Monica Rose

Summary:
A loving, but snarky, synopsis of Jonathan Banks’s role on "Falcon Crest"

Notes:
I stayed up all night watching "Falcon Crest" episodes, starting with the first one Jonathan Banks was in, and ending with the last one he was in. I also watched the in between ones he wasn't in.

And as I watched, I wrote this, so you won't have to watch them.



Even though you really, really should.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)


When we first see Frank, he’s explaining things to his underling (Jeff Kober, who played Rack on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"—he sold the dangerous magic to Willow). From what I could figure out, they had been pulling some kind of “Anastasia” scam on Caesar Romero (best known as the Joker on “Batman.”)

Their Anastasia is played by Kim Novak, so of course she’s getting too deep into her part and doesn’t want to give up Jimmy Stewart—

I mean, she doesn’t want to stop pretending to be the Joker’s daughter. She’s also dating John Saxon, best known to “Starsky & Hutch” fans as the Vampire Rene Nadasy.

Rack says she’s so convinced she really is Anastasia, she’d never tell on them, but Frank doesn’t care. He has orders from his superior. They have to fake Anastasia’s suicide so she can disappear. I have no idea what Frank, Frank’s superior, or Rack are getting out of this. Killing Anastasia doesn’t make any sense to me, and I don't think it's because I missed the beginning of it.

Anastasia spends her day being publicly suicidal in a TV sort of way. She gives away things that mean a lot to her, and melodramatically says how much she loves the people she’s giving them to. Amazingly, these people actually notice there’s something peculiar about this behavior.

By a stroke of luck, that night there’s a birthday party for the Joker, and all of the people Anastasia behaved peculiarly around are there.

Anastasia is not.

The Joker and the Vampire Rene Nadasy go looking for Anastasia, which eventually leads the Vampire Rene Nadasy to the bridge where Rack is trying to throw her off because . . . I’m not sure. Maybe he didn’t understand what a fake suicide was.

But the Vampire Rene Nadasy foils his nefarious scheme and takes Anastasia with him. She explains everything. We don’t hear this explanation because we’re already supposed to know what’s going on and not just be watching it for a few minutes of Frank here and there.

Whatever she says, she convinces the Vampire Rene Nadasy to fake her death.

Everyone is very sad, except Rack and Frank, who know that Anastasia is still alive. Rack goes to talk to Frank in his . . . private movie theatre, where he’s eating popcorn and watching an old movie I don’t recognize. (It is not "Mr. Sardonicus.") Frank offers Rack some popcorn, tells him he’s disappointed him, tells him how much he likes old movies, and has another henchman kill him.

Goodbye, Rack.

When next we see Frank, he’s in a car, having followed the Vampire Rene Nadasy. Robert Foxworth—possibly best known for playing Chase Gioberti on "Falcon Crest,” but who was also on “Babylon 5” as General William Hague—suggests they go to Frank's car to brace him, but Frank powers up his window and has his chauffeur drive him away.

David Selby (best known for playing the Werewolf Quentin Collins) also knows that Anastasia isn’t dead, but I’ve been watching carefully and they did not tell us how he knows this. Maybe it’s a werewolf thing.

Once again, Frank is watching the Vampire Rene Nadasy, but this time he’s alone, so Frank talks to him. Frank wants to know where Anastasia is. The Vampire Rene Nadasy says she’s dead. Frank does not believe this and he drives away.

This is not the most scintillating conversation I’ve ever heard. It’s not even the most scintillating conversation I’ve heard on this show.

Frank shows up again at the Vampire Rene Nadasy’s place of business. He sells—or maybe rents—heavy machinery. Frank is looking at a piece of heavy machinery, and when he sees the Vampire Rene Nadasy is aware of his presence, he gives him a creepy, knowing smile and shakes a magazine at him.

Later, after Maggie has her baby in Angela’s living room—a baby delivered by General William Hague (her husband) and the Werewolf, Quentin Collins (her boyfriend)—while her daughter’s boyfriend plays Chopin on the piano—

Look, that part is completely irrelevant, but it’s just my favorite part of the whole series.

Anyway, the Vampire Rene Nadasy and his son, Lorenzo Lamas (best known as Fernando Lamas’s son), are walking down a dirt road in the grape fields, doing something grapey with their shirts off, when Lorenzo Lamas notices that there’s a car following them.

Yes. Frank is “inconspicuously” following the Vampire Rene Nadasy down a deserted dirt road in the grape fields. Frank is quite the arch villain. (We don’t actually see him.)

Later, when they’ve put their shirts back on and are riding around on horses, Lorenzo Lamas chases Frank’s car (on his horse, not on foot). This time, Frank stops, smiles creepily at Lorenzo Lamas, and says he’s surprised that the Vampire Rene Nadasy hasn’t told him anything. Then he smiles even more creepily and gets back in his car.

Frank is working for Robert Stack (best known as Eliot Ness)! Frank is supposed to find and kill Anastasia while Eliot Ness watches!

His name is actually Frank! Frank Kolinski! In the credits he’s just listed as Kolinski, and nobody has called him by any name thus far. The Werewolf Quentin Collins digs up the information that he works for Eliot Ness. I’m not sure why he’s interested in Anastasia—who he knows isn’t really Anastasia.

Eliot Ness plays billiards with the Werewolf Quentin Collins, after which he confers briefly with Frank. Later, after overhearing a conversation between Anastasia and the Vampire Rene Nadasy, Eliot Ness sends Frank after Anastasia (who is now disguised as Judy Barton [“Vertigo”]).

Once again, Frank shows up to menace the Vampire Rene Nadasy. He points a gun at him, but the Vampire Rene Nadasy won’t get in his car. Frank gets out to menace him up close and personal, but just then the Werewolf Quentin Collin’s assistant shows up, pretending to be a reporter doing a story on Frank. She knows his whole name, and what kind of car he has, and that the gun he’s threatening the Vampire Rene Nadasy with is a .38. She asks Frank if he’ll take her for a ride in his car, and gives him her card. For some reason, this is enough to scare Frank off. I’m really hoping he explains this to Eliot Ness, because I’m very confused.

Frank is upset because his name is on file at The New Globe (a newspaper people fight over ownership of when fighting over vineyards loses its appeal). Eliot Ness is also upset about his name being on file at The New Globe. (That part makes no sense. He’s a big businessman; he was just at a wine shindig getting his picture in the paper. He’s a rich, high-profile guy, which is not the same as being a hired killer.)

The Joker goes to threaten Eliot Ness, but other thugs won’t let him in. He examines his gun for a while, then leaves. Eliot Ness calls Frank and tells him to put the Joker on a leash.

The Werewolf Quentin Collins tells the Joker that a) Anastasia isn’t dead, b) she wasn’t really his daughter, and c) the Vampire Rene Nadasy knows all this.

This leads to the Joker and the Vampire Rene Nadasy to going off to find Anastasia, followed by Frank and some other fine, upstanding citizens who work for Eliot Ness.

But when they get there, there’s nobody there. The Vampire Rene Nadasy attacks Frank and the Joker gets his gun. They establish that none of them know where Anastasia is.

Frank reports back to Eliot Ness that Anastasia is even more missing than ever. Eliot Ness refuses to accept that.

By the process of elimination, Eliot Ness deduces that the Werewolf Quentin Collins knows where Anastasia is, and he and Frank go to menace him. Eliot Ness offers money and help to destroy Angela Channing (Jane Wyman, best known as the woman smart enough to divorce Ronald Reagan). Trying to destroy each other is the way people on “Falcon Crest” show they care.

But the Werewolf Quentin Collins refuses to be menaced, and he turns down Eliot Ness’s offer. (Frank menaces by silently looking very impressed with his boss. Well, you know, as impressed as Frank ever looks.)

Frank then abducts the Werewolf Quentin Collins’s assistant (the one who scared him off before). To be fair, he does take her for a ride in his car.

Frank, Eliot Ness, and a couple of thugs take the assistant to Carmel (I assume California, though there is a Carmel, Indiana) where Anastasia is hiding. I’m not sure why. I guess the assistant told them where Anastasia was, maybe. Anyway, by sheer coincidence, the Vampire Rene Nadasy sees this abduction take place and manages to follow them, even though he’s not in a car at the time.

Two of the lesser thugs break into the house and Frank steals Anastasia’s purse. Anastasia isn’t in the house. Eliot Ness tells Frank to “spread his men out,” which isn’t going to be easy because there’s only two of them, plus the chauffeur, who they left in the car for the Vampire Rene Nadasy to choke into unconsciousness.

Then he drives away with the assistant, which seems fair, since she rescued him earlier.

There were other thugs in another car—one of them played by Mitch Pileggi, best known as FBI Director Skinner. One thing you can say for Eliot Ness, the man knows how to pick the best muscle.

But they still don’t find Anastasia and don’t seem to know what’s going on.

(The reason all this is happening is, Anastasia has a son by Eliot Ness and of course he wants him back.)

Anastasia breaks into Eliot Ness’s office and begins poisoning his cigars (from a bottle that says POISON on it. I think she bought it from ACME). Eliot Ness has actually forgotten to bring a cigar with him, so he returns to his office, catching Anastasia sneaking out.

They argue, her pointing a gun at him. Then Frank calls. He’s found the son at daycare. He’s calling from their office, and he’s wearing felt moose antlers, and if that isn't worth all the rest of this, I don't know what is.

Eliot Ness takes out a possibly-poisoned cigar and starts to light it, prompting Anastasia to decide not to shoot him, which makes sense after she went to all the trouble to poison his cigars. She leaves.

She goes pick up her son, and sees a uniformed officer going into the daycare. But he’s just there to pick up his daughter.

I don’t know what Frank did with the daycare workers, but when Anastasia and the LEO come in, he’s playing Simon Says with their two kids. They say his name is Wally. Frank is unable to do anything because of the LEO, but he leers menacingly at Anastasia as she and her son leave.

That night, outside the latest Falcon Crest party, the Vampire Rene Nadasy meets Anastasia. She just wanted to say goodbye, but he tries to get her to stay, so she pulls her gun on him.

Down in the wine cellar, Eliot Ness makes a private call to Frank, who isn’t there. When he hangs up the phone, he lights a possibly-poisoned cigar.

The Vampire Rene Nadasy asks where Eliot Ness is and goes down to the wine cellar, where he finds Eliot Ness lying with his head in a pool of blood. He dies before saying what happened, but to me it looks like somebody hit him over the head with a wine bottle. Anastasia’s gun didn’t have a suppressor on it, and the party upstairs wasn’t that loud.

But we’re not here for an autopsy; we’re here for Frank. And next we see him drive up to Falcon Crest. Director Skinner must have gotten him the message that Eliot Ness wanted to see him, because he goes to the wine cellar.

Except for him wearing the antlers, this is my favorite of his “Falcon Crest” scenes. At first he seems baffled about why his boss would be lying on the floor. As he gets closer and sees the blood, he does a perfect Jack Benny hand-to-face. Then he covertly looks around (just with his eyes, he never moves his head) and walks closer to Eliot Ness and removes his wallet. He doesn’t take the wallet; he only takes the money, of which there is quite a wad. Frank is unconcerned about fingerprints, which is strange for a man who can be cowed by the idea that a newspaper has photos of him.

In Eliot Ness’s clenched fist, he finds a stud with a C on it; he must have pulled it off the Vampire Rene Nadasy when he was trying to talk to him. Frank whistles—in appreciation of a monogramed shirt stud? Because this evidence is so damning? Because he’d a real fan of the letter C? It’s hard to say. But he puts it back into Eliot Ness’s hand.

Then Frank stands up as nonchalantly as a person can when they’ve just rifled the body of their murdered boss, buttons his jacket, and walks away, whistling in a decidedly “I wasn’t doing anything, Officer,” way.

And this is the last we see of Frank Kolinski, aka Francis Xavier McPike.

Notes:
There are things every fan of Jonathan Banks should see.

This is one of them. His performance is very "Krull with a dog."

There is a thing happening, and it is very bad and it is happening to me because it's spring
and it's spring
and it's always spring when the bad things happen.
My mother didn't die in the spring, she waited for summer, but
she went into the cage of pain and unidentifiable sounds.
She took the final step away from being my mother
away from being my mother
away from me.
It could even have happened today.

And, of course, Pat, Pat, who died on the anniversary of the day we met
and that was in the spring
in the spring when I'm already roiled up and feeling too much.
She came into my life like a Thunderbird and roared away with me and then
27
years
later she
sank
into the mist
and left
me
alone.

But that is not the end.

Sometime back something happened—
I don't know what—
but it's like my skin was peeled off, leaving my soul even more exposed to the tiny things that happen in a normal day
and it hurts
it hurts
it hurts
every time something happens—
to me,
to someone else,
to imaginary people who don't matter, don't exist, are not real
I am overwhelmed with pain
and anger
and pain.
I can barely tolerate narrative because there is virtually no narrative without unkindness somewhere in it.
And I don't know how to escape without a story.
It's like trying to sail across the ocean without a boat. Or wind.

And as I announce—incrementally—my plan to leave this job, the people telling me they'll miss me . . . baffle me.
What?
Why?
I do not feel missable.
I barely feel here.
If I woke up in the morning and I were gone, would I even notice?
It doesn't

seem

like

it.

I don't suppose I can really blame spring for all this, but, really spring is not to be trusted.
Nothing so beautiful is.

Spoilers. It’s all spoilers, all the way down.

Caveat: I have not seen any of the Karate Kid movies, but I was alive and conscious in the US during the time they were out, so I’ve acquired general information through osmosis. I have not done research. I’m not writing this to give a detail-accurate account; I’m writing it because it’s something I was enjoying until I really, really, really wasn’t, and this is how I deal with things like that.

First off: Cobra Kai comes off like a well-made piece of fan art. As a life-long fan writer, I value fan art highly. Combining talent with love of the subject can create magic.

I don’t know if Cobra Kai reaches magic-level; as I said, I haven’t seen the original movies. But here’s some things they got right:

Casting. I’ve read that they’ve only recast one character from the original trilogy. Everyone else is reprising their roles.

They’ve also used footage not used in the original films to create flashbacks for the characters. Now, I can’t tell the difference, but that shows that the people involved in this care deeply about what they’re creating.

Not allowing anyone, no matter how heinous their behavior, to be nothing but a villain. They all have backstories that explain how they got to this place. Those stories might not be enough to mitigate their behavior, but it’s so nice to see more fully-fleshed out characters instead of white hats and black hats.

So here’s the story:

Johnny Lawrence is the protagonist of our piece. He’s bitter and lonely, a failure in his own eyes. We find out his mother is dead, and his emotionally-abusive stepfather is still enjoying abusing him over the one thing he has that Johnny needs: money. He has a son he doesn’t see because he boy’s mother doesn’t want him to and because he has no idea how to be a father.

Daniel LaRusso is a main character, a good guy, but not the hero. There isn’t exactly a hero. Daniel’s life is going very well. He and his wife, Amanda, have two loving children and a successful business they’re partners in. (That business is selling cars—a fannish touch, based on his love of the car Mr. Miyagi gave him.) It’s not all smooth sailing, but his life is a happy one.

It all starts when Johnny comes home. He halfway meets a neighbor, a high school boy named Miguel Diaz, but he’s too busy des, has being bitter and angry to make any friends. Then he sees Miguel getting beat up by some of the cool kids, including one named Kyler, and he intervenes.

Miguel wants Johnny to teach him karate.

Eventually, Johnny agrees. And he opens a dojo, calling it Cobra Kai. He’s only got the one student, but Miguel isn’t the only one being bullied, and after a spectacular defense in the cafeteria one day, more of the downtrodden kids decide karate is what they need.

Daniel hears about Cobra Kai reopening, and that brings back his bad memories. He doesn’t like the idea that the school of thought John Kreese was teaching is back again.

Of course, he doesn’t actually bother to find out if this is what’s happening. (This is a recurring them in the first two seasons. Daniel and Johnny make discoveries, then react emotionally—usually in the wrong way, because they never stop to ask questions. And they seldom find out they’ve been wrong.)

Daniel has two pieces of information: Johnny beat up Kyler and his friends. Johnny has opened a dojo and is calling it Cobra Kai. (Kyler is Daniel’s daughter, Samantha’s, boyfriend. While Samantha herself isn’t a bully, she’s hanging out with the kids who are, and one of their main targets is an old friend of hers who isn’t cool enough.)

Johnny goes to see his son, but that goes over badly. The son, Robby Keene, is angry and resentful. He’s a dropout and a thief, and now he’s furious with his father. To this end, he goes and gets a job at LaRusso Motors because this will piss off his father.

Of course, what happens is, Daniel treats him very well, eventually giving him a place to live when his mother disappears with her new boyfriend.

And he starts teaching him karate lessons, Miyagi-style.

There’s intrigue, with Daniel trying various means of getting Cobra Kai shut down, and with a completely unaffiliated car salesman trying to take over Daniel’s business.

Samantha finds out what a bully Kyler is and breaks up with him to start going out with Miguel. Her former friend Aisha, joins Cobra Kai. A lot of the “losers” are there. Johnny’s drill sergeant style of instruction seems to appeal to most of them, particularly Eli who styles his hair in a Mohawk, changes his name to Hawk, and practically becomes a Brown Shirt.

Demetri is the one “loser” who can’t handle the more ruthless style. He and Eli had been best friends. When he gravitates to the Miyagi-do, he and the others become competitors, if not outright enemies.

Tory Nichols joins Cobra Kai. She’s in high school, working to pay the rent, looking after her mother who has cancer, and being sexually harassed by her landlord. She’s very, very angry.

There’s a competition that eventually pits Robby (Johnny’s son, who is not affiliated with any dojo at that time) against Miguel, his star pupil. This is the point where his No Mercy philosophy becomes untenable, where everything changes.

It’s also the point where John Kreese shows up.

At first, Johnny wants nothing to do with him, but Kreese assures him he’s changed, that he only wants to help these kids. Johnny gives him a second chance.

From there we have all kinds of double crossing. Samantha breaks up with Miguel and starts dating Robby. Miguel starts dating Tory.

Dirty tricks are played by the kids to undermine the competing dojos.

Johnny’s new honorable policy does not go over well with the kids who, having been bullied, now want to be bullies. Kreese undercuts him at every opportunity.

Tory sees Samantha kiss Miguel.

There are multiple free-for-alls, including a riot at the school where Miguel is badly injured by Robby.

Samantha develops PTSD from a vicious attack by Tory.

Pretty much every other scene is the Cobra Kai kids attacking the Miyagi kids more and more brutally. Johnny has been ousted by his own kids and starts a new dojo called the Eagle Fang. (Johnny is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He had to be talked down from going with Kobra Kai Karate.)

One bright spot was Ali (Elisabeth Shue) showing up and some actual friendliness. She and Johnny and Daniel and Amanda have a pleasant dinner together, and in a lovely surprise, Ali and Amanda become friends. None of this, “I must hate you because you are a woman my husband dated” bullshit here. It was charming.

But by this time, I was developing PTSD. Daniel’s business trip to Japan, where he met another former girlfriend and another former rival were a welcome break. (Really, if you see nothing else, the final episode of that trip is great.) But on the home front, the violence was escalating.

So, we come down to the final episode of season three, and this happens.

After the Cobra Kai come to Daniel’s home where they attack his students, Daniel and Kreese make a deal. If Daniel’s team wins the annual competition, the violence will stop.

And if Daniel’s team loses?

Daniel’s answer to this is, of course, that they aren’t going to lose.

That’s the standard response. If you’ve been watching TV for more than a few minutes, you’ve heard it used. But this situation is different.

Because from the escalation of violence—along with Kreese’s philosophy of weakness must be annihilated—what is going to happen if the Miyagi team loses? The only thing any of them seem to want is to literally kill the other team. Has Daniel just agreed to that?

And that’s leaving aside the part where he just made a verbal agreement with a man who scorns the concept of honor. How the fuck dumb can you get?

I have no idea when season four is supposed to drop, but I’ll be getting rid of Netflix again pretty soon, so it’s unlikely I’ll see it anytime in the next year or so. And I’m not sure I even want to.

"Inviting People To Laugh With You While You Are Laughing At Yourself Is A Good Thing To Do. You May Be The Fool But You're The Fool In Charge."*

-:- -:- -:- -:-


I lay in bed last night and thought about the postcards I used to make.

Back when stickers became really popular, when you could go into gift shops and find them on spools in the back, I bought bunches and bunches of them, along with various-colored postcards. On one side I created a little bit of weird art. On the other, I put a line  shortways down the middle. On the upper left-hand side, I gave the weird art a name. They were kind of like little stories. Some of them were series.

My favorite series—the one I was most amused by, although I was amused by all of them, I thought they were hilarious—was the elephant and balloon series.  On each of these there would be an elephant about an inch square, and somewhere there would be a balloon.

There were balloons with baskets for travelling.
There were balloons for a birthday party.
Sometimes there were multiple balloons, many, many balloons, and in my favorite, there was one tiny, tiny balloon way off in the farthest corner from the elephant, drifting away from him.

I cannot explain these postcards.

I can't explain why they were funny, but I wasn't the only one who thought so. Pat thought they were hilarious too.
They were a private joke, I guess.

But I used to send them to people.  To my family. At one time or another, everybody got a strange postcard, usually with a bit of poetry as the message. Not my poetry; I was still writing doggerel then, when I wrote it at all, and I certainly wasn't subjecting people to it. The postcards were enough. The poetry was kind of a reward.

I don't know if anybody kept them. My mother, maybe. My father. He did keep things; he had all the letters I wrote him from Texas the year my mother and I spent three weeks with my aunt and cousin there.

But I imagine that, with the rest of my family, this merely solidified my position as family idiot.

Not that anybody actually thought I was stupid. I was just smart in that useless way of knowing things that  nobody needs, or having ideas nobody is interested in.

Both my parents were like that, to more limited degrees.

I enjoyed making the postcards and sending them, but I wish I'd known then the real message I was sending. It would have given me time to prepare for being outcast.

It would have prepared me for having my pointless humor analyzed and for requests for explanation for things that, to me, are self-explanatory.

It would have let me grow into being a weird-o even in my family.

I don't recall my family ever saying anything about these postcards from my crazy, but I'm sure there was talk and laughter. I was being both silly and earnest at the same time. I was telling them a joke, but they were laughing at me.

(I don't know this. I'm extrapolating from what happened later, everything that happened later.)

I was never a person to be taken seriously. I didn't know what they knew. (I still don't. What they know is how ugly the world is. I don't want to know that.)

I'm feeling sad and unspecial in every way.


*Carl Reiner

I'm listening to a book called Bloodline, a thriller. I'm really enjoying it, but as always with books like this, I'm anticipating the mystery.

1. It takes place in the mid-sixties. A pregnant woman, Joan, moves with her boyfriend, Deck (Deck?) to his small hometown. The reasons for the move are, she was the victim of a violent mugging, and he wants to avoid the draft. (His father is head of the draft board.)

From the beginning, things are unsettling. The men are a bit too friendly with her. Everyone takes an interest that seems to go beyond small town friendliness, or even nosiness. People know about her actions almost immediately. And there's a peculiar possessiveness about the baby she's carrying.

I'm getting very strong Rosemary's Baby/Stepford Wives vibes. There's something peculiar about this pregnancy, although so far Joan isn't having problems the way Rosemary did. But her "wonderful" OBGYN is abrupt, controlling, and uninterested in giving her a physical exam. There's a men's club women are excluded from—although there is a women's club as well, though apparently one of their duties is to provide food for the men's club.

But the really odd thing (so far) is that while Joan and Deck aren't married—seemingly by his choice—he wants everyone to think they are because small town, etc., etc., etc. She doesn't seem to have any objections to them getting married, so what's the deal?

I'm also getting a Lovecraftian vibe.

2. There's also a great deal of inexplicable hostility from the women in the town. Perhaps because Joan is the Chosen One?

The Lovecraftian vibe is stronger. The town was founded by Germans and one of the women collects little racist figurines that also have fishlike characteristics. (Lovecraft wasn't of German descent that I know of, but he was a raging xenophobe, and his monsters are sea creatures.)

There's also a subplot about a young boy who disappeared twenty years ago. Now he's returned and Joan, who is a reporter, is trying to write a story about what happened. Coincidentally, the date of his disappearance is the same as the day Joan is due to give birth.

Joan is from the little town. We haven't been told this, but why did her mother always keep them moving? And how come she and her boyfriend—and now the formerly-missing boy—all have the same odd polio vaccine scars?

Joan sees the man who mugged her. Later, he's in a car accident and the ambulance takes him in the wrong direction to get to the hospital. Joan is assured that he's just fine. It was probably just his head.

The sheriff from when the boy disappeared is black. This is startling, as there are no black people in the town.

Joan is a kleptomaniac, and besides stealing from stores, she has stolen a necklace from the woman next door. It's a locket containing dirt from the homeland of the founder of the town. So, vampires?

Someone is lurking in the alley.

3. There's a party. The formerly-missing boy Chris, who used to be Paulie, makes a pass at her and is thrown out. One of the other men—drunk—tells Joan she looks like her mother. How would he know this?

Another boy has gone missing, a little Hispanic boy. Joan thinks the plot is that one of the town elders is a rapist and that the children are evidence of this. This is 1969. All they'd have to go on is blood type, not to mention they wouldn't need her baby; they've got the baby's father right there.

I still think there are eldritch horrors involved, because why else would they be so fucking excited about the baby she's having? (It's supposed to be because of his father, but his father is right there. If he is the father. Dun-dun-duuuun!)

Joan seems to think five and a half months pregnant is as pregnant as you get. She is in for quite the surprise.

4. Thinking this over—the town being of German descent, the Ira Levin connection, the title: Bloodline—I'm now rethinking the Lovecraft connection. I'm wondering if it's a Boys From Brazil thing, trying to breed a new, perfect Johann and Minna Lily, the German founders of the town.

But that doesn't explain why the little Hispanic boy was abducted.

Well, Chris-who-claimed-to-be-Paulie is just a grifter and a drifter. (Really, that's how they describe him.)

There's no-one Joan can trust.

And the horrible secrets are: Johann and Minna Lily were brother and sister! They had twelve children, two of whom lived and also married, but were unable to reproduce. So, beginning with them, the Lily tradition became for the Lily children to grow up, marry, reproduce with other women (vessels), and take the children. Joan's father was one of the town elders.

And, Joan is the original missing boy!

What happened was, Joan's mother wouldn't let her father take her, and on her first day of school, she was abducted by her stepmother. Her mother didn't know this and called the police, and by the time the important people got involved, there was no way to stop a police investigation. Joan's name was Pollyanna, called Polly, which apparently they said was a nickname for Paul. This threw the police off the track, but it also helped Joan's mother grab her back and get away with her clean. The town had been looking for her all these years so she could mate with Guy Woodhouse—

I mean, another "pureblood" Lily. But Deck is very Guy Woodhouse-like.

In the end, Joan, her daughter Frances (named after her mother's chosen alias) and a newcomer to town escape and Joan writes articles about the whole mess for the big newspapers and they live happily ever after. Which is better than Rosemary Woodhouse got.

I'm disappointed that there was no Lovecraft, but pleased at how right I was. They weren't trying to recreate Adolf Hitler, but it's still pretty Boys From Brazil. And there's some Sliver in there, with the dangerously nosy neighbors.

But what surprised me most was, there's a big chunk of Veronica's Room. It's an obscure play by Ira Levin, and I'm not even sure how I stumbled on it, back in high school. But I'm damned impressed that Jess Lourey knows about it and tossed it in the blender to make her very cool Ira Levin-inspired novel.

"He's Just A Guy . . . Who Exists . . . In Reality."*

-:- -:- -:- -:-

The best thing about retiring will be not listening to ambient conversations.

God knows they can be entertaining, but I get very caught up. Lately, one of the IT guys has been in the vicinity, helping with an epidemic of printer problems. He’s abrupt and seems impatient, but I’m wondering if what I’m hearing is social anxiety. I so well know that “please, I just need this conversation to be over with” feeling. Maybe I’m projecting.

And his impatient tone has the effect of making whoever he’s talking to sound anxious as well. I want to go over and sit them both down, tell them to take a deep breath, then say, “Nobody is trying to hurt you. You’re safe. You can relax. You’re doing fine.”

This is not a thing you can do. I don’t care who you are.

I couldn’t even do it with my parents. I’d listen to them talking to each other, each of them just missing the point. I wanted to be their interpreter, but they didn’t seem to want to understand each other, and I wasn’t sure I could trust them with each other’s vulnerabilities.

*

One of the Cataloguers just stopped to wish me a happy new year, and now I’m crying because I’m baffled.

I hardly know most of the Cataloguers, and now with them mostly working from home, I seldom even see them. And I honestly don’t know why anyone would take the time to stop and say something to me, because . . . I don’t feel liked. It’s me I don’t feel liked by, so I can’t really imagine other people just randomly liking me. I do have friends, with whom I share time and thoughts and comfort, and that seems bizarre and miraculous enough, but for someone who I’m just acquainted with stopping to be nice, it feels inexplicable.

I do try very hard to be nice to people. I stopped at White Castle on my way to work. They’re always lovely there, sweet and friendly. The girl this morning was bubbly and nice, and I told her, “I’m really glad I like the food here, because you guys are always wonderful and I love coming here.” She seemed delighted with this.


*Jack Hodgins

In A Time Of Universal Deceit, Telling The Truth Is A Revolutionary Act.*

-:- -:- -:- -:-


I love the library as much as the next book addict. I love books, I love reading, I love the concept of libraries: free places you can get information and entertainment and mind-broadening ideas for free. It seems almost too good to be true.

I love libraries in general and the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library system in particular.

I love that we give people the benefit of the doubt with regards to overdues: if you return an item after the library closes, when the library opens and we check it in, we count it as returned on the previous day. (This is not how utility companies around here work.)

I love that we will buy obscure things people request for purchase.

I love that we consider part of our mission to give shelter to the homeless.

I love the library and I always have and I hope I always do.


But I do not believe the library loves me.

There is a constant struggle between the big deal big wheels and us, the cogs in that wheel, and it’s a struggle for survival on our side and luxury on theirs. We’re assumed incompetent until proven otherwise, and treated (and paid) as such no matter what we do. And the proof is based on arbitrary standards and impossible demands.

The library is run incompetently because the big deal big wheels never consider step two when they have an idea. The library is run inefficiently because we’ve bought into the instant gratification lie. The library is run badly because there is no oversight for those at the top. Things someone at my level would be fired for, managers are given raises for.

The relationship between the library and me is dysfunctional; I love it a whole lot more than it loves me. It’s like being married to an alcoholic: I have to keep telling myself the library has a sickness, and the sickness is power and greed. My library is more open-hearted and open-handed. My library doesn’t want me to starve, even if those in charge wouldn’t bat an eye if they saw me doing just that.

As far as I’m concerned, any contribution I would make, the library already has in the form of money they will not give me because the big deal big wheels are keeping it for themselves. For me to give more is nothing more than handing an alcoholic a bottle of scotch. Throughout our long relationship, the library is the one who has, time and again, acted in bad faith. It now needs to prove it deserves my money—and then pay it to me—before I will contribute a dime.


*George Orwell

Another Name For Depression Is Depression.*


-:- -:- -:- -:-


Back in April, I went to see my PCP because I was feeling so lousy, I was spending all my time thinking I was dying.

I was not dying. I was depressed.

My doctor gave me a prescription for Prozac, which is now blessedly cheap.

At the time, we discussed—

No, wait.

At the time, I pointed out the problem with anti-depressants: they stop working. The first thing you do when that happens is, you up the dosage. The second thing you do, when the first stops working, is change to a different drug. I said I was prepared for both of these eventualities.

I thought we were on the same page. But then, he was talking about his vacation and joining in the doctor games and didn't seem to be paying much attention to me anyway. I was so relieved not to be dying, I was only annoyed by this.

A couple weeks ago, I had an appointment with some kind of wellness team, I think they call themselves. They're supposed to coordinate your care. I don't even know why I went, but while I was there I said the Prozac seemed not as effective as it had been and I'd like to up my dosage. They were pretty sure I'd have to see the doctor again, even when I told them the conversation we had. Or, rather, the monologue I had.

Well, that wasn't going to happen. Right now I have no deductible—I pay the whole thing, until I hit the magic three thousand dollar out of pocket. I'm nowhere near that, so I'm not prepared to hand over a hundred bucks to have a second conversation where the doctor is actually listening.

Whatever. I had been in a bad slump but am now feeling better again, so I can hold on for a while.

Then I got a call from one of the team. Yes, the doctor is insisting on seeing me. Well, that's fine, I'll stick with what I'm taking now.

Today I get a call from the accounts manager or something. There is no earthly reason I can't come in and see the doctor at any time! There is no co-pay due at the time of the visit!

Read that last sentence again. Here, I'll write it again: there is no co-pay due at the time of the visit.

She reiterated it several times, sometimes leaving off the last part.

Now, there are doctor visits that are one hundred percent covered by insurance. Preventative things. This didn't seem to qualify, but what do I know, I'm not that familiar with their billing codes. (I have a friend who once got billed because she scheduled a "check-up" instead of a "physical.") But this seemed suspect. I could come in any time and not have to pay a co-pay at the time of the visit.

It took a while, but I finally got out of her that, well, yes, there would be a bill later, but she had no idea how much that would be because she's unfamiliar with my insurance particulars.

That last bit is a lie. I had told her my insurance particulars, so she wasn't unfamiliar with them; she was choosing to act as though my information was untrustworthy. She would believe it if it came from the insurance company, but of course they wouldn't tell her. So it would forever remain a mystery to her. Probably even if I brought in a bill from her very office it would be inconclusive, since it would be coming from me, a patient.

(Long parenthetical aside: this is one of those things that drives me straight through the roof. When someone has just given you information, saying, "I don't know that," is just calling them a liar. If I told you the time and you promptly said, "Yes, but I don't know what time it is," I'd think you were an idiot. But doing it for fun and profit is insulting and really needs to stop. Fucking say you need to verify my information, at least that's honest; I could be wrong, I could be lying, you don't know. But this eel-like behavior is obnoxious, and pretending you aren't doing it is mendacious.)

She also insisted on using the word co-pay even after acknowledging I don't have a co-pay. I foot the whole bill, minus what the insurance company says the doctor can't charge. (Which is the real benefit of having insurance.)

And then she started laughing.

I asked her what about this was funny, but she'd stopped responding. Then she hung up on me.

I'm sorry. She "ended the call." I'm sure it was my fault.

I called the doctor's office and cancelled the appointments I have and got to talk to the office manager, who I had to tell the whole story to. I told her that a doctor's office using bait-and-switch tactics was the lowest thing I'd ever heard of and what did they think was going to happen in a month when the bill came? "Oh, hey, I'll just send them the money I was going to give the electric company; I can sit in the dark for a month." I also said that I wasn't interested in seeing the doctor anymore, since apparently he paid so little attention to what I was saying, he needed me to come back in and say it again—on my dime. That is not happening.

So, I'm probably looking for a new doctor. Which I would see as a good thing, but who says the new doctor will be better?

[This is a few years old. Eventually they saw it my way.]


*www.freemd.com/depression/

If You Dislike Emerson, You Probably Will Like Poe. Emerson Fathered Pragmatism; Poe Fathered Precisely Nothing, Which Is The Way He Would Have Wanted It.*

-:- -:- -:- -:-

I've left Farmville.

I don't know if it's for good. I do a lot of things "for good" until I don't anymore. I don't know if this is a flaw in my character or what.

Some of it is undoubtedly permanent, because apparently it wiped out my friends' list. That's fine.

I felt like I was drowning in trivia, in other people's lives, in arguments and minutiae, and doing nothing but explaining myself when I posted, or sitting on my hands to avoid explaining myself. I was surrounded by love and goodwill, but unable to actually talk to anyone because the language was wrong, or the subject, or just me.

I had to get out and write long form, talk only to myself and not expect anybody to even read it.

I liked it when LJ was a community. It was a community but it wasn't everybody. I can't handle everybody, even when it's only friends.

And I can't handle the facileness of it. I can't handle people liking my questions but not engaging in conversation with me. I can't handle the vague generalities of affection that add up to nothing when you crave someone to talk to.

And how do you say that to someone's face? Even their virtual face? I've chased off too many people, let too many fly away because my words weren't working and I was overwhelmed, and I don't blame them. I don't even miss them, but I do regret them.

It's hard to keep giving to people who don't give back. I keep repeating Millay's "And one of us be happy./There's few enough as is." but it's cold comfort. Unrequited friendship is almost worse than unrequited love because you can't even write tear-sodden poetry about it.


*Harold Bloom

You don’t want to read this.
I don’t want to write it, but I don’t have a choice.
You do. Go away and come back when I can laugh again.


I’ve been rewatching The Rockford Files. It’s a comfort show for me. It was working until yesterday, when a woman sang a song.

Love will abide, take things in stride


Now, you have to understand, there are songs—and this is one of them—that shoot straight into my heart and burrow, that stay there for days, not like ear worms so much as termites that tear me apart.

I try to avoid them.

Sounds like good advice but there's no one at my side
And time washes clean love's wounds unseen
That's what someone told me but I don't know what it means

They do this to me under normal circumstances; I was raised by a mother who played heartbreak songs and cried, and I cried with her.

I was born nostalgic.

'Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine
And I think I'm gonna love you for a long long time

I was born sentimental.

When I was very young, they couldn’t take me to Mass because the organ music made me cry.

Caught in my fears
Blinking back the tears

Sometimes it seems like I’ve been crying my whole life.

(Except for a dry spell a few years ago when my antidepressant distanced me far enough from my life, all I could do when bad things happened was laugh. Everything was absurd. I wish I felt that way now.

I wish I felt that way now.)

…
'Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine
And I think it's gonna hurt me for a long long time
The last friend who dropped me told me I knew why she was doing it, then blocked me every way you can block someone.

I was more baffled than hurt; things had been going bad for a while. I took our emails to my therapist, to see if there was something I’d missed, but there wasn’t, nothing she could find.

She was the most recent, but hardly the only one who decided I was more trouble than I’m worth.

And, actually, I kind of agree with them all, but I have to stay with me. I have no place else to go.

Wait for the day
You'll go away
Knowing that you warned me of the price I'd have to pay

But I didn’t come here to talk about that; I only mention it so you understand how sensitized I am to abandonment, to disappearances.

When I was very little, maybe it was the first time, we went to the hospital so my mother could visit my father on the locked ward, and my maternal grandmother came too, probably because I wasn’t allowed in.

Why didn’t Grandma and I just stay at home?

Maybe my mother needed her mother with her, though it’s hard to imagine her saying so.

Anyway, she left us in the car and I became hysterical. My father was gone for reasons I couldn’t understand and now my mother was leaving

Abandoning me.

I remember hitting the window, screaming, and sobbing.

Sometimes that seems like the story of my life.

And life's full of flaws
Who knows the cause?
Living in the memory of a love that never was

So when my cat leaves me, chooses to be away from me, it hits all my sensitive spots. I thought he loved me, but—

Please don’t give me explanations of cats. I’m not talking sense her, and sense won’t fix this pain.

'Cause I've done everything I know to try and change your mind
And I think I'm gonna miss you for a long long time

Because there are really only too options here: either he doesn’t want to be here, or something is terribly wrong with him and he can’t come home.

And I love him too much to hope there’s anything wrong with him. I’d rather be abandoned again by the only one I love right now.

And what's killing me isn't that he doesn't love me anymore. It's that he doesn't believe I love him.

So for the rest of my life, I'll call his name whenever I open the front door, or a window, because if he's out there, I need him to hear me wanting him.

'Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine
And I think I'm gonna love you for a long long time