The Sandwich Machine

Time Well Spent

2012-01-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

This might not even really be blog worthy, but surely that's a low bar.

Anyway, the suggestion to tear up my brother's rear lawn and turn it into R/C dirt track. I gathered my camera (Nikon D3100) and filmed the late afternoon session and my brother grabbed his Flip and got some cool angles for a night time race.

Enjoy.

Ghost Rider Comment for the Action Flick Chick

2011-08-27T15:57:00.001-07:00

So, I tried to leave this as a comment on the Action Flick Chick's blog/website/thingy, but it wouldn't let me, kept asking for a password. But it was a lot of writing, so I'm putting it here because...well, because. I don't know. Here it is, what I wrote on the upcoming Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance -

Ghost Rider is the personification of the problem inherent in the desire to be a super hero, to be granted that power. All the colorful tights and rules and noble principles are dressing on the fact that it is the desire to right wrongs by beating the crap out of someone or something. It's that urge of the powerless to be powerful and then to use that power on those who would have otherwise had their way.

It is a desire, essentially, for vengeance. What Ghost Rider does, in a uniquely Silver Age Stan Lee kind of way (by taking what would otherwise be a ridiculous character, a flaming motorcyclist) does is confront that desire by granting it to Johnny Blaze. With Blaze and Ghost Rider more than most you have the villain and the hero as one, so much so that his heroic acts are equally villainous.

The real key to that character is what makes the best Faustian bargains, that the devil doesn't trick Blaze as much as Blaze tricks himself. He wants to save his foster father from cancer, so he dies in a stunt. He wants revenge, he becomes vengeance. While he starts out thinking that he can control the Ghost Rider, the reality is that the more he gives way to vengeance the more he loses control to it. And the thing is, he knows this and yet still finds excuses to succumb to the Rider, willing giving himself over piece by piece to vengeance and the demon within him.

But when they went to adapt the comic in the first film, Cage (who says he's a fan) describe the character as taking 'this curse from the devil and turning it on him.' And of course that's how it ends, with Blaze as Ghost Rider saying that to the Devil in his awkward Elvis pose.

But that's not Ghost Rider, that's Spawn.

Ghost Rider does not have what would normally be considered necessary for a good comic book franchise, a quality rogues gallery of villains. (you could argue that it's not Batman that makes Batman interesting, but the villains he's amassed) Ghost Rider's rivals are d-listers like The Orb, sort of the catch when your hero does not imprison or turn over to the authorities of his rivals but instead places their souls in a state of perpetual torture (again, keeping with the theme, the Penance Stare causes you to torture yourself by bringing to the surface the consequences of your unfettered desires realized). The drama in a Ghost Rider story is rarely against his foes, who for the most part he doesn't just best, but terrorizes, but in the continual struggle between Blaze and the demon within. In that respect, it is a comic book where the hero loses every issue, and every issue that defeat gets a little worse.

So I would say, absolutely a major part of Ghost Rider is the menacing and sometimes comically horrifying ways in which he destroys the people he deems are due his wrath. But the key, the thing that saves Ghost Rider from being a cheesy 70s comic book character capitalizing on the popularity of chopper motorcycles and Eveil Kaneviel, is that internal struggle.

I am encouraged that the monologue in the trailer seems to hint at that, it seems to indicate also that the answer to that is to use the demon against the devil (and in fact, he seems to be fighting the devil once again).

I'm not a purist (and good lord, how horrible would a Ghost Rider movie be fighting The Orb...), but I do think when you translate a character or story through a medium, you have to distil the element of that character and find a way for the medium to explore it. This is essentially what makes Nolan's Batman movies work. They are far from canonical but it takes a core element of Batman, that his own demons are reflected in the villains that he faces, and explores that with the tools of a new medium. I fear that in the case of Ghost Rider they have taken the exact element that works against Ghost Rider, that he's a flaming skeleton on a motorcycle, as the element that they needed to translate into the new medium.

All of this hemming and hawing would matter more if I wasn't going to see it, but I am. But instead of a philosophical conflict between the desire to do the right thing and vengeance and how to tell the difference I'll get fire pee.

Frames

2011-08-25T16:00:00.000-07:00

So, a few years ago, Sous Rature and I wrote a Ten Minute Play called Frames. Since then it has been a little trooper of a play, being included in festivals and even winning awards I crowed about here recently.

I have wanted to turn this play into a movie since I graduated college. But that was six years ago and I have not been able to raise enough money to do much of anything, much less make this little film.

I started this a while ago and I don't know why I didn't link anything here, but I created an Indie Go Go page to help fund this film. I don't need a ton of money, I just happen to have none. If you read anything here and thought "Huh" please stop by and donate a few bucks (I know it suggests $100, it's being super optimistic. $5 is fine, wonderful in fact.)

Thanks whoever you are.

In Defense of Fred

2011-08-23T19:26:00.000-07:00

So, I'm supposed to be writing something else right now. Of course that means that I can't get something completely unrelated out of my head so instead I'm going to do this, which furthers nothing and hardly anyone will read...

Of all of the childhood cartoons and entertainment, Scooby Do, Where Are You? gets a large amount of attention. Mostly, of course, it's on the recreational habits of Shaggy and his, lets face it, amazing talking dog. Any talk of Fred is to dismiss him as the square with the ascot and his 'thing' with Daphne.

But it occurs to me that we're being too hard on Fred. I've been thinking about the other clues we have about Fred beyond that ascot and maybe Fred is more of a free spirit that we give him credit for.

First of all, that van that they travel around in, the one with the swirly hippie paint job and giant 'Mystery Machine' painted on the side of it? That's Fred's van. Fred of the ascot and wide collar shirt. Put that together, loafer wearing Fred bought a van and painted it swirly green with flowers and a big bubbly "Mystery Machine" on the side. Not that pothead Shaggy, but Fred.

And on the subject of Shaggy...whose friend is he, anyway? Certainly not Daphne. you don't see many tights wearing, model posing cheerleader types with stoners who talk with their dogs. Sure, could be Thelma, booky chicks have hung out with wastoids before, but to the point where she invites him along on their aimless search across the country looking for mystery? No, Shaggy is clearly Fred's friend. They might even go back long enough that Fred bought a van so his buddy Shaggy could take that dog of his with him when they hung out. Maybe they were chilling in the front yard, feet in their kiddie pool one day when Shaggy suggested covering the thing in green hippie paint.

Not to mention this wild, rudderless trip in the first place. Ascot and loafer wearing people prepare for college, not seek out cranky caretakers in rubber masks.

So what's up? What happened to our man Fred? Is he the Dobbie Gillis to Shaggy's (clear inspiration) Manard G. Krebs? No, Dobbie joined the military and even talked his beatnick friend into going with him. Wally was always talking Eddie out of trouble, not loading him in a van to go looking for it. No, it's clear that in core mentality Fred is closer to Shaggy than the other way around.

No, the answer is clear. Daphne. Daphne is what happened. I imagine if we had picked up the Scooby Doo gang just a little earlier we would have seen a Fred with long hair and t-shirt and jeans not much different than Shaggy. But then he met Daphne who probably said something like, "You know what would look good on you? An ascot. And why don't you get a haircut?"

Now, I want to stop here and make sure I'm not painting Daphne as a ballbuster who has emasculated Fred. She went on the journey with everyone else and doesn't really seemed that bothered by Fred's hippie friend and dog tagging along. Maybe she's even the one who talked her brainy friend into joining them because she'd be able to help. She's on board and contributes.

But it's also clear that she contributes to Fred's fashion choices. Because, dudes, who amongst us hasn't donned something out of character because a pair of fluttering eyelashes suggested we might look good in it? This really isn't out of fealty, but rather because we've perhaps not really taken aesthetics into account as much as comfort. And while we won't admit it because it would make us sound like someone from Jersey Shore, we'd like to look good to the ladies, even if that means that we end up looking like that goofball square in the ascot and loafers driving a hippie van to abandoned amusement parks.

I imagine that there a few times that he'd like to get paired up with his old buddy Shaggy for some Scooby snacks of their own. For old times.

Alright, look...

2011-06-24T00:14:00.000-07:00

I've been bobbing around on blogs (I'll link a few notable ones below) and reading Twitter comments and clumsily trying to weigh in on a bit of a tempest in a teapot that I had kind of been blissfully unaware of up until now. Well, there's too many individual places now that have weighed in on the subject and too many various things for me to string my comments everywhere, so I'm going to use my near dead blog to cover the thoughts that have been brewing since this thing took off.

Finding Acceptance in the Geek Community

This has been a pretty consistent theme in the posts that I have been reading. Many people have been sharing their stories of feeling ostracized and lonely and finding solace in fantasy and sci-fi, in comics, games, what have you. They've been endearing and heartfelt and something that I am glad these people have found.

However, this is entirely new to me. I have had those feelings of isolation, of never feeling like I belong (I will not go into a deep self analysis here about whether that was a feeling I should had or whatnot) just like everyone else, but I never found satisfaction in geek culture. As far as my experience goes, this is new. Long before 'geek' became 'chic,' I've always known geeks to be extremely guarded and judgmental of anyone new to their scene.

And within that scene as well. I remember when Magic:The Gathering came out. By then I was an established attendee at Pacificon, something I had to earn over the course of a few years. The first year everyone of course climbed all over themselves to get those cards. By the second year whole rooms were dedicated to Magic and other card games and the running narrative was, and continued to be as the popularity of trading card games grew, they were ruining the convention and the scene.

In fact, if you talked to the war gamers, the roleplayers had already ruined it. And the boardgamers thought we were all spazzes. And that doesn't even cover the reaction when the LARPers came along.

Within my own small group that I managed to fall into there was resentment. The man who is my collaborator now initially hated it when I came over because it meant that we were going to play Battletech and he hated Battletech.

Now, granted, I still remember the first hour I spent at my first gaming convention. I was standing in a hallway, wondering what it was I was supposed to do when some big older dude walked into the hallway (I was 14, I believe) and asked, "Who is up for some Battletech?" It was the first time in my life that I didn't have to explain what Battletech was and that no, it's not Robotech, but kind of like Robotech because they borrowed some of the designs. It was also the first time I actually got 'cred' because the box I pulled out was from when it was called Battledroids.

And yes, that was a good feeling. It was awesome. But it wasn't acceptance. Yes, I was allowed to fly my freak flag high and proud, but I was not taken in by the 'geek' crowd unquestioned. I was challenged. People told me how it was cooler before the combat gamers came along. Everything is always cooler before you showed up. After working for years in a trendy record store I've come to know this as 'Punk Rock Cred.' It's not exclusive to punk rock, and 'geekdom' is not immune.

Back in college I returned to gaming conventions to film a documentary following a group of gamers at Dundracon. One of the scenes I ended up having to cut from the documentary was a shot I had of a member of the group announcing that "Unlike most of the people here, I know the touch of a woman and it's Valentine's Day, so I must away." In the background of that shot, a couple shared a kiss. In fact most of the b-roll I had featured the fact that women now made up a great deal of the audience at the convention.

His attitude was outdated, but his smugness was as true to the geek scene as I've always know it. From the blog posts I've been reading, this smugness, this exclusivity, this guardedness is new to them. There have been a lot of scolding, wagging fingers telling them to stop like it's a new fire that has popped up. But, and maybe this is the unfortunate element of my age, it's not new. It's been there all along. This wide open arms of acceptance, that's new. I don't have anything against it, but I felt I had to say something.

Wait, Geek is a Good Thing Now?

The other problem is the idea of 'self-identifying' as a geek. I actually kind of remember this transition and having discussions about it. Because it wasn't always that way. It was not a label you gave yourself, it was one you dreaded being applied to you. You hid your Ghost Rider collection, you denied that character sheet was yours, you did whatever you could to not let people know that you still rushed home to watch Robotech. It wasn't a label you aspired to. I was never comfortable with the notion of it being self-applied. I didn't want to hide who I was, but I didn't want my tastes to define me either. More to the point, I didn't want the mainstream's understanding of what I liked to define me. These were good stories and fun games not because they were weird or different, but because they were good stories and fun games.

But now it is. And like all scenes, no one likes the new comer. This isn't unique to geekdom. Ask someone who goes to Burning Man, to a one I'm willing to bet they'll tell you how cool it used to be. I have to tell aircooled people how long I've had my Bus before there's any sort of 'acceptance,' and I lose points with her being my only one. But extra so for the geek, because the problem is when 'geek' became cool, they didn't.

And the word has gone generic. So even if you were comfortable with self identifying as a 'geek,' it went from being something of a cultural identifier to simply being enthusiasm, diluting any meaning it might have had to those who have managed to rally around it.

Perception

When geek became chic there was this notion that suddenly it was sexy to be a geek. But here's the problem:

If you're a pretty geek, this isn't a problem. But if you're not...if you're that guy with the sweet Nintendo wizard set up, your life is very different. And if you're that guy it doesn't seem fair that the pretty girl who wouldn't talk to him gets to waltz into the scene and enjoy all the good parts and none of the drags.

Now, I grant that on many levels that isn't fair. We don't know the lives that these pretty geeks have had, how they've been perceived and how they perceived themselves, we don't know if they've been teased. But the feeling is, right or wrong, that they do not really share the life in the way someone who cannot 'pass' does.

There is a fantastic webseries (and I'm not just kissing up because I want one of the producers to star in my hopefully upcoming short) about geek dating called Awkward Embraces that is written by and stars a self proclaimed geek who also happens to be pretty. I have to admit, and was called out on it a bit when I met with one of the producers, that my first reaction was to think, "Yeah, well...this isn't my story." The first episode covers a classic Walk of Shame and the first season her love interest is a, if I may say, dreamy guy.

To Captain Nintendo up there, this is not his life. This is not his experience. Now, the series is wonderful and the episodes are only eight minutes long, perfect for an internet attention span. And I'm not denying that this is her experience. I'm sure it is, and they're wonderful to watch.

But no one is telling Captain Nintendo's story. There's a scene in American Splendor where Harvey gets frustrated with Toby, who is completely taken with the release of Revenge of the Nerds:

Look Toby, the guys in that movie are not 28 year-old file clerks who live with their grandmothers in an ethnic ghetto...They didn't get their computers like you did, by trading in a bunch of box tops and $49.50 at the supermarket...Sure, go to the movies and daydream, but Revenge of the Nerds ain't reality. It's just Hollywood bullshit.

And that's the reality of the geeks who didn't get the luxury of labeling themselves geeks. Because when geek became 'cool', it wasn't that girl that is still super strange, and it wasn't Captain Nintendo there either, it was pretty people. And when the geek stories are told, it's stories of pretty geeks. When geeks are celebrated, it's the pretty ones.

Right or wrong, that breeds resentment. Resentment from people who are already guarded, people who already have to be protective because 'geek' is not a label they get to apply to themselves. And the pretty people are telling them to get over it. They were never allowed to define themselves, and when their culture hits the mainstream as far as they're concerned the same people who have been labeling them their entire lives are now getting to define the culture, their little nook that they've been shoved into as well.

However...

I don't want to sound like I'm on the side of the gatekeepers. I had mentioned punk-rock cred...nothing garnered more disdain than the notion of punk-rock cred. Scensters were a complete drag...if I may, we were hating Hipsters before it became cool to hate Hipsters. Truth be told, I hated that barrier to acceptance in the 'geek' world as much as I hated it in the mainstream one. It was a pain in the ass, it felt like shit. It still feels like shit. I've never been to the San Diego Comic Con because or Wondercon because I didn't feel like I would be able to fit in with the ugly geeks or the pretty geeks. I've driven that Bus for 17 years, I still feel awkward going to VW club meets. I don't talk at jazz shows in case someone over hears me and finds out I don't know what I'm talking about, even if I might. And filmmakers...they're the worst. Whatever they're working on is the Citizen Kane of whatever medium they've chosen, and whatever your doing is an adorable pet project. And no doubt there is some film person out there that just scoffed at me choosing Citizen Kane. And what's even sadder, I've done that.

There is nothing about prettiness that precludes someone from being into 'geeky' things. There is nothing illegitimate about it. I do believe that pretty geeks have indeed struggled, especially in that prettiness is largely subjective and even if we think someone is pretty they might not have felt that their entire lives. I imagine that it can be extremely frustrating to not feel attractive your entire life only to find a group of seemingly like minded people only to have them reject you for being 'too pretty.' Something that non-pretty people have a hard time grasping, and something I have to remind myself of constantly, is that 'pretty' does not always equal 'accepted.' They are separate.

Look, the truth of the matter is that every scene goes through this. They struggle to gain relevance in the mainstream and then have to struggle back to retain their identity once they hit that. It doesn't make it okay, just a reality.

Ideally, the best way to avoid a scene giving someone status is to not be exclusive about that scene. But the Toby's of the world, the ones who thought their moment had arrived only to find themselves shoved to the back again, that's a hard pill to swallow.

I don't want to get myself in a position where I'm advocating 'geek cred' or purity checks or excluding pretty people from fandom. I'm not and I don't think we should. The truth of the matter is before 'geek' hit the mainstream the Captain America movie sucked. There wasn't a TV station dedicated to sci-fi. Battlestar Galactica was cheesy. Geek culture is a market, long before it became 'chic'. And if a show about Superman has to have a healthy dose of Dawson's Creek thrown in to run for ten years to go on to also be one of the only super hero tv shows to include actual canon without splash titles, then so be it.

I'm no more patient with scene gate keepers now than I was at the record store or any of the many times in my life I've felt left out. I don't need anyone to prove their cred to me, if for no other reason than I don't want them to check mine and find me lacking. And as to the case of Ms. USA defining herself as a 'geek'...I'm absolutely sure, in the modern parlance, that's how she feels. It is entirely believable in the beauty pageant world she lives in she doesn't find a lot of people who share her passion for history or science. I remember working a horrible, horrible sales job and during some down time reading Watership Down only to find myself in an awkward five minute conversation with someone who could not conceive of someone doing unassigned reading, I imagine she's had to put up with that a lot. There is nothing illegitimate about that. I just wanted to maybe give some understanding about the people who feel that way who don't get to take a break from that and be beauty queens, even if I don't agree with the way it's expressed or acted upon.

I don't know that this accomplished anything.

Here is the discussion up to this point:
The spark what lit the fire.
When Geeks Become Bullies
More
And more
Hopefully from there you can find the chain of the conversation if for some reason this is your introduction.

The Shadow: Preview of Terror

2011-06-20T23:08:00.000-07:00

Lamont Cranston/The Shadow: Bret Morrison
Margo Lane: Grace Mathews

Villains: Murderer

Sponser: Um...no one? Education? All of the ad space in this particular program was spent promoing other Mutual Network shows (including Mayor of the Town featuring Agnes Moorehead who also played Margo Lane. I don't know if that's before or after. It is before she started calling Darren 'Derwood' on Bewitched, though.) The middle ad was a promotion for science education in America. Still timely.

Well, I'm bored, so it's time for me to comment on another Shadow radio program.

Like the last Morrison/Mathews Shadow program, this one is light on the life Cranston and Lane have outside of fighting crime. We know they're going somewhere and that it's super important, but we don't actually know what it is they're going to. Thanks to a little used narrator we do know that it is raining pretty heavily and that there is a man waving a lantern in the roadway. Of course, we learn that in the dialog, too. That's the thing about radio play dialog, it is sometimes overwhelmingly expository.

To that end you can almost generate the old man's frustration trying to inform our intrepid travelers about a washed out road. Anyone who has had to warn someone about a hazard can feel it. Essentially, it's "You can't go down here. Roads washed out." "Is it bad." "It's washed out." "Well, we really need to get by, how bad is it washed out?" Insert the sigh that should go here..."Too bad to pass through."

With no small degree of menace the old man informs our travelers that there is a little used road they can use to pass, but suggests that their best course of action would be to go home.

This of course is a rouse. The first of a few rouses that happen in this particular episode. Instead of a crossing they find a house with a creepy old woman who has been expecting them all along. She also manages to insinuate that the man with the lantern has been dead for years. Creepy, yes?

Well, any attempt to leave is thwarted by a giant man who has pulled out the distributor of Lamont's car, knocking out both Cranston and Lane, apparently.

I don't want to give away the cross/double cross of it all, but once again The Shadow is more or less a spectator to the murderous plot, only showing up in time for people to die. This time the person shot while giving The Shadow information actually manages to eek out his accusation before finally dieing. Of course, his theory is wrong, but oh well.

The whole plot is actually figured out by one of the satellite characters while Lamont is chasing red herrings in the parking lot. The Shadow only shows up in time to prevent the exposed murderer from adding to his list of victims, apparently 'as the man says, they can only hang you once.'

There's some great exposition lines in here. When someone opens a secret passage Lane exclaims, "A hand...a human hand!" Thanks for clarifying that...when the hand is identified as a womans, Cranston clarifies "and exceptionally beautiful woman."

The premise hangs on another one of my favorite tropes of The Shadow. Lamont Cranston knows everyone. This person is a famous director that both Lamont and Lane had met 'on the coast' some time ago. This is a pattern for The Shadow, quite often, knows some key figure in the story. Most often the villain. Which is an interesting implication. Lamont Cranston is a complete shit judge of character, most of his friends turn out to be mad scientists and murders. It might actually be that he had to adopt the persona of The Shadow because he was surrounded by madmen.

The Shadow: One Dead and Two to Go

2011-06-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

Lamont Cranston/The Shadow: Bret Morrison
Margo Lane: Grace Mathews

Villains: Gangsters/Women

Sponsor:Blue Coal

Keeping with my notion of just reviewing these in the order they appear in my iTunes playlist. I'm not sure where in the timeline this program is (or many of the ones I have, for that matter.) The sponsor of this particular episode is Blue Coal, who was a long time sponsor of The Shadow as most of the programs I have are sponsored by Blue Coal.

Since this is the first one I'm doing, let me get into my thoughts on Blue Coal. First of all, I had no idea how much of this stuff people used. Most of the episodes begin and end with an appeal to call your local Blue Coal dealer and ask for your trial ton. That's right. Ton. Trial. Unless it's a wartime episode, then they assure us that even with rationing there is plenty of coal for everyone as long as everyone only takes what they need.

The second thing that I've learned is that heating your home with coal is a serious pain in the ass. So much so that they had to employ another fictional character, John Barcley (a sort of "Hank Hill" of coal) to explain how to get the most out of your coal. Sometimes that advice is to install some sort of automated system (the beginning of the show includes a pitch for an auto-stoker) and sometimes the far more complicated instructions on how to stack your coal that involves opening and closing a bunch of things and a great deal of raking. This one involved making some sort of pile and...well, I didn't understand it really.

So, the old school detective show format of either introducing the victim or introducing the criminals mid-crime goes back at least this far as we eavesdrop on our criminals in the midst of stealing one-hundred thousand dollars.

Naturally, this goes awry and in the escape our apparent villain Petey is left behind to take the rap. In order to convince him to do so the leader of the 'gang' that pulled this heist off brings in Petey's wife and tries to tell her that keeping Petey from "singing louder than an amateur soprano" is in everyone's best interest.

Which, of course, it's not. In the world of The Shadow, there is no honor among thieves. People who take the rap end up with the rap and usually have to work that out themselves. In all honesty, revenge for the double cross does more to eliminate criminals than The Shadow does. Most of the time he's just there to rub that shit in at the end.

As one would expect, Petey's wife is a looker. Which of course means that she becomes part of the post-heist prize.

Lamont and Margo enter the picture when Cranston has drug the intrepid Ms. Lane to yet another court case where Petey's lawyer enters a Guilty plea despite the judge's warning that it carries a 20 year sentence.

There is a note here about the different tones of the various Shadow programs. This one contains a reference to the long suffering Commissioner Weston but no Weston himself (more on him later), and there is no off topic banter. At some point in the series Margo and Lamont are given some sort of life outside of crime fighting, whether it's Cranston rich guy lifestyle or Lane's society woman activities. But here, it's just Cranston dragging Margo to a case. He does this a lot, it provides a fair chance for exposition, why we should know the lawyer or the defendant or something, though this time Cranston is only bringing Lane up to speed on what we know is going to happen. We already know that Petey is going to plead guilty and even that the gang is going to double cross him.

This late entry of Lamont and Margo is an indication of how little The Shadow is involved in this story. We don't hear from them again until after Petey makes his escape (while being wounded). He goes to visit the lawyer a second time because he has "an idea he'll talk...to The Shadow."

That is our most common introduction to The Shadow. Lamont wants to go talk to someone, often some they've talked to before, Margo expresses that the person won't talk or whatever, and Lamont insists they'll do it...for The Shadow.

Which I've always thought was kind of a dick move. She knows he's The Shadow, does she keep forgetting? Well, no, because sometimes she serves up the line herself, so I guess it's really just a cute little game they like to play with each other. Or maybe later in the series she's just making fun of his melodrama.

This episode has not one, but two of my favorite trope from The Shadow, the guy who dies right before giving The Shadow the key piece of information he needs to know. Usually the person is shot in the process. Apparently, if you're going to do crime in this city, keep an eye out for people who look like they're talking to themselves, they're probably giving you up to The Shadow.

And because of that timely death The Shadow continues to be a spectator in the drama as Petey seems to be going on his killing revenge spree. In fact, in this narrative we know way more than The Shadow does, who only pops in now and then to be too late to save one of Petey's victims.

Meanwhile, it seems that Mrs. Petey's loyalty has been bought over by the mob boss with a diamond necklace. The mob boss and the wheel man have their traditional showdown as they realize that they are the last two left from the heist splitting the $100k and decide that now would be a good time to split the money, before anything else happens.

Which of course does before the money is split in The Shadow's second attempt to get someone to confess only to have them shot mid-sentence. When I sort out a way to host audio here, I think I'm going to compile these events, they're kind of awesome.

We work our way to the end of the story and The Shadow is still trailing behind it as the cross and double cross begins to unfold. The mob boss shows up with the $100k to take Mrs. Petey away only to find out where everyone's loyalties lie.

I'm wrestling with 'spoilering' these endings since it's not likely the two or three people that might read these will listen to the actual show if they can find it. I'm going to err on the side of caution for the moment even though this particular ending says a lot about attitudes towards women in The Shadow radio programs.

What I will say is that The Shadow prevents almost nothing in the end as well, showing up only to foul up the last act of villainy in order to leave a witness so someone will face murder charges.

It seems weird, but the arbitrary nature of the selection has meant that the first one I did was the least Shadow episode of The Shadow possible. This isn't as uncommon as you would think in mobster episodes, generally I like to imagine that it's the hardworking radio script writers who have their gangster scripts running around wedging The Shadow into their stories when that's the job they get.

The Shadow's biggest dick-move comes from his first 'appearance' when he interviews the shady lawyer. Most of the time the mobsters know who The Shadow is, a conceit to the notion that if there is an invisible man who keeps getting mobsters busted, that might get around. However, if they know who the Shadow is we don't get the exposition for the new listener that he's invisible. That's usually handled by the person either blurting out the exposition ("The invisible crime fighter who works on the side of the law!?!") or we get to see their plan to take care of The Shadow should they ever met him.

In this case it's the latter. How it comes about, however, is why it's the dick move. After The Shadow gives his trademark laugh introduction the lawyer is momentarily stunned, after which The Shadow asks, "Aren't you going to ask me to sit down?" What? Of course he does, even offers The Shadow a drink before hurling the decanter at the chair...which of course The Shadow isn't sitting in. For once, The Shadow's laughter is motivated, but now it's motivated by this little trick he pulled on this dude for no other reason than to just fuck with him for a minute.

Bet he wishes he had that minute back when the guy gets shot right before giving him the name he was looking for...

The denouement is fairly pointless since, unlike Lamont and Margo, we've been there for the entire story, so it just sums up what happened for people who might have tuned out at some point in the program.

So, there it is, my first haphazard run at reviewing/commenting on The Shadow radio program.

New Semi-Project, Hosted Here!

2011-06-17T17:56:00.000-07:00

So, I got another bug up my ass and this time I can just do it here since we're not using it for anything else anyway.

I am a huge fan of The Shadow. Like, a huge fan. Well, okay, this is the internet, there are bigger fans out there by a bunch. But I'm a pretty big fan. And I have this collection of Shadow programs that I've amassed over the years.

Every once in while I bore someone near me with my thoughts on The Shadow or various programs and then I thought, "Hey, the internet is nothing if not a giant pile of unsolicited opinions!" So, to keep my friends and still get this out of my system, I'm going to summarize/review(ish)/comment on every episode in my collection here. This is obviously not a new idea, there are actually a lot of sites with summaries and reviews of The Shadow. Well, here's another one.

This time there is no time-table or anything like that. I'm going to do it when I feel like it and I'll figure out the format as I go. Hopefully someone will enjoy it.

Dickin' Around

2010-12-10T23:33:00.000-08:00

This barely passes as satire, but I wanted to get it off of my chest, I guess. Or had nothing better to do. Or a combination of the two..

Latest Project

2010-09-28T22:18:00.000-07:00

So, last year a group of filmmakers I teamed up with enlisted my brother to write a score for a quick bake film festival on short notice without much knowledge of the film itself. The loose agreement was that we'd eventually film a music video for his band.

Well, over a year has passed. We did the festival a second time with a different composer. They have started a new album. I managed to cut together a video from Archive.org footage, but it wasn't a 'real' video, at least not the kind we promised. I mean, it didn't even have the band in it.

Well, now it's rectified. Shot and edited over the course of two days, The Grumpy now has a new video.

You might want to click to the YouTube site, the template we use doesn't allow for widescreen.

Shameless

2010-08-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

I'm just giddy, so I'm posting this all over the place, even places we don't really maintain any more...

This is for the screenplay version of Frames, which makes it easily at this point our most awarded work. And the one we feel the most oogey about, go figure. We find out if we're big winners next month.

New Project

2010-08-20T00:47:00.000-07:00

I've been dragging around thousands of CDs for years without really knowing what's in it. I've had a lot of time on my hands lately and decided it was time to see what exactly has been following me around all this time. So I've started a blog to document my travels through my CD collection. You can view the beast here. I don't know who would go here who wouldn't already know about it, but just in case.

What can really be said?

2010-06-21T22:04:00.000-07:00

I was driving down I-5 to Bakersfield when I heard that Jose Saramago had died. My good friend Bruce called and he had to repeat himself a few times before I understood who he was talking about. Then I dealt with my family for three days. Then I drove home. Then a bunch more life stuff happened.

I almost feel like my actions don't really convey the magnitude of the sorrow that I feel that an old man that I never knew died. I even feel a little pretentious at publicly talking about it, but damned if it hasn't hit me now that my world has stopped moving long enough for me to really think about it. I kind of lived in one of Saramago's books for a couple years as I made it the partial subject of my MA thesis, and it had a profound effect on my view of the world. Saramago described himself as a pessimist, but I think the message of so much of his work is that life has to happen even when horror is not far away. We live in an absurd world, where justice, fairness, and kindness are rare and fleeting, and that is why these things matter. Nothing lasts, not even suffering.

Half Assed Video

2010-04-03T07:57:00.000-07:00

I owe my brother a proper music video, but until such time as I can make that happen, I got a bug up my ass to do this using footage from Archive.org and the world's worst free video editor. Somehow the trailer for My Life in Triplicate got views through here, so I thought I'd pimp the video, too.

My Life in Triplicate

2010-02-20T19:28:00.000-08:00

I don't know if anyone still checks in on me through here, but here is a trailer for a film I co-wrote and directed last fall for the San Francisco 7 Day Film Festival. It won best screenplay and was nominated for Audience Choice and 'Most Inventive,' whatever that means. The team that put this together is shooting a newer even more ambitious project. The full length version (around twenty minutes) will be available soon.

Sports Displacement

2009-07-14T15:59:00.001-07:00

I don't think I've ever really been into sports. Well, I did watch two seasons of World League Football (Go Surge!), and roommates have occasionally dragged me into watching the odd basketball game or two, but it stands that I never, ever, think about watching a game or match or race on my own. I do have that guy energy, though, and I've concluded that it shows up when I talk about or watch sketch comedy.

I have my favorite franchises (mostly the usual--Kids in the Hall, Monty Python), but the "team" that I am irrationally devoted to and would probably have a pennant on my wall for if such things existed is Saturday Night Live. I started watching SNL in the eighties, and my first memories are of one of the worst eras of the show (Joe Piscopo, Charles Rocket, and Eddie Murphy). My cousin and I used to have to conspire to be at the TV at 11:30 on Saturdays, and there are few seasons where I didn't catch every episode, even forgoing the first half of Dr. Who on PBS for the first-run episodes.

That first episode of the season is like the NBA Draft for me--sizing up the new talent, seeing who moved on. Concluding that this or that year was a building season and that the fresh cast members would grow into this greatest of all arenas for live comedy (great job Keenan!!). I just about lost it when Michael McKeon (Lennie of Lennie and Squiggy) showed up in the cast, not to mention Chris Elliot, Sarah Silverman, and KitH alum Mark McKinney.

I've even wrung my hands at the decisions of Lorne Michaels, who has been the franchise's GM for most of its history. there have been a lot of bad years, but that's what following a team is all about--it's uniquely frustrating because Cubs fans don't have to repeatedly listen to people say that their team should be cancelled every time the subject comes up at a party, plus the people who act like the show was strictly downhill since Ackroyd and Belushi--they did plenty of shitty sketches too, and Samurai Deli (or barber or whatever) wasn't really any more inspired than the "you-like-a-da-juice-eh" guys, and the "wild and crazy guys" are often kinda lame, notwithstanding Steve Martin's presence.

I think the digital shorts are pretty brilliant about half the time, and Justin Timberlake is probably one of the five best hosts ever to be on the show, but, like TV Funhouse, they probably won't take over the show and drive out all the other content. New blood is new blood, and it's the Phil Hartmans and Tim Meadowses that really make the show spark by sticking it out in the hypercompetitive environment year after year, perfecting their craft and delivering sketch after sketch with brilliance and poise.

My girlfriend hates weekend update, but it's the anchor of the show. My focus on this segment started with Dennis Miller (who I now can't stand). It's a tough job, and not a way to hide out in the background. You have to construct a persona and deliver it week after week. Some are good by playing it straight (Kevin Nealon or Chevy Chase), while others run against the natural grain (Norm MacDonald), and others just don't have the chops (Colin Quinn). Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are my personal all-time favorite anchor team.

Fey is certainly one of the titans of the show's run, and as the first female head writer, also headed the strongest and deepest female cast in my memory. Maya Rudoph, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Kristin Wiig have a huge range and major talent, and I hope Seth Meyers continues to search out quality female talent.

It's been easier to follow the show since Comedy Central and E! started carrying old episodes, but that carries its own frustrations. The episodes are pared down to an hour, and the musical performances, the cold open, and Weekend Update are always included, ensuring that some sketches don't see air (the one that I miss the most is probably Steve Martin's Christmas wish monologue).

SNL is certainly somewhere in an upswing right now, and once again it's as though it's suddenly emerged, with all the haters and fairweather fans, but regardless, I think I'll hold on to the season tickets and know that the metaphorical stands will surely be roomier again.

No Sleep 'til Sacramento, Ugly Cut

2009-01-30T12:43:00.000-08:00

Alright, it's been a long night, and many many uploads and downloads later, it's finally here.

Here's the back story-

Years ago in college I took a documentary class as part of my production degree and it happened to be around the same time as a gaming convention. I used to go to these when I was much younger but hadn't been in close to ten years, so I wondered what they were like now, etc. Turns out some friends of friends were going and had agreed to be part of my little quasi-verte documentation of a role playing convention.

This was a one man show-I showed up in San Ramon on public transportation with a Canon GL-1 and a shotgun mic on a pistol grip. I didn't even have a room. My main subject didn't sleep for 50+ hours, so I kept the camera on him the entire time in case he broke, he didn't. I slept for 4-5 hours under a table curled up around my camera against a wall.

Then came the editing. I was never happy with the cut of this film because people who didn't know what role-playing was didn't come out of it any closer and I never really formed an arc with anyone. So I sat on it promising the people in it that I was going to re-cut it and they'd see it then. Well, I never re-cut it. It sat on my hard drive, some key parts ended up erased, paths lost. My drive was corrupted so I had to reset it. I moved what I thought was all of it to another drive and updated my OS, accidentally losing my editing programs.

I assumed at this point it was hopeless.

Then I was helping someone edit some footage and we had to use my hard drive as a scratch drive, and lo and behold, there it was in it's spotty glory. I talked my friend into letting me export it and saved it to my drive. But, in uncompressed form it's over 2gigs and I don't have the programs to compress it with. After a ton of hit and miss I downloaded HyperEngine AV and managed to create a much smaller version of it, which hopefully you see here. Once I can look at all of this again I'll make a better version of the transfer, but I thought all things considered I needed to get some version out there when I could.

If you're a subject in this documentary and are here to finally see this, I'm sorry it took so many years. I hope you enjoy what there is of it and thank you for letting me film you. If you're anyone else, look at it as an artifact of my early filmmaking and I hope you find something to enjoy.

So here, finally, after many years delay, is No Sleep 'til Sacramento-

More Tube'n

2009-01-29T23:02:00.000-08:00

I was helping a friend do some editing and had to use my own hard drive to finish and lo and behold, I found some old college footage. The following are animated openings and a closing I made for the Chautauqua Film and Theater Festival at UCSC in 2005. I didn't draw any of it, those were designs by the art director that I then cut up and animated in Final cut. Nothing special really, but there it is.

I also found a long thought lost documentary, but it may actually be too big for YouTube. Maybe Blip.tv can handle it. There's another animation but it's missing a key element that makes it kind of stupid to watch, and without the context (a monologue from The Tempest) it's just weird.

This is only a test

2009-01-29T07:08:00.000-08:00

I have a new project coming up that I will explain in full at a later date, but this is the first rough cut of what I'm working on. I'm testing formats and ways to embed this thing, this is my second attempt to see how this works here vs. elsewhere. More to come, hopefully.

test by SupaLoweryBrothers

Fandalism Free MP3 Hosting

Please let me know if that player works for you or if you encounter any problems.

This is still a test, different player, see if I (we) like it better:

Click To Play

Stunt Casting

2009-01-27T21:14:00.000-08:00

A friend was describing the making of the French film The Class which predominately revolved around the casting of 'regular' students in the roles of the students who were then given a more or less improvisational structure to tell the story with. This got me thinking about the nature and value of stunt-casting in general.

For this I'm going to use a broad definition of stunt casting which would include any casting decision where the actor casted or method of casting plays to the audience as part of the experience/narrative in what the audience brings to how they view that character. Granted, that's broad enough to say that any casting is stunt casting, but I'm talking about a specific relation and I'll give some examples.

This goes back as far, if not further, as Jean-Luc Godard who would do things like casting Fritz Lang as the director of Odyssey, the movie within the movie in Contempt. Lang brings his reputation and history as a legendary director to the role of director. Contrast stunt casting works as well, notably in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West with Henry Fonda in the unremorsfully evil Frank, countering his white hat good guy image and certainly a stark contrast to roles like Juror #8 in Twelve Angry Men. In a single casting decision, before the audience has seen a frame of the film (presuming they know about the casting) it has actively rebuked the Western as it stands.

Then there is the casting mentioned at the beginning, for lack of a better term 'outsider stunt-casting.' This often comes in the flavor of casting so-called 'regular people' in the roles of regular people. Harmony Korine, director of Gummo and Julien Donkey Boy is notorious for this. Or for more extreme examples there's Werner Herzog's Even Dwarfs Started Small or casting Bruno S. in movies like Stroszeck.

Lastly there is casting where the story of the actor reflects the story of the character, such as Joe Joe Dancer, Your Life is Calling (can it really be called stunt casting when the actor is also the writer?) or most recently The Wrestler, where as a friend pointed out, the final monologue could just as well have been about Rourke as it was about the character he was playing.

I'm less interested in cameo stunt casting, Sean Connery appearing as King Richard at the end of Robin Hood, etc. The exception of this would be when cameo casting an integral part of how the movie is shaped, the master thesis of this would be Kill Bill, where every casting decision outside of the main cast is a reference or nod to the movies that Tarantino was homaging.

I'm ambivalent about stunt casting. On one hand, the story should tell the story. But such a 'purist' attitude ignores one of the more unique tools of film (and to the same degree theater, though limited to high profile theater). For better or worse, film creates a sea of regular faces who carry with them not only the roles that they have taken before them but the lives they lead between the movies. Is it possible to watch an Angelina Joile movie without in some way making some sort of connection with her public persona, her marriage, etc?

More, would Once Upon a Time in the West's Frank been as sinister if it hadn't been held in contrast to the roles that Fonda had been famous for before?

Likewise, when the story of the film is overlaid on the story of the making of the film, is the audience perception different when they know that the film uses 'outsider' casting instead of professional actors, and if it's different then certainly it's a valid tool.

Is the industry of film making part of the art of filmmaking, or more to the point why shouldn't it be?

I have to admit that most of the time I react negatively to it. Improvisation is a disaster far more often than it isn't when it's experienced improvisers, when it is not it can be down right painful (see:Blair Witch Project). I tend to think of it remarkable when it's actually pulled off more than simply when it's done, so outsider casting is always a sketchy proposition for me. I tend to view it less like watching a movie and more like watching someone tip toe across a minefield.

As usual, I don't have a conclusion. To search for a point, I'm defining terms for that post I keep referring to and swear I'll write someday.

Prepare for the Rise of the "Lying Experts"

2009-01-07T23:21:00.000-08:00

Procedural shows are the narrative bread and butter of network television. Say what you want about the prevalence of reality shows or high concept macro-series, but the real mule of the network is the lawyer/doctor/cop procedural show. There's the lawyer/cop brigade of Law & Order, or the doctor/cop shows like the CSIs and Bones, or just plain doctor like House. (Doctor and Lawyer, when separated from Cop, will make the largest effort towards non-procedural drama, but it ultimately is marginal)

For the most part these shows put a marginal narrative tent over the fictionalized process of a profession that's usually a lot drier. Imagine a documentary with nothing but reenactments about something that didn't really happen. Without the voice over talking head context the characters are forced to do awkward exposition in their dialog (in an early, perhaps the pilot, episode of CSI one forensics expert explains the fabled historical beginning of forensics to another forensics expert. Not another cop, not a student, not a bystander, lawyer, but another forensics expert. And she's not offended by the implication that she doesn't know what is presumably taught in the first week of the first set of classes in school)

The center piece of these shows is the flashy cutting that accompanies the show's expert detailing his or her deduction stepping through the process and the MacGyver-esque explanation of how their particular science works, without the burden of following an actual deduction but one that fits the needs of the narrative.

The mildly annoying side effect of this is the rise of the couch-potato experts that will diagnose your symptoms (with perhaps a little help from pharmaceutical ads and news magazine shows), give legal advice, and detail how your hair print will give you away in your master crime.

Except of course, they don't. While we've come a long way from the 'end in a court room confession' style of Perry Mason, the actual experts that advise on these shows have created a 'least amount of believability' (more on this later, but it's really SR's term) threshold. Worse than someone who watches nothing but The Discovery Channel as his science credentials, they're operating on not even a fourth of the story.

Which brings us to the beast on the horizon, FOX's Lie to Me. Following the exploits of 'eccentric' a lying expert played by Tim Roth. Like House of Cards or poker movies have made many a layman an expert on 'tells,' this show promises to compound that frustrating rash of experts who no doubt will be scowering the faces of their friends and co-workers looking for signs of untruth and repeating statistics and ideas about lying presented in the show, regardless of whether they really exist or exist for the purpose of the show or even if we're supposed to trust the character that says them.

The problem is that the phrase, "To someone with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" is never more true than in a procedural show, because any problem that isn't a nail doesn't make it on the show. Why would it? So for the purpose of the show, of course everyone is lying and of course there is a way to tell, and of course that method will be easily explained. But that doesn't mean that it will translate into the viewer's daily life.

Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone who has arbitrarily decided you've lied about something trivial? It's like trying to talk while someone squeezes your head.

My prediction is that this show is going to produce a clutch of viewers that may be the biggest group of douchebags in the narrative tv audience.

Or maybe I'm just making it all up.

VW Bus in Bullrun II

2008-12-21T14:19:00.000-08:00

I know who I'm rooting for this year.

Bullrun is the quasi-road rally reality show that moves from Spike to SPEED this year that breaks up its 'rally' sections with precision driving challenges. Last year's season went to a Trans Am against an old Olds and a F-150. Ultimately the show amounted to fuel capacity and navigation, the challenge dominating Lotus Exige was eliminated after getting lost on a second leg. The fragile Murcilago eliminated itself after the drivers tried to limp on by having their car towed through the legs of the race, providing validation for my dislike of supercars.

Now I have a reason (other than a thin part of the racing season) to watch the show.

You have to scan ahead to 6:21 to see the Bus that'll be taking it to the other tuner cars (unpimping their autos, as it were) this February:

Sometimes...

2008-11-25T12:40:00.000-08:00

I do things without asking. Lists updated, of course can be undone.

It's Here!

2008-11-25T12:27:00.000-08:00

My field recorder!

Two more steps and my project is underway!

If I had gotten the camera first, that'd be a much better picture of the recorder. Also, apparently when you buy used you get a whole lot of packing material but no manual. I'll have to download one.

Like most huge electronic purchases it's just sitting there refusing to entertain me.

Who Knew You Could Use "Brechtian" and Jean Claude Van Damme in the Same Sentence?

2008-11-21T00:14:00.000-08:00

Well, now you can. Being on foot while working has meant that I have walked by theaters and have had some impulse viewings of films I've mentioned here already in an attempt to actually follow through on things I had hinted were interesting. That has meant seeing the previous posts' Repo! The Genetic Opera and the meta-action Jean Claude Van Damme movie, JVCD.

Having already discussed the premise in my earlier post, the movie lived up to its billing. We are treated to a down on his luck, misunderstood Van Damme. If the character of himself is to be believed, even he doesn't like his movies.

The movie is heavily desaturated with the light blown out. The Brecht comes in the form of a monologue delivered among the hanging lights above the set where Van Damme gives a 30% justification 70% apology for who he has been and the movies he has made (or if you're cynical, 25% justification, 35% apology, and 40% audition for serious roles that don't involve kicking anyone.)

This isn't a clumsily done attempt to rebrand an actor, even if it is clearly an attempt to rebrand an actor. Audience information is carefully controlled to create conclusions that the film later questions and the film does not even allow him the minor victory that is crafted at the end that would frankly have diminished the rest of the film. As a critique of media and cult of personality it falls short of many better attempts, but overall pretty interesting.

My only real complaint is that if you're going to blow out all the light in the film, color the subtitles so they don't get lost.

He also all but calls out Steven Segal to make the same move. Now that's something I'd like to see. But then, I am from the generation of appreciating things ironically.

Idiot Proof Filmmaking?

2008-11-20T23:12:00.000-08:00

You've no doubt had this conversation. You're trying to discuss your disappointment with a film with someone who you didn't realize was a hard core fan. Maybe your critique is mild, you just didn't think an aspect worked but you still overall liked the movie. And then they hit you with it, "You have to appreciate it for what it is."

And there it is, the ultimate trump, the 'get out of jail free' card of what would otherwise be an undefensibly bad film. Like all easy outs, it's founded in a legitimate complaint that has been banged, stretched, and drawn over until it has almost no meaning left.

Can you really say that you can measure Citizen Kane and Young Frankenstein or Heat with the same stick? I would argue, as others, that a movie has to at least primarily be evaluated within its genre (and I swear I'll one day do that big ass genre post that I created this blog for in the first place one day), but beyond that intent, time, context...it wouldn't be productive to compare all films to The Bicycle Thief.

But where does that end and simply making excuses for lazy film making begin?

I bring this up because it's been a week of follow up, I actually watched Repo!: The Genetic Opera and JCVD, both of which had been prompts for recent posts. I'll get to JCVD in another post that, if you read in page order you've already read but I haven't written yet...cosmic...

Repo! is largely what could be expected from the billing. It does have Paris Hilton's face falling off, for what's that worth...

It's wall to wall guitar with a score that doesn't so much sound like separate songs but rather one long track, as if Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody had been two hours long. I have to correct myself in that it is not a musical conceived for film but actually did start out as a stage piece first. There were stylistic elements that seemed to overlap - a whole subplot appeared to be created just to give the 'streetwise' narrator character a motivation as he acted like The MC in Cabaret. But there was no pay off for him. Further complicating that is the use of comic book panels to handle other aspects of exposition.

Which is not to say that it's all bad, it manages to create a complex and ultimately compromised anti-hero and a devil's bargain ending that creates a not often used third option for the protagonist.

In its opening week it only played in 8 theaters, one less by the time I saw it. Its per screen average was a respectable $6k in it's opening week, but has suffered a 64% drop.

But as I left the theater I stopped and looked at the midnight movie listings (I missed The Warriors showing with gang costume contest) - is it going to matter? There is really little to no chance for this film to gain mainstream success. Lightening could strike, word of mouth on this film is actually pretty decent for this film in the right crowd, if the people who had prompted me to actually quest for the film are anything to go by. But if they are, then the success or failure of the movie isn't going to matter.

Any criticism of this movie for them will be brushed off as not appreciating it for what it is. Soundtracks will be bought, small theater productions staged, and midnight screenings (perhaps with costume contests) will be had. In it's theatrical run they likely haven't even made back Hilton's salary, but in the slow burn DVD sales and cult following from Saw fans, or Skinny Puppy fans, or the gore/goth/whatever else that this movie taps on the head will likely be a steady check for at least a few years.

And once it's there, it's idiot proof. What's it going to matter what a critic says? What difference will its theatrical release make? Dismal showings will only build the movies legend, the fact that it was screened in a single digit number of theaters only cinches that. This goes beyond appreciating a movie ironically, which may be at the root of this practice but has long since been left on the side of the road wondering what happened.

So far my completely unscientific poll of two whole people who have seen it automatically make excuses for it as they tell you they like it.

Ironic appreciation has evolved itself into an idiot proof film formula. I don't know how I feel about it. With the DVD/midnight movie cult, movies that are too high concept to be really have any mainstream hope have a chance to live, and therefore made. But at the same time I grow tired of having to defend a critique by assuring the person that I'm not comparing their movie to Casablanca just because I felt a particular subplot was unmotivated.

Can't Say No

2008-11-17T23:53:00.000-08:00

I just bought the last major piece of my audio kit, hopefully paving the way for my new career as a field audio mixer for television and film (mostly television, documentaries etc. Film is a whole different set of gear and demands).

Ultimately, this was a good deal. It's a quality recorder, has all the functions that I need, and I picked it up used at a third of the price it or a like recorder would go for.

And yet, a few mere hours since placing the order, I'm a wreck.

I realized a while ago that my problem with making decisions and buying things specifically is that I never view it as selecting one thing, but rather turning down a bunch of other stuff. I didn't decide to buy a mixer, I instead decided not to get any of the following-

- A less functional recorder and a still camera.
- Same less functional recorder and a used 3 CCD miniDV camcorder
- A cheap motorcycle
- A barrier mic
- A better shotgun mic
- Any of the other half dozen recorders I was looking at
- Replace the cool box in my bus
- Side tent for my bus
- PS3 or Wii

I could go on...

There are reasons that I made the decision that I did, and even better reasons that I didn't make any of the purchases I didn't make. But that doesn't mean that once I make a decision I don't feel like I shut down all the other options. I'm honestly more comfortable sitting here thinking of all the things I could do.

This might be from being poor-most of the time any amount of money I spend is in my fantasy world. It's hard for me to make the transition to all those fantasies to one reality is a hard one for me to handle.

This is probably the most telling aspect of my personality. I'm far more enamored with what could be than actually is.

Why I Want Lieberman Back in the Caucus

2008-11-13T23:47:00.000-08:00

I always feel ridiculous when I do political posts for a number of reasons. The world really doesn't need another political blog, especially from someone as unqualified for it as me. Not that it really needs a media criticism/social commentary blog with a loose premise that we've all but abandoned early on, but what ever.

Lieberman has his problems, and the aforementioned blogs have no doubt gone over and over it again and again, and I think their reasonings are at least in part right. There are valid reasons to want him out, and I get it.

But here's the thing-I didn't like Obama because he gave great speeches or that his candidacy was historic or his health care plan or because he was against the war. Icing. What I liked was he was someone I could disagree with. Look, I'm not going to agree with everything any president does, it's just not going to happen. I wouldn't agree with everything I would do as president in all likelyhood. What I wanted was someone who was open to the discussion. I wanted discourse, something that hasn't been around for the past, say, eight years.

And that means that you can't really punish dissent. Yes, Lieberman said some crappy things during the campaign, yes he was as nasty as those he supported, yes he campaigned against his own party down the line. All bad. But if I want discussion against things I don't agree with Obama with, that means that I'm going to have to want discussion against Obama with things I agree with. Is there a limit? Perhaps. I just don't want to have the first at bat set it.

Alright. Enough with the politics. Back to talking about movie trends for movies I haven't seen...(JVCD opens this weekend in SF!)

The Pseudo-documentary

2008-11-11T14:15:00.000-08:00

Last night, Walrus, Jen and I went to see John Hodgman speak at the City Arts and Lectures series at the Herbst Theater in SF. It was, as was anticipated, highly entertaining--Hodgman's quirky genius for bullshit is unmatched.

It got me thinking, though, about bullshit of all kinds, and a semi-private wish that I've harbored for a long time: the pseudo-documentary. This is distinct from the mockumentary in that it is not intended as a platform for satire, like Waiting for Guffman or Zelig, but is rather a dead-serious film intended to inform the audience about something that does not, in fact, exist. There are glimmers of this on occasion; The Discovery Channel's The Future is Wild came awfully close by speculating (wildly) about what life might be like in hundreds of millions of years--the spear-chucking tree octopodes were pretty awesome, and shows like Star Wars Tech almost get there, but fall short by turning into ads for their subject matter.

What I really want to see is what's on the Discovery Channel in the Star Trek universe. It seems to me that some really cool ideas are being done a disservice by the need to connect them to a narrative with characters, resolution, and conflict.

Walrus and I had a brief opportunity to do something like this when we produced a magazine for a wierd sci-fi spaceship simulator we were involved with in the early '90s. We became the creative force for shaping the narrative surrounding this uber-geek enterprise, and it mainly took the form of an in-context magazine written for the consumption of not the players of the game, but for their in-game personae. I guess it was kind of an exercise in role-playing, really, but I liked the idea of it in a more abstract way.

I'd like to kick around the idea of a Journal of Unreal Studies--a forum for all that doesn't exist yet bears discussion nevertheless. Any ideas out there?

What Would "Back" Look Like?

2008-11-08T20:16:00.000-08:00

There was an argument that would happen from time to time with me and SR about whether or not the film musical was 'back.' He was for, I was against. It seemed to me that it was a short trend that would last no longer than occasional bursts of westerns (remember the summers of Tombstone, Wyatt Earp, and Wild Bill that followed the success of Unforgiven? Then a whole lot of nothing except the occasional 3:10 to Yuma.)

But westerns are still being made, if occasionally. And so are musicals. Big budget musical films have continued to be produced year after year, tracking back to Chicago to this year's Mamma Mia!. Certainly they have been made with greater frequency than westerns.

But does that constitute 'back?' Does 'back' merely mean that they exist separate of isolated 'me too' trends in movie releases, or does it have to compare to the heyday of the film musical, the thirty year run where the film musical was king?

I have to admit that my criteria for denying that it was back was nested partly in that it was too early to tell, and partly in what a high watermark that musicals have left.

But now I have to conclude that this is an unfair standard. Part of what drove the film musical was the old studio system. Packaged stars and a near factory approach to film making as well as a more thoroughly integrated system meant that theaters could literally be flooded with musicals year in and year out. Most of the assessments of the musical cite the rise of rock and roll and changing sensibilities as the death of the musical, but it seems that it would be no coincidence that the decline of the musical coincides with the decline of the studio system.

Certainly the dissolving of things like the Hayes Code would change thing, changing the landscape of films from all having a more or less vanilla morality to them to grittier movies like The Man With the Golden Arm and The Bicycle Thief, that helped break the code down. Certainly there would still be room for a South Pacific in such a world, but room still had to be made.

The truth is that no single type of film could ever achieve the complete dominance the film musical used to have. The only real 'type' of film that can compare would be the blockbuster, since movie studios use these films as 'tentpoles' to support riskier projects, losses, and regular old studio maintenance.

But the thing is, these can come in any flavor, and certainly have come in the guise of musicals such as Chicago, Dreamgirls, Moulin Rouge!, Mamma Mia!. But there have been losers as well, in Phantom of the Opera, Rent, and The Producers. In fact, it seems for every major success of a movie musical there is a two laying at their feet.

However, they're still being made. For near release there is Repo! The Genetic Opera, Dark Streets, and Christmas on Mars. Unlike Dreamgirls or Chicago, none of these are based on a stage musical. Each actually attempts a new take on the musical, Dark Streets a smokey jazz fantasy/thriller, Repo! A Genetic Opera a sci fi musical from the producers of Saw, and Christmas on Mars essentially a rock band film in the vein of The Wall or Tommy, but this time for The Flaming Lips.

Honestly, none of these are likely to make much of a splash at the box office. But the thing is, they're still getting made. Not to mention upcoming releases of Jeckyll & Hyde, Aida, Jesus Christ Superstar (I was as surprised as you are), Footloose and Wicked. It's been six years since Chicago, seven since Moulin Rouge!, and almost two decades since Beauty and the Beast and Nightmare Before Christmas arguably opened the door for the modern film musical.

If I bury this in enough quasi-film paper nonsense I can quietly admit, yes, the film musical is 'back.' But it's a diminished back, a back that does not come even close to restoring its prominence. It's not a back that can rely on the Great White Way. It is a back that still carries a higher than normal risk-it doesn't have a 'place' in the calender like the spring romances, the summer action films, or the fall prestige films. And it is a tenuous back. And has been well into my denials.

But that doesn't mean that I'm going to admit that the fantasy film is back. It would have to have had a 'there' to be back from...

Toys

2008-11-07T12:13:00.000-08:00

In a fit of boredom I added some new toys to the list on the sidebar. Most of them are for me, lazy little ways to know if their is anything new out there without me having to actually look, and a racing calender that I'll more than likely delete sooner or later, or forget it's even there. I tried to add "You Are Here" to the list of sites that alert updates but it didn't work, so you'd still have to check manually to know if she did.

I also added a subscription link, which if it works the way I think it does, means that the blog will tell you when it updates instead of forcing whoever might still be marginally interested to make futile, optimistic checks to see if we've gotten off our butts and written something. I also re-added sitemeter so I can see just how in vain it all is again. SO-42 is the camper package in my bus, Westfalia SO-42, the most common.

That's whats passing for contribution today. I wanted to add that cool 'most recent comments' thing from Incertus but I couldn't find it and it would just depress me anyway since there are hardly ever comments anyway...

EDIT: Ah, just click on it and follow instructions...and yep, instantly depressing...
EDIT II: More toys, the little question at the end of the posts that allows you to be dismissive passively...disappointing that the question cannot be customized for each post, and definitely have to come up with a better question (SR, if you got one just go ahead and change it) because I'm not so much a glutton for punishment to deal with all 'meh' responses. Palin spellings due to space.

Meta Action Hero Duel

2008-11-06T21:35:00.000-08:00

Parallel production isn't all that uncommon-back to back summers hosted dueling volcano movies (Dante's Peak vs. the more direct Volcano) then Killer Asteroid movies (Armageddon vs. Deep Impact). I compared before battling up-coming 're-dos' of franchise films.

Coming soon two very different kinds of action heroes are staring it two very different kinds of self-referential films. This, of course, is not new. Marked by some as the beginning of the end for action hero turned 'governator,' The Last Action Hero was essentially a ham-handed commentary on Schwarzenegger's career. This new pair of films combines The Last Action Hero's 'treatise on the star' element with open referential elements in movies like The Player, Being John Malchovich, or the recent What Just Happened?.

First up is JVCD, starring Jean Claude Van Damme as Jean Claude Van Damme, aging, relevance fading, barely enough energy to keep up even his tarnished star. The down on his luck Van Damme finds himself in the middle of a hostage crisis - no stunt co-coordinators, no fight choreographing - just plain pedestrian victimhood, seasoned with the reputation of a former action star. His groin aching splits and lightening kicks don't win the day, but instead appear as a side show display in an attempt to amuse his captors and prolong his life.

The other side of the coin is My Name is Bruce, starring Bruce Campbell again as Bruce Campbell, B-movie star drunk (almost literally) on his own niche fame. In contrast to JVCD's image in contrast to stark reality approach, My Name is Bruce has the reality meet the fantasy of Campbell's persona. Ultimately they are the same story - actor meets 'real' situations that they have portrayed in movies and has to deal accordingly. It just so happens that Campbell's world is of pure fantasy.

On the surface, these stories are not new. Comedies such as The Three Amigos and Galaxyquest have dealt with actors famous for a genre of film being thrust into a 'real' situation. There's even a Twilight Zone episode where a cowboy hero finds himself face to face with the 'real' Jesse James.

My Name is Bruce takes the traditionally self effacing route, appearing to paint himself as comedically incompetent after previous false bravado. (the trailer seems to even take a swipe at Van Damme as the overly arrogant Campbell touts his action hero credentials including, "Speaking English.")

The self-effacing also has a strong tradition, such as in Free Enterprise where William Shatner leans heavily on his reputation of being a slightly off balance good natured ego maniac (in the film hoping to stage a one man show production of Hamlet).

In contrast JVCD seems to take a slightly more sober 'treatise on the twilight of stardom' look, a sort of high kicking Sunset Boulevard. (Alright, I admit that at this point part of me is just seeing how many films these two can be said to drawing upon)

This is keeping with dueling concept movies, Dante's Peak being the slightly more sober volcano movie to Volcano's over the top 'volcano in LA' premise, Armageddon's 'rock star drillers on an asteroid' vs the 'there's nothing we can do but accept that we're going to get hit by an asteroid' Deep Impact. For what it's worth, over the top trumps sober every time. (though that doesn't seem as likely this time as Campbell will be touring personally with his film, joining Tarantino's Grindhouse throwback to personality driven B-movie hey day. (seriously, once you start it's hard to stop...) and JCVD will have traditional release)

Which means in all likely-hood I won't be able to compare them (not that after my long to-do about Diary of the Dead I actually saw it...<.< >.>) unless this suddenly becomes a well read and often updated site making me an actual critic and I get invitations to these things. But for that to happen these rambles would have to come to some sort of conclusion. But for a dueling themed movies, I'll take self-examining action heroes over asteroids any day.

The Return of Lonesome Rhodes

2008-10-29T23:17:00.000-07:00

I don't want all of my posts regarding media and culture to relate to the same three movies, but it's far to appropriate that avoiding it would be conspicuous.

Lonesome Rhodes, for those who don't know, is the name of the character played by Andy Griffith in the 1997 Elia Kazan film, A Face in the Crowd. The movie tells the story of Rhodes as he is discovered by a radio documentarian in a rural jail. His folksy wisdom soon earns him a following that is exploited by the people around. His popularity is snowballed until he and his handlers start to fancy him a king-maker and he becomes corrupted with his own power.

There are two reads to this-that Rhodes was an essentially good man who was corrupted, or Rhodes was a mean man that a cult could conceal for only so long. The movie certainly leans on the former, with Walter Mathau's line, "You gotta be a saint to stand all the power that little box(TV) can give you." For the purpose of this discussion, it doesn't really mater.

By now, I'm sure, it's obvious why I'm bringing this up. Just about every one has talked Joe Wurzelbacker in some capacity or another by now, to the point that I don't have to give any background on it. But it's exactly that kind of attention that brings me to mention him and one of my favorite movies.

Since Joe's debut in the final election he has had what could be considered a predictable arc. The media camped out on the man's lawn and mined him for every opinion he might have. Lou Dobbs has endorsed the man for the Senate. He has a book, publicist, and is even considering a album. And Joe is on the campaign trail. Consider for a moment this scene from A Face in the Crowd-

Lonesome Rhodes: This whole country's just like my flock of sheep!
Marcia Jeffries: Sheep?
Lonesome Rhodes: Rednecks, crackers, hillbillies, hausfraus, shut-ins, pea-pickers - everybody that's got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle. They don't know it yet, but they're all gonna be 'Fighters for Fuller'. They're mine! I own 'em! They think like I do. Only they're even more stupid than I am, so I gotta think for 'em. Marcia, you just wait and see. I'm gonna be the power behind the president - and you'll be the power behind me!

In my previous post comparing a media figure to Rhodes (and Howard Beale and Brian from Life of Brian) I gave the figure credit for having enough of a sense of irony and self awareness to not be consumed by it, Howard Beale style. I don't know that it is true of our friend Joe.

There are two paths for Joe now, depending on how the person who thrust him into the spot light fares next Tuesday-he will either be the everyman kingmaker that saved the day for McCain or an Alamo-like symbol for a party looking to create a new identity after a devastating loss.

Either way, he is a product of the machine now, and the machine is not kind. The Lou Dobbs Chris Crocker-esque defense of Joe will only last so long. We won't need a Mel Miller to flick on a camera feed to let us know the real Wurzelbacker.

A Face in the Crowd contains one of the best and prophetic monologues at the end of the film after Rhodes is exposed for the bastard he has become (or always was)-

Lonesome Rhodes: Listen, I'm not through yet. You know what's gonna to happen to me?
Mel Miller: Suppose I tell you exactly what's gonna happen to you. You're gonna be back in television. Only it won't be quite the same as it was before. There'll be a reasonable cooling-off period and then somebody will say: "Why don't we try him again in a inexpensive format. People's memories aren't too long." And you know, in a way, he'll be right. Some of the people will forget, and some of them won't. Oh, you'll have a show. Maybe not the best hour or, you know, top 10. Maybe not even in the top 35. But you'll have a show. It just won't be quite the same as it was before. Then a couple of new fellas will come along. And pretty soon, a lot of your fans will be flocking around them. And then one day, somebody'll ask: "Whatever happened to, a, whatshisname? You know, the one who was so big. The number-one fella a couple of years ago. He was famous. How can we forget a name like that? Oh by the way, have you seen, a, Barry Mills? I think he's the greatest thing since Will Rogers."

After that, Miller calls to the applause machine operator to leave Rhodes with his canned audience.

That was fifty years ago. Before we went from three channels to hunderds. Before the internet and Web 2.0. Miller's life cycle still exists, but it now has an almost Moore's Law quality to it. He has to strike while the iron is hot because it cools quickly these days. It's not there is a lack of precedent, former Survivor contestants co-host shows, former reality show subjects host other reality shows as the monster eats itself.

But cynicism aside, we are a content hungry audience and novelty only will get you so far.

I don't know that Joe is ready for his own spotlight, much less his future as a footnote in presidential elections. It's easy to imagine your life as a kingmaker, not always as easy to imagine your life as an answer to a Trivial Pursuit question.

Pt. 11 Finale:Berlin's Rough Patch

2008-10-29T00:46:00.000-07:00

Berlin had a rough fifty years in the latter half of the twentieth century. If nothing else, it certainly as made the really good at memorializing.

First up was the Jewish museum. The only building in Berlin with more barriers and security (including the Reichstag) was the U.S. consulate. It's not so much for the threat of someone attacking it, but rather the demonstration of how serious they were about it.

The architecture was remarkable, and purposefully disorienting. It's dominated by this crazy criss-cross pattern.

Apparently this can be reconfigured into the Star of David.

Among the various instilations meant to deal with themes like diaspora, there was this one-

The room, with a ceiling several stories high, was filled with thousands of metal carved faces-

The visitor is invited to walk on them, which once suggested becomes a disturbing prospect. It's at once a hamhanded and effective symbol. In the antiseptic atmosphere of the museum, sharing the Perganon Museum's audio tour silenced vistors-wandering out onto the instillation is a little surreal. The clanks of the metal faces against each other under foot echo through the chamber. I noted that it sounded a bit like their cries, and was disturbed by the fact that it made me walk further. Not to say it was a metal Stanford Prison Experiment, but still.

One of the center pieces was an instillation that was supposed to memorialize the disorientation of the uprooted Jewish people. You exit the building into a into a courtyard with uneven floors and tall rectangular columns with a plant canopy filtering the sun.

It's impressive, not so much the second time-

Apparently, when it came time to build a Jewish Holocaust Memorial there was a contest on the design. The winner? A large expanse with an uneven floor and tall gray rectangular columns. One hundred feet from the Jewish History Museum, with it's display with an uneven floor and tall gray rectangular columns.

Also, disappointingly, it's the Jewish Holocaust Memorial because the counsel representing the Jewish community did not want to share this memorial with other victims of the Holocaust, meaning that homosexuals and gypsies had different, non-central memorials.

Across the street was a clutch of shops and restaurants, one of which had this out front-

Go USA.

There were reminders of that dark part of Berlin's history-a plaque down the street from my host's apartment noted a former train depot where Jews were loaded on board. It was a little harrowing, at least this time I had something to compare it with. It was the same feeling that hit me when I found out the mall I performed as the Easter Bunny was on the site of a Japanese internment camp. Not as severe by orders of magnitude, but still...

But that history doesn't leave the same kind of scar as the Berlin Wall. They only recently have started to create the memorial to that, preserving one section-

complete with 'zone of death'-

It's hard to imagine any country would want to build something like this again.

Just sayin'.

Well, that's it-that's the Germany trip. If you read through each update hoping for something like, "How the hell did someone like you end up in Germany?" and "Who is 'the host'?" well, sorry. Maybe later.

The complete photo album can be seen here. Maybe I'll even get around to labeling all of them...

Pt. 10 Graveyards

2008-10-22T03:18:00.000-07:00

It may seem a little 'Goth,' but we spent a little time in Berlin's cemeteries. There was a reason, of course-Berlin is the home of Bertolt Brecht.

Who had what seemed an appropriate grave-

But it was the graveyard that had been partially uprooted for the split between East and West Germany where, between the amusing one upmanship between secret and super secret or really secret or whatever advisers to royalty (my host has tried to explain the difficulty in translation, but it is not nearly as amusing as the grave stones that differentiate between secret and really secret advisers), came probably one of the more sobering things.

All throughout Berlin you can see the odd unrestored building riddled with bullet holes. I've spent my life where no war has scarred the landscape, war is an abstract to me. But what really hit me was walking through the graveyard.

Many of the tombstones were damaged and covered with bullet holes. Of course, I cannot imagine war, nor do I have much of a desire to. But that-this was the last gasp of the war for Germany, a street by street fight with a Soviet army that wasn't going to go easy. How horrifying, how morbid, to have this last stand among the graves. Some of the tombstones taught the military service of the person buried there or their children.

Afterward I became more aware of the stories of the bullet pock marks-imagining the sniper that must have held up on Museum Island that attracted the small group of bullet holes.

What made it worse was the graveyard had to be partially uprooted for the Berlin Wall to be made, a section of which was still up.

Actually, a great deal of it was still up, now used simply as the cemetery wall.

Which is I guess where all those authentic pieces bought by tourists are supposed to be coming from...

Pt. 9 "The Garage"

2008-10-09T00:13:00.000-07:00

I have to finish these posts, I'm starting to forget things...like the name of this place. Whatever its name, it was awesome. Essentially a classic car showroom and storage facility for collectible cars, it was also open to the general public to wander in and out of to do the ultimate window shopping.

The cars on tap ranged from a 'lowly' Fiat 500-

to F1 boss Bernie Eccelstone's personal Thunderbird-

to this Audi...I gotta be honest, I have no idea what it is beyond Audi...

Two Enzos where on tap as well and it didn't occour to me to photograph them. That's how cool the cars were.

While no split windows, there were some Buses (or 'Bullis') there as well. The best thing about this one?

You could rent it. I spent a long time trying to come up with a reason we needed to rent a crane.
Eastern block cars were available as well-naturally the Trabant-

(Two fun side notes on the Trabant-first is that there is a Berlin tour that is conducted by a caravan of puttering Trabants, which I didn't take but did witness. The second was the explanation for what was going on on the back deck here-

It turns out, the roadside stop is really more of an American thing-in Europe at least for a while, once you were out of town, you were on your own. So it was common to bring along your own toilet paper, which modest people would knit cozies for... My host informed me that while a touch unnecessary now, it's still common for older people to have the little TP cozy in the back.)
There was also a Czech Tatra-

Not the cool 'Batmobile' style with the giant fin, but still cool. Also available for rent.
In the wild we spotted one of these-

Which was your alternative to the Trabant if you were an East German. (that's the new Fiat 500 in the background there, which seemed about as popular as the new Mini is here)
This seemed like the most functional of hood ornaments-

-except I imagine hard to read when in use.

The floor had silhouettes of famous racing circuits including the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Daytona, Le Mans, and of course-

Avus. Which is also part of the Autobahn that still serves Berlin. And I totally drove on it. Awesome.

Pt. 8 Museum Island, or 'No autofocus!'

2008-10-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

In the center of Mitte (which itself means 'middle' or something like it) there is an island with a collection of museums, the center piece of which is the Pergamon Museum which contains the Pergamon altar and the Ishtar gate. On display there was a massive Babylon exhibit divided into 'myths' and 'reality.' There were no photographs allowed, so I don't know where this came from.

By this time we had been to enough museums to decide to do away with the audio tour. We had been dragging these clumsy bastards around to only listen to maybe three tracks that more or less just repeated what was on the wall next to the display. Rather than jostle with the crowd for a cumbersome device to do our reading for us, we jumped ahead to the exhibit. (besides, we had an all museum pass, so there was no dallying...)

The result was on of the most surreal experiences of the trip. Among all the glass enclosed antiquity, massive throngs of museum goers shuffled around occasionally gathering in semi-circles to stare silently at displays. When the signal in their ears told them, they would shuffle off in small groups to stand in silence in another semi-circle around another display.

We darted in and out of these clusters, vaguely following the map that suggested our route. As we poked in and out looking for signs or sometimes not caring the silent people would move around us like water.

It was kind of eary...it wasn't even library quiet, it was quiet quiet. Footfalls and the occasional voice.

The 'truth' was stuffy and warm. Myth was air conditioned and spacious. I don't know if this was by design, but it certainly made me like the myths of Babylon a lot more. Plus, there was porn (for the 'whore of Babylon'), so that's always good.

We passed through other museums, the New Museum and Old Museum, where I was taking these pictures when I encountered the strangest photography restriction yet-

A kindly but heavily accented curator came up to me and said, "No autofocus." (well, actually, he was one of the few people that didn't just automatically speak to me in English. Apparently I scream, "Not German.") We figured that since I was taking close ups they were afraid the that the lens moving in and out might hit the sculpture.

The real highlight (well, there were a lot) was the Turkish street vendors on the bridges selling 'authentic' Soviet paraphernalia, mostly hats and pins. My host informed me that for ten year after the fall they were selling 'authentic' chunks of the Berlin wall (which can also still be bought in the store next to the Brandenburg Gate, across from The Museum Kennedy...we had to look because the name was odd.) While the East Berlin government buildings have been torn down due to asbestos, the Marx and Engels statues were still up.

Also what my host kept calling the 'television tower.'

It was interesting to see a product of what I had studied in college. During the occupation the 'west' and 'east' had very different ways of dealing with the communications and film making in Germany. The East kept them nationalized, naturally, and churning out works, the west tore them down (which conveniently opened the door for British and American films that had already made their money domestically. This is a phenomenon that continues on, with American movies filling the theaters and American shows taking up the television programing. I was reminded of the line from a Wim Wenders movie, "The Americans have colonized our minds.") After re-unification the studios are now oriented in the East where they still stood and operated.

I never actually went to Checkpoint Charlie, though I did contemplate getting something with the "You are now leaving the American controlled sector," but it seemed too predictable...

Pt. 7 Who Kills Mitte?

2008-09-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

In far away Germany I managed to find something that was as familiar as home. My host took me through some of the areas that had some nice old buildings. Since reunification Berlin has been rapidly filling in the empty spaces and renewing as much as they can. (Which is what prompted this, which we initially thought was a bit of snarky graffiti-

-which reads, "What, no house here yet?" or something like that. Turns out, it was guerilla advertising for a chat website...ah well...

In fact it's hard to find a place in Berlin where there isn't some sort of building going on.

(that photo really happened because moments prior I had concluded erroneously that Berlin didn't have pigeons. I swear it posed.)

The construction in some of these formerly East Berlin districts has created some familiar juxtapositions.

This building had been filled with squatter artists in the years following reunification. In a time when the rest of Berlin was draining out of the area and no one was investing, the artists started to stage their own renewal. The glass on the building was apparently new. Now, after they've invested into making the place interesting, the money is coming back.

So now this-

is next to this-

Much like those of us here on Treasure Island, or like the hippies and artists who founded Sausalito's floating home community, or of my former home Santa Cruz, the poor and artistic who made unwanted districts desirable essentially waiting to be shoved out by the rich.

There is a courtyard that embodies both the artistic spirit of Mitte and the encroaching commercialism. It's covered in graffiti-

This-

was behind one of these sculptures-

-which for a Euro would do a dance-

And a very Banksy stencil, though I don't know enough to tell if it was Banksy himself or not-

UPDATE: As it turns out, the artist's name is right there for me to see, it's Alias, and he contributed much of the art in the courtyard.

But all of this is making way for tourist stores and boutique shops like the Ampelmann Store (which I have to say I made a specific visit to) and this amusingly named restaurant-

Artists will ask themselves forever-

But the artists of Mitte know the answer to this one-

"People's Luxury"

Pt 6: The Wolfsburg Museum, or the only German museum not full of tears...

2008-09-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

That's not true, but certainly it can be said that Berlin has had a rough history in the last 80 years or so...

But Wolfsburg housed the museum for VWs. We were rushing through the Autostadt not realizing that the VW museum was very small and also preparing for a special event and had reduced its display accordingly. Which is why this is all I got to see of the Beetle RSI-

Being so close to the factory, there where a lot of the 'signed' editions cars, mostly Beetles, like this one signed by all the people involved in the design-

My obvious favorite, of course, is El Gato. I imagine him as some sort of design super hero who shows in a cape and a Zorro hat at just the right time, saying, "No no, the solution is to put the plate molding on top of the bumper thus granting proper clearances for the exhaust!" and then vanishes while a swooning intern asks, "Who was that masked engineer?"

And this Rabbit that had everyone who worked at Volkswagen at the time on it-

Also on hand was a collection of Beetles made out of different things, including wood. This was my favorite-had a sort of Fantasy Island vibe to it-

as did this one-

Among the cars that were also boats was Bug that was also a gondola-

And of course the friendliest emergency vehicles ever-

That yellow one is Germany's AAA.

The best part, however, was the unbelievably inexpensive swag store. The most expensive thing I bought was a two Euro Bubblehead pin, and that included the 'Memory' card game for .55 Euros and the canvas Wolfsburg bag for .30 Euros. And we had time to return to the Autostadt where I picked up a split window bus t-shirt as well as a perfect replica of my old 914 right down to the aftermarket Fucha wheels. Also for about half the price I'd pay for the same model at a race. Plus, I got to feed my obsession with the power factory that powers both the plant and the city of Wolfsburg-

That's the Zeithaus to the left there.

It was a pretty good little VWgasm. And the Scirocco looks pretty damn cool, even if just a bulgy Rabbit.

More depressing museums with relatively random photography policies to follow.

Pt 5: Customs can go fuck itself.

2008-09-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

Seriously. Five separate interviews-most occurring while I'm standing waiting for my luggage. One actually happened as I turned away from another. Not to mention the personal and invasive questions that happened while standing amongst the other passengers. Thanks assholes.

And no, I didn't bring any business cards with me, I was in a foreign fucking country and not aware I'd have to prove I was a production assistant.

My revenge came courtesy of the gas inducing food they served on the flight. After the third invasive interview I carpet bombed the place.

Pt.. 4:Ampelmann

2008-09-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

This is the last post from Germany itself, but I'll do more when I get home. (not that anyone notices, but I gotta get it out anyway...) This one is short-just a quick note about the coolest walk/don't walk signs, like, ever.

Turns out, whatever else the GDR had going on in terms of socialist effeciency and drab fuctionality...when it came to their pedestrian crossing lights, they had a touch of whimsy. Rather than a simple stick figure walking or not walking as the case may be, they had this stylish fellow:

Alright, it's hard to take a picture at night, but it's essentially a little man with a hat holding his arms out for don't walk, and steppin' out for walk. And he's just damn likable.

The rest of Berlin has taken to him as well, whenever a walk sign breaks, Ampelmann (traffic light man) takes the place. And a little cottage industry has sprung up around the bugger as well-

I don't know if I can look at the red hand and stick figure the same again...

Pt 3 Wolfsburg

2008-09-16T05:55:00.001-07:00

The last three vehicles I've owned have been VWs of one kind or another, so it seemed only right that I make part of this trip to Wolfsburg, the home of VW.

The Autostadt (Auto City) in Wolfsburg is cool in a way that if it was in the USA I probably would think is cheesy, in that it is a giant corporate "Ain't we swell" grounds.

There is a factory tour of course, but I couldn't take photos. The highlight of that was the robot that closes the hood of the car, "That's all he does, all day long," intoned the accented tour guide.

And of course, the funky little car train that we rode in-
This is a little blurry because we had to sneak the photo in before we got to the factory itself. It has to be the coolest thing VW is making right now though, or I guess made-I don't know that there is a lot of call for them. That it was number 09 was just that extra dash of awesome. .

The grounds are littered with pavilions to the various brands under the VW umbrella, Audi, SEAT, Skoda, Bentley, and Lamborghini. We only went to the Lamborghini one and it was so lame that we didn't try any other ones. The Lamborghini Pavilion consisted of a Murcilago on a wall and an enthusiastic German explaining how powerful and expensive it was, then a six minute "laser light show" that involved lots of stage smoke, no lasers to speak of, and the sound of the engine coming through speakers. We couldn't help but think that the whole thing would have been cooler from the outside because half way through, in what we guess was supposed to be 'magic,' the wall spun around placing the Lamborghini on the outside.

My UC Santa Cruz shirt got us a special tour of the Zeithaus (Time House) where a very knowledgible and excitable Bentley man showed us some of the collection's rarer Bentley's, Audi (before they were Audi), and a Cadillac. Turns out one of the VW employees spent some time in the Bay Area and was excited to connect to the beach bum/hippie element once again. Though he did for a moment try to sell me on the new Sirroco...

The grounds themselves were very nice. Including this aroma tunnel, which suffered a bit of a malfunction-
The Skoda Pavilion had the most interesting outside, including the side view mirror wall, where I took this 'self portrait'.

Later, if I get the urge, I'll go on about the Wolfsburg Museum and its unbelievably inexpensive swag...

Pt 2 - Berlin to Wolfsburg

2008-09-15T16:37:00.001-07:00

That's the speedometer in the rented BMW 318d on the way back from Wolfsburg on the Autobahn. That's 137ish MPH in 'Merican. Good times.

An American Slacker in Europe, pt 1

2008-09-15T13:50:00.000-07:00

I'm in Germany right now. Surprised? So am I.

This is from the Wolfsburg Museum, and the first Schwimmwagen I've ever seen in person. It's every bit as awesome as it seems.

The second attempt at an amphibious VW, not nearly as cool-

More to come.

Skeletor for a Better Eternia!

2008-06-30T11:58:00.001-07:00

Really, I should have made this entry years ago, but frankly, it's time. Credit for the germ of this realization comes from a friend named Frank who asked, "Eternia is a shit hole, why is Skeletor so adamant about taking it over?"

He has a point, think back to the old He-Man cartoons-the land is barren, craggy, under-developed. Farms and population is largely sparse. And yet, what does 'Prince' Adam spend his time on? I mean, when not acting like a moron to reassure those around him? War. Look at those around him, Man at Arms (and the nepotistic appointment of his daughter), Ram-Man. War mongers all. And Man-e-Faces? I wouldn't be surprised if he is used as a kind of press secretary. And who is He-Man loyal to? Eternia or Grayskull and its secretive 'Sorceress'?

Does He-Man work to build infrastructure? Irrigation, aqueducts, bridges? No. He build Dragon Walkers.

Is that helping Eternia's farmers get their product to market? No, it's helping Eternia's playboy whip around the land in possibly the most destructive way possible.

But what of Skeletor? Surely all of these ridiculous excesses are forgivable in the light of such a threat? Right?

I submit that we've been lied to. Look at the people Skeletor surrounds himself with-Beast Man, Mer-Man, Moss-Man...this is an environmentalist cabinet if there ever was one. These are people connected to nature in a way that He-Man all but ignores. Hell, Skeletor even makes his home in the swamp to be close to the only growth that Eternia has.

It's clear-we've been lied to. The He-Man cartoons were nothing more than He-Man propaganda to support the corrupt and war mongering He-Man regime. Take a look at this last half of an episode from the 'new' series-

What's the moral at the end, "Well always need He-Man." Adam 'foolishly' decides that maybe Eternia should break its dependence on Grayskull, perhaps even try a little diplomacy. That leads only to him having to be rescued by his war buddies.

Even worse, the power of organization and co-operation that Skeletor proposes is personified in terms of war (using the slogan 'behold the Power of One' from the US Army) and characterized as a massive skeleton demon that has to be defeated by, you guessed it, He-Man. Eternia will always need He-Man because they need him to put down collectivity in Eternia when the masses get together and say, "Give us bridges, not Dragon Walkers!"

It's clear. Skeletor has a better plan for Eternia. He stands for the environment, for the collected masses. He stands against He-Man's military extravagances, and his loyalty to the mysterious 'Sorceress'. Don't believe the lies fed to us by the He-Man propaganda machine through those deceptive cartoons! Viva Skeletor! Viva la Revolution!

Brought to you be the Friends of Skeletor or a Better Eternia, "Build Bridges, Not Dragon Walkers."

Life Outside 'the' Demographic

2008-06-27T22:47:00.000-07:00

It was a good run. It really was. Perhaps not as much as other generations have enjoyed because mine was over shadowed by the biggest, most self absorbed generation to date. But we made up for that by having all new, and some times self created ways of finding us and selling to us while pretending not to. But lets be honest, not pretending all that hard.

But technically I've been out of the prime 18-35 demographic for a year plus now. It's been easy to live in denial because what I watch has always had the demographic feel of under-employed people with a wide range of passive medical problems who need to think about insurance, so I didn't get to notice as much.

But what really underscores me not being in the prime demographic is this ad for a new LG phone-

These toolboxes irritate me so much I may be compelled to slap anyone who has their phone. (I just said this to someone else and felt I needed to expand on it here).

Now granted, I never really liked many of the 'spokespeople' for the things that were aimed at me, but I understood them if begrudgingly. Here, I'm just irritated. I feel like the tag line should be, "LG Shine, the phone for the shallow end of the pool."

It's not the worst case of the shallow sell on TV, not by a long shot. But my aggravated 'old man on the porch' reaction underlines one thing clearly. I'm getting old.

Sandwich Idea

2008-06-24T10:51:00.000-07:00

Zombie Adventure Town.

It'd be like those BS 'counter terrorist' training camps except that instead of 'dummy terrorists' the participants would be shooting dummy zombies. You'd even go through the "World War Z" inspired 'zombie survival training' before you're unleashed in the mock up town where zombie-fied mannequins pop out to be shot with shotguns, chopped with chainsaws, what have you. I mean, if you're going to be participating BS, why not make it awesome?

R.I.P. Lego

2008-06-10T23:43:00.000-07:00

It has been in my possession for the second shortest period of time of any vehicle I have ever owned.

In just over two short years it traveled almost 100,000 miles. In its life it came just shy of 5,000 miles short of 300,000 miles. It carried tech gear, wardrobe, grip gear, numerous lunches, contestant luggage, garbage, my room full of free stuff from Craigslist including the 50" TV, and all my worldly possessions.

It bares the scars from carports, gas pump retaining polls, a fence, and even a Ford Ranger. I have slept in it when I was too tired to drive. I camped in Sausalito in it when I was too poor to drive home. I have taken it deep into California's redwood forests. It has kept me company through the night. It has been the background to a national advertising campaign. It has been a slight bump in my rate, and the reason I've been hired more than once.

I have resisted it. I have cursed it. I have complained about it. I named it after another object. I have threatened it. I have not shown it a fraction of the patience that its more temperamental sister has enjoyed.

It's had the power steering pump, the water pump, the fuel injectors, the thermostat, and radiator hoses replaced (all parts that the older air-cooled bus doesn't have). Ultimately, the transmission has gone out, and that will cost as much as the van is worth to replace. It is time to once again be a one van man.

I never rigged it with deep cycle batteries to support productions. I never replaced the grill with a South African style double headlight. I never put the peace symbol in place of the VW symbol. I never replaced the drive train with a diesel engine to run it on waste vegetable oil. I never converted it into my quested for inappropriate low rider. And finally, I never really gave it the respect that it earned.

It won't have the stories of what it was, like the old Chevy Malibu Classic that would smash through the abandoned mobile home park or would fit 8 of my closest friends. It won't have the stories of struggle and 'could have been' of the Porsche 914. It never had a day where my friends piled in to go from thrift store to thrift store looking for 8mm cameras, or going to Walnut Creek to play in the Battletech simulators. It will just be what it was, the work horse that shouldered me up from my college graduation to my post college life.

It was unremarkable, undramatic, unstoried, unloved. And now, after having handed over its keys completing my unbeaten streak of being the last owner of every vehicle I've had, I finally, if belatedly, salute it. I can only hope that its individual bits allow other workhorses to soldier on and get the love you deserve.

Farewell, my mule. Rest in peace, you've earned it.

The Gran Turismo Wish List

2008-05-13T23:52:00.000-07:00

This won't be very deep, or probably very interesting to anyone but me. But I feel after four versions and the new version looking to have the same thing I have to get it out there, and an unread blog is just a hair under useful as sending in a letter. So here I go-

Dear Sony-

Look, the only reason I even have a Playstation is because of Gran Turismo and likely the only thing that will get me to shell out the coin for a PS3 is Gran Turismo, and the sad, sad reality of it is I'll probably still buy one even if you keep making the same old thing. But it'd be swell to get some of these problems addressed.

First, enough with the replays. Okay, we get it, they look great. But in reality, you stop watching them after the first night. If I want realistic looking racing, I have the Speed Channel. The part you watch shouldn't be more impressive than the part you play.

Second, I have friends. Crazy, I know. And even a few of them play this game. It'd be fantastic if the multi-player mode wasn't an after thought. Like, seriously, do I have to go all the way out to the main menu to adjust race conditions in two player mode, like number of laps? Really? Also, if I'm using cars from my garage (and good lord, why wouldn't we be?) I should be able to make adjustments to my car so that if the last time I was running my 1970 Superbird was for a high speed run at the test track, I can still use it in a race at the high speed ring without having to go into my game to make adjustments.

While we're at it, there are enough cars in the game the the races can make sense, but instead I'll enter a race where it's five race cars from three different series (including mine) and then an unmodified street car for some reason. I can deal with the cross series racers, it doesn't have to be but it's not a deal breaker, but really, the street car? Is it a disgruntled pace car driver? What the hell? It's like when slotless toy racers decided to add that 'blocker' van as a gimmick. Except it makes even less sense.

Let me paint my cars. I'm not even asking for the awesome Forza customization, but at the very least let me change the color of my car. Also, bring back race modifying my car-and while we're at it, let me pick my number.

This one might be a little late for the final edition of Gran Turismo 5, but embrace club racing. It be fantastic if I could be working local races trying to get an invite to the SCCA run offs, or the Japanese or European or Australian equivalents, working my way up to professional level racing. To this end, a calender would be great.

There's more, but honestly if I got half of what I've already asked for I'd be a fairly happy man.

The adjustability thing in two player mode applies to on-line as well.

Part of a Pattern? (Mark II)

2008-05-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the first version of this post rang all kinds of alarm bells (the full version will appear unedited at the end of this explanation). To start--no, I'm not depressed--no, I'm not having relationship problems--no, I'm not especially engaged in second-guessing. The idea of the post was to discuss the inner critic and the trap of subjectivity that seems to plague me and many people that I know. On a completely pragmatic level, I know that the world isn't some vast conspiracy for my benefit, but it doesn't stop the thought from occasionally popping into my head, just as I almost always sleep with my feet pointed down to minimize the exposure of my achilles tendon to attacks from any ravenous animals that might try to rip them out and prevent me from running away. The process of maturation seems to me to be less about shedding these nagging thoughts as learning to ignore them, and I get better and better as life goes on.

Chalk it up to my skeptical nature--given sufficient idle time, everything will be cast into doubt. This includes my own motives and self-image, and therein is the problem of which I speak. Whenever I see a jackass or a yahoo yammering on endlessly unaware of the social discomfort he or she is creating and oblivious to his or her obvious jackassery, I get really uncomfortable. What if I do the same thing? What if I always do it? What if I'm doing it right now? (and, yes, I'm currently wondering if this selfsame post is a prime example of such--I'm sure I will be made aware of it). I can't be the only one, and I was hoping to start a discussion of this idea--that's all. No cry for help, no need for an artistic kick in the pants.

Without further discussion, below is what seems to be one of my all-time failures at rhetorical communication:

It seems like Walrus and I have had a series of minor wakeup calls and unpleasant realizations. He stumbled me something today that was another twist of the knife. It seems as though ideas that I've been kind of kicking around casually are in some way profound--this sounds horrible, I know, but it really raises a question that has plagued me for as long as I've had ideas, I have to confess that I'm no closer to figuring a way around it.

I don't have any way to look at an idea, project, attitude, or relationship and know whether I'm doing something right or screwing up. A corollary of this is that it's hard to tell whether compliments are based out of reality, pity, or some Truman-Show-esque conspiracy to keep me from finding out that I'm retarded. Add on to this that I can't even really tell when I'm blowing smoke up my own ass.

I have to wonder if this is the zeitgeist or just me (obviously, I can't tell).

The Do-Over

2008-03-27T20:07:00.000-07:00

One of the big advantages of theater over film is that until you die, a play really isn't ever finished. This is particularly demonstrated in Edward Albee revisiting his breakthrough play A Zoo Story by adding an introductory play, Homelife to create the full length Peter and Jerry. Technically, you can probably liken this to prequels like The Phantom Menace, but while A Zoo Story remains unchanged, the pairing is now a different experience.

Remakes have not been uncommon in film. It would seem that they started as soon as there was enough material to mine for a second time. But for the sake of this argument I wouldn't qualify them specifically as a do over, though in some regards that may in fact be true depending on the distance from the original premise. I'll come back to that after I establish what I would say is a cinematic do-over.

The first category is probably the clearest, in the Director's Cut. Prominent since Ridley Scott released a voice-overless Bladerunner, it has grown with the home DVD market, sometimes in the guise of 'extra footage' or 'unrated versions.' The latter two make the distinction harder to determine. Is it really a do over or is it just 'value added content' (ah, my time at Stanford wasn't wasted...) for the home market DVD? I think there are obvious ways to determine that, and it's time and involvement. The Lord of the Rings wouldn't be considered a do over, for example. First of all, the footage was added with release of the DVDs and didn't significantly change the character of the narrative. Layering in a deeper insinuation of Decker being a replicant as well as changing the tone of the film by subtracting the voice over. Compared to adding a scene where members of the fellowship negotiate with a Clive Barker character at the gates, it's clear to see the difference.

The other is a little harder to define, but is a more recent phenomenon. It applies specifically to franchise films. They've been around for a while themselves, from Hope and Crosby's Road to... movies to Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies. Franchises have been 'refreshed' from time to time, Adam West gave way to Micheal Keaton, Sherlock Holmes has been played by numerous actors, as has James Bond.

But in even with James Bond, the new actors haven't resulted in a full stop restart until Daniel Craig took the roll over in Casino Royale.

This kind of restart is increasingly common. Batman Begins, Casino Royale, and the upcoming J.J. Abrahms' Star Trek and the Edward Norton The Incredible Hulk. Even Diary of the Dead mentioned here earlier.

What separates a remake from a do over? Is Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes
a do over or a remake? It significantly changes the tone and character of the story. Burton dubbed it as a 're-imagining.' Likewise with Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, this time billing it as more faithful to the original (despite Dahl writing the script to the Gene Wilder version). Or for that matter Mark Walberg's The Italian Job a do over of Micheal Caine's?

I think I have to argue that they are, even though there is a greater gulf of time between the original and the new version. While every remake contains the new perspective of the new artists involved and the perspective of the different time that it's made in, if the change is significant enough that it changes the basic premise of the original it would have to be considered a do over.

It's easy to be cynical about these franchise refreshers. Either the series had become cheesy, as with Batman, or threadbare, with James Bond. In order to keep the cash cow giving something drastic had to be done.

But with comics this isn't uncommon. Sixty issues in, Ghost Rider edited the origins, DC restarted its entire universe at one point. The John Travolta Punisher was a do over of the rather bland Dolph Lungren Punisher (and the Punisher will be played by the third actor in as many movies with the upcoming Punisher:War Zone).

But now, only five years after Ang Lee's, lets say ambitious The Hulk, the Hulk is getting a do over. The trailer takes pains to make its apologies to fans-Banner becomes the Hulk as a result of an accident, not an experiment from his dad, and he will go toe to toe with another big bad ass, not just fail to achieve the promise of that. (I'm still upset that the original movie set up a green hulk vs. purple hulk and instead just churned water...)

I don't necessarily think that it's a bad thing. It's hard to wrap something so clearly driven by market forces as 'artistic,' but why not? Regardless of the financial reasoning behind the decision, it's still new takes on old stories. Where Tim Burton's Batman was an exercise in set pieces and over the top villain performances, Christopher Nolan's Batman uses the villains to explore the darker aspects of the heroes personality. Daniel Craig's James Bond is an exploration of a man who has no family or social tie who takes killing so casually.

Plus, you know, it means I can hold out hope that I might get a better Ghost Rider...(I have to admit, I forgot my point...)

For the Love of Crap

2008-03-14T21:05:00.001-07:00

I have, I have discovered, a remarkable threshold for crap. Some of the narratives and characters I have a great deal of affection for are really, by any objective measure, incredibly cheesy to be generous.

I've thought about this recently as I completed The Essential Silver Surfer V.1 and am half way through The Essential Ghost Rider V.1. I have a vast and equally cheesy collection of original recordings of the radio drama The Shadow.

I could pass this off as nostalgia, I became a fan of these characters when I was young and 'didn't know any better.' But I don't know that that is the case. I watched and loved G.I. Joe and when I had an opportunity to watch it again as an adult I found them unwatchable. Even The A-Team, with the always enjoyable Mr. T was stomach groaningly bad. An episode of MacGuyver made me question my judgment.

But are these characters whom I continue to hold such affection really all that different? The Shadow can get down right goofy-I remember an episode where a man creates a TV that can see in any room he desires. Lamont Cranston's back and forths with the easily frustrated Commissioner Weston are so riddled with naked winks to Cranston's alter ego that it seems ridiculous to think that Weston remains unaware of them. (It has led to, on occasion, me imagining that Weston is in fact aware that The Shadow is in fact wealthy man about town Lamont Cranston and has just decided that allowing his delusion would be easier than trying to tell him. Sometimes I go further and assume that The Shadow's lauded ability to 'cloud mens minds' is all in his head and it's only his staunch conviction that he's able to that throws his opponents off balance. "Don't bother looking for me, I've clouded your mind to make me invisible." "Is he kidding with that? He's standing right there with that big hat and goofy scarf? What's the gag?")

The Ghost Rider spends the first 60 issues of his run being protected by the purity of his girlfriend Roxanne Simpson from the devil's remarkably focused desire to capture the soul of Johnny Blaze. From a rather intriguing start where the devil makes him battle his raised from the dead adoptive father (who, in a healthy dose of the goofy, masquerades as 'Curly,' charismatic leader of a motorcycle gang. Predictably, motorcycle gangs play a pretty constant role in early Ghost Rider stories.

He fights demons like Roulette, Demon of Las Vegas, a NASCAR promoter killed by Vegas casino owners and resurrected by Satan in a ploy to get at Johnny Blaze that I still don't understand how was supposed to work.

Silver Surfer's preachy earnestness leaks over every page while he battle Mephisto (read:Satan) who is offended by the very existence of some so 'pure at heart.' (a theme, apparently, in Marvel comics of the late sixties and early seventies...). I was surprised a bit that Mephisto was actually created as a Silver Surfer villain.

What is the pull, the allure of these characters that hasn't managed to save G.I. Joe or The A-Team? I wonder if it's wishful thinking, a desire that the characters in some parallel universe are as interesting as I want them to be. Me and Sous Rature have talked about the stories we'd tell with some of these characters, or with Sous Rature's cheesy favorite ROM. Perhaps it's the earnestness that goes into the characters, that same earnestness that has made Spiderman one of the most popular super heroes.

I don't really have an answer. I just know that I can't wait for The Essential Silver Surfer V.2 and The Essential Ghost Rider V.3 (I already have V.2) come out. And sitting quietly on my hard drive for those moments of needed fix is every original pulp short stories of The Shadow...

I'm a Sad, Sad Man...

2008-03-08T16:51:00.000-08:00

End of an Era

2008-03-04T15:15:00.000-08:00

Walrus texted me this morning with the news that Gary Gygax was dead. Now, Walrus and I aren't huge gamer geeks for reasons that I will explain later, but it struck me as significant nonetheless.

Gygax falls into that category of innovators who push something into the poular consciousness then lose control over it and become omnipresent but increasingly irrelevant, much like Atari founder Nolan Bushnell or (as much as I love the guy for being perhaps the most sincere human being on the planet) Stan Lee. They're happy to see their passion become so widespread, but they don't really get what's become of their work and aren't getting as many rewards as they probably feel they deserve.

Before I move on, let me explain that earlier statement that Walrus and I aren't gamer geeks. It's not a claim of superiority, really. I have a lot of respect for geeks of all varieties because they can achieve a much higher level of focus than I can. Not since I was a teenager could I become obsessed with something completely enough to lose all perspective. A lot of that comes from simply being intensely self-conscious. It's kind of hard to immerse yourself in something maintain an ironic distance from it. Conversely, neither of us really fell into the hipster group because we're not all irony--we actually do get jazzed up about all kinds of stuff and really don't get into the whole hatin' thing.

I played role playing games fairly regularly from about the age of 12 to about the age of 30 with some consistency--at that point, my life and the lives of others became to complicated to make the whole thing happen. There are a lot of people my age who still manage it, but I stand in awe of their geeky dedication, but I think the real reason is that I found that most, if not all, of the people I was playing with were there at cross purposes to mine.

Back in elementary school, teachers would occasionally have the class write chain stories, where each person writes a sentence, then passes it on to the next person, who adds a sentence, and so on. I HATED this, mainly because there was always some jackass who had to insert PacMan into each and every story regardless of relevance. This is roleplaying about 90% of the time.

People play for all kinds of reasons, but few of them to engage in (to get all up my own ass for a second) the collaborative exploration of a narrative space. Some people want to play a reeeeeally slow version of a video game; others want to act out some wish fulfillment scenario, many of which, disturbingly, involve naked zebra women or the like; still others are bucking for alpha male by poring over arcane regulations like a Fortune 500 tax accountant. All of this is a giant buzzkill for me and makes me wonder why I gave up a Sunday afternoon.

Gary Gygax spawned an entire subculture that has evolved and thrived for over thirty years now. Conventions, which used to be about 99% comic-book guy types, have become family affairs, involving two or three generations and a broad mix of cultures and a much more balanced gender profile. People can immerse themselves in this life without having to compromise with the culture at large. Game stores are to these people what bars are to frat guys--friends fantasize about opening one, and when one of them manages to do so, the group usually rides the whole thing all the way to the ground (although I tip my hat to those people who manage to make the necessary adult decisions to really make it work). Gary's legacy will outlive him by decades.

I've been reading about 4th Edition D&D lately--it seems like there's some interesting things going on there. It might be fun to thumb through, even if I can't quite get it together enough to actually get it together enough to geek out.

My Star is On the Rise

2008-03-02T16:00:00.000-08:00

Well, according to my starmeter on IMDb.com. This was confusing me a bit until a friend looked into what would cause my star to rise, and that's people looking at my page. I can only guess that the people who didn't know who I was who managed to see my doc on youtube decided to look me up on IMDb.com to see if I had done anything of note.

Disappointingly, no. I couldn't even manage to get on the Harvey Milk film despite being down the street from the offices. So the flattery that goes with people thinking that maybe I've done something since college after seeing my college documentary gets to go hand in hand with my shame that, no, I haven't. I'm struggling even with the new agreement to get in at least two blog entries a week. (this was supposed to be about autuership in television, but I have to do some research...and I should have done my bit about genre years ago)

It's embarrassing. I've made a lot of progress in my vittles career, but as far as what I meant to do, not so much. And now I'm faced with disappointing the random stumblers or YouTubers looking for videos about Portal (the subject of most cake inquiries) with my lack of achievement.

I keep hoping I'll find the formula, that ellusive something that made me prolific back when. Was it having to face people expecting work from me every day? Was it that I had long periods where I had to sit silently with only my notebook to amuse me? Was it the lack of free time? (abundance of free time means that I can always do it 'later,' when I was producing regularly I was going to school full time and working full time) Was it concrete deadlines? Was it being around other people's creative work? Was it a fluke?

I need to figure this out. I don't want to disappoint the random people checking my IMDb page.

Fuck You 'Quarterlife'

2008-02-27T19:12:00.000-08:00

Maybe I'm not being fair, I didn't start viewing until about 10 minutes into the first episode. Maybe there was something redeeming, something that could have excused the remaining 50 minutes. But somehow I doubt it.

This pandering ridiculous piece of crap that at best gets to benefit from the post-writer's strike gulf of new programing is brought to us, apparently, but the same people that created the popular 30Something, a show I never watched. If this sad caricature of youth culture coming of age is any indication of their first effort, I'm glad I missed it.

Where to begin? The cliche's are so prominent it might as well be Rent: The Non-Musical TV Series . It even has its aspiring film making trio which includes the uncompromising visionary, the cocky 'money' guy whose parents funded the equipment (incidentally, how do they fuck that up? The crew uses a single chip hand held, not a prosumer camera used by, well, fucking all of us. I'm sure at least ten people on the crew owned at least one...) and the comic relief tech/editor guy.

(one might dismiss this rant as being angry that they were filming a spec car commercial which is something I've been working on. But frankly, most of us are working on something like that, if it had been handled with even the slightest respect for the audience it'd be different)

If that was all, it'd be fine. But then there's the female cast which includes fragile woman who wants to be an actress. She gets dressed down by her acting coach in front of the whole class (a teacher who she slept with, no less...it's as if the network notes went, "Scolded by an acting teacher for not being 'genuine' enough, not hacky enough...now if she slept with him...). Then there's the frumpy 'sell out' who works as an assistant at some corporate entity who balances her counter-culturalism with her corporate ambition. And of course she struggles with corporate culture, 'Oh noes! My boss stole my idea! How will I cope?'By, of course, video blogging about it on a sight where the show gets its name.

But wait, we had that network note again, "More hacky!" Enter a love triangle. Arty film guy is in love with his best friend (who is dating the comicly jerky money guy) and blogger girl is in love with art film guy.

Seriously? Add some video blogging and digital film making to cliches of youth that were outdated when they tried to sell them to my generation and this is suppose to pas for something for the new youth coming of age? Fuck that. And fuck you, Quarterlife for thinking your audience is that fucking stupid.

Make it Work

2008-02-25T11:02:00.000-08:00

In the same way that Jules in Pulp Fiction is a vegetarian, I have found myself a viewer of Project Runway. I discovered a long time ago that I should generally avoid reality TV because I can't fight hundreds of thousands of years of primate evolution and be entirely indifferent when the bitch fights and backstabbing start--monkeys who failed to pay attention ended up on the wrong side of the petty and large intrigues that are the birthright of all apekind (as Animal Planet seems determined to make clear with its programming), and, as a direct result, had a much harder time passing on their genes.

Anyhow, I have definitely been pulled in, and I've got my favorites (I'm really hoping (despite the fact that nobody on the show seems to even consider it a possibility) that Chris can somehow manage to win the whole thing), but I think the strangest thing about it all is that this show has affected my teaching. You see, I'm convinced that Tim Gunn is one of the best teachers I've ever seen, live or on television.

This all comes at a time when I'm making pretty significant changes in my own classroom approach. I'm trying to design my composition courses so that (1) I don't have to do any grading at home, (2) my students actually receive and process my comments, and (3) I don't spend a lot of time yammering on about a process that is deeply individual and not especially easy to boil down to general comments. What it means is that my classroom is more of a lab than a lecture hall (something that I couldn't do when the dean wasn't scheduling me in the computer rooms). I meet with every student, every week (although this is a lot harder at the JC that it is at the business college, owing to the larger class sizes), and I essentially coach writing rather than teach it--eight students, eight sets of issues and eight approaches to teaching.

I've often compared teaching writing to psychological counseling (on a good day when I feel like I'm actually helping) or palm reading (on the bad ones). However, what I'm seeing is that it is, ideally, more like what happens every Wednesday night at ten. Students are working on a "challenge" where they have their own ideas, and I kind of stroll around the lab, nudging them in the right direction, being skeptical of the more bizarre or ill-advised choices that they make, and, generally, wanting them to "make it work."

This is where Tim Gunn is an artist. He's able to make critically important observations without ever projecting the doubts that he must have that the designer might not, or even probably won't, be able to pull it off. He starts with the assumption of competence, and it kind of becomes like begging the question. He doesn't give people the space in which to undermine themselves, and so they never do because they're caught up in dealing with the higher-level problems that Tim has pointed out. His good nature, intelligence, and expertise serve to complement this basic strategy.

I don't know I feel about emulating a fashion guru (my general feelings on the matter of fashion are in an earlier entry), but I guess we take our role models where we find them.

My Other Van's Moment of (sort of) Fame

2008-02-22T03:18:00.000-08:00

My workhorse van can be seen in this Avis ad. It's the white Vanagon with tinted windows parked next to the 'hero' car.

Here's the sad part-I got paid as much as I would have for a full day of work to leave it there for half a day.

Had Veronica not been vandalized she would have been there, too. Damn kids.

The Gen X Candidate

2008-02-20T04:41:00.000-08:00

It was sobering realization. I was discussing the wins for Barrack Obama at the jabbering place and it occoured to me...Barrack Obama is not only the first 'serious' black candidate for president, he's the first serious Generation X candidate for president.

And there it is.

Granted, it was bound to happen. The likelyhood of the presidency skipping a whole generation was pretty slim. But I don't know that I was in anyway prepared for it. It doesn't seem like that long ago that Baby Boomers were coming to terms with their first president and now here we are.

Maybe I should ask a Boomer what they felt, how they copped with it, but that's never really been Gen X's style. If this was a 'real' blog I could interview Douglas Copeland about how he feels about the generation that bares the name he gave it coming of age. We were defined, partly at least, by stalling adulthood as long as necessary. And yet again one of our Generation's over achievers went and defied that-just like all those head down computer tweakers defied the bleakest predictions about us and created a whole different economy.

I guess I should feel bad, kind of like I felt duped when I was living the life of Richard Linklater's Slacker and they were all living War Games. I was affecting an air of dissatisfaction at coffee shops and they were changing the way the world did business. And I was left behind. Jokes on them, me and my kind get to tell their stories. The Kevin Smiths, the Judd Apatows...we still get to tell stories of developmentally stunted man-childs.

But now one of us is one of the most energizing candidates in our lifetimes. What the hell? I don't know, should I feel proud? "Ha! You got us wrong again!" Should I feel ashamed, I'm still living a life not signifigantly different than I did when I was 20. Hell, I still have my woolly goatee.

I think I have to settle on strange. I feel very very strange.

First Person Narrative in Film

2008-02-14T15:11:00.000-08:00

George Romero is returning to his stalwart zombie series this summer with his movie Diary of the Dead. While it capatilizes on one of the biggest trends right now in franchise films, the franchise reset (seen in Batman Begins, Casino Royale, and the upcoming Star Trek, what is more intriguing to me is being a new entry in the First Person film, a narrative film told from the point of view of the person filming it.

This first came to public conscious, of course, with The Blair Witch Project. The horror movie relied on a viral campaign that created the illusion that the footage was 'real.' It was an interesting and important change in the way film was experienced. The story of the film was as important as the film itself. Now the success of this is up for debate (I really hated the film ultimately), but the dialog with the audience was intriguing.

Recently the first person narrative in film has been revisited with JJ Abrams' Cloverfield. Again with this film viral marketing was integral to the film itself. While not relying on creating the illusion that it was 'real' (which is to say, we were not led to believe that New York was destroyed by a giant monster and had just forgot), but as with Blair Witch the story of the film was an integral part of the film itself. The content of the movie was purposefully anemic on the details of the premise. All we know is what the people who lived the attack would know. There is a monster, and it is destroying New York.

What Cloverfield did that Blair Witch did not was comment on how we experience spectacle in a world where everyone has a camera. While at some point you begin to wonder why the Blair Witch crew hasn't put down their cameras (even though they are documentarians) Cloverfield relished in a YouTube world that Blair Witch could only dream of. The best example of this is the scene just after the head of the Statue of Liberty lands in the street and it is instantly surrounded by people taking pictures of it with their phones.

Pretty much as soon as the camera phone was invented people started to explore the narrative possibilities of that medium, but Cloverfield was the first major film to explore that world.

Romero seems prepared to take that to it's next step. A group of filmmakers happen to be filming when the dead rise, at this point not much different than Blair Witch. The difference comes from a director with a dark sense of humor and a knack for social commentary. The last line of the trailer says a lot about his potential take, "If it's not on camera it's like it never happened, right?"

I'm intrigued by this, there hasn't been a really new narrative style in film for a while, even Tarantino's broken chronology goes back to Citizen Kane. I'm looking forward to seeing this movie and hopefully expanding on this post afterwards.

Diseased

2008-02-09T01:38:00.000-08:00

Please go check this out at Industrial Disease.

Fucking priceless.

Re-Inventing the Wheel

2008-02-09T00:49:00.001-08:00

Once again, this was going to be about something else. I had a new essay theme I was going to do that I thought would motivate me to actually post on a semi-regular basis. As it turns out I instead fell into a semi-regular problem, re-inventing the wheel.

For me this personifies not with the wheel but another common and available technology. You see, every now and then while I'm walking, or waiting, or doing something that otherwise requires nothing of me other than my presence I start problem solving in my head. I could problem solve the 'small' things, the little things, things immediately relevant to my life. I could. If I wanted to think small.

But that's not the way I roll.

I go for the big problems. Namely, perpetual motion. While I haven't had a direct conversation with that part of my brain, I can only assume that it truly believes that if I just think about it long enough that I'll come up with a solution despite my lack of a background in thermodynamics or engineering.

And I get close, to, dammit. Almost every time. I can see it. It starts off with a simple mechanism, usually shifting back and forth of a weight with reduction gearing. And then I start thinking of a weight that would be more constant, more...fluid.

Before long I find that I have re-invented hydro-electricity. The disturbing thing is the number of times I've actually done this.

It's not always something I know exists that I inadvertently re-create. I witnessed the rise and fall of my theater career in the six hour span of when I came up with the idea to do a stage version of Refer Madness and when I got back on the internet to find that there was already a successful stage musical version that was being shot for Showtime.

This is extra disturbing for someone who hopes to make their living creatively. But I sooth those fears with two thoughts. First, I am not one idea. I come up with and forget at least four or five ideas a day. Not all of them are gems, in fact there is a good reason I forget most of them. But coming up with them isn't a problem. It's sorting through them and figuring out which ones are worth a second thought is where it's at.

Second, I firmly believe that art is in the execution. Perhaps this again comes from starting off as a jazz musician. There isn't really a concern over doing someone elses song. In fact, especially during the be-bop era, performers just grabbed chord changes and tunes from popular songs, sometimes not even bothering with melodies (a la Donna Lee). It didn't matter where the song came from, it mattered how you play it. It wasn't, and isn't, uncommon for player to even 'quote' other players solos. They aren't 'ripping them off,' they're playing a theme. They could be saying hello, or showing someone how it's done, or just taking a good sounding lick in a different direction.

Which is a long way to say that it's in how you do it. Saying that people can't do similar ideas is like scoffing at an artist, "Pfff. A portrait? Perhaps you haven't heard of the Mona Lisa?

So this was going to be one of those. I had this idea for a theme that Sous Rature tactfully pointed out someone already does, probably better than I was going to. That was, link ads that I see in my over-consumption of television and comment on them. Slate apparently already does this.

But for the above reasons, and because this blog has all of 2-3 readers and this thing is updated so infrequently I don't think it will really matter. So there. That's my lengthy excuse for the post that I might get around to that Slate already does...my re-invented wheel.

I Tube'd...

2008-02-06T23:21:00.000-08:00

I finally broke down and put my old college documentary on YouTube rather than relying on UC Santa Cruz not noticing that it's still up.

So, here it is. Thus defeating my contrived attempts to keep my real name off the internet.

I'm Not Alone!

2007-10-29T22:03:00.001-07:00

Thank you Stumble, I needed that.

Who is the Sky Falling On, Exactly?

2007-10-23T16:06:00.000-07:00

I don't make political posts because, well, drop in the ocean really. There are more qualified people and places for that. I just wanted to get this out of my head because it's been bugging me.

In the Great Environmental Debate environmentalists are routinely painted as Chicken Littles, overstating the horror and doom of inaction or continued waste, etc. At worst they are exaggerating and at best jumping at their own shadows.

But then look at what is predicted by, lets call them counter-environmentalists and I think we see a far greater hysteria. Going 'green' will destroy our economy, make us live like the Amish, bring us to our knees! Won't someone please think of the children!

And they think that environmental concerns are inconsistent? Cooling/warming? But then what have we heard? Global Warming isn't happening. Well, it's happening, but it's not our fault. Well, it is our fault but there isn't anything we can do about it. Well, we can do something about it but it would destroy our economy so someone else should do something about it.

C'mon...seriously?

We build cities and bridges, faster than sound aircraft, cure disease, go to the moon-but the mere thought that we might just maybe find an alternative to fossil fuels is going to bring civilization to its knees?

Regardless of what you believe about global warming, fossil fuels are a finite source and renewables are, well, renewable. The upfront costs of transitioning to renewable resources is somehow insurmountable, but the back end cost of sticking with a depleting source is totally doable? Forget sustainability, in the long run it's just cheaper for a source that renews itself than it is for one that becomes more rare.

The economic argument just seems so feeble to me. Green mutual funds have outpaced the market even with our notably ungreen president in charge. Someone is making money-just not the ones who have shackled themselves to 'dirty' fuels. Where's the 'best buggy whip manufacturer' anecdote for them? They're out of date. Switching off of them won't be the end of civilization.

Sure, the alternatives are not perfect and some just are not ready. Ethanol from corn from every measure seems like a bad idea, from release of nitrates, to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, to what goes into producing it. But there are already bio-diverse alternatives to corn and sugar. Ultimately I don't think that there will be a single 'magic wand' solution. Maybe that's the problem, that oil was a 'single solution' and somehow we were lead to believe that without a single solution, all would be lost.

That it would collapse the sky.

Well, it won't.

Authorship in Collaborative Art

2007-10-17T23:20:00.000-07:00

The folks over at Incertus have been having an interesting discussion regarding authorship in respect to Raymond Carver and his editor Gordon Lish. In this specific instance, authorship has a clear hierarchy in that the stories are credited to Carver but were apparently heavily modified by Lish.

It has spurred on something that's been bouncing around in my head for a while so instead of putting off my musings I thought I'd just expand the discussion here.

I have only ever worked in collaborative art forms.

As a musician I worked with bands. Sax players have a rich tradition of being a lone backdrop to a romantic evenings epilogue, and I did that for one winter, but most of my work was done as part of a band.

As a playwright my work was just a blueprint until taken up by a director, casted by actors, and designed by stage crew.

In film I always work with crew people. Often I won't even meet a lot of the people involved in the final creation of what I do. Even in works where I do most of the work, like my college documentary I still had to enlist a small group of people to get it complete.

In all of these things I have had authorship (though as a PA, close to none).

The lines I would play in jazz would be mine, no one would play them like me (as every player plays their own way). But even as a 'lead' on the band there was a recognizable difference in my own playing depending on who I was playing with. A drummer made all the difference in the world. The amazing piano and guitar players I played with in high school made me sound better than I actually was, a false confidence that was a rude awaking when playing with players who weren't able to open the changes up to follow where I wandered.

In big bands my creativity was under the final direction from the leader. But my playing was still my own and the band would not sound exactly the same with any member replaced.

In theater every play I wrote (and write) has a definite vision in my head. I can hear the voices of each character in my head and can answer as to what they are thinking and going through at any given moment in a scene. To me, it's the funnest part of writing a play for me. When a play is really 'happening' I feel like I'm just transcribing a conversation I overheard.

But consistently those expectations have been shattered when actors, directors, and set designers get a hold of it. Actors find new ways of delivering the lines, bringing life into characters that I didn't know was there. The director invariably finds some aspect of the play that fascinates her (my best directors far and away have been women) that maybe I thought was less present, and set designers have worked some interesting miracles with notoriously minimal set requirements.

Even more to the point it is inaccurate to say "I" wrote any plays. Every play has been written with Sous Rature who has put a stamp of depth to all of our works.

If asked we will both sheepishly admit (and here I am speaking a bit for him, but I think I'm right) that our most popular works had more than a little to do with who put them on. We have an immense respect and admiration for the actors that appeared in a number of our plays and tend to think any further success would necessarily involve them to the point that we often try to decide who they would play in each new work we create.

Film simply cannot be done without a small army of people, from lighting, set design, cinematographer, sound recording and design, and editing.

Stanley Kubrick believed that film needed one author in the same way that there is one composer, one writer for a novel or a poem. Film auteurship is based on the director being the film's 'author.' Producers in the Hollywood machine have often taken that credit as well. A book that came out about a year or so ago (which I can't find at the moment) argues for screenwriters being a films author.

To establish a theory of auteurship in film it became necessary for the director or producer to have a recognizable artistry in their films, something Kubrick did manage. There is no mistaking a Kubrick film.

But there is also no mistaking an Arthur C. Clarke story. Is 2001:A Space Odyssey a Stanley Kubrick work or a Arthur C. Clarke work. Kubrick did adaptations throughout his career, but in this time he collaborated on the work that he adapted.

Or for a muddier question, look at the working relationship between Spike Jonze and Charles Kaufman. Kaufman's work has been done by other directors but is still unmistakably Kaufman's. And yet there is a particular stamp to Kaufman when directed by Jonze. So who is the author, Jonze, or Kaufman?

How much of Jean-Pierre Jeunet is Jeunet and how much is cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (Amelie and A Very Long Engagement), whose visual style is evident in Across the Universe, even though credit is given in reviews has gone to Julie Taymor. That isn't entirely undeserved, elaborate set design has been part of her work. On the set the decisions were hers, as they were Kubricks, or Jonzes.

But like with the bands, these works would not have been the same with different people. Each one of them brought their authorship to the work. Without the screenplay there would be no story, without the cinematographer no one would see it, and so on.

Autuer theory came about largely because it was felt that it was necessary for films to have authors in order for them to gain legitimacy as an art form. Through school I embraced this, perhaps because I had planned (and still do) becoming a writer-director and that theory lionized my dream role.

But as of late I've been thinking that we missed a fabulous opportunity to question the idea of the single author. I have been arguing for a while (though not here) that art isn't in the conception but in the execution. It's not that anyone can think of a soup can as art but that someone did. Shakespeare borrowed liberally from other sources for his plays, but it's how he told them that makes him still studied today. If that is the case then authorship is shared by the artists who realize it.

Sorry for the rambling...I don't have this fully worked out yet. I may come back to this subject from time to time.

Trumped

2007-10-15T15:15:00.000-07:00

Not that we have in anyway lived up to the Machine premise...but really, one a day?

Who needs that kind of pressure?

Sports Fans Are Nerds

2007-10-15T12:08:00.000-07:00

Thats right, I said it. They are nerds. And I mean it, too. Like, nerds-nnnnnneeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrdddddddddddddddssssssssss!!!! Ogre-scream nerds. Seriously. Any sort of pass they may have gotten should be immediately revoked.

Not too long ago (but long enough ago that I should have posted this by now...) I worked an event for sports fans that I tried to describe to a friend who eventually characterized it as 'like a Star Trek convention for [sports] fans.' And it hit me, she had nailed it. Not only was it not any different, in many ways it was far worse.

Look at how we would characterize a Star Trek convention and compare:

Mostly men?

Check. In fact, the sports convention fairs far worse in this category. Star Trek has a rather sizable female following, really. Comparing the women in attendance to this event to the ones I found when doing a documentary of a gaming convention in college, the sports show faired badly.

Costumes?

Check. Unless that large balding man is Jose Conseco...but I doubt it. At least the Sci Fi/Trek fan has the decency to admit that they are dressing up.

Eye for Minutia?

Oh yeah. The sports fan is nothing if not a repository for a list of numbers, dates, and rosters. We're led to believe that somehow knowing when and where the Klingons and Federation signed a treaty is being a total nerd ("Who knows those kind of things?") but knowing the batting average and line up of the 1954 Cubs is normal? I don't know either, but I can guess which person spent too much time in a room with not enough light on a single subject, and he isn't wearing Spock ears...

Too much time spent arguing imaginary match ups?

Bar fights have started over whether or not the 1964 Bengals could beat the 1976 Chargers (yeah sports fans, I grabbed those two out of the air. If you just exclaimed loudly, "That doesn't make any sense" or something like that, welcome to my point.) This is different than 'Is Picard a better captain than Kirk,' how?

Well, that's the crux of the difference that these devoted and deluded little nerds cling to. Sports are 'real' and therefore matter, while Star Trek, comic books, Sci Fi, etc. are works of fiction and don't matter. Because there really was a Walt Chamberlain and a Micheal Jordan, arguments about who was better in their prime are somehow more valid than whether Spiderman could beat up Batman.

Yeah, well-bullshit. There is no difference because they are both bullshit arguments. The games that Chamberlain and Jordan played were different and so were the teams. The fact that they both existed doesn't make their fantasy match up anymore of an act of mental masturbation.

In fact, the fictional characters represent different philosophies, different ideals. They are Man vs. Superman, sometimes literally. Justice vs. Revenge. Individual vs. Society. Power vs. Intellect. It's the discussion of ideas dressed up in tights with action tags. The fantasy sports match ups are just the tights.

I would argue that even though the athletes 'exist,' they matter less. They played a game, people paid a fuckload of money to watch it. Half of them won, half of them lost, and it was done every year for more and more money.

It's not my intention to just crap all over sports. A close basketball game is fun to watch. I love racing and can tell you who the top manufacturers are in number of wins at Le Mans. Sports can be fun to watch. Comics can be fun to read. Star Trek can be enjoyable to watch. But let's not kid ourselves, devotion to these things are peas in a pod.

It's no mistake that you get baseball cards the same place you get comic books.

An open apology to Terry Gilliam

2007-07-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

I was discussing Terry Gilliam with my roommate last night, and was yammering in my usual film nerd kind of way about how disappointed I was with The Brothers Grimm. The film had seemed like Gilliam had compromised his way into one of the worst films of his career. I talked about how he really needs to stay out of the studio system, how the CGI, while fairly spectacular, distracted from the story rather than support it, as was the case with the non-CGI effects in Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (but I will also say that CGI isn't intrinsically a bad thing).

It all screeched to a halt when I realized that I hadn't actually seen Tideland, which certainly seems much more like what I was talking about as the direction Gilliam should be headed; even worse, I did pony up my nine bucks to see Brothers Grimm. It seems as though I should actually reward the behavior that I ostensibly encourage in an artist with my money, which is really about all that I can do.

So here goes--

Mr. Gilliam (in the extremely unlikely event that you should somehow come across a little-read blog by some random dude in California, perhaps while trying to find an actual sandwich machine), I have been a bit of an ass, and I will support the career and artistic freedom of one of my favorite directors by actually seeing his films. While Untitled Gorillaz Project might give me pause, I will see it, and, if I like it, I will see it again with others that I drag in by their hair if necessary; what's more, I will continue to support your endeavors, both in word and in action, as long as you keep taking risks and telling the stories that you need to tell in the way they need to be told (and I'll get around to renting Lost in LaMancha).

Again, apologies for the smug half-assery,

Sous Rature

This Was Going to be About Something Else

2007-07-17T18:25:00.000-07:00

It was going to be used as a symbol of our times. That we had the richest people on Earth spending millions on submarines. About, with all thats going on, the people reaping the greatest rewards are then preparing to sneak off under the sea-that it wasn't even 'conspicuous consumption' because they where keeping them secret. A secret underwater Navy of uber-rich.

It was going to be great. It was going to be speculative. It would have mocked this trend while not entirely successfully trying to mask a bit of jealousy...that while I do believe it's silly, excessive, and telling, I still would totally have a submarine if I could.

That's what it was going to be about.

Until I got to the end of the article.

As for marine life, the local dolphin population can be a problem for some submariners.

Jaubert says he has clients who wrestle with how to conduct a deep-sea love affair in front of an observation window without creating underwater paparazzi.

"Dolphins are easily excited when they sense people making love," Jones says. "They get jealous and bang their noses against the window."

The best solution? Curtains, says Jones.

Dolphins like to watch.

Suddenly everything else I was thinking about was just...well...how can it compare?

The Kids are Alright

2007-07-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

There's this theory that I've been inflicting on just about anyone who will listen for a while now--

A good friend of mine (We'll call him B) was up from his Ph.D. work at UCR a while back, and we got into a discussion about bands using the internet/youtube/myspace to self-promote their work, and B, who looks deceptively young (he's in his early 50s, but can easily pull off mid 30s, and has a youthful vibe that makes it very hard to believe that he is exactly the same age as my stepfather), started grousing about how young people just don't have the same creativity they did back in his day (B's youth covered the end of the hippie thing and went up into early punk--he's seen all those legendary punk acts that self-destructed in the 80s). This assertion led to a bit of an argument, with me going to bat for all the young folks (being an ancient 34 myself), with the general (and chosen for maximum irony of reference) assertion that "the kids are alright."

I won't claim that I haven't had the same kind of thoughts, but aging has always had the effect of convincing us that the world is going to hell:

I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.

--Hesiod 700BC

All this really comes around to what's at the root of all this panic about "the direction of society." I spend a lot of time around 18-20 year olds, and they alternately impress and scare the bejeezus out of me, but the scary stuff isn't some transgression against good sense, but an adaptive response to the world in which they find themselves.

Sitting here at my computer, I have access to an effectively infinite source of information and entertainment. Let my construct a basic quasi-syllogism here:

1. There is a massive amount of information generated and pushed through this "series of tubes" on a daily basis.
2. I, and anyone else, has a finite capacity to absorb that information.
3. The mechanisms for sorting and filtering that information that we learn were developed for a very different world, where the interwebs are a novelty at most, and publishers and editors did most of the work for us.
4. Nevertheless, we all have to find a way to get what we need from the infosphere.

Conclusion: Young people (and the population at large--children and teenagers are just ahead of the curve 'cause they're doing it in real time) have new mechanisms for accomplishing the task of sifting information.

The trouble is, though, that the mechanisms at work have a few flaws that are often exploited. Basically, I think most people sort through information in two ways:

1. Plausibility--does this piece of information, on a quick examination, fit in with all the other notions I have about how the world works?
2. Repetition--have I heard this information from more than one source?

What's the danger here? Well, plausibility is vulnerable because sometimes implausible things are true because we happen to exist in a reality where our perspective tricks us (Aristotle fell for this all the time--and why Gallileo had such a rough time with the whole Earth 'round the Sun thing). This is why "counterintuitive" is one of my favorite words. It should be noted that, in our daily lives, the plausibility test is indispensable, but infoparasites can exploit it readily (maybe Walrus will illuminate us with his own investigation of the Air National Guard document forgery scandal--it's exactly what I'm talking about). Walrus and I spend a lot of time generating plausible bullshit; the difference, though, is that we make it clear that it is BS from the beginning. Repetition can be summed up in three words: talking points memo. If a small (or large) group of insiders can just get part of the media to reinforce the same idea, often phrased exactly the same way ("hatefest" being one of my favorites--"war on christmas" is another), then a lot of people are simply going to accept it as true. It's a rigged game, and we'd all better twig to it sooner than later.

The thing is, though, that I can't blame people, especially those who grew up in this kind of environment, for responding this way; it's not as though we can all be Thomas Jefferson any more and have the bulk of recorded knowledge in out parlours. We can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, and traditional methods of critical thinking are like insisting that people use a toothpick to deal with all that paste as it oozes out on the bathroom counter at an accelerating rate.

Now comes the hard part:

I have no idea how to deal with this problem. We all need to think hard and come up with a way of getting through all this info that is simultaneously more accurate, more reliable, and more efficient, because anything else is going to get its ass kicked by the sorting method described above. Thoughts?

Cover Battle

2007-07-06T07:45:00.000-07:00

There were times when I worked at the record store that things like this would go through my mind. In fact, this guy may have animated my nightmares...

It's Not Enough to Shoot Fish in a Barrel...

2007-06-28T00:14:00.000-07:00

By all measures I give Comedy Central shows far more consideration than they deserve. Outside of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, there are far more misses than there are hits. Even, to me, South Park is spotty, though I do enjoy Reno 911 and The Sarah Silverman Show.

Actually, that's not bad for one network.

Anyway.

No doubt conservatives are whining about Li'l George. I can tell them right now they can relax. If anything it proves that it's not enough to just make fun of GW Bush, it has to be funny, and man does this show not deliver.

In some confusing hybrid world, George Senior is in charge, but we're still in our current war. Li'l George runs around with equally bad caricatures of Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld.

They are characterized with such 'insightful' strokes as Cheney mumbling/growling out indistinguishable sounds marked with key Cheney quotes while the people who he's talking to interpret as brutal suggestions. Just a note, self-effacing Jon Stewart occasionally doing Penguin imitations when talking about Cheney is funny, the cut rate Evil Kenny, not so much. Having Cheney's father being Darth Vader is less than one note.

Rumsfeld is of course abused by his father.

Rice is naturally in love with Bush. This wasn't funny when it was Janet Reno and Clinton (and at least Clinton had the ladies man rep) and it's not funny here. As usual for the cartoon style they're using, Rice is the smartest of the group, but this is of course blinded by her love for Bush.

Tonight's episode of course used "Li'l Blair" to imply the British are homosexual in a half assed attempt to parody the Bush administration's homophobia. Ultimately it boils down to little other than "Ha ha, the Bush administration hates gays." We know. You have to try harder (they even missed opportunities to play with hypocrisy and tough situations with Cheney, instead having him follow Barrack Obama when George is off playing with Blair, making Obama interchangeable with Carter...)

Nothing about this show digs deeper than a surface level understanding of the situation. Truth be told the humor wouldn't be affected if the connection to the real life characters wasn't there, which is to say that it still wouldn't be funny. There is no insight to it, it's no more insulting than a fifth grader calling a sixth grader stupid.

What it comes down to is satire is hard, even when what you're satirizing seems like an easy subject. And this phoned in attempt does not succeed. The sad thing is that given divided world we live in a crappy show of this nature actually ends up reflecting bad on me and others who put a little effort in making fun of this administration.

Last Man on the Internet: The Sitdotcom

2007-06-27T03:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like my grandma on the Internet, the last to know anything and stunned by something like blinking banner ads.

I feel extra stupid for only now becoming aware of the sitdotcom, which as you can see there has it's own del.icio.us tag. (To give you an idea of how grandma I am on the Internet, I'm not even sure what del.icio.us does, except that it seems similar to Stumbleupon.)

Fortunately the term is new enough that Google thinks I misspelled listdotcom, but still. This is something that I should have known about, but I was only vaguely aware. I know about SuperDeluxe.com, Channel 101, and the various series bumping around the internet, but I wasn't aware that they had evolved to the level that they had.

Matt Kirsch, who I've also never heard of, has a pretty good primer on what they are and asks some good questions about where they might go. I came to his article after I Stumbled Upon its subject, Clark and Micheal, a dryly funny mockumentary style show in the mold of The Office about two young aspiring screenwriters that stars Michael Cera (George Micheal from Arrested Development) and his friend Clark Duke (from the upcoming Superbad.)

It might be obvious why I dig that show, and that means I fall into a category that Kirsch suggests, being someone who is interested in the media-or in this case specifically someone who works with another writer aspiring to be screenwriters.

But let me explain why it's so brilliantly funny, even though it still won't prove Kircsh wrong in any way.

The characters are all high ambition. The first episode has them showing up at a studio gate trying to sell the script to Ted Turner himself. They do manage a meeting with a head from an ABC Family clone channel (played by another Arrested Development alum).

Thing is, I know these guys. In fact, fear of actually being these guys has been a bit of a shackle around me and Sous Rature's ankles since the beginning. I've talked to former classmates about their ambitions, what they're working on, and it's not shorts, or crew positions. Well, not the ones who are working, anyway. They're working on pitching their own TV shows, and I shit you not, trying to start their own channels. When you look at the resources that they bring to such endeavors, the Rocket to Mars starts to become insignificant to explain the gap between ambition and ability to execute.

But how different are they from me? I no more know how to raise the money for my short than I know what to do with it once it's filmed. If I'm going to have an unachievable dream, why not have a fantastic one? Certainly, shorts get made every day, hell five a week are made on FOX's On the Lot) and even Paramount couldn't successfully mount a whole new channel. Maybe they've been talking about these new internet channels and I was just too much of a Luddite to know. Somehow, I doubt it.

But watching Clark and Michael go through their downs and downs, it's like watching a baby eat and re-eat a lemon and knowing exactly how that goes. Sort of a 'there but for the grace of god' type thing.

But even without that, it's a pretty funny show. So watch it. Eventually, after I've watched a few more of these things, I might have something more interesting to say about them.

General Bitching

2007-06-26T01:31:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this blog entry is just to publicly announce that I am a serious stress monkey at the moment, and thus, not especially engaged here. just a short list:

1. I am moving. My roommate is being awesome about it, and knowing the other stuff on this list, is not bitching me out for taking my time even though he is so jazzed about the whole thing that we're already half moved and our last day here is Saturday.

2. I am teaching seven classes, and will be going up to eight next week (four is full time for a teacher). I can handle it, and the money next month is gonna seriously rock.

3. Almost everyone I know is having some crisis or another, including my brother, who may actually be spending time in jail due to a Dukes of Hazzard style feud with a local cop in Southwest Oregon, and my parents can't help out financially because they are strapped due to a number of their own misfortunes.

4. My dad wants his laptop yesterday, and the purchase a computer by committee thing is driving me crazy, especially when people assume that I've dropped the ball when I don't jump on it instantly given all the other shit going on in my life.

5. I have a succession of houseguests (all of whom are absolutely welcome and should not take this venting as any kind of hinting around) that started when the move did and will continue through the end of next month.

6. Walrus and I are supposed to be writing a play, and it's just not happening (despite numerous breakthroughs and Walrus's being extremely understanding about it all despite his own personal crises).

7. I am trying to undertake a major personality/lifestyle/philosophy overhaul, and it really can't wait.

8. Student loan people have come a-knockin' along with various other creditors and obligations that are all manageable, but a huge hassle nonetheless.

9. I should be asleep right now.

Anyhow--sympathize, mock, whatever, but I probably won't notice in my general fugue until it's over--see you all when I see you.

Sous Rature

Tagged as Well

2007-06-25T23:36:00.000-07:00

Incertus hit me with this. I don't know 8 bloggers, and the ones I know who haven't already hit by this I don't think even check here anymore...but what the heck.

1. All right, here are thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gife rules.
2. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
3. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
4. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
5. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

So, lets see...I'm really nothing but random facts.

1. Sour Rature and I's first play was actually named by Brian at Industrial Disease. It was supposed to be about two guys who have a series of cool adventures only to find out each time that it's just them on the couch talking about doing it. It changed. (I still like that idea though)

2. My legs bend backwards at the knee. Like a lot, I can walk that way.

3. I grew up competing against a future professional athlete whose dad remembered me when I met him last year on a shoot. I'm in a promotional video of theirs.

4. All my furniture was obtained free off Craiglist, including my 50" TV.

5. I started losing my hair around the age of 17-18

6. My mom, since birth, has thought I was going to be an oceanographer for no discernible reason.

7. Around Jr. High (and I'm just now remembering I used to do this) I would write letters to people who did things I thought was interesting asking them how I could do it or if I could get advice. About half of them would get responses. More often than not I got sales brochures. Which, since I was in Jr. High, I thought was cool anyway.

8. The entire time we've known each other, me and Sous Rature have worn the same size pants, and our sizes have changed since we've known each other. I don't know how he's going to feel about that one, but I was stuck.

So, I can't tag the folks at Incertus, so I have to tag Sous Rature as soon as he finishes his move, Brian at Industrial Disease, Micheal(NSFW) if it's appropriate on his blog, though I don't know if it is since it's a place for his black and white photos, and Ipse Dixit should she feel the urge. To make up the difference, any unblogging readers can post 8 in the comments. I know you're out there...or I hope you are. Jeff, I'm looking at you. Oh crap, I just remembered the cats over at The Manwich Machine...that should be...fun...

Or something.

Rise of the Lobots

2007-06-24T20:15:00.000-07:00

My brother is the latest victim. More and more fall victim everyday as Bluetooth becomes more standard on peoples mobile phones. They have become Lobots.

It's not that I have anything against hands free devices for the phone. The VWs would be way too hard to drive and hold a phone to my ear at the same time. And there isn't anything really more noble about having a wire hanging from your ear than just the little Bluetooth phone ear piece.

The difference is when it's in the ear and they're not talking to anyone.

Clearly the mobile phone is no longer the symbol of the mover and shaker that it once was, mobile phone ownership now is taken as a given. So what is the average poser to do? Apparently wear their ear piece as a constant accessory as they go about their business regardless of whether or not they are actually on the phone.

Nevermind that it makes them look like Lando Calrissions lakey...

Sandwich Idea

2007-06-19T23:46:00.000-07:00

Haven't had one in a while, well, one that made it to the blog.

I was watching Saturn's new test drive challenge, and while I admire the balls of that I thought the idea of a centralized test drive system is a great idea.

It would be kind of like rental agencies, where you pay a fee to test drive cars. What you get is the ability to test drive several cars in the same category at one stop without the pressure of having a sales person pushing the car on you. For a small fee you get to do your own comparison test.

There are problems I can see with it that whoever goes for the sandwich would have to solve. It'd be hard to get the cars, companies are likely to want you to be on the dealership when they test those cars so that you're more compelled to buy them. So there is a huge overhead to have a good selection of cars on hand for test drives unless you can convince the manufacturers that having cars there is in their best interest and loan them out like they would for magazine test drives.

Slimest Silver Lining Ever

2007-06-19T12:33:00.000-07:00

I saw this over at Incertus.
This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* fucking (6x)
* shit (5x)
* fuck (3x)
* dangerous (2x)
* hurt (1x)

I think my rant about the bastard piece of shit vandals saved us from the indignity of a 'G' rating.

Quality

2007-06-19T03:27:00.000-07:00

Best Finish

2007-06-18T01:43:00.000-07:00

I know that no one who reads this (all two of you) is a racing fan, but I am. Specifically, endurance sports cars. I don't know what it is about them, but I can't get enough. This weekend was the running of the premiere endurance sports car event, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where the Audi R10 TDI repeated last years dominance. Even with smaller tanks, the diesel powered sports car prototypes (Peugeot entered a diesel powered 908) ran away from the petrol powered prototypes.

While this isn't remarkable in and of itself, since the petrol powered Audis have ran away from the other prototypes as well, the R10 has run faster times than the petrol powered R8, striking a pretty good blow for diesel power.

And this is part of what I like about racing, and something that I think it has lagged a bit on or a while but is getting better.

Racing, while always about being faster than the other car, is also about 'improving the breed.' Races like The Indianapolis 500 were a test of engineering that brought us things like the rear view mirror and the seatbelt.

With things like peak oil and global warming, it's time for racing to prove its relevance. The diesels at Le Mans is part of that (note in the linked article about the particle filters on the Peugeot). The Indy Racing League now uses nothing but Ethanol, and Rahal/Letterman will run a Porsche RS Spyder that runs on street legal ethanol (I couldn't find an article specifically about that, though I did find one about the greening of Porsche). Granted ethanol is not my favorite solution, largely because of the US' insistence on using corn and the way we farm corn.

In 1998, small American auto manufacturer Panoz even tried to enter a hybrid Le Mans racer, years before the astounding success of the Toyota Prius.

As a racing fan and someone concerned about the environment at the same time, this kind of thing is encouraging. If racing can take the lead in changing things for the better then there might still be room for finishes like this (keep in mind that this last lap comes after twelve hours of racing. The fireworks going off gives a neat video game feel to the finish):

I Want One (part one million)

2007-06-17T00:36:00.000-07:00

Now that that is out of my system (because of course piece of shit vandals read blogs...sigh)

There is an interesting 'unofficial' history of the laugh track at TV Party. It's a bit kinder to the laugh track than I would be, as I see it as one of the great abominations of the sitcom and am stunned when new sitcoms employ them.

I had previously believed that it was Desi Arnaz' introduction of the three camera studio shooting that tacitly gave birth to the laugh track, and while I'm not entirely wrong, it is a bit more complex than that. (I'm a little bit of research away from doing a Desi Arnaz appreciation post).

But the best part, and why I bring it up, is this:

All of these tracks were then installed into a device known as, appropriately enough, a laugh machine.

This 28-inch-high apparatus resembles an organ, having 10 horizontal and four vertical keys and a foot pedal. The engineer "orchestrates" the laugh track by using the keyboard to select the type, sex, and age of the laugh, while playing the foot pedal to determine each reaction's length.

I must have one of these.

Open Letter to the Prick(s) Smashing the Windows on My Bus

2007-06-17T00:29:00.000-07:00

What the fuck?

Seriously, what the fuck is your problem you little piece of shit?

I want to know what the fuck is going through your feeble fucking mind that you're getting entertainment out of breaking other peoples shit.

Do you think I have nothing better to spend my money on than to replace windows on a car that I intended on using all next month while I sorted things out on The Lego?

Even as a pacifist, you better fucking pray I never catch your fucking ass. Even I don't want to know what the result of the blind fucking rage will be, you worthless fucking piece of repugnant shit.

Three fucking nights, six windows including the two windshields. Hope, hope the police catch you, because I am likely to beat you within in an inch of your worthless pathetic little life.

The Olive Branch

2007-06-15T15:25:00.000-07:00

I am left handed.

This, I believe, is the reason I have always been subjected to collaborative art forms. The handy, the crafty, their skills where harbored and encouraged by abundant equipment tailored to their use and the pointy scissors. If there where more than two 'lefties' in the class we had to wait in line for the privilege of using the left-handed blunt 'safety scissors.' Never mind the tacit implication that I was a dangerous 'other' that might hurt myself or others while cutting out my construction paper turkey, I was normalized to expression that took other people to pull off.

It might be a stretch to use scissors as an explanation as to why I don't even attempt to write straight prose, but I still say it is part of an ingrained mind set.

So even in my earliest writing desire, comic books, I needed someone else to see anything I created to completion. Even in music I chose to play a horn, which unless I want to be the colorful backdrop to someone's romantic city evening, I need the rest of the band to do anything. I never had that roll-up-your-sleeves one man band ability of the rockers, I need a group of other people with me to play.

Theater and film have been even worse. The man power to film even the simplest of things would make a pretty decent sized band, and theater is no better. In studying both I've always been jealous of the techies who have studied with me. They learned the lighting, they wired the sound, they built the set. They gathered the cameras and the steady cams and built the equipment they couldn't get otherwise and seemed to have an unlimited ability to churn out work after soulless work.

And that's the thing. So often it simply wasn't that inspiring to watch. I would feel bad criticizing it, after all, they managed to get their stuff up while my stuff remains a simply talked about 'masterpiece,' but still, some of that stuff is really really bad.

And I held, in my head, that if the artists could just get their act together we could turn out something really cool.

Enter my current gig. For professionalisms' sake I won't say what show I'm working on, but it's a theater production where I am in the tech role that I actually do know how to do thanks to the demands of small theaters. This particular show is being put on by artists, the director is a playwright (not the playwright for this), the designers are also writers or other aspects of theater artists that are filling the roles. I have come in at the end to operate the show and now I see the error of my ways.

The truth of the matter is that techs are able to do so much work because, as Sous Rature put it, the techs are the ones who put on the show. They can do it without us, but it is much harder for us to do it without them. And it shows.

One without the other is a show that either looks good but isn't, or a show that could be good but looks horrible.

There needs to be a truce. I can see how the techs get frustrated, they want to get to it. They know what has to be done, they have the toys or creative solution and they want to get to building it so they can get to the next problem to solve. Waiting for a 'creative type' to get his or her act together and put something together to make can be numbing.

Alternatively, for the creative types dealing with the techs can be difficult. It's 'our baby' and they need to be able to just look in our heads and translate that thing that we don't even have the vocabulary to describe. We end up thinking, "Why can't they do what I want them to?"

The reality is that what they do is creative, and we need to allow them to add their creativity to what we do. And, this si important, recognize a limitations when they tell us there is one. These guys love coming up with solutions, if they can't do something we have to recognize that it's breaking their hearts a little.

And the techs have to realize that we're good at what we do, and what we do, while it might seem simple, sometimes takes time and if given time will be a better project to work on.

So, as a non-tech creative type, I'll make this pledge. I promise that I will do my best to get my projects together in a timely manner. This is for me as much as anything. I will recognize that tech is a creative process and they know what they are doing and are necessary to bring my stuff to life. I will no longer be jealous of their ability to put on shows at will.

After all, it's what they do.

How "300" Helped Me Understand Musicals

2007-06-03T06:31:00.000-07:00

That's right. The film version of Frank Miller's 300 led me to an understanding about musicals.

I'll say that even with my fresh understanding of them, I'm still not so much a fan. But the obstacle, the same thing that many people have with musicals now makes sense to me. And it came thanks to one of the least musical movies ever.

Or is it?

300 is a fantastic telling of a real story, to a degree. And it's in that degree that I found my understanding.

Miller or director Zack Snyder is not leading us to believe that the Persians had giant men chained up as a secret weapon, or that King Xerxes was 9' tall and sounded like the bad guys from Stargate. For comics it has been common for quite some time. Comic books, because of the medium, has always had a degree of impressionism to it. (Footnote on this to follow)

But one of the age old arguments for film was whether or not it represented 'reality,' or what was the real. "Seeing is believing" has guided the audiences expectation in film, or that has been the conventional wisdom of film theory, at least one side of it. The other, springing from the Melies films vs. Lumiere and Edison films that were more or less documentary.

The realism restriction, that expectation of audience, has pretty much dominated. But I think thats selling audience short by making excuses for when the audience doesn't seem to follow that need. All the way back to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari there have been impressionistic films. Audiences are more than willing to accept fantastic setting, from the films of Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam or Jean-Pierre Jeunet. These are theatrical pieces, magical reality.

Theater has never really had a problem with this and since the inception of the musical has churned them out non-stop. But for film consetions like "it's a dream" in films like Chicago or The Wizard of Oz, or the "Backstage musical" (there's not even a Wiki page on that...weird), essentially a music set 'backstage' at a musical hall so people singing was proper. Never mind that Busby Berkeley's numbers couldn't take place on any stage. Or that musicals became popular as soon as films got sound. But the wisdom was that the audience still expected the film to be 'real.'

It doesn't even hold true if you look at the body of films made that a film has to be a story of what happened in the literal sense, that notion of 'reality.'

So if I can accept a 9' King Xerxes why can't I accept people breaking into song? My problem was trying to establish the 'reality' of setting. Trying to understand a 'world where people suddenly break into song.' That's not it, anymore than the family is supposed to be feasible in The Royal Tenenbaums. With all the fantastic things that we will allow in a film, song seems mild considering the other extravagances of film. The trick is not trying to relate it to what 'really' is happening. Nothing, it's a story. Even when it 'really happened' it's not a matter of what really happened.

Footnote On Comic Adaptations

300 had another discovery for me in it. That was with its obvious comparisons with the other comic book movie out at the time, Ghost Rider. One, as already discussed, abandoned the notion of reality almost all together, shot entirely on a set with the style and look of the film stamped on every frame. Ghost Rider instead took the chopper riding flaming skeleton demon and shoe horned him into 'our world.' It's actually a bit surprising that this mistake is still happening. The film that jump started this rather long run of comic book films, Tim Burton's Batman, created an art deco out of time Gotham, an impressionistic world in which a man in a bat costume could emerge and not be out of place. The mistake that happens in Ghost Rider type adaptations is trying to bend as few rules of realism as possible. However, they should be looking at once you've crossed a certain threshold all bets are off.

There are degrees. Spiderman has as part of his identity New York as his backdrop, and to that he is anchored to a degree of the 'real.' But really, they should be looking with the barest amount of real they need. After all, audiences seem to follow Wizard of Oz just fine. And I think more of the audience than to excuse it as, "It's just a dream."

Motivation Through Public Shaming

2007-06-01T18:20:00.000-07:00

To break from the essays we finally started writing, to talk about the other kind of writing we haven't done enough of by a long shot.

That being script writing, me and Sous Rature's initial collaboration. (Well, actually, our first collaboration was a fake news magazine of a sci fi universe for a rather unique club, but anyway...). We haven't managed a new work in quite some time in spite of having come up with what I think are some pretty good ideas.

Enter Script Frenzy. It's like that National Write a Book Month, but for playwrights and screenwriters. And we've entered.

The possibility of public shame has been one of our chief motivating factors so I thought I'd announce our attempt here.

So you know if at the end of the month if we for some reason don't mention this again, we failed.

We haven't selected the story yet, and seeing as the month started today that's not a good sign. But in all reality the bulk of the writing will be done in the last week of June anyway no matter what our intentions are.

Hopefully this will jump start us again. I'm beginning to really hate Reality Shows.

It's not so much that we agree, but why we agree

2007-05-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

Over the last several months (or maybe it's a bit more like years), a friend and I have been in a prolonged debate. It started when I saw What the Bleep do We Know? with him and his wife; anyone who knows me more than casually know that this movie drives me absolutely up the wall, and it started that night. It was a parade of nonsense that was built on a foundation of massive equivocations mixed in with some mild misinterpretations of quantum physics and history and a major dose of new-new-age pseudopsychological mumbo-jumbo. Ever since, these two friends have regularly baited me (although in no way that inspires animosity or an urge to dislike or ridicule them) into discussing these "laws of attraction."

Some of you might have twigged to the fact that this is all related to The Secret, and my specific views on that book and its popularity are summed up by someone else here. Anyhow, in the course of this exchange, I did, in the interest of intellectual honesty, concede that there is a vague and roundabout sense in which it is true--thinking about owning a Porsche has a discernible effect on the likelihood of one's actually owning one (look no further than the Walrus for validation there); however, that's simply a truism, and obvious conclusion that emerges from a mature understanding of cause and effect and the role of planning in achieving goals, not a magical formula for getting the universe to serve up your heart's desire on a silver platter. I can envision jumping off my roof to the moon every day, and there will be no measurable increase in the likelihood of that happening (that is, admittedly a bit of a strawman, but try out acting as though you have already won the Megamillions jackpot and see how much money that gets you). Positive thinking and visualizing goals are certainly important facets of realizing those goals, and I am certainly focused more on that kind of thing lately than usual (my existential crisis of the moment isn't worth getting specific about, but it has certainly been a major concern of late), but only to the extent that they influence me to try to do the things that I want to do.

What really concerns me here, though, is the why. Why someone holds a certain belief or takes a certain course of action is often the overriding concern for me. Are American Evangelicals really allies to the state of Israel if they only support its existence because it must exist to fulfill the end-time prophecies of Revelations? I would certainly be uneasy about accepting their support knowing that they were just keeping me around because there have to be some Zionists in the lakes of fire.

My friend asks me why I get so worked up about The Secret and What the Bleep... when I agree with the basic principle at the root, but not with the metaphor used to make the point. I guess that's why he studied engineering (then became an organic kiwi farmer) and I studied literature. I see metaphors as dangerous things to be handled with extreme caution. People who don't think much about words in and of themselves are often in danger of conflating the metaphor with the thing it represents--see John 6:51-56. The Eucharist seems like a bizarre misinterpretation of an interesting philosophical idea (albeit one that holds nothing for me), and Karma isn't really what Earl Hickey thinks it is, or the active, seemingly conscious force for good that the writers of the show make it out to be (I do think that My Name is Earl is a fascinating exploration of the concept told with great humor and intelligent writing; it's even more so in light of the season finale). I don't think that there are a lot of people out there who take the show literally, but I don't think that Jesus (if he existed as an actual historical personage) was betting on people "literally" eating his flesh and drinking his blood on a regular basis, either.

The road taken seems at least as important as the destination.

"Hank, As I Like to Call Him"

2007-05-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

Sous Rature and I grew up with the piano player on this album. He's easily one of the most interesting cats either one of us have ever known. I had a chance encounter with him after 9/11 where he was his typical low key self. He hadn't mentioned this album, just that he had strained his hands while playing in New York because the session musicians where giving him a hard time for playing 'too white.' While his injuries healed he did some freelance work in what I believe was international banking (his degree from UC Berkeley, making him one of the only musicians I've known whose 'back up' was really just a back up.) His work at the time had him working at the World Trade Center, just not that day. When I saw him he told me in his usual deadpan manner, "New York is trying to kill me, I'm coming back to California."

I remember forming various jazz groups with him in high school when we both had the dream of being cool, kick ass jazz musicians. During a rehersal for a graduation concert he showed me a biography about Henry Mancini he was reading, or "Hank, as I like to call him." Again, in his total deadpan with only the slightest hint of wry smile.

His playing has the same kind of subtlty. I haven't heard this album yet, literally seconds ago Sous Rature told me about it, but I'm guessing that that's what you'll find here. My only regret is that I was living in the East Bay when this was recorded, I would have loved to see this live.

Of the group of us in high school, there are only two of us left to not live up to our expectations.

I better get to work.

Lonesome Rhodes, Howard Beale, (The Life of) Brian, and Stephen Colbert

2007-05-11T21:39:00.000-07:00

I have been watching Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Report, like many people, from when it was simply a prank promo on The Daily Show. It has been one of those phenomenons that lit off on from the first episode with the headline coining of (the popular use of) the word "truthiness." It has been a tour de force, he has been passed around YouTube, discussed on the pundit shows he mocks, and thousands of people sit ready to mobilize at his very whim. His influence is such that people go on just to be mocked to show they have a sense of humor, in the hopes that they will be considered 'in' on the joke.

But the joke is what has gotten me thinking. The Colbert Report and the character he plays on that show is a send up of the cult of personality that builds up around the self important pundits that make up the bulk of the programing of the 'news' networks. When he did a bit on Wikipedia, inviting viewers to change the entry on elephants, the response was so overwhelming that Wikipedia had to change how entries where done and he mobilized viewers to have a bridge named after him (he was later disqualified because he didn't meet a primary condition, he was still alive).

And this, I imagine, is a bit of problem for him. He has stated in interviews that he is troubled that people might not be able to separate the character of Stephen Colbert from the performer Stephen Colbert. It is arguable that a larger cult has built around Colbert than around the personalities that he is parodying.

There are a trilogy of films about the rise of media sensations, probably the most notable of these being the 1976 Sidney Lumet movie Network. In it a frustrated and suicidal anchor, Howard Beale, tells people he will kill himself on his next broadcast. In his tyraid he asks the people watching to go to their windows and scream at the top of their lungs, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore" (a moment referenced by Jon Stewart where he asks his viewers jokingly to go to their windows and scream, "Be reasonable!").

A cult builds around the ravings of Beale and the network begins a cynical exploitation of his popularity. It is a theme repeated from the 1957 Elia Kazan movie, A Face in the Crowd where a down-home folky drifter Lonesome Rhodes(a very un-Mayberry Andy Griffith) has a cult built up around his 'straight talk' and simple wisdom. Like in Network his popularity is cynically exploited, with Rhodes buying in and slowly corrupting himself. (it is the source of the cliche of someone switching on the feed during a public figures candid moment, a moment that has become prophetic in todays world of inexpensive camcorders and YouTube, such as the "macaca" incident.)

In both these films, and in Spike Lee's tribute/update Bamboozled, the cult of personality that surrounds the men overwhelms and ultimately destroys them. There is a scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian where the mob has mistaken Brian for the messiah and wait outside his bedroom. He addresses them, telling them that they are individuals, to which they chant back, "We are individuals!"

I begin to wonder if this is the trap that Stephen Colbert is heading for. I wonder if we might become so enraptured in the joke that we forget the joke itself. If the character of Stephen Colbert might eclipse the man, Stephen Colbert. He's not in danger of believing his ability as a king maker, like Lonesome Rhodes, I don't think. Nor having his anger and exploitation eat him from the inside like Beale (that fate, it seemed, was saved for Dave Chappele). But he seems already shin deep in the quicksand of Brian. In an attempt to ridicule the rhetorical messiahs he is in danger of becoming one. He has a keen sense of irony, an awareness and ability to build character. From interviews there is a sense that he understands the needle he threads with his egotistical, perhaps maniacal alter ego.

But do we? I don't want to be in that position of underestimating the public at large, that sort of self satisfied "Why's everyone stupid but me?" kind of notion. But I can't help but think that we have a tendency to martyr the prophets, and while I think he might be able to appreciate the irony of it all, I'd hate to see his end accompanied by the cheerful whistle of Eric Idle while he dies for our foibles.

Thoughts on Capitalism

2007-05-08T20:47:00.000-07:00

A few months back, I came to the conscious conclusion that I had been skirting the edges of for years: I am not a capitalist. The really odd thing was that this was actually hard to come to terms with than my much earlier declaration of atheism; this was troubling. It even turns out that it's harder to talk about than atheism--reactions are weird and unpredictable. For the sake of my own clarity, I'm going to hash out the basic reasoning for my position in this public forum.

Smith's invisible hand is, I think, born out of a form of the naturalistic fallacy. I think that he was basically mistaking the movement of a dynamic system (the relationship between supply and demand, for instance) toward an attractor with what must have looked to a person of his time (the Enlightenment) a lot like intention. We now know that rapid convergence of complex systems on points of equilibrium is basically a consequence of mathematics.

To put it more simply, the fact that the math works in a free market doesn't mean that that math necessarily produces the best result for all individuals. This assumption is so embedded in our culture that it is difficult for people to conceive that it might be otherwise.

Another basic issue here is that I agree with the premise that people operate out of a place of self-interest (Matt Ridley's The Origins of Virtue captures my basic POV here), but this is, to some extent, an argument against systems that encourage capitalistic behavior. It's akin to legislating breathing or sexual attraction. People simply cannot be stopped from seeking their best advantage, and need no further incentives to do so. In fact, I would go even so far as to say that one of the most important functions of government is to mitigate the excesses and abuses that self-interest engenders. Capitalism becomes a problem when people start treating it like something that has to be defended or encouraged.

I was debating with an Alex-Keaton-like student of mine who loves to talk economics with me after my composition class. He's young, well read, and completely wrong in the way that a middle class straight white male is uniquely attracted to. I enjoy the discussions, even when they keep me from grading papers that are long overdue, and I hope that the perspective that I bring will eventually sink in. Anyway, I compared capitalism to fire in a kind of extended analogy today (and do let me know if I take this one further than is warranted). A fire is a good thing--it warms your house, cooks your food, and destroys your incriminating documents; however, there is a clear limit to its utility, and its growth must be checked and its fuel limited. If fire threatens to consume a house, we don't simply say "let's make an adjustment and only add half a log and see if that saves that house." We douse that fucker with all the water we've got until it's back where it belongs.

Critical Validation

2007-05-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

Some years ago (1999, in fact), I had a theory about the film American Beauty. It was basically that there was a film hidden inside the film, that something else was clearly going on aside from light pedophilia, suburban potsmoking, self-actualization, and mystical plastic bags. The video segment that was the first shot of the film suggested that the tapes were significant in that they constitute the only hard evidence that investigators of Lester Burnham's murder would turn up, and that they would construct a seemingly airtight case against Ricky Fitts and Lester's daughter Janie. What kind of shocked me was that, at the time, nobody else seemed to be talking about that dimension of the Oscar-winning film (I must admit that film critic bars are spread rather thin in Sacramento, and I didn't make any special effort to comb the internet for others who shared my view, so this might be old hat for IMDB message board types--scratch that--just checked the aforementioned, and no mention).

Anyhow, that's just kind of the first part of what I'm getting at here. As someone who spends a lot of time picking media to pieces (just ask my friends about the subtlety of the Slowsky Comcast ads or the Geico cavemen (probably another blog about that whole thing in the near future)), I can sometimes second guess myself into thinking that I'm seeing something that isn't there. The other side, though, is that, if my opinions and interpretations of media/texts is just smoke and mirrors, then why did I spend twelve years in college learning how to do it? If I had studied engineering, I wouldn't be forced to admit that maybe my bridge is no better than anyone else's, but the general perception is that there's a very short journey from literacy to literary criticism, and it just ain't so. It's this kind of intellectual timidity on my part that got me into a weeks-long debate with a friend who denied that there was Christ symbolism of any kind in Cool Hand Luke; I value intellectual honesty, but there's got to be a point at which it's not necessary to painstakingly consider each and every opinion regardless of its source.

On to the validation part.

I recently bought American Beauty on DVD (a long-overdue purchase, considering how much I like the film), and sat through the commentary track narrated by Alan Ball, the screenwriter (of Six Feet Under fame); and Sam Mendes, the director. Right out of the gate there was a mention that the original first scene of the film was a courtroom scene in which Ricky and Janie are convicted of Lester's murder, but that it was removed because it didn't match the direction that the studio wanted from the film (I guess it would have been a bit more like Sunset Boulevard than it already is). What I think is great is that the first scene gives a hint toward decoding the original story from what was actually released without compromising the film that it ultimately became. I don't know which of the two creative influences on the movie pulled that off, but I feel a lot of gratitude to whoever it was.

It's nothing new, really. There's even a name for stuff like this in art studies, much like the roman a clef, or "story with a key," in which historical or controversial events Primary Colors is a great recent example, but Kerouac's On the Road is another good one. I thought I might even be on to something (I get a cool kind of buzz when there might be some neat new idea out at the edge of my awareness).

After sitting on it for a while, I thought "literary pentimento" was the right term (I wrote a paper about Hellman's autobiographical novel (not quite a roman a clef) back in English 1B). It seemed like this might be something that could tie a good critical essay together. Then I came across (pretty basic google search), of course, literary pentimento. I was only a little disappointed, but that little bit of disappointment got me thinking about whether it's really possible to have an original idea anymore. I'm not sure how I'd answer that one, but I think it's a good one to start discussing. Any thoughts on any of the above?

An Ounce of Prevention Lacks Satisfying Feeling

2007-04-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

I don't do it. I don't have health insurance as a rule so even when I did I wasn't in the practice of going to the doctor for anything. Even when I ripped my toenail off I didn't go to the doctor until the barely attached nail hurt too much and the people at my job insisted I go.

No, for me it's only when the squeaky wheel starts shooting sparks and grinding to a halt that it gets replaced. Usually, I couldn't afford the grease. Of course some would point out that it's less than a new wheel, but what do those people know?

Well, for a change I did some preventative maintenance before it was a problem. Well, to be honest before it was even more of a problem. I bought a full set of tires for The Lego. This is after two blow outs and a mechanic telling me that he wouldn't go very far on those front tires. Initially it was just going to be the fronts until the same rear tire blew out a second time. At that point it just seemed like a good idea to take on a full set.

First of all, I had no idea how expensive a full set of tires was going to be. I had been buying cheap single tires as I rolled in the shredded spare, never before that I can recall had I actually rolled the car in for the tire change.

I think on some level I feel like it wasn't necessary, even though it was. The tires were working when I rolled up to the tire joint, they still had some drive in them and I cut them off. I know this doesn't make sense, that driving a tire until it blows out is an incredible hassle. In fact, I know that intimately. But I still can't manage to feel satisfied with spending that money on tires that were literally on the edge of their lives.

This all comes from my most successful month ever. I have made more money this month than I ever have, pennies from heaven included (and there were none this month). I have as much money coming in as I have and what I have is what I would usually consider a touch of a surplus. I've been poor so long (even this lump sum, if I made it every month, would put me in a very low income bracket) that the practice has extended to everything. What I should be doing with this money is finding as many creditors as I can and clearing off as much as I can. But I'm not. The only debt I'm killing is one that will come up one way or another in June anyway. And the tires.

Other purchases have been things that have nagged at me, like a new hard drive, and things I thought would be a good idea, like a GPS receiver so that I don't get lost on gigs anymore. On the plus side of that one is I was able to download voices so that Mr. T or Gary Busey give me directions, and that's pretty satisfying...

In my slacker days (well, more thorough slacker days) this money would have been spent on a PS3 or Wii. Of course in those days I never would have been able to make this much...I'd always pictured a time like this as me running down the street throwing $20 bills over my head.

Nothing is as cool as you imagine it.

Our first spinoff

2007-04-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

Hello all--this is just a heads-up about the side blog that I just started (no schism--Walrus and I talked about this, and it seemed better suited to a side project than as a regular feature of the Sandwich Machine). It's certainly not required reading, and it's a bit personal, but it is for consumption by interested parties. I do ask that those who know the meatworld individuals mentioned not publicize those identities, and I would likewise like to leave those mentioned out of the loop until it seems appropriate.

The blog itself offers a thorough explanation of the project, but in summary, it's related to my father's recent cancer surgery and surrounding issues. Stop by and check it out if you are so inclined.

A new post to the newly rejuvenated Sandwich Machine should show up soon.

Timing Issues

2007-04-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

It turns out that entries are posted based on when they are started, and not when they are posted. While I am not necessarily forcing people to look, it should be noted that the Vonnegut entry that I put together following his death, while actually posted today, shows up below the two quite worthy entries of my co-blogger. If you're inclined to check it out, do so, but I guess that's the price I pay for taking my time.

The Macro-Series

2007-04-19T00:07:00.000-07:00

I should edit my last post as there are some connections that I forgot to make and such.

Or I should look up other critical writings on this subject first so I don't retread something someone has already said.

I'm not going to do either, too lazy. Hopefully I'll at least follow up.

I mentioned briefly in the last post about the 'macro-series,' and I wanted to go into that trend in television as of late.

The television series, traditionally (and I know everyone knows this, I just don't know where to start) has been an open ended serial with a central premise, being newlyweds, or an entertainer married to busy body or a detective with a lazy eye and an odd method of questioning.

Then came the mini-series. This site has an interesting history and analysis of what makes up that. That's also a site I just now discovered, so thats something.

Lately we've seen the rise to new addition, a serialized show that while having complete and multiple seasons has a finite end to it. There is a difference between these shows and shows that have the appearance of a finite end, such as an angel that has to save a fixed number of souls, or a man who has to complete or prevent something before the millinium. In those serialized shows the task is a repetitive device that fuels the drama of each episode. Sam can jump as many times as the show remains relevant, lists can be added and rules changed to maintain the length of the series so that a show about a war can last longer than the war itself.

I don't know if it is the first, but the first instance I became aware of this new narrative, what I've been calling 'the macro-series,' with Babylon 5, which was promoted on the notion that the writer, J. Michael Straczynski, had a five year story arch in mind for his show.

This is an interesting approach to the high concept television show, which traditionally has a short shelf life anyway. It gives the narrative a chance to be a closed loop, for the story to work itself to and end rather than being a series of interconnected events that just stops at some point. It has been one of the major advantages that film has had, that it could tell a complete story. The mini-series managed this dissandvantage into and advantage in that it can be even larger in scope, the macro-series magnifies this even further. Now it can tell a complete story with nearly the narrative depth of the written word.

Now I should be careful and say that while it can, I don't know that it has yet.

But the macro-series does have a pitfall, and thats its own success. Kiefer Sutherland said of 24 essentially, "How many bad days can one guy have?" And that was before the beginning of the 3rd season. Lost struggles to continue the story to keep it on the air.

There are some easy reasons that might contribute to the rise of the macro-series. First there is the aforementioned short shelf life of high concept series. But I think probably the biggest contributer is the rising sales of DVDs of television series.

Time was that a show was sold to the network for 90% of what it took to produce it and the producers hoped to reach a watershed number of episodes, 100 for the longest time, that would allow it to be sold in syndication. Changes in the amount of programing a station can own itself has made it more difficult for shows to reach that watershed (as well given rise to the reality show). But with DVD sales of series a show has another method to make up production costs. A macro-series can then sell itself as a complete story divided into series and then episodes. It is a complete project, not one you can skip a season or two. With a show like The Simpsons you can choose maybe only your favorite seasons, but miss a season of Lost and you will be.

I'm actually a fan of this new development. I've always felt that while it would be interesting to develop a character over time, having to commit to an open ended story, stuck pivoting on one premise was a limiting element in television that inevitably lends itself to shark jumping moments like 'evil amnesia Sonny Crocket.'What happens is, no matter how dynamic the premise their entire existence isn't going to be interesting, only a particular moment or moments. Now the strength of a series, such as a character developing over time, can meet with an actual story arch.

Of course now it's being used for people breaking out of prison and illegal cross country road races, but just because some of the execution leaves something to be desired doesn't mean the format doesn't have promise.

I'll probably find a better article on this later and feel silly. Ah well.

Secret Bad Ass

2007-04-18T01:10:00.000-07:00

I've been watching Fox's new macro-series (more on that term later) Drive because I'm just enough of a tool to watch a TV show about a high stakes illegal road race starring that dude from Firefly but not enough to watch a movie about a high stakes illegal road race starring Carmen Electra.

Well, last night the secret was revealed as to why our lead character was inducted into the race (aside from the already improbable kidnaping of his wife.) It turns out he's that special kind of fictional character that fills a specific niche, a certain kind of fantasy that has held some facination with me.

It turns out, he's a Secret Bad Ass.

It's one of the action genre's more interesting archetypes. There are two distinct types of Secret Bad Ass-the first, probably most common is the Reluctant Secret Bad Ass. The Reluctant Secret Bad Ass has a vague and horrible past, a past in which his Bad Assness was no secret. But then something happened...maybe he couldn't save that one true love and that's why he holds everyone at a distance. Or he found a true love and gave up the life for her. Or he couldn't stand the horrors anymore, he's turned over a new leaf.

There are plenty of examples of the Reluctant Secret Bad Ass. John Rambo just wanted to pass through town, maybe get something to eat, then the sheriff pressed him and his Bad Assness had to come out.

Tom Stall of History of Violence just wants to start a new life until someone starts some shit in his diner.

Casey Ryback was just the ships cook until Tommy Lee and the boys try to take over his ship.

Then, and this is even more intriguing, there is the Unknown Secret Bad Ass. Our hero goes through his life with a blank spot, or maybe wakes up lacking a certain degree of his memory only to have events trigger his Unknown Secret Bad Assedness.

I first encountered the Unknown Secret Bad Ass was in American Ninja. What? Don't look at me that way, I was a teenager in the 80s. Ninjas were where it was at.

In it, Joe Armstrong (seriously, Joe Armstrong. Follow the link, I'm not making that up) is given the "Enlist or go to jail" option where a attempted hijacking reviels that the blank spot in his past was when he learned and mastered Ninjitsu.

The Bourne Identity relies on the Unknown Bad Ass as its premise. A character has no memory except the muscle memory neccisary to be an Unknown Secret Bad Ass.

Even The Matrix hinges on an everyday hacker in fact being the Unknown Secretest Bad Ass, in this case some sort of digital messiah.

It doesn't take much imagination to form a theory about the appeal of the Secret Bad Ass. It's the portal out of your mundane existance, day to day you are your usual workaday self. You go to the same job, do the same work, eat the same muffin. But just under the surface, just below the tie and morgage payments is a Secret Bad Ass waiting for that one crucial moment for it to surface. You go from Everyman to Superman in the blink of the eye with no clue except for that pained look now and then and avoidance of discussing the past, or in some cases not being able to remember the past.

For the Unknown Secret Bad Ass the appeal is even greater. Just replace that vague period in your memory with the time that for some reason you recieved your Secret Bad Ass Training but then, because of a traumatic event blocked the experience from your memory, or simply didn't know you possesed the power to save the world.

I'm not stranger to this, though I can recognize it and its pitfalls, I am just as suseptable. When I had my sports car I had a portion of me that secretly hoped that someone would jump in my passenger seat brandishing a gun and telling me to 'run for it.' My Secret Bad Ass driving nature would come out as I use my blank check to make a run for it in traffic and my Secret Bad Ass cunning to outsmart my kidnapper.

Or maybe I could have been 'forced' into an high stakes illegal road race.

Instead I'll watch a show about it...if only because there isn't anything else on at that time anyway. My Bad Assness can remain secret a little longer.

How Do You Parody Something That Barely Exists?

2007-04-13T23:58:00.000-07:00

Here's how.

I also learned that Lorem Ipsum is not who I thought it was.

The Universal Will to Become

2007-04-12T23:46:00.000-07:00

Note: the following entry was started immediately following the recent death of Kurt Vonnegut; it has become a project of somewhat greater scope than originally intended, and the author has decided to forgo the mad rush to comment on this sad event immediately in the interest of thoroughness. Any statements that reflect the time at which it was originally started have been preserved in the interest of authenticity.

Last night, on the way home from teaching the first lecture of my history class, I caught the end of a BBC World News story about Kurt Vonnegut;I've always been rapt whenever Vonnegut is mentioned, but it gave me pause because there was no mention of what he was doing now, and I immediately felt a sense of dread that soon turned out to be justified, but it took several phone calls until I could get a definite confirmation that one of my favorite writers was, in fact, dead (So it goes). If you've been following this blog (and I know that this is a highly select group), you might find it notable that this is the same stretch of road (Business 80 between the Watt and Exposition exits in Sacramento) where I got the news about my cousin's death (so it goes)--I'm not inclined to look for special significance in this kind of thing, but it seems kind of Vonnegut for that to be the place where I have contemplated the inevitable on more than one occasion.

I blew off grading the papers that I had promised my students for the next day and instead decided to get a little trashed and think about the most significant literary and philosophical influence on my twenties. In retrospect, Vonnegut popped up on a near-constant basis during that decade. I remember catching the excellent film adaptation of Mother Night at a now-defunct arthouse theater (just visible from the aforementioned stretch of highway) on a cold night just before Christmas--I saw it alone, and it cut me to the core in that depressing and life-affirming way that Vonnegut's work always seems to.

I saw Vonnegut speak at the Scottish Rite Temple at the end of my undergraduate coursework in English at CSUS. While what he said was not atypical, the experience was still a significant one. I was already bound for grad school, and I wanted to write a thesis on Vonnegut (this was born out of a bizarre academic standoff that was kind of the literary/critical equivalent of with me in the role of the Spartans--more on that later). This was one of the first times that I realized that the primary dividing line between me and "fans" of all types was my self-awareness about my interests--I loved Star Trek as a child, but couldn't cross into wearing Spock ears or going to conventions. The crowd wanted to hear the same things they had heard before, and the key moment came when a very earnest man from Eastern Europe begged Vonnegut to secure a better Russian translator. In good, but heavily accented English, he made his plea, and, in an attempt to be flattering, told the old man that to many people in his country, Vonnegut was "like a god." Vonnegut walked out of the room and had to be talked into coming back. This poor man was crestfallen, and I don't think Vonnegut was insensitive to his distress, but the bubble in which he has spent the bulk of his life was never more visible, and anyone who knows his work would understand why that specific phrase might be upsetting. I enjoyed myself, but I couldn't get the proper space in which to ask the very different kind of questions that I had, and I couldn't, couldn't fawn over him, before or after the incident.

About a year prior to that, I took a lit course that covered Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. As we discussed the novel, a disagreement arose about the ending of the novel (the exact nature of the whole thing isn't specifically relevant, but it was my assertion that the final few sentences clearly indicate that the narrator commits suicide). The argument lasted two full class sessions and ended in a draw (although I later found that a few critics did share my view).

In The Sirens of Titan (a quite underrated part of the Vonnegut canon), Vonnegut writes about the Universal Will To Become (or UWTB). This is a cosmic force for change, adaptation, and growth--what makes things become the things they are, and strive to be the things the may one day be. I think it's a fair description of the man himself.

Project Woodshed

2007-03-01T11:55:00.000-08:00

For the last several months, I have been kicking around the idea of taking some time off work--not just a week or two, but something on the order of six months or so. For years, I've often lamented the fact that work, or school, or whatever, keeps me from focusing on artistic and intellectual pursuits. I'm hoping that this experiment will help determine whether this is just a pretty story that I tell myself or an actual truth about my nature. In either case, I'll know something that will help me figure out where to go from here.

So here's the plan:

1. Work my butt off in order to reach a target savings of $7500 -10,000, which, by my calculations, should be sufficient to support myself for six months without serious financial strain.

2. Non-op and store my car so that I can cancel my insurance and save money on gas.

3. Put 70-80% of my belongings in storage in the interest of minimizing clutter and distractions, with a related goal of temporarily narrowing the books that I have ready access to to what can fit in one bookshelf.

4. Find a cheap apartment or other living arrangement and put up six months of rent in advance.

5. Make arrangements for a hiatus from my three part-time teaching jobs, with an eye toward returning to work when the experiment concludes in the event that I don't decide to do something else.

6. See what happens.

My hope is to put all this into effect at the beginning of 2008--I will try to keep this blog updated regularly with my progress.

Wish me luck.

Why I Like Working Documentaries...

2007-02-01T20:44:00.000-08:00

I guess this would be a really good reason to finally make a new blog entry. Today I worked on a documentary where we filmed Peterme.com, the man who coined the term 'blog.'(If you scan down on the left you can see the actual post that started it all there.) Well, it should be a good reason, but really it just made me want to apologize for what I do with the thing he named. Or don't do.

We also met Paul Niquette, who apparently in 1953 first coined the term 'software.' He had to do a little defending and searching, but just found out from the Oxford English Dictionary that he was going to be given credit for the word.

We did this in the Computer History Museum, which doesn't sound like it would be all that much, but was pretty cool. It was interesting to see the Compaq lugable computer I used to have or the Commodore 64 as museum pieces. And of course the game system display. But the coolest was the stuff that I had no idea about. A hard drive about half as big as me, a machine that had the coolest name, Johnniac. Why don't computers have cool names like that? Then there was Kitchen Computer, which no one cold tell me what it was supposed to do or how it was supposed to work. And the original Google server. Oh you hand built finder of porn, trivia, and how many times my name is mentioned on the internet.

Anyway, that is why I like doing documentaries, it's like watching them, but it takes longer and occasionally I get to ask my own question. Peter Merholz even told me what the Sandwich Machine was-something like lazyweb, where people just state the things they want but are too lazy to make it so they put it on the web and hope someone else does it. I like my name.

It implies that I get sandwiches.