Bird on a Limb: My Facebook-Updated Family Tree

Posted on December 14, 2011 by

I was always a good kid, at least according to my Dad. I was quiet, introspective, always thinking and always creating. Even as far back as before my mother died, while the grown-ups were talking grown-up things in the living room, I would be in my room quietly playing with my Star Wars action figures. At birthdays and Christmases, long after unwrapping my Millennium Falcons and Fortress of Fangs play sets, I could be found sitting Indian style beside our artificial tree trimmed with kitschy1970s ornaments carefully cutting out the He-Mans and Skeletors on the Masters of the Universe wrapping paper.

That little boy isn't me, but it may as well have been; I loved that play set!

I grew up (somewhat) and learned the value of a dollar and the importance of a dream during weekends selling French fries and stirring egg cream sodas at flea markets, street fairs and carnivals. I finished high school with long hair and a four-year scholarship to NJCU, finished college in five years as a B student with a batch of poems under my arm ready for grad school, and I completed my term at Brooklyn College in two years still sporting a B average but with a better batch of poems bound in customary Master’s Thesis fashion.

Then I grew up some more (sort of), going on to be a Renaissance man of sorts –– published poet, DIY filmmaker, one-time guitarist, part-time blogger, rabid social networker and freelance professor drifting between various universities across New Jersey. Overall, I consider myself pretty fortunate to be living this particular life without anyone telling me otherwise; whenever I wanted to be different, and ultimately when I needed to be myself, I’ve always had a solid limb on the tree of my being out on which I could perch and sing freely, and this limb is my family, which has supported me in everything I’ve done, from tracing comic book covers for some extra pre-teen spending cash to going away to London for a summer to study Shakespearean theater and acting at the Globe to making films today.

But sometimes there are other branches helping to hold you up that you may not have noticed, or perhaps you may never have been aware of.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of my Dad’s death as well as the first anniversary of my discovery of new family members on my Dad’s side. Actually, it’s more accurate to say these hitherto unknown branches of my family tree reached out and discovered me.

Thanksgiving, 2010, with Marinell Montales, Andrea Bertos Quintaglie, me, and Danny Androutsos.

I never knew much about my Dad’s side of the family because whenever he would tell me stories about his past, I would be more interested in drawing Ninja Turtles or making up intricate stories starring my Super Powers action figures; I was too young to appreciate them. Instead, I recollect only brief bits: My grandfather John owning a coffee shop in Athens and drawing when business was slow and my Dad crying as a boy whenever school was closed are little more than vestiges now. The story I remember most tells of how my Dad was marooned in New Orleans because of a stomach virus, and his fellow Merchant Marines had to sail back out to sea and couldn’t wait for him to recover. The reason I remember this one is because I wrote up a story about my Dad for my feature writing class when I was a journalism major at NJCU. That tape-recorded interview I did with him captured the last remnants of his voice before the cancer left behind only a whisper.

The only other thing I remembered was that my Dad had a cousin who lived in Florida named Chris Bertos. That’s how I met Andrea Bertos Quintaglie. She reached out to me through a Facebook message with the subject heading “looking for” and a message that read:

Hi John…I’m looking for a John Trigonis who would be my second cousin on my dad’s side (Chris Bertos) This John’s dad’s name was Teddy and has since passed away. I was just thinking of this person & wanted to make the connection…so if you are the right John (because 3 John Trigonis came up) and you would like to connect with your dad’s family respond…Thanx, Andrea

After I let Andrea know that I was in fact the right John Trigonis, we exchanged a bunch of Facebook messages, and I learned so much about a part of my family tree I hadn’t even known existed. Apparently, I not only now had newfound family members here in the U.S., but there’s a whole flock of second and third cousins living in New Zealand, many of whom knew my Dad. And through Andrea, I was able to make the acquaintance of Nina Bertos Androutsos, Nina Bertos Papadopoulos, and many more of our Kiwi cousins whom she had connected with through Facebook and some serious Sherlock Holmes detective work.

Last year, Andrea held a truly splendid and emotional Thanksgiving celebration, and I finally got to meet her, as well as many other cousins of mine, many of whom proceeded to spin some interesting stories about my Dad; many of them recalled instances when he would come to family gatherings, dance, drink and be merry; others reminisced a tale or two that’d been passed down through the years about how the two dads would get into all sorts of trouble when they were younger.

My Dad, a troublemaker?! Well, blow me down!

At this festive gathering of newfound family, I also had the pleasure of meeting a cousin of mine from New Zealand, Danny Androutsos, whom I found to be a kindred spirit; he’s a musician who happened to be on a world tour –– something Kiwi men do as a rite of passage. It felt as though all the years removed between the two of us were stitched up in the few hours we spent together that Thanksgiving, as well as the couple of nights we spent running around New York City with wine, tasty food, and plenty of catch-up conversation.

What’s more, Andrea and the family attended the Big Apple Preview of Cerise back in December, 2010, which made the event even more special for me because not only was I showcasing my latest short film to my friends, supporters, funders and family, but I was also able to introduce my brother, sister and family to Andrea, Danny, and my other cousins, and it was a heartwarming spectacle to see them all interacting throughout the evening.

My cousin Danny rockin' out at Bar Medusa in Wellington, New Zealand.

I grew up with a large family from my mother’s side; my brother Walter and sister Renee, as well as my brother’s family –– my family –– not only make up the bulk of the branches of my family tree, but they have also been the trunk, never moving, always there, for good moments like graduating college or not-so-good; when my Dad died on December 14th, 2006, my brother and sister were there for me at three in the morning to let me know that it’ll be alright. Perhaps I’d always taken the idea of family for granted, and now, having had some new dots connected on a part of my Dad’s bloodline I’d known little to nothing about has added more balance to my identity as a Trigonis.

I’ve always been proud of my Greek ancestry even though I still know very little about where I come from; I’m especially fond of my surname; Trigonis (Tρυγώνια) means “bird” or more accurately, “turtledove,” and, interestingly enough, is most famous for its use in the old Greek proverb “Μ’ένα σμπάρο, δυο τρυγώνια,” or “One shot, two birds.” I started thinking about identity and ancestry a while back when a man named Vasilis Trigonis reached out to me on Facebook asking if he and I might be related. What’s more interesting is that he’s from Thessaloniki, Greece, and according to him, in the nearby city of Veria there’s a high concentration of people with our same surname. But I’ll leave this story for another time.

Interesting fact: The mythological Phoenix is the natural life partner of the τρυγώνια...

But perhaps Vasilis was right when he wrote that he’s “quite sure that soon or later we’ll discover the story of our ancestors.” And in my case, along came Andrea, and because of her, I’m a few layers deeper to discovering my roots. It never really mattered so much to me when I was a kid, or even when I emerged from grad school with my MFA in poetry. But now, to know that for all these years I’ve been supported by the family I’ve known and loved all my life and a family that has only recently been unearthed but has been there all along gives me a strangely mystical feeling, one that makes me proud of the little I’ve accomplished in this short span of life, and unravels a reason as to why I’ve been able to safely land on any limb I choose without having my song’s get muffled or lost in the leaves. The stronger the limb, the stronger the support for this turtledove to sing from any height.

And if there’s a Facebook in the Great Hereafter, I only hope my Dad might look down past the cosmos this Christmas, 2011, to give this, my latest status update, a “Like.”

My Dad and me, circa 1982, maybe. I've since traded in my pistol for a pen; I'm sure I've made him proud.

Posted in Facebook, film, filmmaking, ideas, independent, indie, John T. Trigonis, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tao Te Trig: The Flow, the Muse and the Working Writer’s World

Posted on December 1, 2011 by

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 marks the day I started writing my very first book, The Tao of Crowdfunding for Filmmakers, for Michael Wiese Productions. Thirty days later, I’m about a hundred pages into my 200-page guide focused on helping indie filmmakers raise funds for their films on IndieGoGo and other crowdfunding platforms.

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Checking off chapters and counting pages on my table of contents.

So what have I learned so far traversing this uncharted terrain of my personal writer’s journey? First and foremost, writing is hard! It’s funny because that’s usually the first thing I tell my writing students at each of the universities where I teach, but I never fully understood how true a statement it is. As a poet for most of my writing life, I’d become very used to waiting for inspiration to strike, for my faithful muse’s hand to brush the back of my neck, the way Doris Dowling’s does to Ray Milland’s in The Lost Weekend, and leave behind a fresh idea in the airy form of a mysterious scent that lingers long after her touch.

But once you get to writing an actual book, whether it’s nonfiction like mine or the great American novel or even a feature-length screenplay, you really can’t sit up waiting for inspiration to come strolling in any ol’ time she likes; you have to inspire yourself, and that’s been the single most challenging part for me while writing The Tao of Crowdfunding for Filmmakers so far. Writing about a topic like this, and in such a short span of time as six short months, I’ve been relying heavily on myself, not my muse, to conjure up the magic words necessary to concoct an informative, entertaining and inspiring bit of literary thaumaturgy.

And I have been fortunate so far. I’m working my way through these white unlined trenches because I’m writing about my own crowdfunding success with Cerise on IndieGoGo, as well as detailing the success stories of many other campaigns as examples to further illustrate my points. Plus, I’m incorporating a bit of the Tao Te Ching into each chunk I churn out, and this reinvigorates me whenever I fall into a spell of writing very straightforward, factual information, since it’s a philosophy I subscribe to in every aspect of my life. After all, when you write what you know, you’re able to flow.

Doris Dowling, muse to Ray Milland's tormented writer in The Lost Weekend.

Then, something wonderful happens. Once I work myself into that “Zone,” at about an hour or so into the key tap and space bar hustle, my muse will occasionally sneak over to my writing desk and massage my creased temples, help me find a way to elevate a rather insipid concept of crowdfunding up into the ranks of the almost poetic. The other day, for instance, I waxed metaphoric my concept of eliciting versus soliciting funds which I first brought up in my second Tao of Crowdfunding post “A Practical Guide to Crowdfunder Etiquette” by comparing it to a steak dinner:

Here’s the difference in a more practical setting: You see your friend going to town on a piece of steak, cooked just the way you like it. It’s dripping with juices and smells unbearably delicious. So you ask him, “Can I have a piece of your steak?” to which your friend now has the option to say yay or nay. They have the power over you. Now, if you look at that steak and salivate over it –– well, that won’t work either ‘cause that’s just sad. But if you look up from that magnificent bit of medium well goodness and say to your friend something along the lines of “Man, that steak looks and smells delicious!” as a statement, you will elicit a reaction from your friend, which will most likely be “It is… (wait for it) “…Do you want to try a piece?” Now you’ve got the power and soon after, a tasty piece of steak.

I was in “The Zone” and then this chunk of elaboration flowed seamlessly out of my fingertips. It was inspiration’s finger sliding across the back of my neck; all I had to do was keep up with the flow of words flooding into my mind and write.

It took me a full three weeks to build up the discipline and get into the swing of what it means to be an actual working writer (and receiving my first check in the mail from MWP made that realization all the more solid, of course). To be perfectly honest, being a writer is something I didn’t really think I could do. I realized that I had too many misconceptions about it, all of them fabrications with no real footing in the real world. For years I believed that if I wrote something that wasn’t necessarily as creative as my poetry or as high concept as my screenplays, I simply wouldn’t enjoy it, and in turn, it would become the worst thing writing could ever become to me: A job.

Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do symbol, reflecting the everlasting flow of yin and yang.

My over thinking this for all these years has worked against what the universe had written down in the penmanship of the stars as in my best interest, and I know as well as anyone that when you work with the universe, all is right. Taoist sage Lao Tzu calls this wei wu wei, or “doing without doing.” By not over thinking something, everything gets done. In that way, The Tao of Crowdfunding for Filmmakers is meant to be written, and I’m the one who’s meant to write it.

I’m going with the flow now, like a stream flowing in one direction: forward. When a stone stands in my way, I simply stream around it and discover new ways to say something on my own because when you’re a working writer, you can’t wait for your muse to saunter in at whatever hour of the day or night she pleases (deadlines be damned!) to inspire every sentence you write. You must rely on your own flow, and trust that your own words will be the right words.

But, of course, it doesn’t hurt to leave the porch light on, too.

Posted in crowd-funding, crowd-funding, crowdfunding, DIY Days, Facebook, film, filmmaking, fundraising, independent, indie, John T. Trigonis, ted hope, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

From Auteur to Author: The Tao of Crowdfunding Goes to Print

Posted on October 20, 2011 by

It’s official––I’ve just signed and mailed away a contract to pen The Tao of Crowdfunding for Filmmakers for Michael Wiese Productions!

Based on my blog series of the same title, this book will be centered around practical tips that DIY filmmakers can use to lead them to the same success I had when I crowdfunded $6,300 on IndieGoGo for the award-winning short film Cerise in 2009.

Shortly after, I wrote “Read Me Up Before You (Indie)GoGo,” in which I offered some advice on what I’d learned during my three month crowdfunding campaign. Then I decided to write a few more posts, and when my first Tao of Crowdfunding blog post “The Three Ps for a Successful Film Campaign” came out, it was very well received by the indie film community, so much that IndieWIRE printed a short write-up about the post, which emphasizes personalization in one’s pitch, perks, and promotion as the key to crowdfunding success, and sites examples from projects of indie film friends who’ve raised substantial amounts of money either on IndieGoGo or Kickstarter. There’ve been two other blog posts so far, “A Practical Guide to Crowdfunder Etiquette” and “Twitter Tips for Crowdfunders,” the latter of which appeared on indie film icon Ted Hope’s IndieWIRE blog Hope for Film.

Since then, I’ve lent a hand to over a dozen IndieGoGo and Kickstarter campaigns, but I thought it was time to up the ante a bit and put all my insights into an affordable book that’d fit nicely on ever filmmakers shelf, right between other MWP books like Psychology for Screenwriters and Film Directing: Shot By Shot. So I wrote up a proposal and sent it away, and after a few email exchanges, a inspiring phone conversation with MWP Vice President Ken Lee and a revision of my table of contents to reflect that of a 200-page book––well, here we are.

And what’s really awesome is that amongst all the other books about crowdfunding that are currently in circulation, The Tao of Crowdfunding for Filmmakers would be the first one dedicated to crowdfunding for something other than start up businesses, and it would be written by a filmmaker for other filmmakers.

My book will follow the same conventions as my blog posts––it will serve up practical advice backed up by screen grabs and Taoist wisdom. It will also feature a “Trignosis” of several successful projects and why they were successful (so many of my closest crowdfunding friends on Twitter and Facebook will be hearing from me soon about that––hint, hint Phil Holbrook, Gary King, and Brendon Fogle, to name a few…)

I’ve given myself six months to research, write, rewrite and deliver my complete manuscript to Michael Wiese Productions, one of the two most well-known filmmaking book publishers out there. It’s definitely a bit of a challenge, especially with my current teaching schedule and Mating Dome editing, but crowdfunding is a hot topic that evolves extremely fast, which means I’ve got to move twice as fast.

So while it looks like I’ll be taking a brief hiatus from my own filmmaking endeavors to write The Tao of Crowdfunding for Filmmakers, which is scheduled for either a 2012 or 2013 launch, I’ll be applying my writing talent and crowdfunding insights and experiences to my first major publishing credit, one that will be certain to help many indie filmmakers like me successfully finance the road to their dreams, one dollar at a time.

Posted in cerise, crowd-funding, crowd-funding, crowdfunding, DIY Days, Facebook, film, filmmaking, fundraising, independent, indie, John T. Trigonis, ted hope, twitter, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Mating Dome: Growth is Inevitable

Posted on October 6, 2011 by

The wood, steel and other raw materials for my upcoming short film Mating Dome have been assembled, and now it’s time to piece together this sexy sci-fi romp.

This past weekend I had the honor of sharing the set with an exceptionally gifted cast and a host of crackerjack crew members who brought to life my good friend, actor and Mating Dome writer Joe Whelski’s darkly comedic vision of a future where dating has been reduced to moment-to-moment trysts in an endless labyrinth of lust.

The shoot itself went exceptionally well, and as always, I walked away from the experience with a few bits of insight for directors and auteurs alike:

Trust in Your Crew
Mating Dome marks the first film I’ve ever shot in which an actual set had to be built. We transformed a large photo studio at Neo Studios in SoHo into a truly fantastical set. One of those sets was a lounge of sorts with a lit up bar, which we eventually used in other scenes in the film. I am by no means a handyman––I’m more like Tim Allen in Home Improvement––so I had to trust in our set designer Lucia Snyder and our crew to create this futuristic bar, as well as in our costume designer Sophie Philips to make the fashion-forward “towels” which our actors would be wearing throughout the film. I had given them both a basic idea of what I wanted and allowed them to run with it. I was not disappointed.

This futuristic, lit-up bar makes an appearance three times in Mating Dome.

The Script Will Always Change
As with every other film I’ve ever shot, Joe’s script for Mating Dome went through a bit of a “reconfiguration” of its own as the words and actions on the page turned into shots and sequences. Even some of the ideas that I’d implemented into the script as director didn’t make it into many of the shots in the film for various reasons. But I’ve learned that this is fine, because other concepts and visionary elements will work their way into each shot and compensate for any “losses,” and as a director, you simply have to roll with it. I did.

Keep (Some) Control Over the Creative Spirit of Collaboration
I’ve always said I’m not one to collaborate on the page, but on set, I rely heavily on collaboration to help generate a more dynamic look to my original vision. It worked with Cerise, my most recent short film. But as I learned on the set of Mating Dome, as director, you still have to maintain a certain level of control over however much creative freedom you allow your main crew members. If something that your set designer suggests doesn’t work as part of the vision in your mind, don’t do it. If you’re not sure whether it’ll work or not, try it. (Ah! The beauty of shooting in HD.) The bottom line is that a director should be open to suggestions, but hold a firm enough grasp on your vision so the compromise (and there’ll always be compromise) is not a drastic one.

Find Solutions, Not Further Problems
Admittedly, I’m not very good at finding solutions quickly. I know when a problem can be resolved, but very often I don’t know how to resolve them. My best friend, long-time collaborator and Mating Dome’s cinematographer Alain Aguilar is much better at it than I, and Mating Dome’s producer Ruben Rodas, I can say with utmost certainty, is a “Master Solutionist” (okay, so “solutionist” is not a word, but it should be!) A few times on set we came upon some stumbling blocks––or rather I came upon them––and as soon as I’d open my mouth about the problem, there was Ruben with a solution. So this is something that, as a director, I will either work on improving or simply rely even more on people like Ruben and Alain to solve them for me (I’ll try the former, but if I fall off that tightrope, I’ve always got the latter net to land on!)

Believe in “Happy Accidents” and All Will Be Well
Joe introduced me to this concept on the first day of shooting when he took me aside and said he had to make an “executive decision” (he is also Mating Dome’s Executive Producer) which scared the heck out of me. It seemed the towel that was made for him wasn’t fitting very well, and he had no other choice but to don an actual bath towel around his waist. I was a bit upset, truth be told, but it made sense, as Joe (the character) is the “average Joe” in a world populated with men and women who’ve radically “reconfigured” their bodies; it would only be right that Joe isn’t given a futuristic “real man’s towel” but rather a “little boy’s towel” because he doesn’t accept his world. I do believe everything happens for a reason, and that reason is always good and right, though sometimes I lose sight of that basic Taoist truth. So thanks for bringing it back home, Whelski!

Joe Whelski in his bath towel across from a Venus of the future.

Overall, the Mating Dome shoot this past weekend was yet another curve on the freeway to filmmaking knowledge, and one thing I’m always thankful for is being able to work with a crew that knows what its doing, moves and breathes as one being and helps me improve what I’m doing and strengthen me as a director, as well as a talented cast––and the cast of Mating Dome is not only talented but smokin’ hot and includes such personalities as Samantha Karlin, who’s starred in TV’s From Mate to Date, and Key of Awesome! superstar Lauren Francesca!

Lauren Francesca, YouTube sensation and one of our Mating Dome Ladies.

To see photos of our entire sultry cast of Venuses and Adonises, head on over to Mating Dome’s Facebook page (and “Like” it while you’re at it, ‘cause if those pics don’t make you wish there was a “Super Like” button, then I don’t know. I just don’t know…)

In the meantime, I’ll be getting my razor tool sharpened and ready for cutting these scenes together into a quick bit of cinema that will make everyone under the Mating Dome proud to have been a part of this quirky, witty, sexy and wholly original short film.

Until then, live long, and prosper. Or something like that.

Posted in actors, actresses, film, filmmaking, ideas, independent, indie, John T. Trigonis, manvelope, short film, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

An Inner Child Enkindled (or, A Happy Epilogue to “So Long Spandex…”)

Posted on September 24, 2011 by

Those of you who’ve read my recent blog post “So Long Spandex, but Thanks for Stretching Yourself So Thick” will know that I’m not the happiest comic book camper regarding DC Comics’s “New 52” reboot of the world’s greatest superheroes.

However, on Wednesday, after working on a shot list for my next short film with Alain Aguilar, the film’s cinematographer and my best friend of over twelve years, I was ready to head off to Midtown Comics Downtown and attend my very first book signing; my favorite writer Scott Snyder (of American Vampire fame) was going to be signing copies of the much anticipated Batman #1.

My very first signing caught in camera (that's Scott Snyder on the right)

I was about to go on my merry, solitary way when Alain decided he’d join me. He’d never been much of a comic book reader (he wasn’t one at all, actually), and as we got off the A train at Fulton Street, he asked me what the deal was with this whole Batman #1 signing. So I explained to him the basic ideology behind DC’s “New 52”––how the company is starting from scratch with all new first issues and brand new story lines that they hope will appeal to longtime and new readers since these stories would, in the case of Action Comics, Justice League and most others, start way at the beginning of superherodom.

Then something happened. In all the years I’ve ever spoken to Alain about comic books, yammering off about how superb a read All Star Superman is or how important costumes and color psychology are in The Boy Wonder’s evolution from Robin to Nightwing, never have I seen him so spellbound as I did that day––a glimmer in his eyes of the child who’d always wanted to pick up a comic book and read it, but for some reason or another never did, and never asked why, until that moment.

So we entered Midtown Comics, and I proceeded to the racks and picked up Batman #1 along with a small stack of other titles I was interested in trying on for size, such as Wonder Woman and Legion of Super-Heroes. “I’ll take one, too,” Alain said suddenly, and he reached out and snatched a copy. And he didn’t stop there! After asking for some recommendations, he also picked up copies of Action Comics #1, Nightwing #1 (‘cause he knows how awesome Dick Grayson is from hearing me talk about him over the years) and Catwoman #1 (by far the most interesting anti-heroine out there.) As we waited on line to pay for our books, he told me that he’d been wanting to get into some new material for a while, and to delve into new stories and good storytelling, and he’d avoided comics for all these years because he thought it’d be difficult to keep up with all that’s going on. But now that comics have started from the beginning again, he could finally get into them from the beginning with little chance of getting too lost.

So I guess DC’s “New 52” is doing some good after all. I mean, just look at how happy Al looks with his signed copy of Batman #1 and Certificate of Authenticity:

All smiles!

So although the days of old-school superheroes may be dead and gone, I’m happier now to see firsthand how younger and older generations will benefit from the joy of picking up a comic book for the first time and being pulled into a story from splash to final page and its inevitable “To Be Continued…” that hints at what’s to come so our inner children can feel once more (or for the first time) how slowly a month can pass by.

And me? I’ll be walking the Middle Road with comic books as with everything else in my life and spend my free time paging the “New 8” DC Comics titles (so far) that have caught my attention when not hunched over the $1 boxes at St. Mark’s Comics regaling in a simpler time of spandex and tinsel.

Posted in Comic Books, John T. Trigonis, manvelope | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

So Long Spandex, but Thanks for Stretching Yourself So Thick

Posted on September 19, 2011 by

I’ve been an avid comics lover for most of my life. Back in the day I was more drawn to the artwork of Jim Aparo, Norm Breyfogle and Dick Giordano (various Batman titles), and eventually Jim Lee (WildC.A.T.S.) and Todd McFarlane (Spawn) to my all-time favorite Scott McDaniel (Nightwing). Nowadays, I’m more attracted to the writing than the art, some of my favorite stories being penned by the likes of Grant Morrison (All Star Superman), Jeph Loeb (Batman: The Long Halloween) and Scott Snyder (American Vampire, Batman: Gates of Gotham). At one point back when I’d started going to college, I thought I’d outgrown superheroes altogether, but thankfully it was only a brief hiatus; after a trip to Los Angeles and seeing a surplus of gigantic comic book shops (something Jersey had been running low on), I launched myself back into the world of comics with Loeb and Lee’s truly awesome Batman series Hush.

One of my favorite Jim Lee images from Batman: Hush.

Since then, I’ve only really kept up with DC Comics, and though I missed out on a few major events like Final Crisis and Blackest Night due to the financial constraints commonly associated with keeping up-to-speed with the world’s greatest superheroes, I try to keep a keen eye on what’s ahead by frequenting websites like Geeks of Doom and Gotham Spoilers. But I was happy that I finally had a hobby again, one that was (a little) cheaper than making short films. In short, I was happy. My inner child was licking away innocently at his soft-serve vanilla ice cream.

And then I read Justice League #1, the launch pad for DC’s controversial “New 52” campaign in which they’re “starting over from #1″ on their entire line of titles. It was as though my inner child had been abducted. And me? Well, page after page of Justice League #1, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that the comic book heroes I’d grown up with were officially dead and gone.

Okay, so it’s not that serious. I know they’re not gone for good. They’re simply evolving, stretching their ripped and rock solid legs into tomorrow. I get that. I do. But what the heck happened to all the spandex––a staple of superherodom since its inception?

And what the hell kinds of costumes are these?!

No further comment.

Like many of us, I grew up during a time when superheroes wore spandex stretching around their bulked up bodies, their brightly colored underwear on the outside and which matched the color of their boots which stretched up to the knees and maintained the absolute mystery of how they ever managed to stay up. There’s a certain element childishness to a superhero who wears such an zany outfit out in public, it’s true, but there’s also an element of self-assurance, too. Superman, for instance, would never need to wear suit made of Kevlar or thin metal or whatever his new costume is made of; the guy chews bullets like they were Bubbalicious!

The Superman I grew up with is a Boy Scout and a Republican, not some wannabe hipster with a cocky attitude (as in Action Comics #1). And the Batman I grew up with is dark and brooding and doesn’t smile (that’s what Robin’s for––but don’t even get me started on Damian Wayne taking up the mantle of my all-time favorite character; I only hope DC’s planning on pulling a “Jason Todd” on this one!) not this rational human being who’d rather begin celebrating his parents’ wedding anniversary instead of laying two roses down on the crime ridden alley where they were killed and the Dark Knight was born (as in Batman and Robin #1).

I know, I know. Like the Pearl Jam song says “It’s evolution, baby!” I get it. I really do. But my inner little guy’s still crying ‘cause the ice cream I just bought him is melting in the lamp light on the sidewalk where Martha and Thomas Wayne were murdered.

I don't know...if Bruce can get over that, his Bat-Days are numbered!

The new costumes are one pet peeve of mine. The other aspect of DC’s New 52 I’m not at all happy with is how young some of my favorite heroes look. Granted, time and age are magically suspended in the world between the panels and speech bubbles, but honestly, this new Superman looks more like Superboy and seems to act just as childish and cocky from the little I’ve gathered so far from the last page of Justice League #1 and throughout Action Comics #1. I’m most worried about Nightwing #1––any titles featuring former Boy Wonder Dick Grayson has always been a favorite comic of mine. But I do take solace in the fact that DC seems to be keeping the Batman family and its history (somewhat) in tact and only marginally altered. We’ll see about that in a couple days.

The red Nightwing emblem (and matching eyes) make me uncomfortable.

Now, despite my initial disdain for these first couple of weeks of new number ones, I’m definitely intrigued by what’s going on (hence the reason I’m actually spending money on a few of these 52 titles that seem most interesting to me), especially where costumes are concerned. In fact, in a brief stint with nonfiction writing, I wrote a proposal and about eighty pages of a book called Darkening Knights about the various Boy Wonders and the many changes to their costumes through the years since Detective Comics #38 introduced Robin in 1940.

That said, I have a great appreciation for superheroes and their costumes as extensions of who they are, and while these new streamlined costumes are not as hokey as their spandex counterparts, they are too “real world” for me. I mean, Robin’s original costume was a bit outlandish, true, but even when it was redesigned in the ‘90s for Tim Drake to fill Dick’s pixies, it still retained a major elements that kept the integrity of the original model in tact without the addition of what seems to be shiny plates of sheet metal for added protection in the battlefield (though DC did upgrade Robin’s footwear from pixie boots to jika-tabi style boots (more practical, I think).

By far my favorite Robin costume of them all.

I suppose it’s just a changing of the guard of sorts. I mean, it’s no secret that comic book stores today are filled with more adults in suits than children wearing red capes with a Sharpie “S” drawn on them; so it seems that DC Comics is perhaps trying to rescue the comic “book” industry from extinction––I mean, if you’re a kid these days, why read comics when you can see your favorite heroes like (gulp!) Green Lantern or Captain America on the big screen, and in 3-D to boot? And yes, I feel like an old fogey (there, I said it!) for writing this, but what’s a guy like me supposed to do, spend the remainder of his days hunched over the $1 boxes at St. Mark’s Comics? I suppose so.

Or I guess I simply have to buy into it all. And I will (at least for certain titles) because everyone needs a little super in his or her life, after all.

OMAC, one of the "b-heroes" whose first issue gave me enjoyment.

On a positive note, I’m very excited to continue reading OMAC; the first issue was a fun one indeed. Swamp Thing #1 is superbly written by Scott Snyder. Batwing and Batwoman are series I plan to follow for a bit, as well, and I’m also looking forward to Justice League Dark and Aquaman. (Based on this list of titles, it seems I’ll be opting for the b-side superheroes from now on.) But I will also give a the first issue of Teen Titans a chance just because Robin, Superboy, Kid Flash and the gang have given me hours of reading pleasure in the past.

Ahhh! There’s my inner kid standing next to Bruce Wayne and licking happily away at a brand new ice creat cone, anxious to get his hands on a copy of Batman #1 and get it signed by his favorite writer this Wednesday.

I guess it is true what this guy who works at The Joker’s Child in Fairlawn said to me in a brief conversation about the New 52: “We comic fans, we’re a hopeful bunch.”

Yes, we are. But I wonder if Marvel’s superheroes still sport their spandex…!

*          *          *

So…what are YOUR thoughts on DC Comics and their “New 52″ line? What titles should I add to my list of must reads?

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Cagney, City for Conquest, and the Invention of the Postmodern Protagonist

Posted on September 6, 2011 by

As many of you may know from reading my late night tweets and Facebook updates, I’ve been immersing myself in James Cagney movies ever since I stumbled on his old residence in New York a couple months ago.

This phase of film watching is partly for further research on Caput, my feature-length hit man screenplay, which I’ll be rewriting within the next month or so. Before that, I spent a few solid months watching a ton of Humphrey Bogart classics like In a Lonely Place, To Have and Have Not, Casablanca (of course!) and The Roaring Twenties, in which I discovered Cagney and all his tough guy glory to come.

The plaque (L) that's attached to the building where Cagney lived (R).

Now you might not guess it by looking at me, but when I was a younger man, the only movies I ever watched were action movies. If you asked me to name the top actors, the “Holy Trinity” would’ve been Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Segal and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Kickboxer, Out for Justice, Commando­­––if you can name it, I most likely watched it (dozens of times, too, on account of my Dad and our first VCR). Stir in a bit of Return of the Jedi and Back to the Future, Part II and that about rounded out my “eclectic” taste in movies back in the day. Then the American Beauty drama bug bit me in 1999, and the virus spread on with Requiem for a Dream so that by the time Donnie Darko nailed my brain, there was no hope for remedy. This virus crescendoed when Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind edged me on towards a decent into the madness of foreign films from Italy, France, Japan, Hong Kong and beyond. I was ready for renaissance.

But today, I find myself lost in classical Hollywood, circa 1920 to 1950, and rediscovering the lure of the anti-hero while most filmmakers are busy finding new ways to exploit their R-rated comedies. More so, I’m taking on tough guy tales because in many cases they are much deeper character studies into basic human behavior than most people might give them credit for. They’re not shallow reprisals of stories told over and again to supplement an “explosions quota” or the underscore of some grisly killing by demon or devil. The films of Cagney are films about characters who have faults and attempt to overcome them. They’re rooted in the ancient Greek tradition of the tragic hero, and through evolution they’ve worked their magic into the postmodern world.

Even now, I’m still fascinated how I could be so empathetic to big time baddies Tom Powers and Cody Jarrett when they get their just deserts at the end of The Public Enemy and White Heat, two of his very best films. Or even poor Eddie Bartlett sprawled dead on the steps in The Roaring Twenties. These are hard-wired gangsters who made their way in the world loaded with lead, and of course, the bulk of these characters are the basis for most of the anti- and Byronic-heroes that populate today’s more indie films and TV shows.

Original poster art for City for Conquest.

One of Cagney’s films in particular had more of a profound impact on me than I ever had expected––the 1940 film City for Conquest, beautifully directed by Anatole Litvak. In a nutshell, City for Conquest tells of a trio of street tough Irish kids growing up on Forsyth and Delancey in New York City, each determined to get out and make something of his or her life. Eddie Kenny dreams of playing a dark symphony in a city spellbound by swing; Peggy Nash wants to see her name in Broadway lights as a famous dancer; and Danny Kenny (Cagney)? Well, he has no aspirations whatsoever. He’s content with his girl Peggy and his job driving a truck until his brother Eddie comes up short for his payments to study music at school. That’s when Danny launches a career in boxing––until then something he did only for exercise––all the while longing to be back home with his girl, who spends her time tripping the light fantastic with dance hall celebrity Murray Burns, masterfully played by Anthony Quinn.

Perhaps what struck me most about Danny’s character is how all-too-human he really is. Through the film’s second act, Danny wins match upon match, and there’s a wonderful nugget of a moment when an “old timer” mentions to a crowd listening to the match that perhaps Danny wins every match because he doesn’t care whether he wins or loses, and that perhaps if he did want to win, he’d end up losing. The men to whom the hobo speaks crook their heads at him like confused puppies, as would anyone today, more than 70 years later.

You see, in today’s world, in any city up for conquest, this is a difficult sentiment to maintain since the very idea of “not caring” surely insinuates that what you’re doing is not important. But I find that’s simply not so. There are dreamers who give their all, there are those who fall asleep, and there are also those who stand somewhere in the middle. And there are those, like me, who don’t dream or do but simply are. Surely I’ve attained my one and only dream since I was a kid––being a published poet. But did I ever dream I’d be an indie filmmaker? Never. Did I ever do anything to learn how to be an indie filmmaker? Not once. But here I am, an indie filmmaker with a short film like Cerise, which has been putting smiles on lots of people’s faces, and another movie on the way, a music video in between, two feature-length scripts in the works and plenty more ideas to breathe life into.

Being successful, I find, is all about going with the flow. Perhaps it’s all that Douglas Adams I’ve been reading, but if you go in the direction the universe is pushing you, you can’t ever steer yourself wrong. In City for Conquest, Danny becomes a boxer because he simply boxes. Sure, it’s his decision, partly motivated by the need to pay for his brother’s schooling, but boxing has always been there, waiting for him all along. Like acting had been for Cagney. Like making films has been for me. Like who knows what else further down the road…

James Cagney in one of his finest (tough guy) roles ever.

Granted, Danny from City for Conquest is much more of a serious role for Cagney than, say, Danny Kean in Picture Snatcher or Dan Quigley in Lady Killer, but this Danny is still a tough guy who gets around by way of his fists, a hot-headed little Irishmen who by the end learns that his toughness can only get him so far, but consequently it elevates his spirit to the heights of Sainthood (and that’s all I’ll say about that––I don’t wanna spoil the end of the movie for you!) That’s what I found so uplifting that I was moved to tears by the final frame of the film––a character who at the beginning of the film has no motivation for anything ends up motivating others simply by being who he is through his whole life, and ultimately that is all the motivation he ever really needed. In a world where identity changes as often as a pair of socks, that says a lot about toughness; you’ve gotta be tough to trust in what you’re doing and not think about the end result.

Though a majority of Cagney’s famous roles (Frank Ross in Each Dawn I Die and “Brick” Davis in “G”Men) are less complicated than City for Conquest’s Danny Kenny and mostly motivated by money, greed, power, or revenge, I’d like Teddy Caputo, the protagonist in Caput, to be one who’s carved out of the same stock of emotions that makes audiences connect with a cold-blooded robber like Cody Jarrett and a straight and narrow guy like Danny. And to achieve that, it means more hours in front of my midnight tube lighting up my eyes with classic Hollywood noir, and I’m excited to carry the black and white torch of my journey deeper into the soul of the anti-hero that began with Bogie and continues with Cagney, and lights on the directors that helped these two titans of the silver screen endure through the decades.

What are some noir films that have left an strong impression on YOU? List ‘em in the “Comments” section!

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