themselves are begin to remake the movies that influenced them so. Night of the Demons has been recreated for another generation... Night of the Living Dead is ALWAYS being remade, even if some don't call it by it's name and even the father of all cheap, bad backyard films Plan 9 from outer-space will be made a few times over. The first thing I can say about ALL of these movies is at least they will be made in the spirit and in the fashion of the originals. I can also add that Plan 9 despite it's clear influence on genre film as well as Night of the Demons is not at the top of most peoples pop culture punch card. Night of the Living Dead on the other hand has infected the whole of the horror world and if ten movies get release a year from the indie scene, eight will be a retake on Night of the Living Dead and it's crews re-imagining of the zombie.
The bottom-line is we love our so-called bad sub-culture movies and don't mind the glitches and missing scenes as much as we mind Hollywood trying to rehash and spoon-feed us what we know better than they do. You guys in the studios do a fair job of turning novels to movies... fair... and buying the rights and releasing the some what more cultural friendly horror movies done outside of your control. How about you go back to that as well as showing independent movies on T.V like you use too. Lloyd Kaufman would be less inclined to call you at home at ungodly hours if you do.
If Rob Zombie, Micheal Bay and Guillermo del Toro want to produce and direct remakes then hey, let them, without giving them a bunch interference and maybe we can stomach the remake machine a little. But for the most part, let's leave the grass-roots art to be produced by the grass-root artist. Ok?
P.S
The re-remake of the Thing will be hitting theaters soon. I hate to be a pessimist, but how do you remake the greatest remake in the history of horror?
Anthony SAINT Thomas
Disclaimer:
If you find mistakes in this post or a magazine or even a novel you happen to pick up... writers use to have these things called EDITORS.. but that's another blog
for another time...
But, the point I was building to was a blog I posted on Urban-Code about 'Bringing back the midnight movies'. I bring this up now because of the rash of Hollywood Horror movies that are retelling classic horror flicks who have made their mark on the surface culture.
On average remakes are fine, if you allow for the public's diminished memory of the source material or do such an incredible job you completely override the original in the minds of your core audience. This is extremely rare, in fact so far I personally can only give the honor of overriding the original as well as allow the time for the power of the original to lose cultural steam to ONE film maker:. John Carpenter.
His remake of the 50's era Sci-Fi film 'The Thing' is 'The Best Remake Ever'... in my piss poor 'Comic-Book Guy' of the Simpson's impression. There is a reason for this being so rare... most horror and for the most part ALL sub-culture films don't come from the Hollywood machine to this day.
They are or have been independent and or genre movies later distributed or bought out by Hollywood. An action that worked out well for everyone involved. Hollywood got to make it's money on the franchising of a project, genre filmmakers, actors and sometimes writers gained a level of fame and notoriety. The target audience got films they felt was meant just for them. But something happened along the way.
Grind house, exp/blaxplotain, monster movies, horror flicks, tasteless comedies and over the top action/ kung-fu flicks to name a few started to be made in studio more and more and the genre artist in a generation was relegated to straight to DVD status. Right before this occurred the near extinction of single private owned theaters, single studio owned theaters and drive-in theaters was under way due mostly to the introduction of the multi-plex. In some cases we didn't noticed the difference Hollywood hires a primo comic and a comic writer and you got a Hollywood Comedy as high or low brow as you desire. You get a few guys and gals who can play crazy, tough and have nicely timed fight moves you have an action movie. This hasn't worked as well with horror. For years now studios have pooled money into continuing the mythology's of horror caricatures that hit via sequels. The new plan are the REMAKES.
Most will agree that this is a little bit of a bad idea. If any of these classic horror flicks are to be remade you should probably be sure the source material isn't constantly in the minds of your core audience. A Nightmare on Elm ST, Friday The 13th and Halloween are the biggest horror franchises since the Universal Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf-Man movies of yesteryear. They all have a series of sequels and have been passed down to new generations of horror fans much like Grimm's Fairy-tales. None of these three remakes aren't awful films they have just been released into the shadow of an entity that Hollywood barely understands. Many of the other remakes are just plan terrible or would have held it's own better as a NEW MOVIE without the title of a classic.
If the mid-night movies begin to make a come back we may very well get the next Freddy and or Jason. Even the Scream series gets it and points out the issue with the remake monster.... "Don't fuck with the original."
The other backlash of this movement is that genre filmmakers themselves are begin to remake the movies that influenced them so. Night of the Demons has been recreated for another generation... Night of the Living Dead is ALWAYS being remade, even if some don't call it by it's name and even the father of all cheap, bad backyard films Plan 9 from outer-space will be made a few times over. The first thing I can say about ALL of these movies is at least they will be made in the spirit and in the fashion of the originals. I can also add that Plan 9 despite it's clear influence on genre film as well as Night of the Demons is not at the top of most peoples pop culture punch card. Night of the Living Dead on the other hand has infected the whole of the horror world and if ten movies get release a year from the indie scene, eight will be a retake on Night of the Living Dead and it's crews re-imagining of the zombie.
The bottom-line is we love our so-called bad sub-culture movies and don't mind the glitches and missing scenes as much as we mind Hollywood trying to rehash and spoon-feed us what we know better than they do. You guys in the studios do a fair job of turning novels to movies... fair... and buying the rights and releasing the some what more cultural friendly horror movies done outside of your control. How about you go back to that as well as showing independent movies on T.V like you use too. Lloyd Kaufman would be less inclined to call you at home at ungodly hours if you do.
If Rob Zombie, Micheal Bay and Guillermo del Toro want to produce and direct remakes then hey, let them, without giving them a bunch interference and maybe we can stomach the remake machine a little. But for the most part, let's leave the grass-roots art to be produced by the grass-root artist. Ok?
P.S
The re-remake of the Thing will be hitting theaters soon. I hate to be a pessimist, but how do you remake the greatest remake in the history of horror?
Anthony SAINT Thomas
Disclaimer:
If you find mistakes in this post or a magazine or even a novel you happen to pick up... writers use to have these things called EDITORS.. but that's another blog
for another time...
Monday, September 26, 2011
An Introduction to the mind and mouth of madness
I swear I can feel it. Over my shoulder, in the distance, hoovering above my bed when I'm just about to hit rem sleep. The sand in the hour glass that is my life is circling the middle to bottom out once and for all. I have more days behind me then ahead of me and there are... people, well entities on the other-side of the thin dimensional veil who are pacing, stalking me across the seas of reality until I join them there and they can have their way with me.
Perhaps there is a reason beyond my understanding that I write tales that have a touch of the supernatural and horror. Perhaps the dark thing that lived in the closet in my bed room all those years ago in my mothers Stella Wright Prince Street Project apartment left something on me with it's touch. Maybe I'm marked by the old ones... the creatures spoke of in every mythology new and old. Maybe, the arbitrators of wicked little tales all are marked for seeing a little to deeply into the abyss, for shouting that the inky blackness is, was and never will be... empty.
Maybe it's just my over active imagination. In any regard the die was cast long ago and I can't really be anything but what I am and while fear is as natural as the next breath... or typed word... so is the insane driven desire to see and be... more. Picture me now if you can, grabbing that hour glass and willing it to turn for another go. Let's say another forty-five years... and as far as the impatient pacing monstrustites peering for a sign of me entering the void. You came out looking for me once and was sent packing... so relax. Because much like the neighborhood tough guys and the internet loud mouths who are brave in numbers or behind moving cars and darkened basements on flat screens... You really aren't in a rush for me to come over there where you are.
My name is Anthony S. Thomas I write books (two Published so far), articles (Published), screenplays, poems, songs and yes even blogs. I Act, Illustrate, ghost hunt and know my way around a camera enough to be published and I have trained other published photographers. I rap and lead the band; Negro Childe, I can converse with the highest minds on nearly any subject and party with the illest, rowdiest roughnecks. My friends, my foes, my family and all others in the know call me Saint.
Anthony SAINT Thomas'11
Perhaps there is a reason beyond my understanding that I write tales that have a touch of the supernatural and horror. Perhaps the dark thing that lived in the closet in my bed room all those years ago in my mothers Stella Wright Prince Street Project apartment left something on me with it's touch. Maybe I'm marked by the old ones... the creatures spoke of in every mythology new and old. Maybe, the arbitrators of wicked little tales all are marked for seeing a little to deeply into the abyss, for shouting that the inky blackness is, was and never will be... empty.
Maybe it's just my over active imagination. In any regard the die was cast long ago and I can't really be anything but what I am and while fear is as natural as the next breath... or typed word... so is the insane driven desire to see and be... more. Picture me now if you can, grabbing that hour glass and willing it to turn for another go. Let's say another forty-five years... and as far as the impatient pacing monstrustites peering for a sign of me entering the void. You came out looking for me once and was sent packing... so relax. Because much like the neighborhood tough guys and the internet loud mouths who are brave in numbers or behind moving cars and darkened basements on flat screens... You really aren't in a rush for me to come over there where you are.
My name is Anthony S. Thomas I write books (two Published so far), articles (Published), screenplays, poems, songs and yes even blogs. I Act, Illustrate, ghost hunt and know my way around a camera enough to be published and I have trained other published photographers. I rap and lead the band; Negro Childe, I can converse with the highest minds on nearly any subject and party with the illest, rowdiest roughnecks. My friends, my foes, my family and all others in the know call me Saint.
Anthony SAINT Thomas'11
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