Author: Michael Knox-Smith

Former Actor, Former Writer, Former Journalist, USAF Veteran, Former Member Nevada Film Critics Society (As Michael Smith)

New year

Well 2012 has started with a blast. I’ve been tweeting, facebooking and Google + ing about stopping the SOPA  bill that Congress is trying to pass. I was a bit shocked and dismayed to learn of this bill’s existence and the sickening ease that it was being passed through Congress. It looks like Orwell got the year a little wrong when he wrote 1984…perhaps on subsequent releases of the book they may have to re-title it 2012.

My daughter and I have been looking forward to 2012 as a year of re-birth. A new chance at the life that has been, thus far, elusively out of reach.  So far 2012 has been scarily like the previous few years. Another allergic reaction for Meg;  money problems for me. Oh well, I’ve always been told that pinning your hopes on a “new year” was asking for trouble.

I tried to start this particular  blog about two weeks ago. I then got mired down with the daily trials that make up our everyday life. I got started again today because my friend Bruce (sticklepix) left me a short finger wag on my facebook wall, “slacking off with the blog goddamit…” Yes, slacking I have been, but now I’m going to pick the reins back up.

It looks like the catchword for this new year is going to be…flexibility. I know, I know. Flexibility should always be the catchword. But life has a way of making us forget that. Our jobs, chores, and leisure activities  can make us all too complacent and more importantly un-flexible in our pursuit of what we are aiming for.

Still, if the Mayan’s were right, the world may very well end this year in December. Unfortunately we won’t know until the time arrives. There are no Mayan’s around to ask about their “prophesy” and even if there were they’d very very old. And as we all know very very old people have very very dodgy memories.

But until the world ends in December – or not – I think we’ll keep practising our flexibility. Who knows, we might need it in the next life, you know? The one beginning in the January after December 2012.

Reflections

The year 2012 is just a few short hours away. I’m sitting here waiting for the clock to chime in the new year. I’m also doing the same thing I do every year as I wait for the new year to arrive. I’m looking over the last year and reflecting over some of the events.

2011 was the year of the “BIG BAD” being toppled. This was the year that played out like some kind of twisted video game. Off hand I can think of three Big-Bad’s who left the world in 2011.

Osama bin Laden – The” head of the snake” leader of the worlds most active terrorist organisation.

Muamar Gaddafi – Much reviled head of a country renowned for training terrorists.

Kim Jong-il-  The worlds longest serving dictator.

The first two in my reflective list were terminated with extreme prejudice. I think this was justified to a huge degree based on their actions alone. I guess you could call it a “Live-by-the-sword-die-by-the-sword” philosophy. Or a “Reap-as-you-sow” philosophy. Either way, they got what they deserved. Dirty, violent deaths meted out in public. I know this sounds rather Old Testament, but, I do believe that these type of “people” deserve no better end that what they received.

The last on my list is, in my mind at least, a huge enigma. Kim Jong-il was the North Korean dictator for a long time. He managed to keep an entire country blind-folded, single-handedly. Yet, this was a man who was a fanatical film fan. He was also adored by his “captive” constituents. He shuffled off this mortal coil in his sleep.  Not really the end one envisions for a “Big Bad” is it. But Jong-il is a villain by default really. I know he was not a very nice person. This is the man, after all, who kidnapped the most talented South Korean film director of the time and imprisoned him for seven years. During his incarceration the director existed on a diet of salt, rice, and grass. At the end of his “sentence” Jong-il brought the man’s wife to North Korea and placed them both on house arrest. The purpose of this whole exercise was to improve the North Korean film industry. Like I said, he was a fanatical film fan – just a not too tightly wrapped one in my opinion.

Still Jong-il was the least of the Big Bad’s who departed in 2011. Old age and ill health defeated him. The first two were beaten by the military – although Gaddafi was technically done in by his own countrymen.

I know I’m taking the long way around the barn to make my point, but, I’ll get there soon. I made the somewhat flippant remark about a “twisted video game” above, but I do think of things in a gamer’s verse sometimes. It helps to take away the horror of it all, I suppose. But my point is this: Two of these monstrous examples of “humanity” were taken down by young men and women who serve their countries in uniform.

While I type this there are still young men and women who voluntarily serve their countries in the pursuit of defeating evil and aiding the worlds downtrodden.  A lot of these young people die as a result. When I was a kid, we had the draft, or conscription if you prefer that phrase, and the military was full of young folks who didn’t really want to be there.

So I guess while I wait for Big Ben to chime in the new year I’ll reflect mainly on the young men and women who daily put themselves in harms way to fight and die for our freedom. These brave people who volunteered for the chance to stop evil spreading and protecting our rights. Not just in 2011 but in the new year as well.

Happy New Year to our Armed Forces. May 2012 be the year where peace becomes the clarion cry that the world listens to.

Triggers

So Christmas has finished, in my mind at least, I’ve never celebrated the “12 days of Christmas” thing. We started taking down the decorations today. The tree is the last decoration standing at the moment. With my work schedule, it will be late in the week before we take the tree down and put the bits and bobs back up into the attic.

The funny thing is, we started talking about taking everything down two days ago! I suppose it has something to do with the total lack of Christmas spirit this year in our reduced household. Moving just before the festive season really left no room for presents or for much in the way of celebration. This I suppose was due, in part, to lack of immediate funds. But mainly, I think, it was down to triggers.


“Triggers” are things that set us off, or set us up, if you know what I mean. I was introduced to the phrase via the Mental Health Team where I work. I had always thought it was an overworked and over-relied on term that was used to explain a multitude of sins. I’ve had a change of heart.

My daughter and I were discussing these triggers the other day.

It was after an argument interestingly enough, about the laptop and my “umbilical” attachment to it. She had asked me, quite reasonably, to put the lid down for a minute while she finished telling me something. I was, as usual when I’m on the computer,  just half-listening. I was cruising the net – that’s spelt facebook and twitter – and I reacted in a remarkably bad manner. I was furious that she would dare to ask such a thing of me.

I don’t mean that I worked up to this emotion. It happened instantaneously. After apologising for my stupid behaviour things went back to normal.  Then a short while later, I said something about the state of her room. Nothing serious going on in there, just a surplus of clothing that hadn’t been put away. She blew up and pretty much tore a strip off me. Again,  apologies all around and things back to normal.

We discussed both situations later over tea. I explained that I knew where my reaction had come from. Her mother used to complain every time I got the laptop out. My daughter then realised that her reaction had stemmed from her mother’s complaining constantly about the state of her room. I then mentioned triggers and the reaction that they have on us. We both concluded that we needed to be aware of the trigger things and try to avoid reacting to them when they popped up.

I have now come to the conclusion that our “lack” of  Christmas this year – although I must add that we did do a Christmas video this year and had a lot of fun doing it – was as a result of the trigger of last years festive season. Last year was the first time we had not spent the holidays as a family unit. It was strange, uncomfortable and awkward. I honestly believe it set us up for the overall downer that was Christmas this year.

We are now looking forward to the new year and have high hopes that it will be better than the last two years. I think we have a pretty good chance of succeeding as well. We just have to look out for triggers. Everyone has things that “trigger” a response from them. These responses or reactions can be good or bad, we just have to learn to recognise why we have them and how to avoid them if they are of the bad variety.

So that is my wish for everyone in 1012. Learn what your triggers are and change how you react to them. It will help make you a calmer person in the end. It will probably be the one time in your life that it’s okay to be “trigger happy.”

I’ll Be Home…

Christmas always makes me a little maudlin. I think mainly because the last time I spent it with my family was in 1978. I know I’m a little old to want to spend this time of year with my parents and my brother and his family. But I always miss them badly this time of year. It has been 33 years after all. It would also be nice to spend Christmas with both my kids. I’ll be with my daughter but my son who lives in America I haven’t spent Christmas with since he was about one.

I guess the thing I really miss, are the family get together’s we had when I was a child. One day would be set aside to see the grandparents and ALL the local family. The next day would be reserved for my grandmother and the slightly smaller local family. Both days were full of laughter, jokes, stories and great food. 
At my grandparents the women would all get together in the kitchen. There they’d help Grandma finish the dishes she’d started preparing and unwrapping all the goodies they’d brought to eat. The men would set in the front room or on the porch and drink copious cups of coffee and smoke. The kids did what children always do when they are together: bicker, squabble, play and get excited over the prospect of extra presents.
Once the food was served up the kids ate in one of the many bedrooms in my grandparent’s house. I still remember when I got old enough to join the adults in the main room of the house. I felt very grown up and a little proud. Of course the highlight of the day for me was sitting out on the front porch with Grandpa and drinking coffee. While we froze our asses off, he told the most marvellous stories about when he was younger. These mostly consisted of when he travelled all over the place doing migratory work to feed his many children. He picked peaches on the Mexican border and worked in a lumber camp in Colorado, just to name two. As far as I know I was the only grandchild to be told these stories. It made me feel very special.
At my Grandmother’s house, the whole thing was a bit smaller. Less family members but just as much fun. One of my favourite Uncles was always there. I adored him. To me, and yes it sounds silly I know, he made me think of a “white” Sammy Davis Jr. It was his voice I think. Oh I don’t mean he could sing like Sammy, but when he talked, he had the same kind of voice. But his main attraction, I think, was his colourful language. He’d been in the Navy and his vocabulary reflected this. Plus he was funny. He saw life as being funny and was a very jokey character.
Of course the “women-in-the-kitchen” and the “men-in-the-main-room” tradition was also practised at my Grandmother’s with the kids acting exactly the same. The main difference was no-one went out onto the porch for coffee and smokes. There wasn’t one.
I guess, in retrospect, what I really miss this time of year are those old celebrations with  mother, father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I suppose I also miss the wonder of being a child and seeing everything through a child’s eyes. Long after I discovered that there really was no Santa Claus, Christmas still held a special place in my heart. It was a time when the whole family put their differences aside and got together.  Quite an accomplishment when you consider how big that family was. 
I guess we all lose the “wonder” of  Christmas when we grow up. It’s harder to see the magic of the holiday. And yes, it is magic. What other time of the year brings families together in such a way. I’ll never forget those special times at my grandparents with my mom, dad and brother. Oh we had fun at Christmas in our house too, but that was like the preamble to the main event. 
So like the song says, “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.”

Games

Way back in July of last year The Today Show stated that “It’s weird for men over thirty to play video games, unless they’re playing video games with a child.” Okay, for those more observant of you out there, yes I did paraphrase the quote…a lot. But that was the bottom line message from television personality Donny Deutsch. Gee thanks Donny. I guess that puts me so far past weird that I can expect the men in white coats to come knocking any day now.

I can never understand this prejudice against video games. Normally rational adults spend more time denigrating and vilifying video games. Blaming them for everything from juvenile crime to brainwashing. So over thirty is too old to play video games? What about board games? Card games? The common thread in all these games is the word game. I know geriatrics that love playing games that range from Monopoly to Sorry.

I’m fifty-three years old. I’ll refrain from using that sickening phrase “I’m fifty-three years young.” This is always stated with a kind of simper – I have to massively control the urge to simultaneously gag and strangle any idiot who uses that phrase. Anyway, back to the point. At fifty-three, you might very well say that I should have more on my mind than playing video games. In most cases I’m sure you’d be right. In my case, no.

English: Arcade Video Game

I also happen to think that more men over thirty are playing video games than Donny or The Today Show think. That’s because video games, which started their infancy as Arcade games, have been around for quite a while now. Space invaders was available to play when I was just twenty. I remember it well. Just a quarter a  pop and you could play this exciting and frustrating game.

I was twenty-one when my first boss in the USAF took me to his house to see his new Atari machine. You could hook it up to your telly and fly planes and shoot each other. This kept us entertained for months. You could shoot each other with other vehicles, but, none of those were as much fun as the planes.

I then got off the “games train” for a few years. I rediscovered the train years later via a younger friend I worked with. He said, “Let’s go to the bowling alley. I want to show you something.” That something was Street Fighter. Once again I was hooked. Then I discovered Mario Bros, then Donkey Kong, well you get the idea. Once again I fell off the train.

Then we got our daughter a PS1 for Christmas and I met Laura Croft. I was in love! This gal was great! She could shoot in mid-air! WOW!  Plus, this gal had a story to go along with all this game play. This was the last time I got on the train and I’ve not gotten off. I don’t intend to either.

I can honestly say that until arthritis makes using the controllers too difficult – although…Hey, with the Kinect and the PS move, or even *shudder* the Nintendo Wii, that can be gotten around. I suppose that when I get really old and my mental facilities slow way down, I will have to stop. But until then, it’s  GAME ON!

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