He Was Weird the Move? I’d Love It, But….

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BBC, books, bullying, films, Great Britain, He Was Weird, Lionel Shriver, Michael D LeFevre, school shootings, television, We Need to Talk About Kevin

What author wouldn’t want their book made into a move? There may be some but I know that I would. Seeing my words turned into real life on the big screen would be the ultimate achievement. However, I would be more than a little worried if the filmmakers happened to come from the British Broadcasting Company, the BBC. This isn’t because I think that the BBC would tamper with the plot or anything like that. No, my worry is over the fact that in the past, the BBC has shied away from violence. Take the fantastic 1970s television series, “I Claudius.” Having read the book, there were numerous accounts of gladiator battles plus Claudius’s remarkable conquest of Britain. Therefore, I would have expected some sword play in the series but there was none. I found that disappointing.

The BBC did make a film about one of the books on school shootings, which I post about, “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” In my opinion, the filmmakers didn’t do the book justice. I won’t go into some of the scenes from the book that were left out in the film, which I thought shouldn’t have been. It’s the scene were Kevin actually carries out his school massacre. We only get a few seconds of Kevin shooting his arrows. We don’t see any of them hitting their targets or any reaction from Kevin or his victims. Hell, the bow he used in the movie wasn’t the same type described in the book. This is my reservation about the BBC making the movie of “He Was Weird,” the shooting would be left out. All we would see is a five second clip of Mark shooting his Uzi and that would be it. Such a thing would do my book a great disservice.

The shooting scene from “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” There’s not much more to it.

If a movie was to be made from “He Was Weird,” it would be imperative to see the school shooting in full. Some readers were actually glad when Mark finally gets his revenge on his bullies, although some of those said that they felt a little guilty about that after they read of Mark’s carnage. They’re right though, the audience needs to see Mark finally get is revenge after all his suffering up until that point. One piece of feedback went further to say that one can feel him releasing all of his hate when he double taps (he shoots them again) some of those he shot. I’m not saying we need to see blood and gore on “Saving Private Ryan” scale, although there would be filmmakers who would go to that extreme but we would need to see the shooting from the first shots all the way to the end. I would worry that the BBC wouldn’t do that.

Other parts of the book could be omitted or expanded upon depending on how the filmmaker viewed those bits. I would be interested to see how Mark’s “Week in Paradise” would have been covered. Again, there, I would worry that some filmmakers would age Mark in the film so they could have a sex scene. from that chapter.  I don’t see the need myself. Besides, that is where Mark officially enters puberty.

What caught the attention of New Generation Publishing was the ice hockey scenes. The head of the company told me he liked how the reader was reading about Mark scoring first the tie-ing goal and then the winning goal to give the Junior Flyers the championship. One second, you are celebrating with Mark on the ice, then all of a sudden, you’re back in his bedroom while he is celebrating because the computer is saying his team won. Therefore, I would hope that any hockey scene from the book, used in the film, would be real.

My beloved Philadelphia Flyers, are they celebrating with Mark?

They will probably never make a movie from “He Was Weird,” but here’s to dreaming. I wouldn’t tell the BBC no if they offered but I would hope that they wouldn’t cut out any of the shooting or the bullying because both form the basis behind the entire story.

To buy He Was Weird, go to https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493150135&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bullying As Seen On TV: Criminal Minds- Part 2

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19 Minutes, books, bullying, Criminal Minds, Endgame, He Was Weird, schools, teachers, television

Some of the team from Criminal Minds

For this post, I’m back on the subject of bullying as seen on TV. The television series “Criminal Minds” has given me three episodes worth of inspiration. The first one was posted about two weeks ago on school shootings. Today’s post was inspired by the eleventh episode of season nine, simply called “Bully.”

The story as far as I’m concerned, begins with a man being murdered while he was out jogging. What really astounds the BAU, as well as local police, is the ferocity of the attack. Here is a well conditioned man who appeared able to handle himself but he is beaten really badly to death. Things get more interesting when the team discover a young couple who suffered the same fate a year earlier. There is debate whether the two murders are linked and that provides an interesting counter plot but I’m not here to review the programme.

Another murder happens and that leads to the big breakthrough in the case. A husband and wife are murdered in their house and the team interview the young daughter who has to come back from university to deal with her parents’ affairs. She tells the team of a young boy who was believed to have committed suicide because he was bullied so badly. This boy was forced to wear girl’s underpants in front of the entire school. One can only imagine the humiliation and it makes me glad that I didn’t have such an ordeal. It turns out that the murdered jogger was a substitute teacher at the high school at the time and saw the bullying but didn’t do anything about it.

Here comes the murderer. We discover that in the years after he dropped out of high school, due to the bullying, he has become a physical fitness fanatic aided by taking steroids. Viewers get a full look at his now extremely aggressive tendencies. They also get a flashback to when he was bullied by having his head stuck down a toilet. In the end, the team locate him at the high school after he was beaten up but not yet killed another teacher who was present at the bullying of his friend but sorted the problem by making the victim and the bully shake hands. Unlike so many American cop shows, the murdering victim is not shot but taken into custody on the promise that he would get to tell his side of the story. After reading the books, “Nineteen Minutes” and “Endgame,” I wonder how much of his story would be told and would anybody listen?

While I be the first one to admit that murder doesn’t justify anything like this, I couldn’t help feeling a lot of sympathy for the killer. I know that Mark in “He Was Weird” would have felt it too. Both of us faced bullies but unlike the teacher who didn’t effectively deal with it on the programme, some of my teachers actually tried to turn it around and blame me, the victim. I highlight this quite a lot in the book. Another interesting personal link to this episode was that although I didn’t take steroids, I did join the marines after high school because I wanted it to give me the physical tools to deal with any bullies. Even though the horrendous bullying I endured was in junior high school, it had still left a mental scar that is still present today. It’s just faded a lot.

To buy He Was Weird, go to: https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492712964&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird

 

 

 

 

 

 

High School Does End

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books, Bowling for Soup, bullying, Crime Scene Investigation, Criminal Minds, Jello Biafra, music, school shootings, schools, television

Bowling for Soup

My previous post based on the episode from the TV show “Criminal Minds” has given me food for thought. In that episode, ten years after a school shooting occurred at their high school, there was one group that saw continued to see themselves as above the others. They were even called the “Top Ten.” This group still excluded one young man who felt he should have been part of that group but wasn’t and was still excluded. That exclusion was what led him to start killing members of that group.

That episode and post, along with seeing the video for the song, “High School Never Ends” by Bowling for Soup, had me reflecting on my post high school days. In high school, I was nearly what one of the characters in “Crime Scene Investigation” used to describe his high school days, a ghost. I did engage in some extra curricular activities in school and I wasn’t bullied, except for the odd occasion but unlike most of junior high, I never walked the halls in fear. Saying that, I was considered a ‘loser’ or weird or other things by a number of students.

However, in my own mind, I did return to my old high school in triumph a few months after graduation after I became a marine. Walking the halls in uniform with stomach in and chest out and receiving no hostile or even patronizing rebuffs from anyone, I felt I put any specter of high school to rest. I had become a marine and had made something of myself.

At the conclusion of the previous post, I mentioned how I ran into some former jocks and had a beer with them. I was never friends with any of them in high school so I thought barriers had been broken down. However, I saw one of them a few weeks later and he gave me a patronizing “Hi.” Like those in the “Criminal Minds” episode, he obviously saw me in the same light as high school despite the fact that I had served my country and seen the world through my own eyes, which he had only seen on TV and textbooks.

I’ve never been to a high school reunion. I did try to go to my five year one but no one answered when I dialed the phone number given in the radio advert. By the time the ten year reunion came around, I was already living in the UK. By chance, my mother crossed paths with someone I was in high school with and who was on the committee for the reunion. Not wanting to go on record as ‘whereabouts unknown,’ I instructed my mother to tell this person that I was living in London and married with a baby boy. Since then, I have always speculated if it was announced I was living in London and what the reactions of my graduating class would be. I believe a good number of people would have been impressed that I was living in such a city. However, there would have been others, the ones who thought I was a loser, would have claimed that I was living in the biggest slum in London and working at McDonald’s. Neither speculation would have been correct.

Jello Biafra

Nowadays, I wonder if I’m still listed as living in London at reunions. I don’t anymore, I live in rural Gloucestershire. I amuse myself once in a great while by speculating what those from the Mainland Regional High School Class of 79 would make of me should I ever run into any of them. After all, while I’m not some corporate big wig or a star in the arts, although I have written and published two books, I don’t think I’ve done too bad. However, in the end, I choose not to worry about it because like Jello Biafra once said, high school isn’t all that important and it’s not the best years in most people’s lives. It certainly wasn’t for me. Although I didn’t hear him say this until 2005, I’m glad I followed his advice in regards to my high school years and those awful years before by pissing on its grave and getting the hell out of town. When you do that, the less significant those days become.

To buy He Was Weird, go to: https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492123102&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird

 

 

Bullying and School Shootings As Seen on TV: Criminal Minds- Part 1

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books, bullying, Crime Scene Investigation, Criminal Minds, He Was Weird, school shootings, schools, television

Some of the team from Criminal Minds

Last week, I posted about bullying and school shootings from an episode of the long running TV series, “Crime Scene Investigation.” This week and for the next two after, I will talk about similar episodes from the series, “Criminal Minds.” I’ll start with the earliest episode on the subject and move on to the most recent which was from the current season. Therefore, this post will deal with the fourth episode of season seven entitled “Painless.”

A brief synopsis of the programme: Ten years prior, a school shooting and bombing took place at a high school in Boise, Idaho. As the survivors, along with family and friends of the slain, prepare for the ten year memorial service, the principal of the school is murdered the same way as the shooter had done ten years earlier. While the service is allowed to go on, two of the survivors are also murdered. The investigation by the Criminal Minds team reveals that those two survivors were part of a group called “The Top Ten.” These were students who survived the ordeal and who afterwards, went on tours of schools and talk shows to tell all about what happened on that fateful day. They comprised all the high school social groups, jocks, stoners, nerds, cheerleaders, etc. As the climax unfolds, we learn that one young teen is wrongfully left out and that the one popular boy who was murdered actually lied about his role in the shooting. He said that he was the only one who looked the shooter in the eye when in fact it was the boy who got left out. We also learn that this left out boy was knocked out by the bomb that was set off and therefore, he didn’t get the chance to tell his story. This is why he killed the principal and the other two survivors because he was wrongfully denied his chance at fame. Unfortunately for him, he never will get his chance to tell what really happened because the Criminal Minds team is forced to shoot him dead.

While I was watching it, comparisons and contrasts to my book, “He Was Weird,” came to mind. First the contrasts: Unlike Mark in my book, the shooter in the Criminal Minds episode was a popular kid and captain of the wrestling team. That is what befuddled investigators as to why he carried out the massacre. It also turned out that he had assistance from another boy who was never suspected because at the time of the shooting/bombing, he was satisfying his marijuana addiction. Mark, on the other hand, was the complete opposite of this guy, badly bullied and totally acted alone. Another contrast is that after the shooting on the TV show, the shooter’s family becomes national pariahs and are unable to move out of Boise. Contrast that to Mark’s family where his mother reverts back to her maiden name and with the help of relatives, are able to relocate to another state. And although the school officials know about what Mark has done, they are willing to give his younger sister and brother a fair chance.

Similarities between the programme and the book come in the fact that “He Was Weird,” ends with the ten year memorial service of the shooting. At the end of the programme, those at the service light a candle to honour the dead with each person lighting a candle and saying the name of someone who died that day. The younger brother of the shooter, who was killed in the bomb blast, says the name of his older brother. At the ten year service at the end of “He Was Weird,” Mark’s sister points out that actually eighteen people died that fateful day and not the seventeen that had been talked about for the past ten years since her brother carried out the shooting.

On a personal note, one thing I gleaned from this particular episode was the comment that even after high school, the social structures don’t change. The “Top Ten” still thought they had an air of privilege about them, even ten years after graduation. When I came out of the marines, four years after graduation, I ran into three of the jocks and outside a bar and had a beer with them. I thought that the high school group crap was no more. However, when I saw one of them a two months later, he said “hi” to me in a patronizing tone. I took this to mean that even though I had served in the marines, I wasn’t good enough for him. Maybe he was still in high school in his mind. I didn’t let it get to me and if I did manage to get to a high school reunion, I wouldn’t be ashamed of who I’ve become and what I’ve accomplished in my life.

To buy He Was Weird, go to https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491412808&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird