Not Where You Take It From, But Where You Take It To...

Hey Flip-philes. Back again with another installment of The Weekly Flippo. Though I usually prefer not to explain the title of each posting (doing so would somehow lessen the impact), I decided to make an exception for this week's outing. The masterful Jean-Luc Godard, when asked how he felt about artists using material from other sources, responsed with this quote. It's an important one, and a wholly satisfying response to criticisms of Tarantino and some others, who seem to specialize in these sort of pop culture collages.

I like to think that good art doesn't take place in a vaccuum, but is apart of a larger conversation. Sometimes, doesn't copyright law just get in the way? If you put out a song and enter it into the cultural fray, it should absolutely be within my rights to place it in a new, ironic context if I so choose. And I say "should" in only the most idealistic sense. Unfortunately, for our day-to-day, this would only mean artistic anarchy.

This all has been on my mind recently for many reasons, all of which are not quite as interesting as the central argument it inspires. What do you think? Please! Use the comment section below!

Since I am a master of the segway, here's the short story I wrote last week in full. It is called "The Bridge and The Rabbit Head."

Of our little group, Mackie Rohmer and I were the only ones to have seen a man die. It was that fact that both united us and separated us from the others. Together in youth, we were bonded on the schoolyard and at home, in certain undeniable ways neither one of us much cared to acknowledge.

Mackie was in the hospital room when his stepfather entered into whatever kind of existence awaits us after this world. As I’ve gotten older and the routines of hospital wards have grown more familiar, I can’t help but think of the considerable toll this experience must have taken on a ten-year-old boy. I’m reminded of all those late nights and that frozen minute hand, the sterile hallways and those shitty waiting room magazines. It must have been horrible.

I, on the other hand, was lucky enough to not know mine. One day, while on the way home from the library, I saw a pedestrian hit by a long black car, the kind that coughs up ugly wisps of smoke as it creeps down the road. This man flew back, his head hitting the curb with an audible crack. While on the ground, his body began coiling and uncoiling in the most unnatural way, as if possessed. I remember the distinct design the blood made on the pavement, like a perverse Rorschach test. I remember seeing a rabbit head.

All of which brings us to the bridge and the habit we developed over the course of our tenth summer. Behind my house, there was a thin, dusty trail that wound its way down to an embankment and gave way to a creaky old wooden bridge, held together only by luck and leftover lumber. I was the one who came up with the idea to leap off of it, though it was Mackie who had the heart to make that initial jump and see it all come into fruition.

“See you on the other side!” he yelled as he made the inaugural leap. I couldn’t allow myself to look because, for a brief moment, I fully expected to never see little Mackie Rohmer alive again. When he landed on the embankment, his legs gave out and he slipped into a nice cushion of mud, negating the impact. Nobody could’ve been more relieved than me when his screams turned out to be nothing more than uncontrollable bouts of laughter.

It took another week of Mackie’s relentless convincing for me to make the jump. The embankment didn’t look so far away atop the bridge. However, as I jumped, the two seconds it must of taken seemed to stretch on for what seemed to be an eternity. I remember having enough time to wonder how much farther I had to fall.

The impact was first felt in my knees. It seemed to echo throughout my body, and I thought I heard my rib cage rattle a little bit. Mackie must have said something after that first jump, but, if he did, I sure as hell don‘t remember it. The world itself had gone quiet, as if underwater. Without any prompt, I climbed out of the embankment and made the jump again. I wanted to do this until my hesitation had left me. It never did. Not fully.

Over the course of our tenth, eleventh, and twelfth summers, we developed what could be categorized as an obsession to the bridge. Every year, the bridge grew older and more dangerous. Since we grew up alongside it, we appreciated the new challenges it presented. During this time, we spoke to one another on a wild variety of subjects, including (but not limited to) girls, the future, Saturday morning cartoons, and which teachers made for the easiest A. We never spoke about the bridge, though. Never the bridge. That would’ve seemed ridiculous. Have often do you talk about breathing?

Mackie was once a boy made up of infinite detail, quirks like the bricks of a house. I remember the Chaplin-esque glasses and the scabby knees. Most of all, I remember his crooked nose, the unfortunate aftermath of his summer spent as little league shortstop. Time has flattened those details and rendered him just another old man, too much like myself. All old men look like flightless birds. We’re too angular at the top and too fat in the middle.

Our hearts give out too often as well. There is no better reminder of this than the minute hand on a clock in the Erlanger Hospital waiting room. It took a couple of minutes to gather myself before going to try to talk to Mackie. When I got to him, he wasn’t much able to talk back, though I can only imagine what we would have said with time so scarce.

I’d imagine we’d finally talk about the intense feeling that resided in our stomachs when we jumped, and the deep-seeded longing we had on those sweltering summer nights, a feeling not unlike being in love. I remember how it feels to have it all in front of you and how overwhelming that can be. I sometimes still feel like this and I knew, in his final hours, Mackie did as well.

"See… you… on… the other…” he whispered.

He didn’t get to finish, though I knew what he meant entirely.

I may finally finish Down and Yonder next week, before the end of January. I want to immediately go into my next one. I am trying to adhere to a two script a year regiment (one for the spring, one for the fall). It's a schedule I feel pushes me, but doesn't rush me. Stephen King and Michael Chabon believe in a 1,000 word a day schedule. I believe Hemingway did a 700 word a day schedule. It's all about finding what works and sticking with it, even on the lousy days.

The look for long-term employment continues. One of the great drawbacks to freelance work is that you are always hunting, which is exhausting. But, then again, Dad says I have the rest of my life to have a 9-5 job. Might as well to do this while my system can still withstand shocks to it.

So far, 2010 is a good year. Fun year to say, an even better year to be apart of.

Flippo