Inside the Brain of E.C. Henry

Brushes with Death

No, this wasn't the crash that my brother was in.

Have you ever had any brushes with death?

I have had a couple real bad accident on dirt-bike motorcyles that COULD have caused some major damage, but thanksully didn't.  

The reason I bring this up is because on Friday my younger brother DID have a car accident that forced him to have be taken to the hospital.  A driver who later admitted to have smoken mariquanna hit my brother on the highway and caused some major damage to the car that my deseased aunt willed onto him.  That car wasn't in the best of shape to begin with.  Now it's probably totalled.  My brother will find out about that today.  

So weird.  There it was 4:30 in the afternoon on a Friday, and while my brother was traveling down a highway that he's travelled down a thousand times before, this time an impared driver hit him--and nearly killed him!  High speed wrecks on the highway are killers.  From what it sounds like, the impared driver first hit my brother from behind, then hit him again this time closer to him.  

Thank you Jesus, my brother survived this collision and two witnesses were on hand to state who was to blame.  When the police arrived they found the driver who had hit my brother was impared and hauled him off to jail. 

Today my brother is out and about finding out what insurance is going to do about my aunts old car. That car wasn't in very good condition, it was a 2007 Dodge Caliber--if I remember right.  A couple of months ago I gave it an oil change and helped my brother fix the interior lights that weren't working.  Off the top of the my head I told my brother that he'll probably only get $2000-2500 for the car.  

Not the kind of added drama that my brother needs right now.  But God always has a bigger plan in work.  This guy who hit my brother is in big trouble.  He's on the hook for all the hospital, lost time from work, and car damage that my brother sustained.  And with it being out that the guy was on pot, you gotta believe he's probably poor himself with few assets.  The next few days should be very telling and interesting.  But for now I'm just happy that my brother is still alive and survived his brush with death.

Excessive Clothes

It's something I've been meaning to do for months.  It's something that's la-ong overdue.  Maybe it's part of what should be a normal person's clean-up.  So maybe in that reguard I JUST made the cut by getting it done.  And what's that?  Well, as the title of this post suggests it's--

Cleaning out my cloths closet!

Now I don't have an extravagent clothes closet and drawers.  My cloths closet has a sliding doors and is roughly 12' wide X 8' tall.  And in all honesty for past couple of weeks I THOUGHT I didn't have enough shirts for work.  I got in the routine of wearing a certain number of shirts to work.  Some of my shirts in the "routine" were staring to fray or their colors were fading, or their imprints were becoming old.  

Anyway, I ended up staring a fire on Saturday night and actually burned up three garbage bags of old cloths that I didn't think I'd wear anymore and weren't good enough to take to Goodwill in good conscious.  I also got another garbage bag full of cloths that were just like new, but stuff that I knew I would never wear.  

So in the end I feel kinda like a decadent Kardasian.  "O, I have nothing to wear."  When in all honest AFTER purging all these clothes I STILL have a closet full of closest that is a 3/4 capacti, AND I have about 10 tee shirts that are wearable to work.  That's two, work weeks worth of shirts!! 

Some mainstays will always be in my closet.  A couple fancy sports jackets and pants; formal wear that is seldomly worn, but when it's needed, it's needed.  Ya know what I mean?!  And then there's my hyper-warm ski jacket and pants that also doubles as outside where in the winter when the tempatures drop to 20 degrees Farenheight or so.  

Lots of takeaways from the whole closet purging thing.  Like how many dress shirts I have.  Roughly 25.  Which is roughly 15 too many.  More purging to come, I think, but before I do I'm going to have to think about what I wanna keep and what is just excessinve and taking up too much space.  I also have too many brown pairs of slacks.  May throw away or give to Goodwill a couple more of them.   And, o, my mom who is aways asking me for hangers is now.  Set.  For.  LIFE!!  As I think I've got about 120 hangers that now are empty and ready for her use.

On June 10th I turned 47.  Hopefully by age 50 I'll have my novel finished and published.  Still, I've got so much work to do on it...  For my birthday I actually told my parents I needed clothes so they gave me a card for $100 at Macy's.  That was probably the last straw that pushed me to take action against my closet.  I needed to know where I that money would be best used.  Will probably buy 3 new shirts for work, one new pair of everyday use, tennis shoes, some more underwear and socks, and 3-4 pairs of new Levi pants.  YES that will cost more than what's on the gift card, but I'm ready to pay for that.  Sometimes you just need to take stack and have an idea of what you do have and what your deficencies.  

Decadent Americans, huh.

Well, sometimes I do feel like that.  Though I'm really that superficial, you do have to consider your own needs from time-to-time.  And so this week you got one of those more "practacle" posts.  A post on something that I think we all can relate to, the accumlation of things, and the need at times to take the time and sort through that which is good and keepable, and that which has outlived its practacle usefullness and belongs in the trash heap.  A form of practacle consummerism that is seldomly discussed.  

But now I've litterally aired out my dirty laundry and have moved to a higher state of cleanliness.  So here-here to having nice clothes to wear!  Here-here for making room in closests for new and better apparel!  Gotta do it folks.  Do it, and it generally lifts your spirts.  Being proactive about practicle matters does that to a person.  Makes them feel like their at higher state of being.  

P.S. Sadly, I didn't get too much editing of the epic fantasy novel writing in this past weekend.  Gotta ramp that effort up for sure.

P.S.S. Congradulations to the Cleveland Caviliars for improbably defeating the Golden State Warriors by winning the last three games of the series.  Not a fan of Cleveland, but after a 50 year drought at least now for a while they have something to celebrate: their hometown boy, Labron James, made good on his promise to bring that city a title.  And what was cool about that, to me, was that in his post-game press conference Labron sited many near misses that Cleveland teams had in the past of almoat getting a tittle, but coming up a little short: Earnest Byner's fumble, Jose Mesa's blown save.  It's just nice to hear athletles have a breadth of history and knowledge of their city, and CARE enough to want to improve the sport's landscape that is bigger than their individual career.  Anyway, LaBron going back to Cleveland and helping the Caviliars win an NBA champsionship is a really good story.  Never been a big Labron James fan, but after watching him in this series and in that last game against Golden State I have a new appreciation for the man.  So is he better than Michael Jordan?  No.  Having lived through the Michael Jordan era and seeing how he dominated the league for a decade, no, I don't think Labron is better that Michael Jordan.  Nor do I even think he's as good a Kobe Bryant was in his prime.  And probably Wilt Chamberlain was a more dominant player in his era too.  But Labron is definatley in the top 5 all-time players.  And he's a very likable guy, unlike either Jordan or Kobe Bryant, who always took an a more villainous role on the teams I rooted against.  Like the year Jordan's Bulls beat out my home's team before they uncerimonously moved away, the Seattle Supersonics.  

Labron James may not be the best player of all-time.  Like right now I'd go: Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Wilt Chamberlain, LaBron James, Shaquille O'Neil.  BUTTT I think overall Labron James is the most likeable superstar basketball player of all time.  It's easy to like Labron.  He has a great personality, AND he has the athletic skill that can amaze even the most ardent skeptic of the most gifted athete.  The marvel that is, Labron James!

 

An Explanded Romantic Universe; Exploring Issues in Rom-com Movies: Volume 66

Now I don't know if, when, or how the romantic comedy movie genre will get back on its feet again, and become a mainstay in the greater movie landscape.  BUT I thought I'd use this post to remind you that there is a lot of romance in the movies.

Even in some of the most popular movie franchises of all-time: "Star Wars" (1977 through 2015, seven movies with many, many core to come); Hans Solo and Leia, then Annakin and Padme, Indiana Jones movies (1981 through 2012, five movies with maybe some more to come) Indiana Jones and Miram.  Every James Bond movie has James Bond in some kind of adventure with a hottie.  Even the Superhero movies poke around and tease with romance from time-to-time.  Why, in just the last Captain America movie, there was a hint of romance between Captain America and some agent from S.H.I.E.L.D., the CIA or some agency.  

Anywho, my point is, yes, there is still romance being implored in the movies today--even if it's not come from the main, more obveous spout of the romantic comedy genre.  The sad thing is, I can't even remember a single, rom-com movie release so far for this year in 2016.  Going on about 11 months since Amy Schumer's "Trainwreck" (directed by Judd Apatow, written by Amy Schumer) raunch-com came out.  That's a LONG LONG time to wait.  I guess the point is we need to get Amy Schumer off the shtick so we can get this genre going again.  

Just kidding.  Big of Amy's, but in all honesty the rom-com genre needs more partispants than just her.

Okay, so now up to this point I've made two key points.  The first, is that if you look at the grander lexicon of movies you will find lesser versions of romance in bigger released flims.  My 2nd point was romantic comedies are not being made these days anymore.  Sorry, 11 months in between a major movie release means that your genre is dead.  Wish that wasn't the case, but sadly it is.  

So where do we go from here.  Well-p, I'm not going to let Hollywood tell me what stories I should be satisfied with, so I'm writing my own that are infinately better than the releases that they are putting out right now.  And someday, if I ever get discovered, and movies made off my scripts ever get made, romance is coming back, baby!  O, yeah it's coming back fresh, and better than it ever was before.  Check out my list of scripts I've written.  Already the change for the better written and ready to roll.

Never give up on your dreams, irreguardless of market conditions.  Why?  Because conditions change.  And people's tastes change.  The romantic comedy has so much to offer people in the form of inspiration, laughs, and an improvent in life.  Hollywood may have lost sight of that, but I never have.

Getting back to the crux of this post: an expanded romantic universe.  Wow, what a title, huh?  Can I live up to such a tittle?  Yes, I believe I can.  And it's in what I'm writing right now!  I've already hyped up the truth that in this epic fantasy novel I'm writing it has three BIG romances that all happen from cute meet to joyous defeat.  No, they are not atypical rom-com fair BUT they are romances that play a key part in the greater story that's being told.  And guess what folks, in all honesty I don't JUST have three romances in this story, I actually have many more.  Some even in the vain of a tragic romance like Anakin and Padme!   In doing recent rewrites of the prolog, I really fleshed out a tragic romance that frames part of the backstory for one my greater story villians.

Hey, wait a minute, can villians really have a romance?

Dude, if your outlook on romance and characters is that narrow, you really need to grow up!  YES, villains can have romances.  Rember that movie, "Wall Street" (1987: directed by Oliver Stone, writers Stanley Weiser, and Oliver Stone) which stared Chalie Sheen (before he went completely nuts), Daryl Hannah, and Michael Douglas?  Well in that movie there is a complication where at one point the villain of the movie, Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas' character) was an item with Daryl Hannah's character, which is a complication for the budding romance that happening between Charlie Sheen and Daryl Hannah's character.  Besides that their alway the Bellamy character/the wrong guy who complicates things in some romantic comedies.  And from his or her perspective they are in a romance of their own, it just doesn't have a happy ending.  

"Ewww gross, I just got a kiss from ol' E.C."

I'm a HUGE propoent of romance in stories.  A long time ago when I was in junior college I can still remember a female, litteray professor say that if a story didn't have a romance in it, she wasn't interested.  I thiink that was the original kernal that stuck in my craw keying me in long before I became a writer that romance was important.  Now today as much more savy and self-realized person I find romance comes a lot of time out the backstory that people have.  Many of the romances and romantic trajectories of the characters that I've penned comes out of their character bios and backstories.  The wonderfull thing about writing a novel as opposed to a screenplay is that in a novel you have the luxury of going into as many characters as you want and flesh them out.  During which time you have a prime opportunity to tell a story with a romance in it.  Which is what I do time and time again in this epic fantasy story that I've written.

Heres' some of the expanded romantic storylines that I explore in the epic fantasy novel that I have written:

1. Sexually frustared and romantically inexperienced protagonist persues and entually wins the heart of a princess despite the major complications that their romance has a seveal key characters in this tory: Main love story.
2. A dark hearted rival in relation to the main protagonist falls in love with a beautiful, but risky and troubled maid who locked into a life-long service contract with the main antagonist of the story: 2nd main romance of the story.
3. Dashing young prince whose world has just crumbled rescues a damsel in distress.  She falls in love with him, but has strong ties to the main antogonist's henchmen which risks the safety of anyone that she's close to.  3rd main romance in the story.
4. The father of the princes struggles with the legacy of his kingship in relation to his desceased wife because when he was younger he lost out on his bid to win the fairest woman who's husband should have been king in his place.  2nd tier love story stuff which affects several differernt characters in the story.
5. The master antagonist had had an illicit, and religousy taboo affiar with a maid under his service which resulted in an unwanted pregancy which has swept under the carpet by him, but is a great sence of loss for that maid.  Tragic romance complication.
6. A young woman who has been sold into slavery secretly years for love she one had with the story's main, master henchmen, but a spiritual awkening in her casts the light for a greater life than the one she had previously thought was attainable.  But her isolated slavery makes her fear that none of that may ever be acheivable.  
7. Story framing, greater expanded story villain, was at one point a teenager madly in love, who gave that up to pursue an ambition that turned unholy and grew to Hitler Nazi Germany proportions.  Tragic romance of the Padme/Annakin varriety.  
8. A budding young officer in the army sets his sights on girl--only to have another young upstart come in under him and steal his girl away.  Buddy rivalry romance.
9. The master henchmen, who had given up on love as he was in the mindst of trying to rebuild his legacy, suddenly becomes awoken to the prospects of rehabilation his image when a girl from his past suddenly comes back into his world.  
10. A key subordinate underneath the master henchmen defiles and rapes an associate of his and the master henchmen, which puts a wedge in between their friendship, and risks the relationship between the master henchmen and the master antagonist of the story.
11. Various cute meets and romatic sparring between teenagers in lavish, mediveal ballrooms all which in contact with villians who are inacting plans of thier own.
12. A partying and womanizing prince from another kindgom tries to use his appeal and allure to win over women that seveal other 3rd tier characters have set their sights on.  
13. The humble, hardworking--yet disgraced by the king, father of the prince who is next in line to succeed in throne must deal with the one-time romantic rival for hand of the woman who went on to become his wife, and help his son who still struggles with the loss of his mother, who he was barely able to remember becasue she died when he was a little boy.  
14. A prince in the framing, greater master story has a Cinderella-esque romance with a maid under his father's service, but faces the prospect that he is most elgible and desirable bachellor in the world when he wins in an age-defining battle.
15. A pagan tempress has an elict affair with a religiously taboo figure which has disasterous affects for all in their company and the history of the word.  

Think I can't do romance?  Think again skippy.  Think I can't weave iconic romance into the greater character arcs of the people that populate this story?  Think again!  This story has romance in spades.  Lots of romances.  Count 'em up.  I liste 15 and that's just off the top of my head!!  Some romances that come and go.  All that influence characters and central parts in their own individual character arcs.   SOME of these romances DO have a happy ending. others are quite tragic and have lasting effects on geneartions to come.  In some of these romances there are rapes and abortions.  I'm pretty fearless about the things I write about--but even with subject matters like that, I deal with them tastefully. 

Anyway, when I think about the greater, expanded romantic universe in the story I'm writing, I get excited for the future--and you should too!  Someday, I will get discovered, and when that happens, happy days are here again.  Why?  Because, I get, honor and respect romance.  And if given the chance to entertain I will bring back romance to the masses in a fresh new way that they have never experienced before.

Believe it.  

Preparing for a Hard Hat Summer

"Fuck you, E.C. I like to play & eat ice cream."

Do you perfer to work, or do you prefer to play?

The older I get, oddly enough the more I value working over playing.  Don't get me wrong, I like to party, drink booze and have fun.  BUT these days I think I value WORKING more than I do screwing off.  

Is this because of the novel I'm working on? You betcha.  Sure isn't the allure of the "day job".  That's all that will ever be, a job to make ends met.

Even though I've got the plot laid out, there is soooo much work inside of that to do.  Gotta make scenes pop.  Gotta deepen my characters and make them great.  

Writing a novel is grind, but its also a lot of fun too.  When it's going good there is NO OTHER place I'd rather be.  

So though it's summer, it's also hard hat season--for me.  My mom wants me to go and take a trip with her, which I probably will have to do.  A couple months ago she lost her faternial twin.  And it's about now I figured it would start being hard on her.  But as for me, I really don't wanna go anywhere that my novel isn't.  I just wanna work on it day and night, night and day--untill it is as good as I can make it.  

I so wanna honnor the Holy Trinity in this novel of mine.  God is there, He's in the story.  Can't belive that more stories don't have God: Holy Father, Jesus the Savior of Mankind, and the Holy Spirit; in them.  Isn't the persuit of God the ultimate subject.  To know and love Him.  Don't know if you're on the same vibe as me, but in my creativity I'm going to honor the Lord.  Trust me, I'm going to do it.  

Till then, the work goes on, summer or not, I'm going to dig in and do it.  Would rather write then go to the beach.  Would rather write then go camping.  Later next month I getta pitch my novel to people from the publishing world in New York.  Can't wait.  No, the story won't be done by then.  BUT if I can wet their appetite enough, maybe something good can happen.  I'm so ready for something good to happen.  Till then, the work goes on, and it's going to be a--

Hard Hat Summer!

Robocop (1987); Movies that Move Me: Volume VIII

I recently rewatched "Robocop (1987)" (directed by Paul Verhoeven, writers: Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner) and was PLEASTLY suprised by how good it.

So why did I like it?

Easy.  This movie has a GREAT, GREAT collection of bad guys.  The writers of this movie: Edward Neumier and Michael Miner; are men after my own heart.  This dark movie understands that you just don't wanna have ONE good, bad guy to root against, you wanna have TIERS of bad guys all who shine at varrious times in the movie.

Most obvious bad guy: "Clarence Boddicker" played by Kurtwood Smith.  LONG before he was "Red Forman" on "That 70s Show" which ran on FOX from 1998 to 2006, he was "Clarence Boddicker".  And yeah, I did remember Kurwood Smith's great villian in my "Best Villians in the History of Cinema" post in April of 2012 where Clarence Boddicker ranked # 26 all-time.

So what made Clarence Boddicker so good?  Well, I liked how he transended planes.  In one sense he was the leader of a gun-toting gang.  BUT in another sence he was a HENCHMEN of ultra-corrupt senior offical at OCP, Dick Jones as played by Ronny Cox.  I love the scene where Clarence Boddicer bursts into Bob Morton's home and breaks up his cocaine infuesed orgy and puts a video in the machine and pulls the pin of a grenade with his tongue as he kills off his benefactor main rival at OCP.  

Bad guys taking out other bad guys--I love it!!   My kind of show.  

So what did I think about Peter Weller's Muphy-then-Robocop?  Not much about Peter Weller's acting.  That pretty much sucked.  But the screenwriters of this movie: Edward Neunmier and Michael Minor; showed great discression on making a boring character interesting.  Showing Robcop dreaming in partial about his former life, THAT was good conceptional and interesting writing.  Hats off to Peter Verhoven as well, this movie really moves with only one really bad scene where the Detroil cops shoot-up Robocop in a muti-story parking lot.  

One of my other guilty pleasure bad guys was Emile (as played by Paul McCrane).  There is a scene in this movie where the thug "Emile" goes to a gas station and takes exception to the cashier who is reading a high math class.  "Are you a college boy?" says Emile, and then he proceeds to work himself up into a frenzy increasingly threatening the poor cashier.  Why did I like that scene?  Because it reveals character, Emile doesn't like people who are trying to better themselves the hard way by going to college, when he betters himself the easy way by being part of the muscle in Clarence Boddicker's band of thugs.  This is GREAT, sublininal screenwriting on display.  Of cource the evil Emile, does get his in the end where he barrels headlong into a silo filled with toxic waste.

The coked-up Bob Morton was also very good throughout.  And I love how it isn't untill the last scene that Bob Morton is in untill the screenwriters and Miguel Ferrer who plays Bob Morton lets us in on the fact that all along Bob Morton is really a womanizing coke-head, who meets his end by hit-man Clarence Boddicker who is on orders from Dick Jones to take out his rival after first rubbing it on him.  

Anywho, when all is said and done "Robocop" (1987) is a memorable move BECAUSE of its bad guys.  Some other good stuff is sprinkled in along the way like, "I'd buy that for a dollar" and some of the TV spots, but the main attraction of this movie is the strength of its bad guys--even when they're directly interacting with the the hero of the show: