...then you're not paying attention.
It's almost Halloween, which is my favorite holiday. I love fall. I love the pumpkins. I love the cool evening walks, the candy, the decorations. And I love the MOVIES. I love scary, gory, horror movies. They make me laugh. The music is great. The characters are often pathetically lame. But they're so much FUN!
I found myself thinking sometime last year, that you never root for the survivors in the horror movies... You're always rooting for the bad guy! The killer. The pervert. The deranged psychopath.
One of the most iconic horror movie bad-guys of all time is Freddy Krueger, and his razor sharp glove of blades. He's witty, he's creative, he's got a cool hat! Sure, he's burnt to a crisp from head to toe and has an appetite for slashing up teenagers, but he's the star of the show.
I starting working on an All City Affairs song last year with the working title "Freddy's Glove." And a lyric came into my head - "Bad guy. You're in love with the bad guy." I didn't want the song to literally be about the bladed glove, but the horror movie imagery and menacing paranoia that victims experience in these movies gave me an idea of a working metaphor to American culture in 2019.
When Trump threw his hat into the ring for the presidency, everyone became obsessed with him. Whether we liked it or not, his face and words were popping up on every screen and in every soundbite. We became inundated with every disgusting, hateful, moronic lie that spewed forth from his frothy lips. There was no way to turn off the news. No way to stop scrolling Facebook. No stopping from clicking on that button. Like in A Nightmare on Elm Street - when you finally close your eyes, when you're too tired to stay awake...that is when he gets you.
There seemed to be no way to tune it out. And, as often is the case, the heel of a wrestling match gets the crowd fired up! Some section of our country starting actually rooting for this guy to win! The bad guy took over. It really seemed like we were in some kind of horrible movie. There'd be no way it could happen. The "good people" would find a way to triumph. Yeah, maybe...but by the time the credits roll, everybody's dead except that one person who managed to survive for the sequel.
I hope to God there is not a sequel. That this will be a stand-a-lone picture and not a franchise.
