Friday, December 16, 2011

DRock's Tribute to The Batman

Hello folks, D-Rock here! It's been a while, I know, and although none of you out there are reading this anymore, I thought I'd post something anyway. (I don't have my own blog, and I have a secret, sexual desire to see the Sports Quiz Radio Blog have success -- seriously, I 'jerk it' to the idea . . . or do I? Either way, I've had Dutch potatoes on the brain since algebra times.) Anyway --
We, as lovers of pop-culture, find ourselves at the upcoming close of something near and dear to my heart, and maybe yours as well -- Chris Nolan's 'Dark Knight' Trilogy. (I would say Batman, but I prefer him to be known by the aforementioned.) I've seen both the Prologue and the first full length trailer for 'The Dark Knight Rises', via the wondrous bootleg world that is the 'inter-webs.' I don't like to get emotional, especially on the something as 'emotion-less' as the Sports Quiz diaries, but I must say that a journey; a film series that has been with me for the better part of my adult-life, is now drawing to it's close. I can't deny it, nor would I want to. Sad as it is, I must respect that a 'story' has touched me so deeply, as all good stories do for us, and that they all must end. . . .
I believed in Batman when I was 3-years-old. I drew pictures of him; my mother put them up on our refrigerator. They were, as all kids' drawing are, hokey, circular-faced, and sausage-fingered. But even from those early, Adam West-inspired days, I knew that Batman stood for something more than most of our comic book heroes do (Spiderman and Supe excluded.) I felt something when it came to the 'idea' of what Batman is! Even in those days of Adam West re-runs, there was something about the character that struck a nerve in my 3-year-old heart, and maybe, even then, I knew what darkness was . . . .
Then, something magical happened. I saw a preview on our old TV for 'Batman'. Michael Keaton was The Batman; Jack Nicholson was The Joker. I was five. I constantly asked my mom if we could go see it in the theater. She always responded with "no." She thought it'd appeared to be "too dark for kids." She was partially right, but mostly wrong: my first memory of buying a VHS tape was in Hills Department Store, when my dad bought my brother and I the VHS of 'Batman'. We obsessed over that tape. We watched it every night. We bought the 'Batman' role-play sets, and chased each other around the living room, pretending that we lived in that world, where the Bat was the Hero.
I 'got' it. I got what Batman was: He was a brooding hero who saved the oppressed. He overcame his own nightmare, utilized it, and dealt his own suffering out to those who inflicted pain upon others who were oppressed. The Bat, The Darkness . . . the Monster who taps into the nightmares of those who are afraid. I loved that. I still love it. Fear Fighting Fear -- that's The Batman.
No hero comes without their own flaws, and no hero comes without their own dark story; that's why The Batman intrigued me so much, I think, as a kid. I must've known that; respected it. Pain is paramount in the decisions we make. Pain shapes our life-decisions; cursing us! It's 50/50 when you're flawed. You can go one way as easily as you go the other, as some of you may know. Batman chose the right way -- he sacrificed himself for the well being of others because he 'could.' On one hand, he did it for himself, ('to avenge his parents' death'), but ultimately, his story becomes much more than that. He did it because he was ultimately decent; he did it because he's fucked up, and never stopped being that child on Crime Alley, kneeling before his dead parents. He does it because he's screwed up, and the only way to fight the nightmare, is to BECOME the nightmare . . .

Chris Nolan's Batman Trilogy ends this summer, a trilogy which began when I was living in New Jersey as a wide-eyed young man, and continued when I lived in my first apartment, with a fantastic young woman who has since existed my story. . .
I'm not the man I was, back then. I'm horribly jaded, despicable, and downright belligerent now . . . but I still 'believe' in The Batman. I'll be 28-years-old when Bane breaks the Bat; I'll never forget the 5-year-old I once was, when the Cape and Cowl meant something to me. It still does; always will. The Night Will Rise . . . The Dark Knight Rises.

http://www.thedarkknightrises.com/



Batman-4-Life, Bitches