(Above, Fate at my story/book reading at the Mansion)

I’m going to see the film The Joker, this afternoon, it has become one of the most controversial movies in years and millions of our children have already seen it once or twice.  I want to see what the fuss is about.

I don’t care if the movie is sensitive or not, I leave that to the windbags. Filmmakers and writers don’t need to be sensitive, just authentic and creative.

I care if it’s worth seeing and stimulating or entertaining, and I care if it does, in fact, reflect a deepening darkness in our country right now. I’ll write a  review later tonight or in the morning, depending on when I get home.

The movie has already struck a deep nerve, and it just came out, earning $93.5 million at domestic theaters this weekend. I’ll add my $7 at the Bennington, Vt. Cinema this afternoon.

The film is the subject of intense debate, sparking outrage and fascination. Normally, I might skip a movie that is described as being so dark and brutal. But I need to see this one. The Joker is important to me.

Some say the movie is exploiting and encourage violence, others say it is, as it should, only reflecting and portraying violence that is already there.

I’ve been following the Joker for half a century or more, he was always a favorite character of mine, a truly creative and haunting creation. Jack Nicholson was my favorite Joker, the evil clown with the perpetual and unmoveable smile is an irresistible subject for writers and moviemakers.

As a character, he is a great work of imagination.

The Nicholson Joker and most of the others never stopped laughing at themselves, and the ironies of life, even as they were also crying.

But he was always a cartoon for me, a caricature of evil, not a faithful and realistic portrayal of it. He was a safe evil fantasy character, I never imagined running into him on the street – or in a Church.

Critics say this character in this new Joker is clearly and disturbingly modeled after the disturbed young men who massacre innocent people in churches and synagogues and schools, not a caricature.

So I need to go and see for myself and share with you what I feel and see.

Journalists have no use for history, so they keep presenting our political crisis as the darkest time in our country’s history, but people who read history books know this isn’t true.

This is not Armageddon, but it is ugly and serious. And it casts a could over all of us, left or right.

Are people swayed by hysterical media reporting, or is it really that bad out there? I guess it depends who you ask, the Hedge Fund managers or the 65,000 people living on the streets of L.A. The economy can’t be that great, can it?

It is very much the truth that this is the best of times and the worst of times for our country.

It is a remarkable curious and disturbing time. Crime is low, but slaughter and the murder of innocents are commonplace.

Are we supposed to feel safe when any of us could be gunned down shopping at a Wal-Mart or going to elementary school or dancing at a nightclub?

Unemployment is at a historic low, yet almost no one but the rich feel secure and optimistic and more than a third of all Americans don’t have $400 in the bank for emergencies. “All I do is fall behind,” says my neighbor, who works two jobs and is always broke.

The economy is said to be booming, the income gap between the rich and the poor has never been wider.

The Internet is a rage factory spawning polarization, hatred, and argument – a nightmare perversion of what we thought and hoped it would be back when I was writing for Wired Magazine and Rolling Stone.

Our political system is a shambles, the country is tense and divided, and the irony for me is that we have our own Joker in the White House and a greedy and lawless and cruel one. An outrageously scheming leader with no ethics or restraint used to be almost everyone’s great fear, and that was always the hallmark of the Joker.

This week, the people swore to defend our constitution claim deception as a virtue.

Like the original Joker, this one, our national Joker,  can’t shoot straight. He can’t even extort things from foreign leaders quietly or cover up his harassment of women, or his hush money to prostitutes.

Christian Evangelicals love him and see him as their savior. I’m dizzy half the time.

Why wouldn’t a filmmaker see the Joker in a new and different way?

Lying is standard practice and greed is our national ethic. So yes, I guess it is a dark time.

There is no consensus at the moment about what good and evil are. Everything divides us. Cynics and conspiracists are everywhere.

That sounds like the themes in all of the Joker movies that I have seen, the Gotham City of comics and films, the Joker’s turf. So I’m excited and a bit wary to see this one.

There’s a reason why some books and films become controversial. Usually, it’s because they are telling too much truth, and failing to disguise or soften it. Maybe that’s the case here.

I’m going to clear my hand and step back a bit and put on my critic’s hat and try to make sense out of what I see, and share it with you.

Later.