Most of the really important things that have happened in my life recently are things I’m not able to talk about yet. Suffice it to say that many thoughts have been churning inside my brain lately, and many of those thoughts came to a climax this past Friday.
I went twenty years without going to the dentist. I should probably be embarrassed to admit this, but I’ve decided to own it. When I lived at home with my parents as a teenager, I went to the dentist regularly because I was told I would be going there. My mom would make the appointments and drive me to the doctor’s office. There was no escaping the dentist as long as I lived under my parents’ roof, and because of that, I would get lectured on a pretty semi-regular occasion by dentists about not flossing enough. That said, I went eighteen years without getting a single cavity, so maybe that’s why I got so cocky about the health of my teeth.
Once I left home for college, regular dentist trips went the way of always having a fully stocked fridge. Going to the dentist wasn’t a priority compared to semester finals, dorm room pranks, and figuring out how to score beer. Even after I graduated college and got a big boy job with health insurance, I kept putting off going to the dentist. To be fair, it wasn’t just dentists - I avoided most doctors.
At some point, I did become ashamed of how long it had been since I had seen the dentist, and decided I had reached a point of no return. Once a decade has passed since you’ve had your teeth cleaned professionally, what are a few more years? Why not just put it off until … never? Cut to 2024, and I promised Lucía I would finally go to the dentist before we married. I had been complaining about a toothache for the last few months - a throbbing and swelling of the gums near a chipped tooth. That said, I was willing to consider that problem solved when, while eating popcorn, said tooth exploded upon impact with a stray kernel. Lucía disagreed.
Despite putting off my visit to the dentist for as long as I could, the hour finally dawned last Friday afternoon. During my two-hour initial dentist visit, I had x-rays taken and cameras inserted into my mouth. My gums were poked with metal spikes, and I had all manners of fingers inserted into my mouth. The result was a very lovely dentist sitting across from me and very kindly telling me I was looking at very hefty $5,000 in initial dental work. Those were just the procedures needed as a priority - there would be more to come, the dentist assured me. Root canals, cavities filled, a tooth removed, and a bridge installed. My mouth would be a full-on construction site for the next few months. The chickens had come home to roost.
Compared to that truly jaw-dropping bill, the actual stress party came when they checked my blood pressure. I was firmly in the Hyper-Tension Stage 2 zone. Granted, some of this may have been due to the stress that naturally comes with your first visit to the dentist in twenty years, but I knew in my (hyper-tense) heart of hearts that my blood pressure was and had been high. Despite regularly working out at the YMCA and (most of the time) eating healthier than I had been in recent months, I was starting to see the usual suspects of health warning signs that come with anybody approaching their 40s who weighs more than they should. I had spent decades abusing my body - not with drugs or alcohol, but with the McDonald’s and Taco Bell value menus. Chickens, roosting, etc.
With a plan for dealing with my dental needs worked out with the billing department, I decided to take my mind off things by watching IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY at the theater. Bad choice, Bobby Boy. Bad choice.
I first saw Don Hertzfeldt’s feature-length animated film in 2012 when we hosted the filmmaker for a screening at the Alamo Drafthouse Mason Park. The film follows Bill, a seemingly dull man whose life is upended when he begins to show signs of extreme mental disease, leading to hospitalization and the realization that large chunks of who Bill was as a person before the illness no longer exist. A beautifully animated, side-splittingly funny examination of the genetic horrors that might be waiting for any of us in our DNA, Hertzfeldt’s feel-bad comedy uses experimental animation techniques to explore life, death, and the struggle to control the end of your own journey. It’s a beautiful movie, but it’s also a real bummer of an experience - the kind of sad boy shit I usually eat up with a spoon. Seen under the specter of my own mortality, though, it was a complicated watch. Little did I know that the specter wasn’t done spectering.
Immediately after exiting the film, I checked my phone to see a message from my friend Alan that our colleague Scott Wampler had died. Scott wasn’t much older than me and had worked for the Alamo Drafthouse and Birth. Movies. Death. before launching a highly successful podcast called The Kingcast, where he interviewed creatives about Stephen King’s books and films. What Wampler was mainly known for, though, was his incredibly funny presence on Twitter. Scott was a prankster who never failed to take the chance to let the air out of an institution. He was a guy who seemed effortlessly funny and highly intelligent - a dangerous combination to be on the wrong side of. I want to say that Scott and I were friends, but we were probably more “friendly.” I wish I had taken the opportunity to know him better.
For Scott to die so young seems unthinkable. Over the weekend, Twitter was flooded with a flurry of impromptu memorials for Scott. From friends remembering kind words and gestures Scott had shown them in their times of need, to fans recounting the all-timer jokes Scott cooked up and served up free daily on Twitter, to peers who were helped along their career by Scott, to titans of the entertainment industry who felt seen by a man who knew how to cut through the bullshit of typical interviews, folks dropped into the hellhole site that Twitter has become to pay their respects to Scott. I think that’s the biggest testament to both the impact Scott made in his field and the tragedy of his death. Scott should have had more time to keep making that impact. All the funny pranks Scott did with his writing, all the great Tweets, even the hours of podcasts - that should have all paled when compared to the work still waiting to be realized. Scott should have had the time to keep making a difference with his writing and his enthusiasm and his fandom. Scott had so much more to do, but he didn’t have a chance to do it.
Scott’s gone now. It was sudden and unexpected and unfair. As Don Hertzfeldt says with his film, life is beautiful but it’s also scary and weird and funny and sad and - sometimes - too short. Scott lived a life that inspired many, many, many people - most of them strangers - to remember him for the impact he made on their lives. That’s the kind of life we can all aspire to. We can’t control when our story ends, but we can control what type of story it was.
I’m hosting two events at the Alamo Drafthouse this week. Up first is a Film Club screening of DRUGSTORE COWBOY on Wednesday, June 5. This Gus Van Sant-directed indie classic stars Matt Dillon as a drug addict whose attempts to get sober prove harder than hoped for. Based on an autobiographical novel by James Fogle, a career criminal whose own escapades robbing pharmacies inspired the plot of his novel-turned-film. Buy tickets here.
On Friday night, I’m screening UNDERWORLD at Graveyard Shift. Kate Beckinsale stars in this 2003 leather camp modern cult gem about a vampire who, despite her clan being at war for centuries with werewolves, finds herself falling for a lycan. Romeo and Juliet, but with monsters - this bullet-drenched action film combines the aesthetic of THE MATRIX with the sensibilities of a seasonal General Mills cereal box. Buy tickets here.
I don’t have any new WHERE WOLF updates this week. You can request a copy from your local library or buy a personal copy directly from the publisher, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Ghoulish Books in San Antonio, or Whose Books in Dallas. If you've read WHERE WOLF, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon, Goodreads, The StoryGraph, or wherever you discover new books.