Skeletor for a Better Eternia!

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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...

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End of an Era

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

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'

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

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

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

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

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

Please go check this out at Industrial Disease.

Fucking priceless.

Re-Inventing the Wheel

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...

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!

Thank you Stumble, I needed that.