Run the Damn Dock.

Author: stuart mitchell

  • From One Shadowy Guy to Another: Ranking Batman’s Top 10 Movie Villains

    From One Shadowy Guy to Another: Ranking Batman’s Top 10 Movie Villains

    I normally write about the people working in the shadows—the ones behind the curtain, under the loading dock lights and invisible to the crowd.

    Apparently, that makes Batman content a natural fit.

    My son wanted to rank the greatest cinematic Batman villains, so we disappeared into Gotham and came back with our official RTDD top 10.

    No committees. No analytics. Just two generations, one list and a few strong disagreements.

    10. Tommy Lee Jones’ Two-Face

    Completely over the top, but still entertaining. Subtlety never made it onto his call sheet.

    9. Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow

    Quiet, intelligent and legitimately creepy. He didn’t need much screen time to get inside your head.

    8. Liam Neeson’s Ra’s al Ghul

    Calm, disciplined and dangerous. The kind of villain who already has the entire move-out planned before Batman realizes the show has opened.

    7. Jim Carrey’s Riddler

    Pure 1990s chaos. Carrey showed up, ignored every boundary and acted like the whole production belonged to him.

    6. Colin Farrell’s Penguin

    Farrell disappeared so deeply into the role that he became unrecognizable. That is commitment to the build.

    5. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman

    Dangerous, unpredictable and iconic. Every Catwoman since has been measured against her—and most have come up short.

    4. Tom Hardy’s Bane

    The first villain who made Batman look physically helpless. Strange voice or not, when Bane entered the room, everybody knew who was running the dock.

    My personal favorite

    3. Danny DeVito’s Penguin

    Disgusting, tragic and completely unforgettable. DeVito built a Penguin nobody else would have even attempted.

    2. Jack Nicholson’s Joker

    Part gangster, part showman and completely insane. Nicholson owned Gotham before superhero movies owned Hollywood.

    1. Heath Ledger’s Joker

    There was never really another choice.

    Ledger didn’t simply play a Batman villain. He created one of the greatest villains in movie history—a man who controlled every room without ever needing to stand in the light.

    Maybe that is why he lands at number one.

    The loudest person may get everyone’s attention, but the most dangerous person is usually the one quietly moving everything from the shadows.

    Around here, we understand that better than most.

    Stu.

  • My Book. It’s comin.

    My Book. It’s comin.

    I’ve spent most of my adult life in rooms most people never see.

    The truth is, I was in those rooms long before I was an adult.

    I grew up around the back side of things.

    Need a few years. It’s comin.

    Loading docks. Convention halls. Service corridors. Union men. Truck drivers. Carpenters. Freight guys. Characters who seemed larger than life. Men who could build an entire city overnight and disappear before the people who came to enjoy it ever knew they were there.

    As a kid, I didn’t completely understand the world I was watching.

    I do now.

    There is the world everyone sees — the over world.

    The lights. The stages. The executives. The customers. The celebrities. The handshakes. The finished product.

    And underneath it is another world.

    The underworld.

    The docks. The labor. The freight. The favors. The relationships. The arguments. The handshakes that mean something different. The people who know how things actually get done.

    I’ve spent my life moving between the two.

    In some ways, I think that’s what I’ve always been: a conduit between the underworld and the over world.

    And after more than four decades of watching those worlds collide, I’ve decided to write down what I’ve seen.

    DOCKSIDE: Memoirs of an Invisible Man.

    This isn’t a business book.

    It isn’t a leadership manual, a corporate autobiography or a collection of carefully sanitized stories designed to make everyone look good.

    It’s the story of a life lived mostly behind the curtain.

    A childhood spent watching.

    An adulthood spent doing.

    And a career spent standing in places where you can see both sides of the wall.

    There will be trade shows and freight. Road stories and family stories. Mentors, characters, victories, disasters, cities, docks and probably a few stories that some people assumed would disappear when the trucks pulled away.

    But more than anything, Dockside is about the invisible people.

    Because I’ve learned something after all these years:

    The people you don’t see are often the people making the world you do see possible.

    I know them.

    I was raised around them.

    I became one of them.

    And somewhere along the way, I realized I had a story to tell.

    I’m going to write it the same way I lived it — one memory, one city, one character and one dock at a time.

    Someday, when my last truck is loaded and my last show is out, I’ll release it.

    Until then, I’m writing.

    DOCKSIDE
    Memoirs of an Invisible Man

  • Check Stu out on The Logistics Lounge !!

    Check Stu out on The Logistics Lounge !!