Gone Too Soon: Tony Scott (1944-2012)

The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say

A number of thoughts came to mind upon hearing that famed Hollywood director Tony Scott, 68, had jumped to his death off the Vincent Thomas Bridge, Aug. 19, which is still being investigated as a suicide. The first of which were the lyrics I posted above from that Johnny Mandel song, “Suicide Is Painless”, which was the theme song from Robert Altman’s "M*A*S*H" (1970).

Upon reading some of the obituaries the morning of Aug. 20 the one thought I had that I didn’t even want to consider was when it comes to depression and suicide was that for all the work Scott did behind the cameras since the 1980s giving us such fast paced adrenaline rush themed movies from "Top Gun" (1986) to "Unstoppable" (2010) that on the inside, something was not right.

I hated to say it but when ABC News reported that Scott had been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, which was immediately disputed by his family, I reluctantly said to myself, well at least he went out on his own terms.

I only say that because I have known people which include a few of my relatives who although they didn’t choose the suicidal way out upon being diagnosed with a terminal illness, they did opt to spend their remaining days and weeks at home where they could die with dignity and not have to spend it inside a hospital room.

It brought to mind the question of how I would handle my own fate should I one day receive some terrible diagnosis that if I found out, for example, what I thought was just a bad tooth that was causing mood swings and headaches is really an inoperable brain tumor. How would I tell friends and loved ones considering how private a person I am?

The first thing I may do is just let my four or five closest friends know that the end is coming and how I want the final arrangements handled. I am not sure I would tell family members as the last thing I’d want is to have them insist I go get a second opinion. I certainly wouldn’t tell co-workers or management or tell everyone on my Facebook page. I would just want life to continue as though everything is status quo. I am not spending my remaining months in the hospital receiving painful treatment that only delays the inevitable.

The news now that the notes Scott left with friends and family members which make no mention of suffering from any terminal illnesses only leave more open-ended questions as to why he did it.

The 68-year-old director whose trademark was always being seen in public sporting a red ball cap was high in demand with a number of film projects in the works according to The Hollywood Reporter that included a remake of Sam Peckinpah’s western, "The Wild Bunch" (1969). Just two days before his death, Scott had reportedly met with actor Tom Cruise to discuss plans for a sequel to "Top Gun."

What kind of person who has so much going for him this late in life decides to end it?

I wonder if the answer lies in a quote from him, I found on imdb.com.

“The scariest thing in my life is the first morning of production on all my movies,” Scott once said. “It’s the fear of failing, the loss of face, and a sense of guilt that everybody puts their faith in you and not coming through.”

Tony Scott may have been a high-profile Hollywood producer and director with an impressive resume of successful box office hits but when it comes to depression, if that is what he was really suffering from, he is no more different than the millions of others across the country who currently battle the same ailment and too often give in to their demons.

I know a lot of people are going to tell me what Scott did was the selfish way out considering the number of friends and family that include his older brother Ridley, his third wife, Donna, and two children he could have relied on for help. My response to that is it’s not our place to judge nor is it any of our business to find out what he wrote in those notes.

I don’t know, to quote Johnny Mandel’s lyrics, if “suicide is painless” nor do I want to know. If there is anything proven by Tony Scott’s untimely death it is when one decides to take their own life, it does as Mandel sang “bring on many changes.”

Just look at the shock and sadness Scott’s fans, friends, family and the many actors and actresses he directed in movies the past three decades are feeling now as they ask “Why did he do it” only to come back with the same answer every time which is we’ll probably never know.

©8/29/12

Controversial Obama “mockumentary” won’t influence 2012 presidential election

I remember the day like it was yesterday. The date was June 28, 2004. I attended an afternoon screening of Michael Moore’s "Fahrenheit 9/11."

As I heard thunderous applause emanating from the audience when the end credits rolled, I took note of the comment I overheard from the two audience members who were apparently so blindsided by the many untruths told in Moore’s movie that one of them said they are never voting Republican again.

It’s not their comment that ticked me off so much as it was their blind stupidity into accepting everything Hollywood just told them on the big screen is in fact the truth.

The one and only goal filmmakers like Michael Moore do with so-called documentaries like Fahrenheit 9/11 is to help sway public opinion. The same can now be said for the latest “documentary” 2016: Obama’s America which is seeing a surge in box office revenue (not that the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida had anything to do with it) and an unexpected expansion from less than 200 to now over 1000 screens across the country. As of this writing, the film’s Facebook page has over 172,000 likes and over 185,000 people talking about it.

Just like Moore’s film was a rallying cry for anyone still ticked off at the time at how former President George W. Bush (2001-2009) stole the election from former Democratic presidential candidate, Al Gore, in 2000 and took us into two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2016: Obama’s America might as well be called the “Conservatives Fahrenheit 9/11” as narrator Dinesh D’Souza, based on his books "The Roots of Obama’s Rage" and "Obama’s America: Unmaking the American Dream" rips President Obama to shreds.

I won’t deny the film made me think how four years from now America will not be called “America” but “Amerika” with a “k” when it comes to President Obama’s socialist policies (though I believe in reality, America actually follows a form of socialism anyway and people simply just don’t realize it).

Even before the film started, I heard cheers coming from a few people several rows above me. That happened when conservative political commentator Glenn Beck showed up doing some promotional trailer, I didn’t pay much attention to though hearing those audience members applaud literally made me die laughing.

Just as I laughed at how a couple of the trailers before the film began catered to the conservative base which included "Atlas Shrugged: Part II" based on author Ayn Rand’s mammoth book and "Trouble with the Curve" starring Clint Eastwood who recently came out in support of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Honestly, "2016: Obama’s America: 2016" did not reveal to me anything that I hadn’t already heard the past four years listening to conservative talk radio. Like "Fahrenheit 9/11" I saw the film as entertainment and took 99 percent of the film’s statements (i.e.: Obama reducing our nuclear arsenals to less than 300 in the coming years or his being pro-Muslim for example) with a considerable grain of salt. If the president is so pro-Muslim as the film proposes, why did he continue what former Presidents Clinton (1993-2001) and Bush do and pledge to kill Osama bin Laden if elected? Every time I hear how President Obama has been outspending the country into oblivion, I hear how the budgets of previous presidents were even worse.

I don’t need a “mockumentary” to make my decision on whether or not I think President Obama does not deserve a second term. My personal reasons on why he shouldn’t be re-elected again are mine and mine alone just as I don’t believe voters should be telling others who they are voting for. It’s no one else’s business.

I don’t believe for a minute "2016: Obama’s America" will sway this November’s election. It didn’t work when "Fahrenheit 9/11" which was also released months before the 2004 election either.

The idea that Michael Moore and Dinesh D’Souza are so powerful that their words and actions are able to sway the outcome of a presidential election is like saying the views and opinions expressed by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh represents everything the Republican party stands for.

©8/27/12

New Paterno biography won’t change my negative opinion of football legend

"Say it ain’t so, Joe.”

Such was the line supposedly said by a young kid to White Sox player “Shoeless Joe” Jackson back in September 1920 after being investigated by a grand jury that he and seven other teammates took part in an attempt to fix the World Series in what became known as the Black Sox Scandal.

As a result of that, Jackson, along with his seven teammates, were banned from major league baseball.

That quote may have been the stuff of baseball legend. I can’t help but wonder, however, if the faithful fans who stood by former Penn State University Football Coach Joe Paterno weren’t thinking the same thing following the release in July of "The Freeh Report" surrounding the child-sex scandal involving former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky that among many things laid the blame for not doing enough to stop the abuse on Paterno’s doorstep.

When the scandal broke last November I told a few people I knew that Penn State’s Board of Trustees were right in firing “Joe Pa.” Among the responses I got to that was “Don’t blame Joe.” “Don’t be going all out rushing to judgment.” “Wait to find out how Penn State’s human resources department handled it” were among some of the statements said to me.

What I got in reading the report’s findings is it was clear to me that JOE PATERNO WAS HUMAN RESOURCES when it came to keeping the sex abuse charges under the rug all for the good of Happy Valley’s beloved football program.

"The evidence shows that Mr. Paterno was made aware of the 1998 investigation of Sandusky, followed it closely, but failed to take any action, even though Sandusky had been a key member of his coaching staff for almost 30 years, and had an office just steps away from Mr. Paterno's," the report read.  "At the very least, Mr. Paterno could have alerted the entire football staff, in order to prevent Sandusky from bringing another child into the Lasch Building. Messrs. (Graham) Spanier, (Gary) Schultz, Paterno and (Tim) Curley also failed to alert the Board of Trustees about the 1998 investigation or take any further action against Mr. Sandusky. None of them even spoke to Sandusky about his conduct. In short, nothing was done, and Sandusky was allowed to continue with impunity."

Watching Penn State students make jackasses of themselves last November flipping cars over in reaction to Paterno’s firing not only made me want to yell at the television, “Oh how proud the parents must be of all their idiot sons and daughters knowing this is what their hard-earned money pays for in tuition.” The incidents once again demonstrated what happens when people put such idols, be it athletic coaches, athletes, Hollywood icons and presidents, past and present on high pedestals thinking they can do no wrong, only to get blindsided the minute it turns out they weren’t as perfect as they thought they were.

I haven’t picked up author Joseph Posnanski’s biography, "Paterno", which hit bookstands Aug. 21. Quite frankly, I have about as much desire to read, as Entertainment Weekly writer Chris Nashawaty describes in his review of the book, about the Nittany Lyons’ coaching legend’s “undefeated seasons, bowl games, and anecdotes from past gridiron greats about their playing days in Happy Valley” as I do in searching eBay for a copy of Jerry Sandusky’s 2000 autobiography, "Touched." In short, I’ll put my money to better use elsewhere like on gas.

The best quotes I have found don’t come from the Paterno biography but from author Posnanski.

“When people ask me if Penn State was right in tearing down Joe Paterno's statue in light of the Freeh Report's conclusion, I ask a different question: "Should they have built a statue to him in the first place?", Posnanski wrote in a recent sports column in USA Today. “When people ask me if the NCAA was right in unleashing draconian penalties against Penn State, I ask a different question: "Should they have held up Joe Paterno as a paragon of purity and virtue for more than four decades?"

Such is the reason why I will never look up to such notable celebrities, whether they are in politics, in entertainment or in athletics. If you are looking for someone to model yourself after, try starting with your own parents or grandparents, provided they raised you right.

I know there are probably still many out there that includes Penn State students past and present who will argue I should remember all the good things Joe Paterno did in his 85 years which I am sure is all chronicled in Posnanski’s book. I am sure they all say I should look past what occurred last November to the time he passed away in January this year to the release of The Freeh Report and its aftermath.

My answer to that is if the American people refused to forgive President Richard Nixon for covering up a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate offices in June 1972, why should I even bother forgiving Joe Paterno for only giving a damn about preserving the reputation of his prestigious athletic football program and doing little to nothing about protecting young kids from a convicted child rapist.

If I am to believe Posnanski’s biography, however, my guess is “Joe Pa” does not care what I think from even beyond the grave.

“[The criticism] really doesn’t matter,” Posnanski wrote in the book of his last conversation with Paterno quoting him. “It really doesn’t. I know what I tried to do. Maybe somebody will see that in time. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they will judge me by what I tried to do. Maybe they won’t. What difference does it make? I just hope there is justice for the victims.”

I am not one of those people who will change my negative opinion of him. Joe Paterno’s final legacy will always be in his own words what he said after the scandal broke.

“This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”

So do we “Joe Pa”, so do we.

©8/23/12

Why I still prefer to see the old classics on the big screen – especially if they are in IMAX

There is a scene in an episode of "Seinfeld" (1990-1998) where Kramer (Michael Richards) runs a movie theater that is showing "Spartacus" (1960).

In response to hearing that, George Costanza (Jason Alexander) asks Kramer “Why would I spend seven dollars to see a movie that I could watch on TV?”

“Well, why go to a fine restaurant when you can just stick something in the microwave,” Kramer fires back. “Why go to the park and fly a kite when you can just pop a pill?”

Yes, it’s true. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981), (it is not called "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" regardless of what the front covers of the DVD copies say) has been on cable television so many times over the past three decades that it might make one ask the exact same question grumpy George asks Kramer.

Why go see three-time Oscar winning director Steven Spielberg’s 1981 adventure classic starring Harrison Ford in theaters for a one-week only engagement on IMAX screens beginning Sept. 7 in celebration of the film’s first-time release on Blu-ray Sept. 18 along with "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984) and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (1989)?

I get into an insulting mood when such negative Nancy's ask that so here, I go.

“It’s because the film’s being shown again after thirty years on the big screen, dummy!”

It’s the same reason why I saw "Citizen Kane" (1941), "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971), "Giant" (1965), "The Godfather" (1972), "The Exorcist" (1973), "Grease" (1978), "Apocalypse Now" (1979) and "The Shining" (1980) on the big screen over the years.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to truly tell the difference between the 81’ print I saw 31 years ago and on cable over the years and the cleaned up digital print of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" whereas Spielberg said on movie talk when the giant boulder rolls down after Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) if I’ll “see it in full size” and will feel it in my stomach.

Those aren’t the things I’ll be looking for when I see it. What I will be looking for and what will most definitely happen during either the early Monday morning or afternoon showing is the feeling of nostalgia.

I got that same feeling when I saw the 1997 special edition of "Star Wars" at Dallas’ Northpark I & II theater which closed in 1998 and was torn down soon after. Seeing that Rebel Blockade Runner being chased in outer space by an immense Star Destroyer in Star Wars brought back memories of the first time I saw the film in August 1977 with my parents. It was what movies are supposed to do – take us into a whole new world for a couple hours – something a majority of today’s motion pictures fail miserably at.

Watching Raiders again will remind me of how when the film first came out, videocassette recorders were still in their infancy. Mom and pop video stores were beginning to show up all over town. There was no such place as Blockbuster Video where one might be lucky to get their hands of a major title provided the stores ordered over 100 rental copies.

When movies back then were released on VHS videocassette the retail price, if you felt like shelling out your money at that time was $79 bucks for a new copy. Very few titles were released at sell thru. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was the first VHS title I got as a Christmas present in 1983 from my grandparents along with our first hulking silver Sears VCR that whenever I had to take it in for repairs was so heavy one could get a hernia lifting it.

Movie theaters back then were different as well. They were not the 30 screen multiplexes we got today where kids could play arcade games in the lobby. When a major blockbuster such as Raiders was released on June 14, 1981, it was not on 4000 plus screens across the country like 'The Dark Knight Rises' was shown in opening weekend in July. The number of screens Raiders was shown in was 1,078 back then and its opening weekend gross was just over $8 million while the budget was estimated to be $18 million. Compare that to the over inflated budgets of today’s box office bombs ('John Carter', 'Battleship') that fail to draw in the crowds.

There is something else about seeing 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' again that shows just how much movies since then have changed versus the stuff being churned out by Hollywood today. The films I saw of yesteryear such as 'Airplane' (1980), "Animal House" (1978) and "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) for example, were all movies I couldn’t wait to see again and often do whenever they are on cable today. The one and only movie I saw more than once in the last ten years at theaters was "Star Trek" (2009).

That’s a feeling I just don’t have viewing today’s films. Just the idea that Spielberg is now considering perhaps putting "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) for IMAX according to Movie Talk only makes me drool at other possibilities of what it would be like to see such oldies I don’t get tired of seeing again like "The Towering Inferno" (1974), the Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983) and NO not the special editions, and even Spielberg’s own "Saving Private Ryan" (1998) shown in the same format. I got hope that maybe as popular as IMAX is getting to releasing old classics like Raiders could be the start of a trend.

Now if someone can just convince producer George Lucas to please drop the “Indiana Jones” from the film’s title and call Spielberg’s movie what it was called 31 years ago when it first came out, "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

©8/20/12

McKayla Maroney is everywhere

“It is pretty funny.”

So said 16-year-old Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney when asked by David Letterman in her Aug. 14 appearance on The Late Show about that infamous “not impressed” shot seen around the world after being awarded the silver medal that has now taken on a viral life of its own on the Internet.

As a result, McKayla Maroney is probably going to be one of the few Olympic athletes whose fifteen minutes of fame may go on for much longer thanks to 28-year-old Gavin Aloen’s clever meme on Tumblr called “McKayla Is Not Impressed” where her image is now incorporated into everything from travel pictures to movies to meetings with real life figures. She was not impressed, for example, by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s pick of Paul Ryan for Vice President Aug. 13.

I doubt going into the Summer Olympics if Maroney expected her disapproving look to reach the height of hilarious proportions.

She is only 16 years old and yet she has traveled to more places in so short a span of time than any of us could have imagined.

McKayla is not impressed with the Mars rover Curiosity.

I wonder what the NASA technicians were thinking the minute the Mars rover Curiosity sent back a photo of Maroney in her spacesuit boasting that “not impressed” look. In Maroney’s defense, can you blame her? Here she is on a planet that is nothing but red rocks, sand and ice and no one to talk to save for her communications with the Pentagon telling them on a daily basis that she is “not impressed.”

Either that, when the gymnast came across those Martians, she didn’t care much for the greeting they gave her with a sign that said “F--- off. Go home!!!”

Now why am I not surprised that even aliens in outer space don’t want us visiting their planets?

McKayla is not impressed with The Hunger Games.

Maroney may have been born in 1995 but believe it or not, she was at the World Trade Center on August 7, 1974, when Phillippe Petit did his high wire walk between the Twin Towers. Look real closely at that "Man On Wire" photo and you will find her in the same outfit she was wearing when being given the silver medal 38 years later standing on the roof of one of the towers. I wonder if once Petit completed his stunt if Maroney told him she was “not impressed.”

George Lucas may have made film producer Kathleen Kennedy his heir apparent when he retires from Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise soon. I have a feeling; however, the creator of The Force will come out of retirement again just to tinker one more time with the original Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983). Or maybe he has done so already, and the images posted on the McKayla Is Not Impressed website are a taste of what we will get when another Blu-ray edition is released years from now.

I would like to think, no, actually I hope, the scene of Maroney’s not impressed image at the end of "Star Wars" (1977) during the awards ceremony standing beside the droids C3P0 and R2D2 and other rebel leaders as Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) are awarded their “gold” medallions is just an April Fool's joke.

Maroney's second vault at the 2012 Olympics.

All kidding aside, however, despite losing her chance at the gold medal upon failing to land on her feet in her second vault jump at the Aug. 5 games, Maroney should still be proud of herself. She is only 16 and she still has plenty of time to work on winning that gold medal again.

“It happens,” Maroney said afterwards in a New York Times article. “It’s gymnastics, and you can’t be perfect. Sometimes, things don’t go as planned. I don’t blame it on anything else. I just messed up.”

There is nothing wrong with an athlete setting their sights too high only to have it come crashing down in an instant. It’s called competition and the desire to be the best. Maroney’s image is just one disapproving look. I can’t count how many pictures I have seen on the Internet of auto racer Danica Patrick not looking all too happy at the races over the years.

Every Olympian athlete is always remembered for something. I remember swimmer Amanda Beard making her first appearance at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games at age 14 holding her teddy bear. I know I won’t forget Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings third gold medal victory at this year’s events.

McKayla is not impressed with the Peanuts gang.

If there is one thing I prefer to remember about McKayla Maroney it isn’t that negative facial expression being awarded the silver medal. It is the fact at how she has since been able to have a sense of humor about the whole thing even joining in on the fun posting a picture of herself showing her displeasure alongside fellow teammates Kyla Ross and Aly Raisman tweeting, “The pool is closed. #not impressed.”

The day after her Letterman appearance, Maroney reposted a pic off the meme Tumblr website to her twitter account showing her famous pose in animated form with the Charlie Brown gang. At the bottom of the cartoon was the caption, “ice cream, pretzels, toast and jellybeans. Not impressed.”

“I just died” laughing, she tweeted on her account.

©8/15/12

I still don't know who shot J.R. Ewing

“Bless me father for I have sinned. It’s been over 15 years since my last confession. I still don’t know who shot J.R. Ewing in the original long running soap opera drama series, Dallas, that ran on CBS from 1978 to 1991.”

I must have broken some unwritten commandment. When I posted the comment on Facebook the night of June 13, 2012 that in the twenty years since the soap opera drama, Dallas, went off the air, I still don’t know who shot Texas oil tycoon J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman), a friend on my page responded back to my post saying for me to “Please turn in my man card right now.”

Up until then I had no idea I actually had a “man card.”

My not knowing who shot J.R. Ewing is not the only piece of useless “Dallas” trivia I know nothing about. I’ll have you know looking over that ten question quiz about the television series in the June 2012 issue of D magazine, I also have no idea what show beat the Nov. 21, 1980 Who shot J.R. episode in 1983, what role Brad Pitt played in the series or what Texas governor was featured in the Ewing Rodeo episode? And no I had no idea there was a rodeo episode.

That’s not to say I never watched the original series. I know die-hard fans of America’s dysfunctional greedy first family of the “Lone Star State” will say this doesn’t count. I did, however, watch the final two-hour series finale in 1991, which was a rendition of A Christmas Carol where the devil, played by Joel Grey, shows J.R. how much life would be better for everyone if he hadn’t been born. The only reason I watched that episode is I make it a habit to catch every finale of a show that’s been on for more than five years even though I never watched the series the whole time it was on.

If I add up those two hours I spent on that fateful night May 3, 1991, 21 years ago, it doesn’t even come close to the time I spent over the summer watching the new series which comes out to around 45 minutes. I did watch the first two episodes in June and when I say “watch” it means I had the TV on while I was doing stuff on the computer occasionally looking away and then back again.

I actually remember the times I did actually stop what I was doing, three to be exact. There was the opening scene of Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) at the doctor’s office being told he has terminal cancer, the scene where Bobby visits J.R. at a hospital and the final scene where family conspirators, Marta Del Sol (Leonor Varela) and John Ross (Josh Henderson) meet up on the 50-yard line at Cowboys Stadium. I wonder if God was looking down on them from the Heavens the way people believe the reason there is a hole in the roof of Cowboys stadium is because the Almighty likes to watch his favorite team play.

There are only two things I learned paying very little attention to the new series over the summer, okay three. One, I have now added another item to my bucket list of things I want to do that I seriously doubt I will ever accomplish before I die which is to one day feel a big block of frozen methane to see if it is really hot when you touch it.

Two, I learned that J.R. and I actually have one thing in common which is we are not that fond of today’s technology as he doesn’t care for communicating via email either.

“Old fogeys like me don't e-mail darlin',” J.R. says in episode 2. “We talk to each other, personally.” Or in my case, I just don’t say anything and blog my thoughts in long winded columns.

And three, when it came to my deciding what to watch the night of August 8 be it either the season one finale of Dallas or to see volleyball champions Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings win their third gold medal at the Olympics, I chose female eye candy in skimpy bikini outfits over the Ewings. Seeing Misty May-Treanor do a little victory dance on the sand only comes once in a lifetime, especially since I have yet to see a clip of it on YouTube.

So those of you die-hard Texans and devoted Dallas fans demanding I turn in my “man card”, I am more than happy to surrender it to you. Just tell me what it looks like. Is it shaped like the state of Texas on that NC-17 movie poster of "Killer Joe" that looks like a deep-fried mozzarella stick? Should I turn my storage shed upside down going through years of old magazines, comic books, movie posters, computer equipment, printers and old newspapers to find it?

Perhaps I left it in several boxes of Star Wars toys I have been selling to a local dealer the past ten months. You think if I ask the dealer if he found a “man card” inside some of the stuff I gave him would he know what I am talking about?

If, and when I do find this “man card” you people demand I hand over, could you also do me the favor and tell me who shot J.R.? That would really save me the trouble of the penance the priest told me I must do in order to be forgiven, and that’s having to sit through 356 hours of 356 episodes of a long running soap opera drama I was not the least bit interested in watching back when it first aired decades ago.

©8/12/12

Forgiving others of the most heinous crimes depends on how strong one’s faith is

“I guess the question Joe is when Jesus said to “pray for your enemies,” which enemy did he say to not pray for?”

So said a friend of mine, who is a lot more religious than I am, when I shared a recent news story with him following the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, July 20, where during a memorial service July 22 for Gordon Cowden, one of 12 victims killed that night, pastor Robert Gelinas asked the congregation to pray for shooter James Holmes.

"Only God is the righteous judge," Gelinas said. "Only God knows how to blend justice and mercy and grace in perfect balance. We lift this man up before God, and say, 'God, do what you need to do in this situation.'"

“What this pastor did should not be the exception but the rule,” my friend said. “Remember, while we live in this world, we are not of this world. Not easy being a Catholic.”

I admit I am not a very religious person and haven’t been for a while, though I do in times of trouble recite the Hail Mary and often the prayer to St. Jude who is the patron saint of lost souls, my being one of them.

When it comes to the many acts of evil I have read and seen perpetrated by people as reported in the news and the Internet on a daily basis, one of the first things I say to myself is my favorite line from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982).

“Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

Like everyone else in the country who celebrated in front of the White House and at Ground Zero last May, I too took to the social networking world of Facebook and blogged my glee writing of Osama bin Laden’s bloody demise at the hands of our armed forces.

If I were going to do any praying for Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach who was found guilty in June on 45 of 48 counts of child sexual abuse, it would be to hope he’d finally one day realize while spending life in prison that what he did to those ten young boys, if not more, was wrong. I know that’s never going to happen whether I pray or not.

I won’t lie to you. The first question I asked upon hearing about James Holmes’ shooting spree was where is Paul Kersey when you need him, in reference to the New York vigilante character Charles Bronson played in "Death Wish" (1974) and four forgettable follow-ups throughout the 1980s and mid-90s. If only someone with a license to carry a firearm had been inside theater 9 that night. I was so upset by what Holmes did to those people that I refused to name him in my July 21, 2012 blog I wrote.

Now having read a few opinions from those injured in the shooting to those who say we should not only pray for the victims but for Holmes as well and not give him the death penalty has given me pause.

Now I am wondering if those of us who celebrated bin Laden’s death, told Sandusky to “burn in Hell” as he was led off to jail following his guilty verdict, want James Holmes to be brought before a firing squad and leave comments at the end of news stories offering up even more graphic details of what they’d like to see done to the killer, if maybe it’s us who are wrong and it’s the ones who actually forgive the shooter are right regardless of the many questions from upset readers chiming in writing, “What if it had been your six-year-old daughter who was killed that night? Would you be so forgiving?”

It’s so much easier to spout off hateful vengeful comments than it is to forgive. Just ask 28-year-old Pierce O’Farrill who was shot three times in the July 20 shooting.

“I forgive him with all my heart,” O’Farrill said in an interview with The Denver Post. “When I saw him (Holmes) in his hearing, I felt nothing but sorrow for him—he’s just a lost soul right now. I want to see him some time. The first thing I want to say to him is ‘I forgive you’ and the next is, ‘Can I pray for you?’”

"This is going to be hard for people to understand, but I feel sorry for him," O’Farrill told The Christian Post. "When I think what that soul must be like to have that much hatred and that much anger in his heart- what every day must be like. I can't imagine getting out of bed every morning and having that much anger and hatred for people that he undoubtedly has. I'm not angry at him. I'll pray for him."

Justin Davis, who was also inside theater 9 when the shootings happened but was unharmed said in an interview with ABC News that it’s his faith that suggests Holmes deserves forgiveness.

“We should just forgive, and you don’t know what he’s going through,” Davis said. “You don’t know why he did it.”

Inside the Peñasquitos Lutheran Church in San Diego where Holmes’ parents attend, signs are posted inside saying, “Prayers for those affected by the Colorado tragedy” and “Prayers for the Holmes family” according to an article on The Huffington Post.

Then there is Byron Thomas’ post on YouTube which was posted on CNN’s website asking the country to not call for Holmes to receive the death penalty.

“We are going to have to show James Holmes mercy, forgiveness, and LOVE. These are the same things Jesus commanded us to do and what he showed us when he died on the cross for ALL of our sins,” Thomas said. “My heart goes out toward those families and because this was nevertheless tragic. I just believe we should let the court system handle it and not protest for James Holmes to get the death penalty. As a Christian I just don’t believe in the death penalty.”

I don’t know if I could find it in my heart to forgive James Holmes. I have come to terms that mass shootings could and have often happened once too often in the workplace, in restaurants, in our nation’s schools, on college campuses and at places of worship. I know shooting incidents often happen inside movie theaters, but I never expected it to be the equivalent of the carnage that happened July 20.

As someone whose favorite pastime is often spending it inside a dark theater every few weeks, seeing movies was that last place of refuge where I believed for at least a few hours I could get away from the horrors of the outside world and where I would never have to worry about someone walking in ready to go postal. Now thanks to Holmes those days are over much the way we must forever be on our guard when flying thanks to the 9/11 hijackers.

I suppose, though, the fact that I am even blogging about this realizing that maybe I should not only pray for the victims but also for the ones who have committed the most heinous of crimes is a good start, even if I don’t have the strength to forgive.

In some sick twisted way, tortured souls like James Holmes are hurting inside. We just don’t know how much and why. I don’t really think we’ll ever know.

©8/6/12