Movie Review – The Giver

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxFJvlWqphM&w=853&h=480]
With Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Brenton Thwaites, Alexander Skarsgård, and Katie Holmes; Written by Michael Mitnick and Robert B. Weide; Directed by
Phillip Noyce; Rated PG-13 for a mature thematic image and some sci-fi action/violence. 94 minutes.

“The book was better than the movie,” is usually a statement made not as a matter of fact, but as shorthand to say, “I have the mental focus, the copious leisure time, and the kind of cultured upbringing required to actually read a book, you illiterate, populist plebian.” Making the comparison is not only passive-aggressively dickish–and often spoken with the same teeth-gnashed, barely-contained, Thurston Howell III disdain as the dig “I don’t even own a television”–but also misses the point. Yes, Plato, men and women sure are different, a dog is not a cat, and a book is not a movie. And congratulations–you’re an insufferable baggadouchio and a master of the obvious. Now, in the spirit of the book, take off your shirt, lie face-down on the bed, and prepare to be on the receiving end of an unpleasant rub.

Predictably, many will make the same ol’ snooty-snotty Buch-über-Film claim of THE GIVER, the long-brewing adaptation of Lois Lowry’s 1993 dystopian YA novel. “The Giver” tells the story of young Jonas (Brenton Thwaites of “Maleficent”), the oldest child in a future-y planned community (that looks very much like Walt Disney’s original vision for EPCOT). Here, life is perfect, because it is engineered that way, from the precision of the language, to the job you will train for starting at age 12, to the person you will marry. But Jonas is very different and special, and his very different specialness catches the attention of the Elders (the Chief of which is played by a surprisingly one-note Meryl Streep). The Elders inform Jonas that his path is that of “The Receiver,” the esteemed keeper of all the knowledge of the very, very bad world that came before. This reality is kept from the citizenry, which is kept in docile darkness with a daily morning dose of what’s probably a cocktail of Zoloft, lithium, and Flintstones chewable salt peter (kind of like a hypodermic Philip Glass record). His secretive, not-at-all-creepy man-boy training with “The Giver” (producer Jeff Bridges) begins, and he takes it upon himself that the world should know all the joys and horrors that existed in it before it turned so very, very bad.

However, ‘baggery-be-damned, “the book was better than the movie” is a hard claim to support here, as neither the book nor the movie is particularly well-written. Rather, they are both spartan to the point of being vague, and in both cases we never recover from the awkwardness of the very structured and precise language (also: why Bridges talks like Carl from “Sling Blade” is never explained). Neither the book nor the movie is refreshing, either, instead smacking of a forgettable, late-series “Twilight Zone” episode, in much the same way that M. Night Shyamalamadingdong’s derivative “The Village” did. The book is significant, though, as it was the modern dystopian novel that primed the pump for the likes of “The Hunger Games,” “Divergent,” and [whatever the kids are totes-magotes into this school year]. This may or may not be a crime against humanity, depending on how difficult it is to get your child to read a book without the aid of a quarantine, histrionic ransoming of handheld devices, or an EMP that mercifully takes out the power grid.

The gimmick in which a character sees only in black-and-white until he or she finds enlightenment was done defter in 1998’s “Pleasantville.” That movie’s director, Gary Ross, directed the first “Hunger Games” movie and created with it an immersive post-apocalyptic world. Here, the usually stalwart mercenary Phillip Noyce (TV’s “Revenge” and a laundry list of fair-to-middling movies you’ve probably half-enjoyed on cable TV over the years) makes the right stops through Lowry’s book, but in a very mechanical, book report-y kind of way. And for every dystopian cliché that adapters Robert B. Weide (“Woody Allen: A Documentary”) and first-timer Michael Mitnick avoid, like milking a romantic off-roading between Jonas and Fiona (Odeya Rush of “The Odd Life Of Timothy Green”), they are saddled with servicing two of Lowry’s clunkers. There’s the one in which Jonas must single-handedly free the world from its ignorance, and the one that has the entire society hidden away and not allowed to have knowledge of its very, very bad past. If romantic trope fetishist Nicholas Sparks wrote sci-fi, this would be his “Logan’s Run.”

It is the illustration of this very, very bad past during which the movie’s jagged seams become evident. When the Giver is imparting visions of the world before to Jonas via a handshake/psychic link (which was wisely changed from the slightly-nambla-riffic, half-naked back-rubbing in the book), they actually use GODDAMN YOUTUBE CLIPS. Nice production value, guys! Did you shoot the rest of the film on iPhones? Text-message script revisions back-and-forth? It is this kind of laziness that sums up the long journey of a movie that actually had the chance to rise above its unspectacular upbringing, but instead plays it safe and lives out its destiny as a cable TV staple that you kinda watch because you kinda remember it from middle school. It makes you wish that with all the apologizing that goes on between the characters in the movie that Bridges would show up in a post-credits stinger scene and say sorry for not giving us enough movie for our $11.00.•••

North Shore Movies has given this film a score of 2 out of 5.Robert Newton is Editor of North Shore Movies Weekly, and also the founder of the wicked quaint, living-room-style Cape Ann Community Cinema in Gloucester.

No Snark Sunday: Luck, The Police

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A lot of us this weekend are thinking about Ferguson Missouri which seems to have taken the bad news we typically see coming out of other countries full of foreign people and landed it right in the USA: Uncountable paramilitary police firing rubber bullets on crowds, reporters getting detained and all in the wake of an unjustifiable shooting. Where is this, Uruguay or something? It’s Missouri? What? Didn’t they all seem so nice and polite during the World Series to our typical Boston assholishness? What the hell happened? At least when our Boston cops were running around in camo all jacked with military hardware they were going after actual terrorists. Take a lesson, “Show Me State” (and what the fuck does that even mean?).

Armored police vehicle responding to guy who'd planted actual bombs

Armored police vehicle responding to guy who’d planted actual bombs

I don’t care if the kid in Ferguson did rob a store, you don’t shoot fleeing, unarmed people in the back. Not here, not ever. There is no justification for this, none.

And calling the aftermath a “militarized” response is an insult to our military who know a lot better than to run into a bunch of angry civilians with MRAPS and start pointing the assault rifles with all the nifty tubes on them at everybody. They aren’t acting like soldiers, they are acting like a 9 year old with  Nerf guns.

American cop in our actual country. Note gloves.

Ferguson cop dealing with civilian unrest caused by fellow officer killing an unarmed teenager

 

No gloves.

A far more responsible rifleman awaits a target

But luckily this is not going down HERE here. We are incredibly lucky to have a police force in Gloucester that is actually a community force. I grew up around cops, cops in Lynn no less. I can tell you that years of dealing with idiot criminals all day can change you. If every interaction you have during your work day is with shirtless dudes who just punched their girlfriend, you start to see the world differently. Your brain starts taking shortcuts- “Guy with no shirt, drinking Monster Energy drink, white hat with flat brim worn at askew angle…hmmm…wonder if he has any warrants?” (spoiler: he does).

In the end, cops are human but it’s all about training and tactics. The military’s primary mission is to fight, the police are here to protect. Once you start crossing the streams it becomes a huge pain in the ass for everyone. Like the Marathon Bombings, there are going to be times when the cops need to go after armed, demented bad guys out to do as much damage as possible. But that is not, repeat NOT what was going on in Ferguson. After the not-at-all-surprising reaction to their own straight-up killing of a guy, the cops there just broke into the toy chest and ramped the whole thing up.

Hey, Ferguson cops: The response to a civilan reaction to police brutality is not A METRIC FUCKTON MORE POLICE BRUTALITY WITH A BUNCH OF SHIT FROM THE HOMELAND SECURITY HOLIDAY CATALOG.

I experienced a far, far more minor version of outsized police response in a nearby town a decade or so ago where I was in a convenience store with my brother, who happens to resemble the average of any given Ramones lineup. The Fuzz-by-the-Sea burst in with guns drawn while we were buying sodas and snak mix because the owner of the store had called 911 to report the counter phone had been suspiciously busy for an hour.

This shit is starting to get depressing so I'm adding kittens.

This shit is starting to get depressing so I’m adding kittens.

Apparently protocol for that situation in a town where the police notes are heavy with “suspicious van” sightings and the occasional coyote, required bursting into the place with irises the size of tea saucers and pupils the size purely theoretical particles, then sighting down on two random shabby-looking dudes (We’d been working on my house all day) yelling all kinds of cop-orders bullshit like “Show me your hands NOW!” which were already pretty much shown what with the snak mix and the Coke Classic in them preventing me from wielding any kind of weapon more dangerous than whatever the fuck terrible chemicals the ranch dressing powder is made of.

Say your prayers, Copper!

Say your prayers, Copper!

This is what these officers decided the best response to the “busy signal” situation was. Rather than calmly walking in and finding that the somewhat pronounced keister of the behind-the-counter employee had knocked the phone off the hook and thus making it so the owner couldn’t call in, they went with “tactical assault from Bruce Willis movie.” For the record: I am whiter than Al Gore in a sweatervest playing ukulele at a Farmer’s Market, which is probably the only thing that kept them from shooting me dead on the spot.

In Gloucester I can’t imagine that happening. Or if it did, at least we would all laugh about it after the Glocks got holstered, rather than the cops keeping up the massive dickhead attitude like in that town-I-won’t-mention-the-name-of even after we figured out the whole ass thing. Even after the phone got hung back up they continued to aggressively question us, as if this was all part of our supercriminal plot to release an army of robot zombies on their golf course or something. Officer, it was the clerk’s ass. There is no further investigation to be done. You don’t need to see my ID or ask me what my “purpose” here is. That shit is self-evident (see: mix, snak).

In contrast, the police in Gloucester, despite having to deal daily with the problems concurrent with poverty, drugs and alcohol abuse are an actual community police force. Most officers live in town, they know everybody and overall they work to solve problems rather than gin up confrontations. I have only ever had positive interactions with them, even when they were dealing with some messy situations. I’ll tell y’all about my heroin dealer neighbors in Lanesville some other post, but they handled it with respect and care not only to us and themselves, but to the suspects as well. And I have to admit that after living next to these idiots for six months I was ready to see some nightsticking or at least a mild pistol whipping when the bust finally went down. There was none of that. The GPD were a class act all the way.

Side note: the GPD also didn’t wear “tactical gloves” like total tools when busting the drug dealers, unlike the guys responding to the “suspicious busy signal” call. Jesus what assholes those guys were.

There were thousands of illustrations I could have used to make this point. I chose this one.

There were thousands of illustrations I could have used to make this point. I chose this one.

The Ferguson thing is terrifying because it combines about every flash point in our society: Race, inequality, the increasing availability of military-grade hardware, social media and the pervasiveness of video recording surpassing traditional media as an information source. As a Gloucesterite I feel profoundly lucky to live in a place where the vast majority of us feel like we’re in this thing together and the biggest enforcement concern seems to be dog crap on the beach.

As an American, I’m ready to do what it takes to make “unarmed black guy killed” something that stops happening. Like, ever.

Clamspectives Over the Bridge: Salem

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This guest column is the product of Josh Turiel, an actual Salem elected official and dear friend of the Clam. It is a testament to the growing alt-lifestyle nature of Salem that he’d willingly have his name associated with our blog in all it’s vulgartainmentness.

Greetings, Clam Nation! Many of you who have never crossed the bridge wonder about life in the rest of America. Well, as a man with many friends and clients in Gloucester, I thought it was my duty to try and do a mini-Clamsplainer of sorts, to introduce you to the world outside. And I’m starting with my home, Salem. So I’ll guide you through a visit to my city, and then we’ll tell you a bit about our culture so you can judge for yourself.

Salem is about 16 miles or so down the line from Gloucester, assuming you take 128 down to Route 22. This also assumes you own an “off-island” car. If you don’t’ have an off-island car, the train runs frequently from any of the Gloucester stops to Salem’s MBTA station, right in the middle of downtown. It’s also a very pretty ride.

You will wind up sitting next to this dude
Except will wind up sitting next to this dude and his mom

Once in Salem, you’ll notice that our downtown is a little bigger. Please don’t go up to the first person you see and ask them where the witch stuff is. You’re from Gloucester, so you’re way hipper than that. Stay cool, it’s worth it.If you want to snack after your long journey, there’s a bunch of options. Right up Washington Street from the station is a bit of a foodie/hipster Mecca. We have, in a whole batch of not-quite-interconnected storefronts, Gulu-Gulu (a hipster café with coffee and beer that helped spark our downtown revival), Flying Saucer Pizza Company (hipster pizza) and the Ugly Mug Diner (a hipster foodie diner, which is a freaking trifecta). [Clameditor’s note: we had the duck confit sandwich at the Ugly Mug last week and nearly died of mouthgasam. Gulu and Flying Saucer are also way cool, our most recent waitress had a diagram of the solar system tattooed down her back. We can learn much from these Wiccan weirdos to our South. –ed] Right across Essex Street from these are Harrison’s Comics and Collectibles and Army Barracks. The cool radiates from all these buildings like an oasis in the desert.

Yes, hipsters. Those are bikes.
Yes hipsters, those are bikes.

Assuming you don’t get wheeled off in a foodie coma from your initial encounter with our downtown, there’s more to see. Walk across Washington Street and stroll down the pedestrian mall. There’s a lovely toy shop (Mud Puddle Toys) on the right a few feet in. Just past that is the entrance to Derby Square. Derby Square itself is the gateway to many things. The pretty old building you’ll see there is Old Town Hall, the place from which we recently ejected a certain LGBT-unfriendly institute of higher learning. Our weekly Farmers Market is held on the other side of that building every Thursday from 3-7. It’s insanely busy. We like our organic veggies in Salem.

Just on the opposite corner of that square on the mall is a small bookstore. Some of you may remember the former Derby Square Bookshop. It was a marvel of Jenga, and it closed this past spring. But hurrah! It was bought by a local couple and, after bringing it up to modern safety standards (turns out you need to be able to turn and get to an exit, who knew?). it’s been re-opened as “Wicked Good Books”. And it’s awesome. Still plenty of used/bargain books, but with new books you can actually find and enough room for more than one shopper at a time.

Flourish and Blotts? More like those shelves flourished and plotz. Oy.

Flourish and Blotts? More like those shelves overflourished and plotz. Oy.

Strolling down Essex Street farther, we have the delightful Pamplemousse (a kitchen things shop with a great selection of wines and Good Stuff beers), a little chocolate shop called Turtle Alley that may seem somewhat familiar to many of you, and on the left there is a building arguably known as a “mall” from which it’s said you can hear the Souls Of The Damned lament. Either that or all the failed retailers who were there before.

More seriously, there’s a decent Thai restaurant there, a very good indy movie theater, and a couple of interesting shops, but overall meh. The Peabody Essex Museum is the eastern anchor for our pedestrian way, and it’s consistently amazing. If you have an hour or two, go. And if you live in Salem, you get to go for free – which is a reason to move. It’s that good.

Turning south takes you towards our waterfront. Pickering Wharf is an old area of redevelopment with some cool shops and restaurants. Especially worth a visit are Scarlet Letter Press (a graphics shop and art gallery) and Joe’s Fish Prints/Tomo’s Tackle. Joe sells his Japanese-style fish prints in Gloucester also, you may have seen them there. Tomo sells tackle for those who want to go fishing, as well as people who want to simply hang lures on the wall. Restaurants in the Wharf include Brodie’s, Longboards, Finz, and Victoria Station.

Heading back to the downtown we have a cluster of witchy stuff along New Derby Street. Ignore if you like, or play tourist. At the corner of Lafayette and New Derby is the massive old Salem Laundry building (it was less massive until condos were built atop it about a decade ago). In that building are some neat boutiques and the ridiculously incredible A&J King bakery. Save calories for this because OMFG.

If you lick your screen you can taste them

If you lick your screen you can taste them

Past that building are more neat eats – the Howling Wolf on the opposite side of New Derby from the fire station is a terrific Mexican joint with long lines, and up in Artists Row (across from the fascinating humanity you can see by Walgreens) are galleries and exhibits of varying merit along with the Lobster Shanty – otherwise known as the place I can often be found inhabiting a barstool. Owned by the same person who owns the Ugly Mug, it’s dive bar food made by foodies.

Off the beaten path of the downtown loop slightly are some other businesses and attractions of note. All of these are generally walkable from the downtown area, though. The Philips House on Chestnut Street is a splendid “house museum” dating to the early 1800s, and it’s also got a cool collection of carriages and antique autos.

Just outside of downtown the old Salem Jail was converted into condos and there’s a really, really good burger restaurant in it (A&B Burgers). Out on Bridge Street Neck you’ll find the un-West Marine – Nautical Traders – where they have an amazing collection of useful and useless marine paraphernalia. Across the street from that is Coffee Time Bake Shop, where they make pricey but delicious old-school bakery treats and have recently branched into hipster donuts. I nearly got diabetes from one of the S’mores donuts. Just one.

Keeping with the sweets theme, there’s Ye Olde Pepper Company (the legit oldest candy maker in the US) on Derby Street, and down at the end of Congress Street you can find Harbor Sweets, a high-end candy maker that’s pretty much a bastion of socialism. In the best way, not the “herp derp” way. And, of course, when you are on Derby Street and you want to go see the Custom House and our tall ship that’s always being shortened because they have to take masts down to fix the latest rot problem, we have Bunghole Liquors. It’s not a super-large store but you’ll want to take your picture with the neon sign. Because Salem.

Dirty entendre and booze? The Clam approves.

Dirty entendre and booze? The Clam approves.

There’s more to see if you’re in a car (you DO have an over the bridge car, right?) or take a trolley around town. Our neatest attraction (in my opinion) outside the downtown is the Salem Willows – out at the far eastern edge of the city sticking out into Beverly Harbor. The Willows is a former small amusement park that has a fishing pier, legendary popcorn, and all sorts of honky-tonk arcades, skee-ball, lousy Chinese food, and fried things. It’s like a permanent Fiesta. We also have a new gourmet clam shack that was built in an old bathroom building. Known to Salem “insiders” as the Potty Clams. The nearby neighborhood is worth a stroll, with small Victorian-era cottages and great views.

The really creepy thing is that he doesn't even work there

The really creepy thing is that he doesn’t even work there

Salem has a number of other parks and recreational areas, too. In the geographic center of town (roughly) off Willson Street we have Old Salem Greens municipal golf course, with the really cool Salem Woods hiking trails next to it. A great place to go see wildlife and get ticks on your legs. But if you use good bug spray you can do tons of birdwatching out there. Winter Island is a great recreational area out in between the Willows and the old power plant. It’s made from a former Coast Guard facility where we had helicopters, seaplanes, and stuff. There’s a couple of beaches, camping areas, a big kid’s playground, boat ramps, a small general store, and hiking trails around the bones of an old colonial-era fort and the Coast Guard base. During the summer you pay to get in by car if you don’t live here but you can walk or bike in for free.

Hope this gives you a little introduction to our fair city and some of its attractions for the day tripper. In Part 2 of this series, I will introduce you to some of our citizenry. Coming soon to a clam near you!

Behold, Supermoon! Moons Over My Clammy Edition

Image

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Cops, parents, and retail workers will tell you that human beings become even more awful and unmanageable during a full moon, something about the tides and humans being 73.8% saltwater that shakes us up and makes us pointed jerks. Well what about a Supermoon in Gloucester? Field Clam-porter Jeremy McKeen was on the scene this past weekend trying to make sense of the phenomenon known as “Supermoon” and its effect on Fishtown. The results were not typical, however.

jeremy

Just like a factoid is in fact a wrong fact, not a “little fact” (as most often is reported, incorrectly), most people report the wrong definition of factoid so much that the word factoid has become the definition of itself, which is a cliched, trivial fact that has lost its meaning and is reported incorrectly over and over and is eventually accepted as whatever the meaning is that is attributed to it over and over. Whew.

The Supermoon, or “closer moon” is indeed a variety of factoid. But that doesn’t mean the myths don’t ring true.

jeremy2

FROM THE FIELD: DAY OF THE SUPERMOON

It turns out that Gloucester parents and kids are so beach-worn that the moon has very little effect in general. The vitamin D from the sun and their slight dehydration negates the effects of the moon pushing and pulling the tides within their tanned bodies. This leads to a calming acceptance of strange occurrences and occasions when something “full moon” happens, and something is always happening in Fishtown, whether you’re listening to neighbors set off fireworks or yet another Block Party or Bazaar work full motion toward the work week.

Landlocked masses trekked to Stage Fort Park peaceably from every part of Massachusetts, despite nine festivals happening simultaneously as well as three family reunions, four church picnic gatherings, eleven independent gatherings needing grills (who all properly disposed of their coals, as the stone monuments say), a smattering of dog park people, and locals trying to avoid the beach. Representatives from all separate Blues, Reggae, Folk, Alt. Country, Bike, Shriners, Worm, Cat, and Crafting festivals said that everything was beautiful and no one got hurt. The Cat Festival almost got out of hand when the crafters misplaced a giant ball of yarn, which was later located behind the Cupboard. With or without the Supermoon, you would have been able to predict that joke. Not the Glostafarians, though. They’re surprisingly humorless.

jeremy1

The night of the Supermoon I was returning to the McDonald’s/7-11 parking lot in exchange for a boy’s toy for my son’s Happy Meal – he received the Barbie toy instead, and if kids know anything about a $3 meal it’s that it should come with fruit and a gender-specific toy. The usual characters in this parking lot were orderly and few, and even the Redbox customers were timely and found exactly what they wanted. No one left their car running while choosing a movie or visiting inside for discounted cigarettes. Even the customers next door at the Car Wash tipped extra well.

Still, nothing much. The moon was fuller and closer. Where were the teenage werewolves breaking in the new field or wandering coyotes slurping out of backyard pools?

FROM THE POLICE LOG:

– A group of teenagers was apprehended outside of a Washington Street convenience store not soliciting adults to buy alcohol or vaping units but rather looking for notebooks and writing utensils to finish their summer reading, after which they planned on flossing and brushing, and going to bed at a reasonable hour.

– Man, 62, was caught using his turn signal at the Eastern Ave. Shaw’s impossible intersection. The man, who obeyed all the rules of traffic, was neither headed to the beach nor to the supermarket. He had no trouble navigating the six directions of traffic either.

– Woman, 44, with accomplices, parked legally and carried their trash to the barrel after their time at Good Harbor Beach, and parking at Stop & Shop was plentiful.

– Man, 27, paid charges and fees for placing his 4Loko cans in a neighbor’s recycling bin. The local man said he thought the bin was his and was remorseful for littering but was even moreso remorseful for being someone who is 27 and purchases 4Loko.

jeremy5

– Niles Beach parking was orderly and minimal from the hours of 12 and 3PM both Saturday and Sunday. And all the ice cream man’s prices were lowered 50 cents.

– Wingaersheek Beach slushies were reported to have stayed firm between the slushie cart and townie family blanket several hundred meters away.

– The larger-than-life but not larger-than-the-Death-Star “Supermoon” caused five Tedeschi regulars to ask even more questions about the taste of Mavericks vs. Checkers cigarettes and whether or not it was smarter to save money usually spent on scratch tickets than to spend it all every day on never winning.

– Local dog owners were not cited for leaving their dog doo-doo on the sidewalk. “We’re all waiting for late fall to let the steaming piles of our dog’s dookie sit and decompose during winter. Then – you know, so it’s just the right mix of mushy and nasty, children can step on it when the snow melts,” said local dog owner.

– A local gathering on the Annisquam River was dispersed after authorities mistook 30-something parents imitating hipsters. They were enjoying ‘smores un-ironically, drinking IPA in cans not Mason jars (mistaken for Pabst Blue Ribbon), and wearing regular glasses, not oversized novelty glasses. Their children, however, were cited for similar offenses.

– Local astronomers gathered to look at the “Supermoon” noting that a “Supermoon” is just a regular moon appearing eight percent bigger than normally, and up to thirty percent brighter than a normal full moon. “It’s like “Polar Vortex” or “Electoral College Super Voters” in terms of new made-up media phrases that sound official,” said group spokesman.

– Local supermarket employees returned to work after striking for several weeks. CEOs applauded their collective effort and offered them real pensions, health coverage, and a living wage. CEOs also contemplated splitting up their large, mainly carb-only product-carrying supermarkets into smaller farmers markets and craft food shops. “With all these millions of dollars it’s like I have the power to do good and not ill,” said local CEO millionaire.

– Local man, 35, writes “KEEP GLOUCESTER WEIRD” on local Gloucester Facebook page to the chagrin of real locals and confused transplants and then quickly deletes it.

– Local Shark enthusiast and expert, 55, told authorities that despite the “Shark Week” phenomenon in America, sharks are no more a threat than they ever were to Gloucester locals, and despite 300 million years of evolution, sharks are mostly cartilage and have not changed much over time.

A blessed Supermoon to you all, and beware the horizon.

jeremy3

When Being Funny Sucks

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I know, you’re probably expecting a Wicked Tuna recap, or Jeremy McKeen’s impending Supermoon article. We’ll get back to our regularly scheduled proclamming tomorrow. 

But we’re still reeling about Robin Williams. I bet you are, too. Right? How could it be that this bright, funny, famous, rich man who had given so much and was so loved still decided to take his own life?

Depression is a bitch, that’s why.

Yesterday, my fabulous blog partner and friend Jim Dowd wrote this wonderful long piece about what it’s like to have a brain that doesn’t stop, much like Robin Williams. He gets it. He’s been there.

I have been there, and I get it as well, but I come from a different angle – lifelong depression. Sometimes deep, sometimes not bothersome at all, but always a weird part of me I hate admitting is there, like a birth mark or third nipple.

I started being funny in middle school to get boys to like me. I was dorky, awkward, kind of grungy, and really liked the Foo Fighters and Weezer when most kids liked Destiny’s Child. In my defense, Dave Grohl was younger then, and didn’t tell people to get off his lawn.

"Oh, looks like my AARP signup form came in the mail! Better get my readin' glasses on."

“Oh, looks like my AARP signup form came in the mail! Better get my readin’ glasses on.”

I was not a popular kid, and no boys swooned over my existence. I cracked jokes, I learned the math of what “funny” is – a+b=punchline. Boys would befriend me because I was funny. I once threw an orange at a lunchroom clock because I thought it would be hilarious. It kinda was. It made people crack up, it was a rush, people thought I was funny. I thrived on that attention.

KT, middle, age 15. Because apparently black baggy clothes in mid-summer was necessary for some reason.

KT (center) age 15. Because apparently black baggy clothes in mid-summer was necessary for some reason.

Being funny seemed like the only way I could keep people around me. My self-esteem sucked, and high school didn’t make it any better. This was the advent of the internet, before parents even knew online bullying could possibly be a thing. Kids from my school were mean to me online and in person. I clung to humor because without it, I would have been lost in a sea of depression and hormones.

I tried half-heartedly to kill myself when I was sixteen. It was an impulsive, stupid decision. I ended up with a two-week stay in an adult inpatient ward where I had no contact at all with anyone from my school except for a few random friends visiting me. My best friend called me selfish for what I’d done and that I should try harder to be happier. I felt nothing but guilt for putting my poor, already-stressed parents through the hell I did. I had two weeks of eating shitty hospital food food, seeing people for whom mental illness fully controlled their lives, watching someone get off heroin cold turkey, and then a lot of conversations with real live adults who struggled but who gave me great coping advice. During the second week, a teenager set off the sprinkler system in the cafeteria to escape, ruining my textbooks and putting me further behind in schoolwork.

It was kinda like that, but with less Angelina Jolie and more old people peeing on the floor.

It was kinda like that, but with less Angelina Jolie and more old people peeing on the floor.

I got better eventually, but I was still impulsive. I once stole my mom’s car and drove forever. I got as far as mid-PA before running out of cash. I still couldn’t tell you why I did it, except a desperate, overwhelming need to get the fuck out of my town and my head. I was seventeen. I dropped out of high school. I finished eventually, but as an outcast, school was fucking abysmal. It took me six years to gain the courage to go to college.

The internet where originally I was bullied turned into a mechanism to meet other people. It saved my life – the groups of kids with similar mindsets, who liked similar bands, who would find me more than worthy of friendship. Before social media, you’d just have email list discussions. My email friends from towns away would become real friends – they’d pick me up and take me bowling or to play pool or go see a punk band, sometimes against my parents’ wishes. I cobbled together a hodgepodge group of friends, and even boyfriends, based on my humor, and then my emerging outgoing personality. I was able to snag my husband based on my snarky online personality.

My deadpan delivery of often vulgar humor has followed me since then. Life’s been great sometimes, and shitty other times, but I have thankfully stayed humorous, to my knowledge, throughout it all. Postpartum depression flared up with my second kid, and at times I grasped for straws. Again, the internet was there to reassure me that I wasn’t a bad parent and I’d be okay and normal, and with the correct medication, I’ve been happy.

Making other people laugh makes me feel better on a daily basis. Sometimes I feel it’s the only thing I can do right, but my rational brain know that’s a lie. It’s an infinite feedback loop of the most positive sort – make people laugh, the part of your brain that seeks a rush like booze or drugs is satiated by the laughter, and you do it again, and again. You are funny because it is necessary to the core of your being.

I’m lucky. I’m lucky because I have had the chance to have such happy times, and some people don’t get that chance. I have a rational part of my brain that keeps me from getting too low without seeking help. I have self esteem now – perhaps too much. I learned to take selfies and learned to love what I saw.

Selfies all day long.

Selfies all day long.

And I’ve met great people, again partially because of the internet. While I’ve gone full townie here in Gloucester, that was absolutely exacerbated by social media. I added people on Facebook. We got along. We made plans more. I suddenly had a wonderful friend circle in Gloucester that works so well alongside my other great friends “down the line” and those I only see online who have moved to far-flung, foreign locales like Africa, Beirut or South Florida.

Lookit how happy my face is here I mean really.

Lookit how happy my face is here I mean really.

I feel the deepest, most painful sorrow in my heart that Robin Williams was so depressed that he took his own life. I have known how he felt, the feeling pressing on your chest like you are being suffocated with every moment you exist. The realization that you’ve got everything in life, but there is a part of your brain that is broken and you can’t enjoy it. The impulse to swandive off the Piatt, that you immediately quell, put away, take a deep breathe, and move past.

I am intensely lucky that antidepressants exist. I am still here, and I’ll always be here, to listen to music on the beach, to watch my kids beat each other senseless with pool noodles, to drink cider, to ride bikes with the backdrop of the Atlantic. In the darkest hours when those small fleeting moments of happiness seem so far away, I will cling to my beautiful friends like lifeboats in a storm. They will not tell me I am selfish. I have come far.