So I’m thinking about ghosts. And that gets me to wondering about the great beyond and that reminds me of an article on AOL this past Easter about the various actors who’ve played Jesus Christ. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to get all Jimmy Swaggart weepy and evangelical all of a sudden, ‘cause it’s not like Kate has lost her cotton-pickin’ mind and would allow that in Mystery Scene anyway.

It is interesting to consider that cats as diverse as Max Von Sydow, Willem Dafoe and Will Farell...uh-huh, Mr. Ron Burgundy Will Farrell, have played Jesus Christ. Each of them, and several others including Ted Neely as the singing savior in "Jesus Christ, Superstar," have had a different take on Jesus, with Farrell playing him for giggles in the flick "Superstar" (not the aforementioned musical, but a different comedic effort). Imagine how the various actors and writers go about tackling concerns such as what’s Jesus’ motivation – giving the phrase What Would Jesus Do, a kind of Marlon Brando exercising The Method interpretation. Or how even a fairly hardcore rapper like LL Cool J, who I’m watching the other night on the Tavis Smiley show, gives it up for Jesus.

Mr. Cool J is but one of many performers to praise his name. Me and the missus were watching the Johnny Cash bio pic the other night and at a critical point in Cash’s life, after going through withdrawal, his soon-to-be-wife June Carter tells this ol’ boy that God has given him a second chance. This after Johnny has indulged in red devils and other methamphetamine options, booze, and straying in his marriage to his first wife, Vivian. And what does the Man in Black do with his second chance? He does a live album, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison in 1968.

From a storyteller’s viewpoint, the film is also interesting in that it depicted the song writing process of Cash and June. Stationed in Germany at an Air Force base during the Korean War, the young moody Cash -– still experiencing guilt over the industrial accident death of his brother Jack on a bandsaw, and shaped by his father’s stern reproachfulness –- spends more time plucking his guitar and working out songs in longhand on pads of paper than looking for Red Chinese skiing down the Alps. But it’s only later, out of the service, and when he’s confronted by Sam Phillips of the renowned Sun Recording Studios and label in Memphis to sing that one last song with feeling before meeting his maker that Cash has enough nerve to sing one of his own compositions.

And June Carter after a fight with Cash strums on her autoharp, projecting the hell that he’s descending into, while also trying to sort out her feelings for him, she begins working out what would become one of his signature songs, Ring of Fire. These scenes exemplify that the writer, no matter what they’re going through, is a captive of that mercurial muse. They have to succumb to its yearning for sometimes those moments are fleeting. Consciously and sub-consciously, Johnny and June mine their experiences, and their reactions to them, that give their songs a lasting power. Like a writer whose novels see reprint after many years, it’s telling their songs have been redone by a new generation of singers.

On the trivia tip, the film is called "Walk the Line" instead of "I Walk the Line," which was the title of another Cash signature songs. Back in 1970, there was a tawdry little film called "I Walk the Line" based on the novel The Exile by Madison Jones. Gregory Peck is a backwoods lawman who falls hard for the young-enough-to-be-his-daughter, daughter of a moonshiner played by Tuesday Weld. The song "I Walk the Line" and other Cash tunes are used in this hillbilly noir so maybe there was some copyright issues or the filmmakers of "Walk the Line" wanted no confusion with a ghost of the past.

We arrive back to ghosts. Outside of Topper and the comics, with The Specter being the mutha of all ghosts -- there’s this one Specter story wherein he enacts vengeance on a ner do well utilizing a giant pair of scissor and – well, you get the picture. But I can’t think of a modern story where the ghost is the good guy. You know, kind of a ghost as the detective as opposed to a ghost detective sort of thing. Or maybe it’s the ghost as silent partner to stretch the pun. Certainly there’s stories where the ghost of the dead person helps capture their murderer, or provides clues, but not a ghost that hangs out their PI shingle to take on various cases.

I don’t know where this is taking me yet, but as one thing invariably leads to another, I’ll let those notions rattle around in my head for a while and eventually do something with it. Maybe the ghost of a Johnny Cash-type who for some damn reason has to team up with a inner city single mom to solve crime of this world and things in the dark at the top of the stairs?

Maybe that’s not it either. But you take away something from each brainstorm, and eventually you have the backbone of the story; who the characters are and what they’re up to in your plot. But damned if it doesn’t feel like you have to go through a Ring of Fire each time getting there.

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