I write about whatever I feel like in this section. Therapy, what’s coming up next, the trials and tribulations, yadda, yadda, yadda. Much like the rest of the magazine, this section is run on whimsy. I don’t know what anything is going to look like or what I’m going to cover when I sit down here at the computer to start an issue. I have no editorial calendar, no agenda. Cream rises to the top. The best articles make the issue, doesn’t matter the subject matter. If it’s good and/or helpful, it gets in. I truly have no clue what anything will look like when I start each month. It’s kind of par for the course for how I run my life.
With that in mind, let’s talk about TV and movies again!
Just something I want to spend a smidge of time on. I won’t go into a diatribe about the subject for the millionth time. In fairness to me, it’s only been a couple times and probably won’t be the last time. This time around I’d like to dive into TV and movies as a comfort tool. Like food or a blankie, TV and movies can be a touchstone in a life of turmoil.
My happy place is in front of this computer, banging away at an issue while my television sends my subconscious to another dimension, place in time or super galactic adventure. I’m a Gen Xer, so headphones are on with music blaring as subtitles stream seamlessly along the bottom of the screen across the room. It’s pitch black around me. I’m in a cocoon of media and I feel as cozy as bear settling in to hibernate.
The day doesn’t bring me this kind of peace. There are emails and phone calls to be answered while TBS’ afternoon lineup of silly mature cartoons and sitcoms. Then the kids home and you forget any kind of peace. There is a certain contentment that comes with an active house. My kids darting back and forth just beyond my office door. My wife is somewhere in the house cleaning or organizing her volunteer effort. TVs, kindle, IPods and whatever they can get their hands on add to the soundtrack of a day in my house.
Both of these scenarios would seem like chaos to the outside world. A day filled with activity and a night filled with loud head phoned music and movies playing in a dark room as I do my best Minority Report impression, moving pieces of text and photos around on a screen at a feverish pace. Chaos. But not to me. This is my comfort zone.
Television and movies have always brought me comfort. In front of a TV is where I feel most content. I’ve never tried to pin down why that is but here I sit with a column and X amount of words to come up with, so let’s dive in. Is it the stories that are told to me as I sit wide eyed waiting for whatever tale the box in front of me decides to take me on? That’s a hell of a good reason.
Is it the escape of it? I have a pretty intense case of ADHD, I’m not sure if that’s the reason I can get engulfed in a film or show, but it helps. If I’m watching, let’s say. Lord of the Rings, then I AM IN Middle Earth. I’m there, man. I can smell it, feel the air, the warmth of their weird sun on my skin, I’m that into it. There’s a character in the movie PCU (a goofy Jeremy Piven/David Spade flick about college) whose entire purpose for a month was to watch TV nonstop for a class. I envy that dude! That’s the dream! I lose myself in the movies and shows I watch, is that the reason?
Maybe I have an appreciation of the medium? Before the house fire that spurred me to get off my backside and produce this magazine, I had a book. It was a huge book. It was a movie guide written (? Really? We count making lists as writing a book? A rant for another day.) by movie critic Leonard Maltin. It had every movie ever made, to that point, in alphabetical order. I’d go through that book as often as I could (I had a lot more free time before the mag) with a pen and I’d draw a line through each film that I’d seen. I treated it like golf, no cheating. If I didn’t see it, I didn’t mark it off. By the time the fire took that book from me, it was marked up pretty well. I’ve seen thousands of movies. Maybe tens of thousands by now, not sure. Never could get the nerve to buy another book like that, bad mojo from the fire and superstition prevents me from bringing another copy into the house.
I absorb information like a sponge, so maybe my attraction to film and television stems from a desire to learn? That could be. I’ve seen more documentaries and informative shows than any person probably should. I’ve learned about people and places I was interested in and I’ve picked up information I could do without. It all adds to the special blend of weird that is me. A me that is filled with more useless information than the fine print of a phone contract. A me that can tell you what song Seth Rogen raps in the Green Hornet (Gangsta’s Paradise by Coolio) or what color hat Forrest Gump wore while mowing grass (red). Does knowing all this nonsense give me comfort? Kind of.
It’s more than likely a combination of these things combined with dependability.
It’s always been there for me. Could be generational. The parents of my generation didn’t have money for nannies or day care, they plopped us down in front of the old tube. It was the cure all. Have too much housework? Kids in the way? Too cold to send them outside? TV is there to save the day.
TV raised me. TV taught me right and wrong. Movies taught me my value system. I’ve never wanted to be the villain. Always the hero. It shaped me. It’s the reason I run TO the scene of accidents to see if I can help. It’s the reason I am willing to give anything to someone in need (have you seen Pursuit of Happiness? Will Smith becomes a millionaire! What if you were a jerk to him on the way up?!!?). It’s the reason I love hard and care hard. It’s what made me a sensitive dude despite a trajectory that can make another person jaded. It’s the reason every minute with my kids is precious and captured in the movie that plays constantly in my head.
To say that TV and movies have influenced me would be a ridiculous undervaluing of its place in my life. The way I talk, my wit, even the magazine is touched by it. I found a way to get pictures of Vince Vaughn and Dave Franco in the last issue for crying out loud!
Yeah movies and TV are a big part of what makes me. I could go on for pages about the parts of my personality it has impacted but we have other things we need to get to before I close up shop on this column.
Prepare for a mild transition into the next topic.
Movies and TV (wait for it) might also be the reason I don’t panic when I’m behind in my work. (There it is! Transition achieved.) I had to travel a bit of the country at the beginning of this month for a few important interviews. You’ll read all about one of them in the next few issues but for now, let’s focus on the one that will be a part of the May issue.
This month’s cover features artwork from an alumni of care and perhaps the most respected advocate that foster care has ever known. Her name is Misty Stensile. Unfortunately, Misty will most likely not be alive to read this, or what is planned for the next issue. Misty’s body and mind have been ravaged by lyme disease and early onset alzheimer’s disease stemming from an infection in connection to her lyme disease. I was summoned to Minnesota to tell her life’s story.
With her death emminant, she called upon myself and the magazine to share with the world, the journey she took from a lifetime spent in the system to becoming one of the most respected voices in foster care to her unfortunate early retirement and absence from the advocacy she had helped give credibility.
One of the comforts she found in her final years was the therapy that doodling can provide. Though I had never met her in person, I reached out via social media and began a friendship with the pioneer who was the first Chairperson of Foster Care Alumni of America, a group I would later spend time with as a Boardmember. With that friendship came a selfish request on my part. I’d seen her doodles, I call them pieces of art, and wanted when for the magazine. She was kind enough to oblige and there you have the April cover.
This was a remarkable woman whom I was honored to have had the chance to sit down with face to face. You are involved in foster care, whether or not you know it, you’ve seen Misty’s work. We’ll talk more about that next month.
In nearly every good movie, something positive arises from tragedy. Though we lost Misty, her influence and those who she helped to train and nurture, continue to populate every area of care. My hope is that I can convey to you her influence in next month’s issue.
Until then, enjoy this issue of the magazine filled with great articles of hope and resilience. I hope you’ll find it useful.
See you in National Foster Care month!
Owner/Editor - Chris Chmielewski