Don't you feel special now?
It's all about the NOIR!...NO, no no! Not Drakkar Noir... (*SEE NEXT PIC for clarification)
Every new fan is special to me. Each person who spreads the links-- every person who comes here because of one of those links-- all are special to me. Hopefully you will see just how special through my regular communication with you here, as well as in the final product "The END of FUN".
All of us are special for one reason, at least. We are the first to hear the term: "karaoke noir" in the world of film. "The END of FUN" will be the first "karaoke noir" film in the whole entire universe, possibly for all of time (do you think this will catch on as a genre? Really?). It doesn't matter what brought you here either. Casual reader, blog enthusiast, indie film fan, actors and actresses, my own friends and family, those who form the guts of the entity we know as The Carriage House, etc., my goal is that if you hang in, and continue to come back often enough--ESPECIALLY if you make it all the way to that final movie "The END of FUN", I hope the words "karaoke noir" roll off the tongue as something more than a crazy idea for an indie that more than a handful of people may ever see.
KARAOKE NOIR!!!
WHY? is still the question, though. WHY a Karaoke Crime story? WHY KARAOKE NOIR?
Honestly, I believe the idea of writing a crime story related to a karaoke bar, the Carriage House specifically, occurred to me after one catastrophic night in June of 2014. Like the movie only in that it was a night that began much like any other, and in fact had been really wonderful, but nearly ended in my own murder. All the details, AND the beating are more intense in the movie and driven by far different, less honorable motives.
Whaaaaaaaaat? (I can hear many of your minds screaming right now)
Yeah. I got my face crushed by two assholes who ruined a beautiful night, my beautiful natural top front teeth, my glasses, my pants, and shirt (which were both soaked as it turned out, in my blood), leaving me pretty much for dead in the parking lot of a strip mall on Convoy Street in the Clairemont area of San Diego.
Like many other great nights at the Carriage House, I walked outside the bar that night charged and feeling great. I had really only drunk about three beers and knew that I could very safely make the drive home. In my opinion, it could have been both safe and legal-- I wouldn't even consider it otherwise (YUP-- there's another long story there that you'll have to just wait for...).
But. I was buzzed and I knew it.
And. The night was BEAUTIFUL! We're talking Mid-June in San Diego. The warmth of the night and the warmth of my buzz combined just encouraged me to walk home instead. Like I said it was only about a mile and half anyway. Even walking wouldn't take long... Normally.
Not long after turning the corner from Balboa onto Convoy and heading toward the bridge over the 805 near 7-11 (the HANDFUL of you that are from the area are like "Oh yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about--most of the rest are like "HUH?"-- and maybe one or two are like "Hmm. I'm gonna drive and find this whole area..."), I heard a girl yelp and call for help in the distance. Most of my closest friends and family know very well that my very first career choice as a child, when asked was "SuperHero".
"Spider-Man taught me to read!!!" This was the first comic I ever remember buying for myself...I THINK I BOUGHT it with money from my 5th birthday!!!
I have been collecting comic books since I was about 5 years old, and often like to exaggerate that "Spider-Man taught me to read" which is not far from the truth. My obsessive-compulsive nature, even at the young age of 4 and 5 years old just forced me to understand what Spidey was saying as I flipped through the comic books I would beg, borrow, and steal (yes, steal. even made my own mother my unwitting "wheelman" once-- LONG STORY.... someday...maybe...) to add into my collection. My Uncle Tony was more of a DC Comics guy but that also exposed me to Neal Adams on Batman and Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Curt Swan on Superman, and all kinds of just amazing stuff.
Finding and reading this Batman comic in my Uncle Tony's collection changed the way I thought about the character of Batman (who in my mind WAS Adam West), the Joker...and of comics in general. NEAL ADAMS is amazing!
The reaction was always the same. I knew exactly what those word balloons were all about. I knew that the captions were telling me important stuff. I had to know. I taught myself to read so that I could not only enjoy the Dr.Seuss books my mom read to me occasionally, any time I wanted; but so much more importantly to know what all these HEROES were saying and doing! When people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up I might answer "Spider-man". If they told me that wasn't realistic because he had powers that just made it impossible and that I would never have powers like that, I would nod in agreement and quickly shoot back "OK, then. Batman. He doesn't have any powers. Just strong and smart with a mask."
Like the Batman comic above, I discovered this amazing Green Lantern/Green Arrow comic book among the shelves of books belonging to my Uncle Tony. It changed the way I thought about comics again. It also changed the way I thought about horror. The idea of injecting drugs for pleasure GIVES ME CHILLS to this day, in large part because of this book!
Becoming an ESL (English as a Second Language) Instructor in my mid 40's is the actual closest I have ever come to feeling like a real-life super-hero. Every day I wake up and feel like I have the chance to make a difference in someone's life, to help them improve their life.
The actions I took on that night in June of 2014 could have taken my ability to teach away at the best of circumstances, but could have and nearly did leave me dead.
My ridiculously protective instincts that have been nurtured since the age of 5 kicked in immediately as I heard that scared yelp. I looked ahead and saw two young Korean girls standing beside a car in the parking lot of the strip mall that has several restaurants and the UGGS boot store. Standing close to them were two white guys. One guy looked to be in his late 20's or early 30's and was BIG! He had very very short hair and looked like he could have been in the military or have been former-military. His friend was my age or older (very hard to judge actually-- I would guess mid 40's but with longer greasy gray hair and a much more leathered skin-- he could have been almost 60-- really don't know) and both were wearing jackets that looked like biker club jackets but again, there were no marks that I remember and could swear to, etc. Just a vague memory...
"HEY!" I yelled announcing my impending arrival for no reason at all. "Are these guys bothering you all?" I pointed from the girls to the guys. One of the girls said, "He has my keys and won't let us leave."
When I turned to look, the younger, BIGGER, guy was holding her keys out on the end of his extended index finger and letting them rock back and forth with absolutely no protection, simply daring someone to take them. So I did. Gently but definitely and quickly, I removed them and handed them, in one continuous motion, to the girl who had explained their dilemma.
"Get in your car and get out of here right now. OK?" I pleaded as much as ordered.
Before anyone could thank me or I could even begin to pat myself on the back, my arms were being wrenched behind me so that I could hear and feel things grinding in my shoulders and back just before an enormous fist attached to the younger, BIGGER guy landed directly in my solar plexus. Consciousness flickered for the first of what would seem like an infinite number of times over the next few seconds.
Even with consciousness strobing immediately, instincts brought my leg out into a kick as the older guy pulled my arms back and that first punch landed. I heard the younger guy squeal and saw him waving his other hand and can only assume that I did land that one strike successfully. It seemed only to enrage him to wild new levels, though. He jumped back, howling in pain for one split second before bringing another crushing blow down directly into my face.
And there go the lights again.
This time when the lights came back on, my arms were no longer being held behind me, but that was my one and only shred of good news. With my hair and scalp being used as a handle by the BIGGER guy, my face smashed repeatedly and with great force against the concrete parking lot stop and the asphalt of the parking lot itself. Kicks and punches joined the recipe of my oncoming murder when I heard the word "...police..." come out of the older guy's mouth.
This was about a day and a half after the attack and just a few hours before I went in to get permanent implants made. All together between dentist and doctor, I was out about $3000 due to this attack! It took me a year to pay off all the bills. Not as bad as you thought? WORSE? The rest of my face was pretty bruised, scraped and cut. Poor Johnny gets about 1000X the treatment I received in "The END of FUN"...
This time when the lights came back on, there were no further smashings. As always, for whatever reason, my eye-glasses became my first priority and I reached around the parking lot looking somewhat like a very abused Velma from Scooby-Doo..."my glasses... has anyone seen my glasses?..." I found my badly bent and broken glasses and shoved them into my pocket, looking around for my attackers who had disappeared, but I did not immediately see any police either.
There were a few handfuls of people standing very far away along the strip mall itself and there may indeed be footage of my ass-whipping floating around out there somewhere. If so, PLEASE share it with me here!
The feeling of a mouth filled with gravel pushed the spectre of death back off into the distance for a while. But...it wasn't gravel. It was teeth. This was what actually finally brought my first tears in this whole experience. The loss of my front teeth. Something I have had nightmare about since I was a very young kid, particularly powerful during the 2+ years that I painfully wore braces. The pain of that experience SOLD ME on the idea of proper dental maintenance and I really have always taken very good care of my teeth. Now, I could feel them in hundreds of pieces floating through my mouth on my own blood and saliva.
The burst of tears and the sudden realization of my exploded face caused me to look down. My clothes were soaked in blood. My clothes were soaked in MY BLOOD.
Disoriented, concussed, pissed, but driven, I found my way to my feet and began to make my way home. I really wanted sleep. After my first few steps in the right direction, I noticed the blue lights across the street. There were police there after all. Because I couldn't wear my nearly-destroyed glasses, I could not be sure that it was my attackers, but the people being arrested did have the same basic shape.
During the best of times, I usually do not have much desire to speak with the police and will usually go out of my way to avoid them whenever at all possible. Satisfied the assholes were being dealt with, and with an overwhelming desire in my brutalized body and concussed brain for sleep, my feet moved with one purpose only and that was to CARRY ME HOME.
The next morning, I called and scheduled emergency dental surgery but would not have permanent replacements for several very depressing days. The loss of those teeth and my smile still the primary concern to my long-addled mind. Just about $3000 and a year's worth of payments later and my face began to look somewhat the same again.
My "bionic chompers" are never going to look as good as my natural teeth, but as you can see in this picture taken a few months after the attack, I was--and AM-- quite pleased to have something other than the cracked mess you see above! (I grew the beard for months, until the holes in my upper and lower lip had healed completely.)
The beating Johnny takes in the movie makes what happened to me look like a walk in the park. But it is also the lemonade made from the lemons of that nearly fatal encounter. I refuse to let situations such as that affect me in a long-term way for the negative. Transforming it, giving it to Johnny and even its intensification are my way of EXORCISING any negativity and TRYING TO USE IT in a positive way by creating a scene in a movie that I really believe you will never forget.
But you? You are special, see? Others who don't read this blog. Others who can't make it all the way through these ranting manifestos? They will never know the painful and bloody seeds of personal circumstance from which that scene grew and grows.
Karaoke Noir. It's real. And YOU WILL HELP MAKE IT HAPPEN!
Thanks for reading!
#TEOFFaceSmash #TEOFinfluence #KaraokeNoir
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