DOGS AFTER DARK

Well, the movie is ~actually~ about students researching the afterlife by experimenting on themselves. (SPOILERS) They experience brief afterlife experiences that haunt them in real life, so they keep flatlining to try and solve the mystery--or whatever. Themes of addiction, a junkie character, and addictive behavior, are definitely present, but it’s less about getting high and more about obsession. 

So I was close–and in my defense A LOT of the flatlining takes place in an urban loft perfect for shooting up: 

This ad got me like a fishhook. It literally, physically jerked me back in front of my TV. ​Everyday we wade through an endless stream of distraction and bids for attention. We train ourselves to stay on course; ignore the blinking pop ups, dodge the clickbait, don’t waste time on commercials. So, when I actually get got, I take notice. Whoever created this is undoubtedly my sister, and I feel that familial connection right away. We are inspired by the same things, provided by our shared culture. In this instance, a song from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, “Golden Afternoon.” 

Nostalgia is a community trust that we are all privileged to draw upon. A shared source of inspiration, joy, and all the other good feels. It’s an instant connection. It’s a potent, magical force that helps us relate to each other and strengthens the bonds of our society. So where do we draw the line between homage and cheap imitation?

For starters, do not WEAPONIZE my nostalgia and use it to target me. The answer is simple. it’s an equal equation, to draw from our community wellspring you need to add to it. Give me the IT movie reboot. Give me Pokemon Go! Give me Stranger Things. Give me kindling to feed the ancient, smoldering fire of creation. I need art produced with passion, and purity of purpose. Chobani is similar to Nestle, who pays next to nothing to extract groundwater from public aquifers, and then sells it back to the public for an astounding profit.

For the sake of comparison, I’ve provided an example of art that also draws on Alice and Wonderland for inspiration. The artist, POGO, creates songs and music videos using media found solely in the movie he is paying tribute to. He covers a lot of the Disney classics like Snow White and Mary Poppins, and has several playlists dedicated to other (non-Disney) movies that have also inspire him. 

It’s odd--despite my outrage, I can't help but reach out emotionally to the brilliant mind behind the Chobani ad. There is a bond between us, and for this, I love them almost as much as I hate them. They are a dark wizard, wielding this beautiful force for a sinister purpose. They are Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, loving something so much they scoop out its guts and wear its skin. 

I don’t know anything about The Big Sleep except that I could use one. The dogs hate homework and they pull stunt after stunt in an attempt to derail me. Good attention, bad attention, it’s all the same. Billie Jean squares her footing and gets me straight in the eyes, she snaps her front teeth–that’s dog for “fuck you.” You can’t give anything away or she’ll go all night. So I go about my business, not bothering to avoid eye contact and playing it straight when engaged. She’s quiet while observing my route through the kitchen, but the energy from her gaze is overwhelming. Billie Jean is the loudest dog I know; when she shuts up, it’s to dramatic effect. I crawl on top of my bed. Billie Jean is up immediately and gallops past me into Jamie’s room. She doesn’t waste a minute. If she’s not stamping her feet, yelling at me about god knows what, or knockin’ things around just to trash the place, she’s staring out that damn window. She’s a real nutcase. I put down a slim quarter of the book and call it a night.

My internal voice is extremely suggestible to my media diet. I am only so many pages in and already, like the spontaneous gathering of storm clouds on an otherwise sunny day, the voice is starting to build inside me. My resources are limited; I’ve never seen a Humphrey Bogart movie and managed to avoid the whole detective genre thus far. Instead, the voice is a curated blend of other media references. Like the cartoon news reporter, an old timey sort, with the trench coat, matching fedora, and a piece of paper stickin’ out the hatband. I run a tongue around my internal dial. Sharp and punchy with an aggressive cadence, cool the excitement a bit, more relaxed, or indifferent. Add a little Batman for grit. Is this what hardboiled sounds like? The voice sticks to the text for now, but will inevitably bleed into the rest of me. The next evening I come home late. It’s dark outside and the lights are on in Jamie’s room. I can see Billie Jean’s silhouette in the window. She always sees me first. When I get close she disappears from the window and meets me at the door. Luna must have arrived that afternoon while I was out. Everyone’s yipping and clawing when I come in. I harness that momentum and we head out for the night walk. Harlem gets real filthy when the lights are out. The meanest cats you’ve ever seen sit open on the sidewalk, inviting confrontation. Greasy, patchy coats, covered in scars and filth, maybe missing an eye or a tail. They don’t even flinch at a pack of dogs barreling toward them, straining against their leashes, thirsting for violence. Giant garbage bags rustle erratically, providing thin cover for the hordes of rats writhing around inside. The rats run back and forth across the sidewalk, leaving trails of pizza crusts and stripped down chicken bones–I learned a hard lesson once about open toed shoes at night. One thing is certain, nobody feels obliged to sneak around like they do in the blessed light of day.

Billie Jean is so rigid she’s humming, taut like trip wire. Brittany spaniels are uniquely capable hunters. Billie’s thoughts move rapid fire and her eyes follow, the rest of her body can hardly keep up. She’s pure impulse, bred as host to this volatile mental hardware. I admire that she has a true path in life, a neural reward system that is incontrovertible. This “gift,” however, is a burden to us both. Restlessness and anxiety permeate her downtime, and she acts out for her own amusement, often at my expense. Luna, on the other hand, she’s a real night crawler. She has a genuine sense about the way things work out here. She doesn’t hunt, she scavenges. While the other dogs waste time chasing rats or cats they’re never going to catch, Luna goes the other way; she goes for what is being left behind, goes for the gutted garbage bag and slime covered sidewalk patches. Luna was born feral, found rollicking around the Georgia countryside with her littermates. They were split up and rushed through the rescue system before they could out-grow any opportunities. Luna was listed as a Golden Retriever, despite all evidence to the contrary, because a name brand always improves your chances of a sale. When the time came, she was drugged, spayed, and shoved into a car with her new parents; by the time she came to she was already at her new home in New York City. She’s just about as crazy as you could imagine, given the circumstances. In any case, if you’re going to be utterly deranged, it helps to live in a nice house with wealthy people footing the bill for your well-being.

Billie Jean is stuck in one direction, the wrong direction, and won’t let me take us home. I whisper urgently and point to a cat down my chosen path. Her eyes bore into my hand. I lose the hand and gesture with my body, but she’s still stuck on the hand. We lose the cat. Finally indoors, I set up on the chaise, book in hand. Joe Brody tosses a cigar to Marlowe and as he reaches for it, Brody pulls a gun on him (Chandler, 78). One of my favorite tricks, most dogs can’t help but fall for it. Great instincts.

Luna joins me on the chaise, but instead of tucking in besides me like a normal dog, she faces toward me. She wants my eyes. It is not enough to just idly pet her, she wants your full attention. I try to loosely wrap my arms around her and hold the book up behind her head. She’s not buying it; before you can say “scram” she’s got her foot my mouth and tongue in my ear. Disgusting. I gently redirect her advances. Sore from rejection she drapes herself over me. It can’t be comfortable, but it’s the closest thing to a cuddle she’s capable of providing. I finish the book and leave Luna to take a shower and get ready for bed. I am not doing a very good job of infiltrating my enemies’ minds. The voice is my daily narrator now. I try to keep him busy, we write a shocking number of pages about Harlem at night and dog behaviors. I’ve absorbed so many voices over the years across all mediums: the hypochondriac boy from Secret Garden, Ramona Singer from The Real Housewives of New York, Millhouse’s dad from The Simpsons, and that’s just to name a few. I’ve completely lost myself in a cloud of imaginary cigarette smoke, and for what? What profound, emotional truths have I uncovered? That I should be committed? That the fedora would never be the symbol of desperation it is today, if it hadn’t first been a symbol of masculinity? This is the best I can do. I’m a complete hack; I’m stuck on the hand with all the same self-seriousness of our resident huntress. 

Finally ready, I hit the lights to my room. Luna’s laying on my bed with my roommate’s socks spread out like rose petals. Small, white, predatory teeth, OK legs. She’s a total Carmen, just what the voice needs (Chandler, 154). She beckons me toward her so I climb in. She leans back, far back, enough to trigger gravity. The voice leers, “God you’re dumb.”

Our protagonist Arlen, played by Suki Waterhouse, is kicked out of the US and dropped into a fenced off desert territory designed to contain society’s undesirables. Immediately she is captured by a cannibal tribe and chained up so they can saw off her limbs one by one. Best of all, these cannibals are BODY BUILDERS and obviously they need their FUCKING PROTEIN. 

Pretty sweet gym for a dystopia! 

Look at this crazy guy! I really can’t get enough of these body building cannibals, it’s pure genius. 

We are eventually introduced to the cannibal known as “MIAMI MAN,” played by Jason Momoa. His name comes from the big “MIAMI MAN” tattoo on his chest. Perfect! 

MIAMI MAN is a sensitive, glasses wearing, child having cannibal, who is also an artist. He goes on a big quest, blah blah balh. He’s wearing the WORST pants the whole time, but they don’t hold him back at all--it’s really inspiring.

Meanwhile, Arlen loses an arm and a leg before she escapes dramatically on a skate board. She ends up in a friendlier outpost called Comfort run by The Dream (Keanu Reeves). She somehow acquires a prosthetic leg, these super cool shorts, and a house--I’d like to hear that story, but time has cut forward. 

I’ve never been to burning man, but this is how I imagine it. There are politics going on here in this outpost, serious politics. The Dream has a harem. Everyone raves and does LSD for free. There are fellow cannibal survivors crutchin’ around. We are unconfirmed about most basic utilities, but they at least have a functional sewage system. There’s a lot going on. Paths will cross. Times will change. Here’s some more footage of the cannibal gym: 

Honestly, my only gripe is that no one is wearing sun screen or adequately protecting themselves from the sun in any way, and they aren’t getting burnt. So unrealistic!

Enter the Pocahontas Braided Beauty Barbie Doll and Automated Braider Accessory. Do you see the FEAR in the eyes of this child? Do not blame the machine my friends, for the machine is only as smart as the humans who create it. 

And what about these humans? Who are the deranged minds behind this CHILDS’ TOY? There had to be a team of people working on this. From inception, creation, green light, production, marketing, distribution, whatever the steps were, whatever journey this masterpiece went on, did anyone once stop to give this device a field test? Try it out on their own beloved children? If they did, maybe they would have noticed that it doesn’t work. There is literally no part of this machine that works, at all. 

Here’s how this whole thing goes down. Find someone who trusts you, a friend, a sibling. Clamp two chunks of their hair into Meeko’s hands, blindly adjust the gear at the bottom (there are no instructions for the gear adjustment, the gear adjustment is a hoax), then you just pull the trigger and enjoy the carnage! Their hair will be as gone as your innocence. With every menacing rotation of Meeko’s clamp hands twisting the knife of fear deeper and deeper into your young, naive psyche. Forever tainting, not only your trust in Disney, but your trust in adults in general. Why Pocahontas, why? Is this how your people felt when you sided with those sexy colonial terrorists? 

I presented this quote along with the graffiti to my friend Sam, she lives in Chicago, works in law enforcement (not a cop) and just so happens to be a street gang specialist. Her reply:  

Sam’s right, the literal definition of a gang is “an organized group of criminals.” Which brings us to our next avenue of possibilities, are both authors brainwashed by gangs? Most likely, yes. Google also supplied several sources to support Sam’s take.