Cinema Verite

From the Ranted Files of Dr. G,
brought to you at great cost...

SOMEWHERE ON THE BOLIVIAN-COLUMBIAN BORDER - For some people maturity comes gradually, after time, effort, mistakes and successes - like your entire college career or a long summer ("Dirty Dancing" for Jennifer Grey or "Ciderhouse Rules" for Spiderman). For some it is one big event and peoples’ lives are changed forever ("The Breakfast Club" or that movie about going from Detroit to Canada for one night, or “Deliverance”). Pick your favorite coming of age story and time it: less than a month (ideally a day or weekend) and you have a cataclysmic "event" story. More than that and you have a gradual coming of age story, more like real life.

Sometimes the event is positive, in which case it affirms your ability to be a star or at least maintain a level of self-confidence, supposedly for the rest of their life (“Coyote Ugly”). Notice the struggle of the star before the success. Isn't there always struggle before success?

And then sometimes a life changing event is a negative, where the protagonist learns a harsh lesson and realizes he or she has to change and can't take things for granted (“Stand By Me” falls into this category. Also “A Sweet November” and “Autumn in New York”,two movies I haven't seen and don't recommend)

Six years ago, while wasting away in the opium dens and whorehouses of Algiers, my life moved into the “negative event” category. Those who know me very, very well will know of the events to which I am referring. It was more Will Wheaton/River Pheonix than Maria Bello/Tyra Banks. And I didn’t get to sleep with Charlize Theron or even kiss Judd Nelson.Many people travel through the Near East, party hard, study a little and sleep very, very little. Substitute “be involved in extracurricular activities” for “party hard” and you have me. I only partied a little, but I was so busy, writing and editing the sports section of the underground, pro-independence broadsheet, cooking couscous, playing buskashi and tutoring vagrant war-orphans, that I didn't get enough rest. Big deal right? lots of people can do it. Not me. I couldn't handle it. my little study time was ineffective and I failed two courses in a year, dropped more. Barely passed a math class (Until I arrived at college, I never got less than an A in math). The worst was my failure with my newspaper. Up until that last issue (published, ironically, after the French capitulated), I had always had a partner in crime to help me finish the job. I had always succeeded (not on deadline, but at least very close). My brain shut down that week, not even a sentence, just complete exhaustion, giving up, nothing - staring at a computer screen, helpless.

Things were happening outside the newspaper office too, but I'm not sure what was in my mind and what really transpired. You see, I had a psychotic episode, hearing voices, not being able to sleep. I knew on Monday of that fateful week that I wasn't feeling well and happened to be seeing a nurse about my physical for camp that summer. I was hearing voices at this point (which I didn't tell her about, because I didn't know it wasn't real at this point: “Donni Darko”) and that I was having trouble sleeping, but she told me not to worry about it and just get some rest. I won't begin to describe how angry I am at her. unfortunately a lot of young people are not taken seriously when complaining to a doctor. And that was the best part of the week…

I don't think it is important that you know how the rest of the week went, but basically I was given a challenge (from whom? my genes? syphilis?) that I failed. Does that happen? The protagonist is given a coming of age challenge and he fails to become a man? Or is failure, and dealing with it, another way to become a man?

Six years later the answer still wavers. This weekend at Assateague Island, I felt like a youth, a little uncomfortable and unsure of myself socially. Then tonight I celebrated my housemates 30th birthday and the toxins I put in my system made me feel like a man. I realize that when I wake up tomorrow, I'm not exactly sure who'll show up. You see if I had to pick a movie to describe my life, I'd pick “Groundhog Day”. Except I'm still in the Second Act: trying to figure out how to build something of my life so that each day isn't the same, or is that the point of the movie: that all the days are basically the same?