I just got the sad news that a reader I had been corresponding with for many years passed away earlier this month. Jan first wrote to me in 2009 to correct me for using the term “Helsinki Syndrome” instead of “Stockholm Syndrome.” It was a genuine mistake and not an intentional DIE HARD reference. I’m glad I did it, or maybe I never would’ve heard from him. Or maybe I would’ve, because the next time was to correct an error about Sven-Ole Thorsen.

He introduced himself as an MD and “a Swede currently residing in Denmark.” Over the years the corrections turned into updates about movies he had seen, what he was planning to see, what he was not planning to see, things he had read about Seattle or the American political situation. He worried about the encroaching fascism he saw here. And he was full of movie and TV recommendations, tidbits from Q&As, links to interviews.

I got to know him as very cantankerous and opinionated, sometimes in a hilarious way. He had numerous actors he mysteriously hated and refused to see the films of. One of them was Charlize Theron(!), so I could not get him to watch FURY ROAD (!!), which I often teased him about.

I sometimes wondered why he liked me so much, because he seemed to disagree with me more often than not. He seemed more excited when I wrote about movies from the ’50s or ’60s, but he couldn’t have been a traditional snob – he knew me from Ain’t It Cool and Seagalogy. He was very generous, making surprisingly large donations to my Paypal account, sending me his Christmas mix CDs every year (he made covers for them and everything), sending me a copy of WILD BILL to force me to watch it. Which I then somehow lost. But I did watch it and let him know my thoughts.

I feel terrible that I hadn’t gotten back to him in a while. The last thing he wrote to me was that he had seen all of Michael Bay’s films theatrically except for THE ISLAND (because he hated Ewan McGregor), and he was not going to watch 6 UNDERGROUND (because he hated Ryan Reynolds). “But during the last two Transformers films I sat in the theater and asked myself: What the fuck am I doing here…”

Knowing now that he was going through some shit at that time I appreciate even more that he had a light moment to tell me that. At least once he said he would visit Seattle some day and give me a call. Wish that would’ve happened. I bet getting a drink with him would’ve been awkward and funny and great.

He was a good guy. I’m really gonna miss him. So long, buddy. The only way I know how to pay tribute is to point everyone to what I wrote about FORTY GUNS after Jan’s repeated pleading. It was a great recommendation and I’m so glad he liked the review (despite several corrections).

FORTY GUNS

Hello, friends! Shit is crazy right now. I hope everybody is looking after their health and sanity. I know many, most, maybe all of us are or will soon be spending more time inside at home, in many cases away from friends and family. But I consider you all friends and family, so I thought it would be a good time to bring back one of these threads where everybody talks about whatever-the-fuck. Updates on your local situations, what you’ve been watching, random escapist nonsense, whatever.

Somehow while mostly staying in I’ve still gotten behind in my writing. That will change soon. As of Monday I’m still working a day job, but shifting to a different phase with drastically fewer hours. That’s what I want, so I can stay indoors for now and not have to take the bus as much. They’ve been mostly empty, but I don’t need that stress. I’m not sure how long even that will last, because there’s been pressure on our governor to add more severe measures to keep people home.

I appreciate everybody commenting on old reviews of the things you’ve been watching, but if none of those apply, here’s a good place to congregate (six feet apart, please).

Okay, how should I explain this? Here goes.

I have a new bi-weekly column called Profiles in Bad-Ass on the freshly launched websight REBELLER. The first one is up and it’s trying to address something that I’m sure you know is important to me: that everybody knows who Bruce Lee is but many haven’t experienced the joy of actually sitting down and watching his movies.

In future installments I plan to provide similar overviews of the work of icons from different eras of badass cinema, the types of things I’ve written about extensively here, now in a more generalized and concise format to spread the good word to other corners.

I guess it won’t be the audience I thought, because I didn’t realize it would be behind a paywall. You have to sign up and then you can get 3 free articles a month, or pay $20.20 for a year of access to everything. I feel a little weird about that but it makes sense – we’ve seen that the high profile websights that actually pay their writers can’t sustain on popup ads. Also, I once had a somewhat similar column in a print magazine called Clint, and somebody would’ve had to get a much more expensive subscription to read all of those. (read the rest of this shit…)

Today is, by my best guess, the 20th anniversary of Then Fuck You Jack: The Life + Art of Vern, the humble collection of movie reviews I crudely constructed on the free “home page” platform Geocities way back in the nineteen-god-damn-nineties. What started as a goof transformed, over the course of two decades, into some sort of life’s mission. I’ve learned, had fun, made friends, and written about a shit load of movies. More than 3,000, I’d estimate, because you’re looking at post #3,508 (including columns, blog posts and the posts I used to do to link to the new stuff).

I hope that output earns me the right to be self-indulgent today, because otherwise I’m in trouble! I went back to the beginning to prepare this retrospective, and many of the early ones are embarrassing, but most of them still make me laugh. I think I’ve lost some of that youthful craziness over time (sorry), but I also think I’ve gotten way better, especially around 2015. I’m glad it came that late, because I feel like I’m still growing. Still striving.

I look at everything I wrote and remember all the tragic shit I was going through during some of the later years and I can’t remember how I did it. I guess I was escaping into my work, but also stubbornly clinging to what I wanted to do with my life, even while spending so much of it waiting in hospitals. I probly owe some people some apologies.

But mostly thank yous. Few will make it through this whole post, so I want to do those first. Truly, sincerely, if it weren’t for you (yes – YOU!) I would’ve stopped before I ever got good. So many of you have commented or kept in touch over the years, or you drop me a line and tell me you’ve been reading since Ain’t It Cool, or you just discovered me or whatever. You make me feel like I’m not crazy, there are other people who are passionate about the same silly shit I am, or at least are entertained to read about it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And extra super beyond the call of duty thanks to Jacob Martin for once telling me I should keep writing reviews when I had stopped, to Phil Blankenship and david j. moore for getting me to show my face in public, to Clubside Chris Rowley for a ridiculous amount of work and financial support to create outlawvern.com and keep it online.

I need to emphasize that last one. Chris was there to catch me when Geocities finally shriveled up and died about ten years in. He not only gave me my url, but built this whole archive and everything on here. Before him if I remember right I’d just have a page for each letter of the alphabet, so if I finished the review of BEDEVILLED I’d paste it onto the page with all the movies that start with the letter B. Imagine if I was still doing that! He helps me with all my computer shit, so I know he has a particular set of skills, and I know right now he’s in need of a gig, so if anyone has/knows something for him please get in contact with him – his email is clubside360@hotmail.com.

And finally, thank you to my friends and family, including my parents (who gave me the leeway to decide what I wanted to do with myself even when they didn’t understand it), and most especially the anonymous Mrs. Vern, who has done more for me than words can express. Words is stupid.

I figured 20 years was a big a deal, but I wasn’t sure how to celebrate, besides getting drunk and doing karaoke, which is my plan for tonight. I decided it was a good occasion for self evaluation, so in the last few weeks I went through my entire archive and have compiled a year-by-year look back over important events and favorite writings from my ongoing climb up the holy mountain of excellence.

(read the rest of this shit…)