being lopez



above is the trailer for the film adaptation of nick flynn's memoir about fathers, homelessness and writing another bullshit night in suck city. i read the book. i thought i didn't like it when i finished it. but then i went and read flynn's second memoir the ticking is the bomb which is about becoming a father, terrorism and writing. i liked the second memoir quite a lot. so i went looking thru my shelves for flynn's first memoir and i can't find it. i must've given it away. i do that. give books away.

flynn is a poet. that's first even if there is not much poetry, or writing about poetry, in both memoirs. why first? because flynn declares a life of writing poetry. not that i'm a guild man, or have a vested interest in the lives of the poets, but okay, sue me. i'm interested.

still the movie looks okay. maybe all the good stuff is in the trailer. which is baldly about fathers and writing, accent on the writing. yet the title is changed to being flynn and not another night in bullshit city which i suspect is a move to enter the market without the controversy of wearing its language on its sleeve. oh, the movie stars robert de niro and paul dano who look to be born for their roles as bohemian fathers and sons.

and there are not many movies about the life of writing. there's plenty of movies about the lives of writers but not living in writing. too boring. i think this trailer is not quite honest because i think the film is ultimately about how a man becomes a writer and not how the writing makes the man. can't quibble i guess. the trailer looks like it is made for writing geeks like me, and you. it looks like the movie is about writing.

why is the title of this post 'being lopez'? well hell. if flynn can have a movie about his life with his name in the title i can at least use my own as a title for a blog post, right? also, both names are pretty damn common, his of the hiberno variety while mine is of the hispano varietal. of course when these names are situated in the same country that makes us, yep, even if i'm still figuring what it means -- america and writing -- american writers.