The official title of the Penny Arcade 11.5 year anniversary book is The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade. However, when the book jacket is removed, a new title is revealed: Penny Arcade: Nearly Twelve Years of Bullshit. The story behind this is that Random House, the publisher of the book, didn’t want a curse word in the title of the book; however Krahulik and Holkins demanded that their title be on the book as well. This, in essence, is precisely what Penny Arcade stands for: not wavering in their convictions when pressured by mainstream sources, and unapologetically being themselves.
I stumbled across Penny Arcade when I was in grade 11 and it immediately appealed to me. Here were two physically unattractive gamers being themselves, making comics that were (and remain) comprised largely of jokes that would only appeal to gamers and seem like non sequiturs to the shamefully uninitiated. Moreover, they performed the seemingly impossible: they united one of the most notoriously fractious groups ever (gamers) under one banner. Operating as their comic doppelgangers, Gabe and Tycho, Krahulik and Holkins called video game developers and publishers, lawmakers, and many, many others out on their bullshit; they even went toe to toe with lunatic anti-game lawyer Jack Thompson and won. In a time where I felt like I didn’t belong, Penny Arcade showed me that there were gamers everywhere who delighted in the dark humor that separated me from my peers and in sharing the fact that they themselves had been picked on during high school, made me—and many others, I’m sure—feel a sense of belonging unbeknownst to me before Penny Arcade came along.
For years, gamers have been reduced to a single stereotype: immature nerds that suffer from acne and live in their mom’s basement and never have sex with anything other than the palms of their hands. Penny Arcade has been dismantling this stereotype of the careless, immature nerd for over twelve years and they have perhaps struck the biggest blow to it with the wild success of their Child’s Play fundraiser, a fundraiser that raises over a million dollars annually, every cent of which goes to children’s hospitals all over the world, supplying children in need of smiles with video games and other toys. It is a testament to not only the luminary power of Krahulik and Holkins, but to the power of a (mostly) united culture of gamers.
Simply put, Penny Arcade: Twelve Years of Bullshit is Penny Arcade’s legacy as it stands. The book begins with Krahulik and Holkins meeting in journalism class in high school and collaborating for the first time. It documents their struggles as a fledgling webcomic, while Krahulik worked at Toys R Us and drew in his spare time and Holkins did tech support for libraries. It showcases their rise to fame and how they never feel complacent, constantly aware that what they have is a blessing that could be withdrawn at any moment. How it will end is anyone’s guess, but I’m sure it will be suitably great.
I will admit that this doesn’t sound especially like a book review, but I assure you that it is. The writing is often hilarious and the comics contained within are some of the duo’s best; the large-format book is lovely and the high quality glossy paper it is printed on is a genuine treat to handle; the Q&A session in which readers sent questions to Krahulik and Holkins to answer is quite illuminating as well. This basic checklist communicates next to nothing about how Penny Arcade affects people, which is really what its primary purpose is. Those who are regular readers of the strip know what I’m talking about and those who aren’t soon will (I hope).
Sunday, June 6, 2010
e-readers are the bomb, etc.
Being an English student, my favorable opinion of e-readers often strikes people as blasphemous and immediately turns me into a turncoat, an enemy of the cause. However, I’ve never been entirely clear on what exactly the cause may be. When my comrades refuse to kneel in front of their lord god Kindle, they are in effect, attempting to fight the future. Not only is that the subtitle of a highly mediocre X-Files movie, it is also an extremely pretentious and sentimental act.
Whenever I sing the praises of the Kindle, people often curl their lips up in disgust/rage. They are mad because, to them, books must be read on paper; they like the feel of it in their hands because it is something substantial; it is a piece of something bigger than them. They also believe that some sort of alchemy occurs between the book and the reader. However, with the revolutionary invention of e-ink, reading a book on the Kindle and reading a book on paper embody a distinction without a difference. Furthermore, larger tomes like Ulysses and War and Peace always weigh the same when you read them on the Kindle and the less physical exertion it takes to do something, the more inclined I am to do it, so that is a definite draw for the professionally lazy. The idea that the intimate relationship between reader and book cannot be duplicated on a digital book is an incredibly opaque notion, for the book and the Kindle are merely vessels through which a message is delivered. That being said, the message is delivered in a far superior way on the Kindle or any other e-reader for that matter.
The reason you would use an e-reader is the same reason you use an iPod. It is convenience itself. Instead of carrying around my CD collection (do people still have those?) or my book collection, it is possible to simply carry a device that stores everything I could ever listen to and everything I could ever read. This definitely comes in handy when traveling and also when going to school. For example, instead of purchasing the physical copy of a novel for class, you can just download it either from Amazon (for money) or use the internet for what it was meant for and get it for free. In fact, the ability to download books for free—if you’re of the pirate persuasion of course—is reason enough to buy an e-reader. If you download music, and I’m sure you do, why not download books?
E-readers are much more than iPod’s for books, though. The Kindle, for instance, is a 3G device and allows the user to use the internet much in the same way one uses a BlackBerry or an iPhone to use the internet. Additionally, merely by highlighting a word with the cursor the Kindle immediately brings up the definition of the highlighted word, saving the user the frustration and tedium of having to consult a physical dictionary; for people (like me) who love words, this is an invaluable feature.
Set aside your sentimentality and pretensions and see e-readers for what they are: the future. You’re not listening to CD’s, you’re not typing assignments on a typewriter, and you’re not watching goddamn LaserDiscs, why are you reading books on paper?
Whenever I sing the praises of the Kindle, people often curl their lips up in disgust/rage. They are mad because, to them, books must be read on paper; they like the feel of it in their hands because it is something substantial; it is a piece of something bigger than them. They also believe that some sort of alchemy occurs between the book and the reader. However, with the revolutionary invention of e-ink, reading a book on the Kindle and reading a book on paper embody a distinction without a difference. Furthermore, larger tomes like Ulysses and War and Peace always weigh the same when you read them on the Kindle and the less physical exertion it takes to do something, the more inclined I am to do it, so that is a definite draw for the professionally lazy. The idea that the intimate relationship between reader and book cannot be duplicated on a digital book is an incredibly opaque notion, for the book and the Kindle are merely vessels through which a message is delivered. That being said, the message is delivered in a far superior way on the Kindle or any other e-reader for that matter.
The reason you would use an e-reader is the same reason you use an iPod. It is convenience itself. Instead of carrying around my CD collection (do people still have those?) or my book collection, it is possible to simply carry a device that stores everything I could ever listen to and everything I could ever read. This definitely comes in handy when traveling and also when going to school. For example, instead of purchasing the physical copy of a novel for class, you can just download it either from Amazon (for money) or use the internet for what it was meant for and get it for free. In fact, the ability to download books for free—if you’re of the pirate persuasion of course—is reason enough to buy an e-reader. If you download music, and I’m sure you do, why not download books?
E-readers are much more than iPod’s for books, though. The Kindle, for instance, is a 3G device and allows the user to use the internet much in the same way one uses a BlackBerry or an iPhone to use the internet. Additionally, merely by highlighting a word with the cursor the Kindle immediately brings up the definition of the highlighted word, saving the user the frustration and tedium of having to consult a physical dictionary; for people (like me) who love words, this is an invaluable feature.
Set aside your sentimentality and pretensions and see e-readers for what they are: the future. You’re not listening to CD’s, you’re not typing assignments on a typewriter, and you’re not watching goddamn LaserDiscs, why are you reading books on paper?
Chuck renewed!!
Well, the apocalypse has been postponed for one more year (at least) since NBC has renewed the best program in the history of television—no, pretentionistas, not The Wire—Chuck. Furthermore, NBC has cancelled the seemingly incurable venereal disease of broadcast television: Heroes. Had Chuck not been renewed and had Heroes not been cancelled, I would have howled into the night sky, my jaw coming unhinged, cracking like a wet gunshot, nine heads of the Lernaean Hydra blossoming out of my mouth like a horrifying flower, devouring everyone on earth body and soul. So, yeah, just in case you were wondering how the world was going to end—that’s how.
I think every Chuck fanboy breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing Chuck on NBC’s fall schedule, because last season there was a very public, very long campaign to bring Chuck back for a third season and NBC didn’t cave until late summer, which meant Chuck couldn’t air until midseason, after the Winter Olympics. There was no such bullshit this time around. Sure, fans campaigned using the awesome power of the flash mob, but it was nowhere near the epic proportions of last year’s eleventh hour tactics; tactics that included consuming outrageous amounts of Subway sandwiches.
The details of Chuck’s renewal are a lot like last year’s details in that it has been picked up for 13 episodes with the option to pick up the back nine episodes should the program perform well. This may sound bad but NBC picked up six extra episodes of Chuck this season, which shows that it is possible for the program to air nearly a full season without necessarily being picked up for one. Also, budget cuts were a big issue for the renewal last season, cuts that led to secondary characters being cut out; there were no such cuts during this year’s renewal. The only production change that I’ve heard will happen during Chuck’s fourth season is that the futuristic frozen yogurt shop, the Orange Orange, will now be a Subway. Despite this, I have a feeling Yvonne Strahovski will manage to make the Subway uniform sexy.
Though the move to renew Chuck has healed some of the wounds left by the Jay Leno debacle and the dismal turn Heroes took for the last three seasons has put NBC into my good books, I still they think they have a lot of work to do as a network. However, this work is a double edged sword. Yes, I would like them to take the shit out of their lineup, but without the shit in their lineup, Chuck probably would not have been renewed. The reason for this being that Chuck has only been pulling 5.5 million viewers a night (which is still nearly 1 million higher than Heroes was pulling near the end), which is a low enough rating to get it cancelled by nearly every other broadcast network. I would love to chalk Chuck’s renewal up to the unimpeachable quality of the program, but it is simply because NBC is too weak not to renew it. This is a sad realization, but I’m not one to look a gift peacock in the mouth.
I think every Chuck fanboy breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing Chuck on NBC’s fall schedule, because last season there was a very public, very long campaign to bring Chuck back for a third season and NBC didn’t cave until late summer, which meant Chuck couldn’t air until midseason, after the Winter Olympics. There was no such bullshit this time around. Sure, fans campaigned using the awesome power of the flash mob, but it was nowhere near the epic proportions of last year’s eleventh hour tactics; tactics that included consuming outrageous amounts of Subway sandwiches.
The details of Chuck’s renewal are a lot like last year’s details in that it has been picked up for 13 episodes with the option to pick up the back nine episodes should the program perform well. This may sound bad but NBC picked up six extra episodes of Chuck this season, which shows that it is possible for the program to air nearly a full season without necessarily being picked up for one. Also, budget cuts were a big issue for the renewal last season, cuts that led to secondary characters being cut out; there were no such cuts during this year’s renewal. The only production change that I’ve heard will happen during Chuck’s fourth season is that the futuristic frozen yogurt shop, the Orange Orange, will now be a Subway. Despite this, I have a feeling Yvonne Strahovski will manage to make the Subway uniform sexy.
Though the move to renew Chuck has healed some of the wounds left by the Jay Leno debacle and the dismal turn Heroes took for the last three seasons has put NBC into my good books, I still they think they have a lot of work to do as a network. However, this work is a double edged sword. Yes, I would like them to take the shit out of their lineup, but without the shit in their lineup, Chuck probably would not have been renewed. The reason for this being that Chuck has only been pulling 5.5 million viewers a night (which is still nearly 1 million higher than Heroes was pulling near the end), which is a low enough rating to get it cancelled by nearly every other broadcast network. I would love to chalk Chuck’s renewal up to the unimpeachable quality of the program, but it is simply because NBC is too weak not to renew it. This is a sad realization, but I’m not one to look a gift peacock in the mouth.
RULE #34
After spending 40 days and 40 nights on the top of Mount Sinai, Moses was given two stone tablets inscribed with a number of commandments, ten being the most agreed upon number. When Moses descended Mount Sinai only to find his people involved in the sin of the Golden Calf, he smashed the original tablets out of anger. Later, god said that he would give Moses some new tablets; all he would have to do is spend another 40 days and 40 nights at the top of Mount Sinai again. Moses did so and was given another ten commandments. End of story, right? Wrong. Conspiracy theorists around the globe believe that the first tablets Moses was given contained a different set of rules, specifically internet rules. God, being unaffected by space or time simply got confused and gave Moses the wrong rules. Archaeologists in Tunisia have discovered fragments of these first tablets and have been able to piece together something called Rule #34; the rule we will be discussing at length today, particularly the area of slash fiction.
Rule #34 states that “if it exists, there is porn of it.” On the tablets Moses got, it probably sounded something like this: “if it exists, let there be porn of it.” After searching the internet for two goddamn seconds I have discovered that this rule is incontrovertible.
Slash fiction, for those of you who are blessedly unfamiliar with the term, is a genre of fan fiction that focuses on erotic encounters between two or more fictional characters and often disregards the canon of the series itself. For example, have you ever wondered what it would have been like if, in the Harry Potter series of novels, Harry and Draco/Harry and Snape/Harry and Ron had been involved in sexual relationships with each other? Personally, I wasn’t picking up the homoerotic vibe from those characters, but it seems a lot of people were and are capitalizing on their very loose grip on the English language and reality by writing lengthy pieces of fiction about Harry Potter getting detention in Severus Snape’s S&M dungeon where he will be forced take it in the dark mark repeatedly by a sexually rabid Snape.
To a seasoned veteran of the internet, this strikes me as odd, but acceptable and while it alone doesn’t prove Rule #34, this next example does (and all of this is real, mind you): Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are lovers that also solve mysteries, but this time they’ve come upon something that even they can’t solve: Aliens! Enter Agent K and Agent J from the Men in Black movie, also lovers; together they will team up with the wizard lovers and solve this mystery once and for all. The. Men. In. Black. Seriously?
This phenomenon does not only extend to the Harry Potter franchise, though. There is slash fiction about Twilight, because what if Edward and Jacob hooked up is the one question that rivals “what is the meaning of life?” Slash fiction has also extended its dark tendrils toward the Whedon universe with Angel, Buffy, and Firefly stories. Also, it should be noted that even childhood classics were not left alone as Disney movies are often used, including the classic movie, Homeward Bound. Nothing is sacred anymore.
Why all the information about Rule #34, you might ask? Well, because I wanted you to know what you’re up against. You are not safe. None of us are. The next time you’re looking out a window at a tree, its branches waving ever so slightly in the light summer breeze, remember, someone probably photoshopped a mouth onto that tree with a disembodied penis floating close by, poised to ejaculate white lines (courtesy of MS paint) at any second.
Rule #34 states that “if it exists, there is porn of it.” On the tablets Moses got, it probably sounded something like this: “if it exists, let there be porn of it.” After searching the internet for two goddamn seconds I have discovered that this rule is incontrovertible.
Slash fiction, for those of you who are blessedly unfamiliar with the term, is a genre of fan fiction that focuses on erotic encounters between two or more fictional characters and often disregards the canon of the series itself. For example, have you ever wondered what it would have been like if, in the Harry Potter series of novels, Harry and Draco/Harry and Snape/Harry and Ron had been involved in sexual relationships with each other? Personally, I wasn’t picking up the homoerotic vibe from those characters, but it seems a lot of people were and are capitalizing on their very loose grip on the English language and reality by writing lengthy pieces of fiction about Harry Potter getting detention in Severus Snape’s S&M dungeon where he will be forced take it in the dark mark repeatedly by a sexually rabid Snape.
To a seasoned veteran of the internet, this strikes me as odd, but acceptable and while it alone doesn’t prove Rule #34, this next example does (and all of this is real, mind you): Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are lovers that also solve mysteries, but this time they’ve come upon something that even they can’t solve: Aliens! Enter Agent K and Agent J from the Men in Black movie, also lovers; together they will team up with the wizard lovers and solve this mystery once and for all. The. Men. In. Black. Seriously?
This phenomenon does not only extend to the Harry Potter franchise, though. There is slash fiction about Twilight, because what if Edward and Jacob hooked up is the one question that rivals “what is the meaning of life?” Slash fiction has also extended its dark tendrils toward the Whedon universe with Angel, Buffy, and Firefly stories. Also, it should be noted that even childhood classics were not left alone as Disney movies are often used, including the classic movie, Homeward Bound. Nothing is sacred anymore.
Why all the information about Rule #34, you might ask? Well, because I wanted you to know what you’re up against. You are not safe. None of us are. The next time you’re looking out a window at a tree, its branches waving ever so slightly in the light summer breeze, remember, someone probably photoshopped a mouth onto that tree with a disembodied penis floating close by, poised to ejaculate white lines (courtesy of MS paint) at any second.
FETISHES
It is often the case that I will be discussing various fetishes and paraphilias with people and someone will offer a comment along the lines of “I’m really into legs/tits/lips” and while these areas of interest are all well and good, I would not exactly categorize them as “fetishes” because to me, and I think to society in general, fetish means something dark and edgy. I’m sure this idea is merely a product of the society we live in and I will concede that it is entirely possible, even probable, that being into legs is a fetish. However, I want to bring to your attention something beyond the vanilla; I want to talk to you about something I’m calling “fringe fetishes” fetishes that are so obscure that I wonder if the general public even knows about them. Or maybe you, dear reader, are feeling urges that fall within the parameters of the fetishes I’m about list and didn’t know what it was called. In that case, let me set your mind at ease.
1. Plushophilia: I’m sure some of you know of this fetish because of that episode of Entourage where Johnny Drama dresses up as a stuffed animal and fucks that girl, but I like to think there is a bit more to it than that. Plushies or “furverts” as they are sometimes referred to are people who are attracted to stuff animals or people dressed as stuffed animals. This fetish can take the form of the individual masturbating with a stuffed animal to the previously mentioned Entourage scenario. The individual may prefer the ubiquitous stuffed bear or they may prefer something a little more anthropomorphic. This isn’t actually all that weird, because who here can say they didn’t have a little thing for Teddy Ruxpin?
2. Burusera: This is not actually that “out there” for people living in Japan, or at any rate it isn’t as obscure as it is in North America. Burusera essentially a panty (this is the ugliest word in the English language, by the way) fetish. Sure, a lot of people like the look (and feel) of female undergarments, but what separates burusera from this innocuous intrigue is the fact that the whole point of burusera is to buy the underwear of young women—18 and over, but you can get younger, unfortunately—and smell them. In Japan you can actually buy used underwear in vending machines and specialty shops, however, since Japan recently passes a law restricting underwear sales to women over the age of 18, some of the more unsavoury individuals in Japan have taken to paying younger girls to simply lift up their skirts and allow them but a sweet, fleeting whiff of their underwear. This fetish has seen some recent popularity in North America as a simple craigslist search brings up many, many listings of used underwear for sale.
3. Hybristophilia: This fetish, often referred to as Bonnie and Clyde syndrome, involves the attraction to people who have committed gruesome crimes. This could explain why many murderers develop fans and admirers that are sexually attracted to them, without knowing anything about them save for the fact that they have killed someone. To all the ladies out there: I once took two pennies from the take-a-penny-leave-a-penny tray. Think about it.
It doesn’t matter if you want to get sodomized by a Care-Bear, sneak a sniff of some undergarments, or get fresh with an axe-murderer, do whatever makes you happy, regardless of social stigma.
1. Plushophilia: I’m sure some of you know of this fetish because of that episode of Entourage where Johnny Drama dresses up as a stuffed animal and fucks that girl, but I like to think there is a bit more to it than that. Plushies or “furverts” as they are sometimes referred to are people who are attracted to stuff animals or people dressed as stuffed animals. This fetish can take the form of the individual masturbating with a stuffed animal to the previously mentioned Entourage scenario. The individual may prefer the ubiquitous stuffed bear or they may prefer something a little more anthropomorphic. This isn’t actually all that weird, because who here can say they didn’t have a little thing for Teddy Ruxpin?
2. Burusera: This is not actually that “out there” for people living in Japan, or at any rate it isn’t as obscure as it is in North America. Burusera essentially a panty (this is the ugliest word in the English language, by the way) fetish. Sure, a lot of people like the look (and feel) of female undergarments, but what separates burusera from this innocuous intrigue is the fact that the whole point of burusera is to buy the underwear of young women—18 and over, but you can get younger, unfortunately—and smell them. In Japan you can actually buy used underwear in vending machines and specialty shops, however, since Japan recently passes a law restricting underwear sales to women over the age of 18, some of the more unsavoury individuals in Japan have taken to paying younger girls to simply lift up their skirts and allow them but a sweet, fleeting whiff of their underwear. This fetish has seen some recent popularity in North America as a simple craigslist search brings up many, many listings of used underwear for sale.
3. Hybristophilia: This fetish, often referred to as Bonnie and Clyde syndrome, involves the attraction to people who have committed gruesome crimes. This could explain why many murderers develop fans and admirers that are sexually attracted to them, without knowing anything about them save for the fact that they have killed someone. To all the ladies out there: I once took two pennies from the take-a-penny-leave-a-penny tray. Think about it.
It doesn’t matter if you want to get sodomized by a Care-Bear, sneak a sniff of some undergarments, or get fresh with an axe-murderer, do whatever makes you happy, regardless of social stigma.
SUMMER SEX
Summer is traditionally the season most suited for mad passionate flings and devil may care intercourse, or at least this is what the media has led me to believe. The part that the media leaves out is just how much of a goddamn chore intercourse during the summer is. Thanks to the douche nozzles that own Hummers, the world is heating up and every summer is hotter than the last, so it falls to courageous pioneers like me to continually think outside the box in order to solve the problems that plague those of us who want to have sex during the summer, but would like to remain relatively comfortable.
Considering the fact that one is never sweatier than during the summer, my first suggestion would be to trim/remove lengthy pubic hair. This isn’t because it is more aerodynamically sound than retaining pubic hair, it is because hair traps odors. There is a reason men’s armpits smell worse than a woman’s, it is because of the hair. Trimming pubic hair reduces the likelihood of having your partner’s eyes water whilst reaching for the nose plugs. I’m not saying shave (or wax) all your pubic hair off if you don’t want to, I’m simply saying that you shouldn’t be gratuitous about pubic hair.
As a sub-clause to the above point, I would also suggest washing one’s genitals before engaging in foreplay, because there is nothing more detrimental to the mood than having to force your partner to go to the washroom and wash their fetid vagina/penis. It is a major turn-off to feel like you’re giving oral sex to Swamp Thing.
Secondly, I would consider investing in some season appropriate apparel. I know that when one thinks of sex, one does not think primarily of what they should be wearing, but we’re talking about summer sex, a type of sex that bows to no social norms. Wearing a sweatband during marathon sessions is a thoughtful preventative measure that will ensure you do not blind your partner with sweat dripping from your brow into his/her eye. Furthermore—and this may only apply to the men—when hunched like Gollum behind your partner, it is somewhat upsetting to hear the pitter patter of your sweat dripping onto your partner’s back.
Thirdly, as awesome as it sounds, please resist the urge to have sex in pools/hot tubs or lakes/ponds. In pools and hot tubs, the chemicals in the water reduce the amount of natural vaginal lubrication, causing plenty of discomfort for the female, not to mention that water (and the chemicals in it) is being forcefully pounded into the vagina, often leading to infection. Don’t even get me started on stray band-aids either. In ponds and lakes, there is quite a bit of bacteria, and my general rule, if I were a woman, would be, “if I won’t drink it, I won’t let it go in my vagina.” Also, small fish like minnow can find their way into the woman’s vagina and fertilize a woman’s egg, resulting in mutant fish babies. Beware!
Lastly, consider having sex in front of a fan or an AC unit. I know that sweat releases pheromones that your partner is subconsciously picking up on, but if you’re using sweat as lubricant, it may be time to rethink your position on air conditioning.
LESBIANS
Sex is one of those things that everyone always wants to talk about—myself more so than most—but when it comes to fetishes and fantasies, no one wants to say anything, oftentimes not even to their partner. This is largely because fetishes and fantasies are something dark, something outside the norm. No one’s fetish or fantasy has ever been something as white bread as plain old P in the V sex, instead, fetishes and fantasies are mostly made up of fairly innocuous things like latex, role-playing (not Dungeons & Dragons, though), and maybe a little pain. On the other side of the spectrum there is scat, golden showers, dressing up as stuffed animals, etc. Most of these fetishes and fantasies pale in comparison to the one fetish that is the most nonsensical of them all: lesbians. Ask any man what his ultimate fantasy is and lesbians will almost always have something to do with it. I used to enjoy watching women on the internet embrace their Sapphic side until I realized that the lesbians in my fantasies wanted nothing to do with me because, they were, surprise, lesbians.
From my experience, people men who are “into” lesbians view lesbianism as this fluid thing that will shift when a penis is introduced into the equation and that’s a large part of the lesbian fantasy, in fact, that’s probably all there is to it: the idea that if two women are having sex, they are only doing so because there is not a penis available and if one is produced, the two women will automatically ditch their sexual orientation in favor of pleasuring the male. Some of the men reading this will probably be like, “so what, this is nothing special.” But it is actually something quite special in that I would bet there are very few women who would watch two men having sex and think that the two men would switch from homosexuality to heterosexuality if only her vagina was in the room. This is a phenomenon that is, I believe, limited only to men.
It would be impossible to chastise men for thinking they can “turn” lesbians (and it is not even my goal, really, to do so. I merely seek to educate) because that is what the media has, by and large, led us to believe. In every program I’ve seen (I haven’t seen The L Word) where there is a lesbian character, she will, at some point in the series, sleep with a male whether it be some drunken indiscretion or simply to see what it was like. The media, nefarious beast that it is, sends the message that lesbianism is no stronger than a six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon or idle curiosity. Conversely, every homosexual male on television will awkwardly, but politely, rebuff a female’s advances. For many people, through television or film is the only way they will ever interact with the idea of homosexuality, and it is conveying the wrong message, so it is no wonder every male on the face of the planet is a “big fan” of lesbianism, when, in fact, they don’t really know what lesbianism means at all.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
TV
Last week I devoted the entire column to spitting venom at Jay Leno and NBC, and it was beautiful and cathartic. Unfortunately for us all, I can’t spend every week saying bad things about people on television that I don’t like (or else this week’s article would be about David Caruso). However, there is still news about mid-season premieres and shows returning from hiatus that I neglected to mention in previous weeks and some cancellations that may or may not come as a surprise to you.
Smallville’s return from hiatus was postponed until Friday January 29th because of the Hope for Haiti telethon. I have been informed that it would be in the poorest of taste for me to argue that Hope for Haiti should have been postponed so Smallville could return, so I will simply say that the telethon was viewed by 83 million people and raised $61 million, which is pretty damn impressive. Smallville airs Friday nights at 8pm on the CW.
24 premiered its 8th season on January 17th with four new episodes spread over two days. Watching these episodes, I realized two things: 1.) for all the “twists” the show boasts, 24 is surprisingly formulaic. For instance, here are the things I know will happen in an episode before I even watch it: Jack is going to yell/kick/shoot at someone, Jack is going to go “off grid,” Chloe is going to look dour, and the person that you think is the traitor turns out to be a red herring and the person you didn’t think was a traitor is, in fact, traitorous. 2.) Because 24 follows such a strict formula, a drinking game can be formed around it. Drink whenever anything from my list happens and you may not live to see the next episode, which might actually be a blessing. 24 airs Monday nights at 9pm on FOX.
Syfy aired the two hour season premiere of Battlestar Galactica prequel of sorts, Caprica, on January 22nd. Despite having been available for almost a year on DVD and streaming on Syfy’s website for a few weeks before the premiere, it managed to pull in 1.6m viewers. Caprica is perfect for you if you were getting sick of all the theology muddying the pure sci-fi waters of Battlestar Galactica toward the end of the series. Caprica is the story of how humans brought about their own destruction on earth (by creating cylons). For a program that is primarily science fiction, Caprica consists of themes that are largely human, such as the idea of morality and how our senses of grief, greed and obsession can overshadow our morality and how everything begins to unravel once we cross the moral threshold. Caprica airs Friday nights at 9pm on Space.
In cancelation news, this season will be Ugly Betty’s last. That disturbance you just felt was the one Ugly Betty fan suddenly crying out in terror and suddenly being silenced.
Finally, last week the “stars” of Jersey Shore demanded MTV begin paying them $10,000 an episode because The Hills “stars” were making $100,000 an episode and The Hills never rated as high as Jersey Shore does. Instead of telling The Situation and Snooky to go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, MTV caved and now the cast can all afford all the hair gel, bottle service, and eyebrow wax they could ever want. All is well with the universe.
Smallville’s return from hiatus was postponed until Friday January 29th because of the Hope for Haiti telethon. I have been informed that it would be in the poorest of taste for me to argue that Hope for Haiti should have been postponed so Smallville could return, so I will simply say that the telethon was viewed by 83 million people and raised $61 million, which is pretty damn impressive. Smallville airs Friday nights at 8pm on the CW.
24 premiered its 8th season on January 17th with four new episodes spread over two days. Watching these episodes, I realized two things: 1.) for all the “twists” the show boasts, 24 is surprisingly formulaic. For instance, here are the things I know will happen in an episode before I even watch it: Jack is going to yell/kick/shoot at someone, Jack is going to go “off grid,” Chloe is going to look dour, and the person that you think is the traitor turns out to be a red herring and the person you didn’t think was a traitor is, in fact, traitorous. 2.) Because 24 follows such a strict formula, a drinking game can be formed around it. Drink whenever anything from my list happens and you may not live to see the next episode, which might actually be a blessing. 24 airs Monday nights at 9pm on FOX.
Syfy aired the two hour season premiere of Battlestar Galactica prequel of sorts, Caprica, on January 22nd. Despite having been available for almost a year on DVD and streaming on Syfy’s website for a few weeks before the premiere, it managed to pull in 1.6m viewers. Caprica is perfect for you if you were getting sick of all the theology muddying the pure sci-fi waters of Battlestar Galactica toward the end of the series. Caprica is the story of how humans brought about their own destruction on earth (by creating cylons). For a program that is primarily science fiction, Caprica consists of themes that are largely human, such as the idea of morality and how our senses of grief, greed and obsession can overshadow our morality and how everything begins to unravel once we cross the moral threshold. Caprica airs Friday nights at 9pm on Space.
In cancelation news, this season will be Ugly Betty’s last. That disturbance you just felt was the one Ugly Betty fan suddenly crying out in terror and suddenly being silenced.
Finally, last week the “stars” of Jersey Shore demanded MTV begin paying them $10,000 an episode because The Hills “stars” were making $100,000 an episode and The Hills never rated as high as Jersey Shore does. Instead of telling The Situation and Snooky to go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, MTV caved and now the cast can all afford all the hair gel, bottle service, and eyebrow wax they could ever want. All is well with the universe.
Youth in Revolt
It is no secret that there are individuals out there who take their pop culture very, very seriously. A million times more so if it is thought to be the obscurest piece of pop culture in the history of ever. These individuals will clutch this obscure band/book/movie tightly to their breast, only loosening their grip to mention said obscure piece of culture at parties in a bid to reach third base with whoever has the best bangs. Inevitably, after being nurtured on the individual’s elitist milk (rich in irony), the obscure piece of pop culture will be found by Hollywood and will be exploited for everything it is worth. Such is the case with Youth in Revolt. It is a sad state of affairs when most people I talk to that enjoyed the film, have no idea there is a book. So, being a partially rehabilitated “individual” I feel it is my duty to make you painfully aware that there is a pure, radiant novel that precedes the unfortunately diluted film.
Youth in Revolt is, at its core, a novel about the unwavering spirit of the underdog when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles during their quest. The underdog in question is precocious fourteen-year-old, Nick Twisp. Nick is like most adolescent males in that he is obsessed with sex, will do whatever it takes to get laid, and has problems disguising the fact that he is, more often than not, sporting what he refers to as “Thunderous Erections” or TE’s for short. However, Nick is unlike most adolescent boys in his roguish charm, his reverence for Frank Sinatra, his advanced vocabulary and his devotion to journal-keeping. Nick’s journal spans six turbulent months and serves both as an inventive narrative structure and as a means to view the transformation he undergoes from the inside out.
For the most part, the novel adheres to a “quest” narrative. Nick’s quest, so to speak, is to win the heart of the girl he falls in love with while on vacation, Sheridan “Sheeni” Saunders. This quest sees Nick performing increasingly outrageous and depraved acts (such as faking his best friend’s death, blowing up half of Berkeley, dressing up as a woman named “Carlotta,” and fooling the authorities into thinking he has moved to India, to name a few) in order to be close to Sheeni. The quest is broken up into three volumes: Youth in Revolt, Youth in Bondage, and Youth in Exile. The three volume structure is a useful device in that it allows the reader to observe Nick’s evolution from love-sick teen with mildly criminal impulses to an insane teen with wildly criminal impulses with surprising clarity.
Though Youth in Revolt is primarily a twisted black comedy that trades on its increasingly outlandish comedic situations, it is not devoid of a deeper meaning. The largest theme running through the novel is that of love and what lengths we will go to in order to obtain it. Sure, Nick is just fourteen but he is a pure manifestation of the reckless abandon love (possibly) inspired in us as adolescents.
Youth in Revolt is, at its core, a novel about the unwavering spirit of the underdog when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles during their quest. The underdog in question is precocious fourteen-year-old, Nick Twisp. Nick is like most adolescent males in that he is obsessed with sex, will do whatever it takes to get laid, and has problems disguising the fact that he is, more often than not, sporting what he refers to as “Thunderous Erections” or TE’s for short. However, Nick is unlike most adolescent boys in his roguish charm, his reverence for Frank Sinatra, his advanced vocabulary and his devotion to journal-keeping. Nick’s journal spans six turbulent months and serves both as an inventive narrative structure and as a means to view the transformation he undergoes from the inside out.
For the most part, the novel adheres to a “quest” narrative. Nick’s quest, so to speak, is to win the heart of the girl he falls in love with while on vacation, Sheridan “Sheeni” Saunders. This quest sees Nick performing increasingly outrageous and depraved acts (such as faking his best friend’s death, blowing up half of Berkeley, dressing up as a woman named “Carlotta,” and fooling the authorities into thinking he has moved to India, to name a few) in order to be close to Sheeni. The quest is broken up into three volumes: Youth in Revolt, Youth in Bondage, and Youth in Exile. The three volume structure is a useful device in that it allows the reader to observe Nick’s evolution from love-sick teen with mildly criminal impulses to an insane teen with wildly criminal impulses with surprising clarity.
Though Youth in Revolt is primarily a twisted black comedy that trades on its increasingly outlandish comedic situations, it is not devoid of a deeper meaning. The largest theme running through the novel is that of love and what lengths we will go to in order to obtain it. Sure, Nick is just fourteen but he is a pure manifestation of the reckless abandon love (possibly) inspired in us as adolescents.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
There is no reason someone reads an author’s memoirs unless they are attempting to steal a small glance at that indefinable, unknowable quality that allows the author to create something out of nothing. This, hopefully, will afford them insight into the mind of the author, allowing them to add another layer of context to the author’s oeuvre. That’s why when I first heard that my favorite writer, Haruki Murakami, was taking a break from writing immensely powerful novels to write a memoir, I was intrigued; mainly because Murakami is a very private person and something of an enigma and I wanted to know something, anything, about the mind that wrote The Wind Up Bird Chronicles and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and where its magic came from. However, when I heard that this memoir would be about running, my intrigue metamorphosed to werewolf rage. Logic would dictate that since I don’t like running (or any physical activity, for that matter), I would not like a book about running. It would be akin to an atheist reading the bible. In spite of my reticence, I read it and what’s more, I enjoyed it. The memoir turned out to be less about running and more about what the physical act means to Murakami and how the otherworldly discipline that allows him to run translates into artistic expression.
Murakami’s fascination with running was the direct result of the sedentary lifestyle he was leading as a professional author—a lifestyle that consisted mostly of smoking and thinking. Up until that point, he had been the owner and manager of a reputable jazz club in Tokyo and this had kept him in peak physical condition. Running began simply as an exercise to keep him in shape, but along the course of twenty-seven years, it has evolved into something much more for him; a sentiment made clear when he writes in the foreword of the memoir, “...I noticed that writing honestly about running and writing honestly about myself are nearly the same thing.”
The memoir is composed of nine chapters that alternate between something of a running diary (what he’s doing in terms of running) and a regular diary (how the running is affecting him/has affected him) that jumps around the globe from Boston to New York to Hokkaido to Tokyo and spans from August 2005 until October 2006. It is during this time that Murakami is preparing to run in various events including the New York City Marathon and a famous triathlon in Murakami City, Japan (a real place!).
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running does deliver some insight into Murakami’s mind in the way that he draws a comparison between running and writing insomuch as it’s an exercise in pure discipline. Running is never easy for Murakami and it takes everything in him to complete a marathon much in the same way that writing is never easy for him either; he has to struggle for every single word. Despite the fact that his physique is diminishing and his finish times are steadily decreasing as he enters his sixties, his mind remains razor-edged; still capable of producing excellent works of fiction and non-fiction alike.
Murakami’s fascination with running was the direct result of the sedentary lifestyle he was leading as a professional author—a lifestyle that consisted mostly of smoking and thinking. Up until that point, he had been the owner and manager of a reputable jazz club in Tokyo and this had kept him in peak physical condition. Running began simply as an exercise to keep him in shape, but along the course of twenty-seven years, it has evolved into something much more for him; a sentiment made clear when he writes in the foreword of the memoir, “...I noticed that writing honestly about running and writing honestly about myself are nearly the same thing.”
The memoir is composed of nine chapters that alternate between something of a running diary (what he’s doing in terms of running) and a regular diary (how the running is affecting him/has affected him) that jumps around the globe from Boston to New York to Hokkaido to Tokyo and spans from August 2005 until October 2006. It is during this time that Murakami is preparing to run in various events including the New York City Marathon and a famous triathlon in Murakami City, Japan (a real place!).
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running does deliver some insight into Murakami’s mind in the way that he draws a comparison between running and writing insomuch as it’s an exercise in pure discipline. Running is never easy for Murakami and it takes everything in him to complete a marathon much in the same way that writing is never easy for him either; he has to struggle for every single word. Despite the fact that his physique is diminishing and his finish times are steadily decreasing as he enters his sixties, his mind remains razor-edged; still capable of producing excellent works of fiction and non-fiction alike.
Fuck You, Leno
There is no bigger TV news this week than the Late Night shitstorm over at NBC and it would be utter negligence on my part if I didn’t take this opportunity to excoriate Jay Leno while elucidating the situation for anyone that isn’t quite up to speed on the whole issue.
As I’m sure all of you are aware, this whole debacle began when NBC affiliates started to complain that The Jay Leno Show was providing extremely disappointing lead-in ratings for newscasts. This gave the geniuses at NBC the idea that maybe, just maybe, Jay Leno wasn’t suited for primetime and instead of being euthanized, he should be moved back to a late night slot; Conan O’Brien’s late night spot, to be precise. NBC drew up preliminary plans to facilitate Jay Leno that would see The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien pushed to 12:05am, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to 1:05am, and Who Gives a Shit with Carson Daly to, in all likelihood, never. Unsurprisingly, when they ran this idea past O’Brien he wasn’t pleased. He saw it as NBC reneging on their contract and polluting the history of The Tonight Show while NBC argued that the contract only stipulated that he host The Tonight Show and gave no guarantee of a particular time. O’Brien saw this as a step backward for his career and, ultimately, unfair.
I won’t go into specifics because there are far, far too many examples, but it is at this point that everyone in the world—except Jimmy Fallon—started attacking Leno and NBC, exacerbating the predicament to a point where a disagreement has turned into a blood feud between Leno, O’Brien, and NBC.
O’Brien is said to have settled his contractual dispute with NBC, taking a payout of 45 million dollars with 27% (12m) supposedly going to his staff of 200 and he will be prohibited from appearing on any other programs until September 1st, 2010. In order to reach an agreement, NBC made one final senseless demand: that O’Brien cannot take any of intellectual property over to another network. NBC now owns the rights such classics as The Masturbating Bear, Horny Manatee, If They Mated, and sadly, Pierre Bernard’s Recliner of Rage. This is purely a petty, vengeful move on NBC’s part because no self-respecting comedian in the world could or would touch any of O’Brien’s signature bits, which I guess still leaves Leno to perform them.
The entire situation has shown just how heavy-handed and unprofessional NBC is. Instead of ignoring O’Brien’s admittedly hilarious insults like a faceless media company should, multiple NBC executives have committed PR suicide by emerging from the dark pits of Mordor to call O’Brien a coward, et al. for not taking their shit. However, nothing could be further from the truth; this whole debacle has shown that O’Brien has a backbone that I think no one imagined he possessed. As for Jay Leno, well, besides being the herpes virus of broadcast television and an irrefutable sign of the apocalypse, he has, instead of displaying any remorse, attempted to portray himself as a child caught in the middle of a nasty divorce—albeit a divorce he instigated.
What’s so infuriating is that you can see how badly Leno wants it, but you get the feeling he doesn’t know why he wants it. He just wants it to have it and will do nothing interesting with it once he gets it. There is no doubt that his monologues will remain about as unpleasant and painful as getting finger-banged by Wolverine from the X-Men (I would imagine).
However, it isn’t all dark news for O’Brien as he is reportedly being courted by FOX, FX and, inexplicably, Dancing With the Stars.
The only hope for NBC now comes in the form of Chuck (airing Monday’s at 8pm), which you should watch before NBC finds out that it’s a great program and cancels it, replacing it with extra episodes of Heroes, in which Jay Leno is sure to become a series regular.
As I’m sure all of you are aware, this whole debacle began when NBC affiliates started to complain that The Jay Leno Show was providing extremely disappointing lead-in ratings for newscasts. This gave the geniuses at NBC the idea that maybe, just maybe, Jay Leno wasn’t suited for primetime and instead of being euthanized, he should be moved back to a late night slot; Conan O’Brien’s late night spot, to be precise. NBC drew up preliminary plans to facilitate Jay Leno that would see The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien pushed to 12:05am, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to 1:05am, and Who Gives a Shit with Carson Daly to, in all likelihood, never. Unsurprisingly, when they ran this idea past O’Brien he wasn’t pleased. He saw it as NBC reneging on their contract and polluting the history of The Tonight Show while NBC argued that the contract only stipulated that he host The Tonight Show and gave no guarantee of a particular time. O’Brien saw this as a step backward for his career and, ultimately, unfair.
I won’t go into specifics because there are far, far too many examples, but it is at this point that everyone in the world—except Jimmy Fallon—started attacking Leno and NBC, exacerbating the predicament to a point where a disagreement has turned into a blood feud between Leno, O’Brien, and NBC.
O’Brien is said to have settled his contractual dispute with NBC, taking a payout of 45 million dollars with 27% (12m) supposedly going to his staff of 200 and he will be prohibited from appearing on any other programs until September 1st, 2010. In order to reach an agreement, NBC made one final senseless demand: that O’Brien cannot take any of intellectual property over to another network. NBC now owns the rights such classics as The Masturbating Bear, Horny Manatee, If They Mated, and sadly, Pierre Bernard’s Recliner of Rage. This is purely a petty, vengeful move on NBC’s part because no self-respecting comedian in the world could or would touch any of O’Brien’s signature bits, which I guess still leaves Leno to perform them.
The entire situation has shown just how heavy-handed and unprofessional NBC is. Instead of ignoring O’Brien’s admittedly hilarious insults like a faceless media company should, multiple NBC executives have committed PR suicide by emerging from the dark pits of Mordor to call O’Brien a coward, et al. for not taking their shit. However, nothing could be further from the truth; this whole debacle has shown that O’Brien has a backbone that I think no one imagined he possessed. As for Jay Leno, well, besides being the herpes virus of broadcast television and an irrefutable sign of the apocalypse, he has, instead of displaying any remorse, attempted to portray himself as a child caught in the middle of a nasty divorce—albeit a divorce he instigated.
What’s so infuriating is that you can see how badly Leno wants it, but you get the feeling he doesn’t know why he wants it. He just wants it to have it and will do nothing interesting with it once he gets it. There is no doubt that his monologues will remain about as unpleasant and painful as getting finger-banged by Wolverine from the X-Men (I would imagine).
However, it isn’t all dark news for O’Brien as he is reportedly being courted by FOX, FX and, inexplicably, Dancing With the Stars.
The only hope for NBC now comes in the form of Chuck (airing Monday’s at 8pm), which you should watch before NBC finds out that it’s a great program and cancels it, replacing it with extra episodes of Heroes, in which Jay Leno is sure to become a series regular.
Under the Dome
Sometimes, though not often, I like to take a break from being an unbearably pretentious douche bag and revisit some of the things I really enjoyed before enjoyment was more based on the context of a thing rather than its content. During the winter break, I decided to treat myself to Stephen King’s gigantic latest novel, Under the Dome, remembering how much I adored his stories in high school. I was floored to find out that the delight of reading him as a teenager translated perfectly to the delight of reading him as a snobby adult.
The basic premise of the novel is that on a peaceful autumn day, a force field (or dome) drops over the town of Chester’s Mill, cutting the town off from the outside world. The Dome effectively turns Chester’s Mill into a sovereign state ruled by the ruthless, loathsome middling politician, Big Jim Rennie, backed up by his lunatic son and his gang of thugs. As the air within the Dome becomes polluted and the temperature rises, the town becomes increasingly desperate and the resultant shift is that mostly good-natured people start to do reprehensible things. Standing against Big Jim and a town thirsty for a scapegoat to blame the situation on are an ex-soldier-cum-cook, a newspaper editor, an English lit professor, a physician’s assistant and a technology savvy teenager.
The protagonists are well-developed when compared to King’s more contemporary work (i.e. Cell), but where King really shines (and has always shone) is in the exquisite construction of his antagonists. He is never better than when he is creating something sinister, and that word fits Big Jim and his son, Junior, to the letter. Never have I been so consumed with hatred for a fictional character. It’s almost as if, while reading about Big Jim hiding behind god to justify his senseless thirst to command a sinking ship, you’ve become a citizen of Chester’s Mill and you want to tear his fictional head off. Such is the immersive quality of King’s writing and the ease in which the reader can place themselves not only in the predicament of a citizen of Chester’s Mill but in the universe he has created in Under the Dome.
If you’ve ever read Stephen King, you know his strength has never been subtle social or political commentary and that doesn’t change in Under the Dome. Sometimes I think—and my English professors will have my head for this—it is okay for a writer’s message not to be hidden in obscure symbol or imagery. King comes right out and says what he wants to say in an obvious, immensely enjoyable way. This isn’t to say that King doesn’t say anything worth thinking about. For instance, the concept of shame is examined in detail; particularly the idea that shame is what distinguishes humanity from anything else and what it could mean if you don’t feel shame for the shameful things you have done. The far subtler (though still not terribly subtle) theme running through the book is that of decency and how long the people of Chester’s Mill can cling to their sense of it before being corrupted by the mentality of a mob fuelled by fear and directionless rage.
Although the book is 1,072 pages long, it feels more like 500. This is because King’s sense of plot and pace is so refined. There is never a point in the novel where the reader is waiting for something to happen and there is never a point in the novel where the reader doesn’t want to know what happens next.
The basic premise of the novel is that on a peaceful autumn day, a force field (or dome) drops over the town of Chester’s Mill, cutting the town off from the outside world. The Dome effectively turns Chester’s Mill into a sovereign state ruled by the ruthless, loathsome middling politician, Big Jim Rennie, backed up by his lunatic son and his gang of thugs. As the air within the Dome becomes polluted and the temperature rises, the town becomes increasingly desperate and the resultant shift is that mostly good-natured people start to do reprehensible things. Standing against Big Jim and a town thirsty for a scapegoat to blame the situation on are an ex-soldier-cum-cook, a newspaper editor, an English lit professor, a physician’s assistant and a technology savvy teenager.
The protagonists are well-developed when compared to King’s more contemporary work (i.e. Cell), but where King really shines (and has always shone) is in the exquisite construction of his antagonists. He is never better than when he is creating something sinister, and that word fits Big Jim and his son, Junior, to the letter. Never have I been so consumed with hatred for a fictional character. It’s almost as if, while reading about Big Jim hiding behind god to justify his senseless thirst to command a sinking ship, you’ve become a citizen of Chester’s Mill and you want to tear his fictional head off. Such is the immersive quality of King’s writing and the ease in which the reader can place themselves not only in the predicament of a citizen of Chester’s Mill but in the universe he has created in Under the Dome.
If you’ve ever read Stephen King, you know his strength has never been subtle social or political commentary and that doesn’t change in Under the Dome. Sometimes I think—and my English professors will have my head for this—it is okay for a writer’s message not to be hidden in obscure symbol or imagery. King comes right out and says what he wants to say in an obvious, immensely enjoyable way. This isn’t to say that King doesn’t say anything worth thinking about. For instance, the concept of shame is examined in detail; particularly the idea that shame is what distinguishes humanity from anything else and what it could mean if you don’t feel shame for the shameful things you have done. The far subtler (though still not terribly subtle) theme running through the book is that of decency and how long the people of Chester’s Mill can cling to their sense of it before being corrupted by the mentality of a mob fuelled by fear and directionless rage.
Although the book is 1,072 pages long, it feels more like 500. This is because King’s sense of plot and pace is so refined. There is never a point in the novel where the reader is waiting for something to happen and there is never a point in the novel where the reader doesn’t want to know what happens next.
Friday, November 27, 2009
EA FTL
I didn’t think it was possible, but Electronic Arts (EA) has managed to find a new way to swindle their customers out of money. I honestly thought they had exhausted all available business tactics other than creeping into your house under the cover of night, slitting your throat in your sleep and then proceeding to steal all of your valuables. However, with the November 3rd release of Dragon Age: Origins, EA has demonstrated their willingness to do just that. The heinous act I’ve been alluding to for this entire paragraph is the jarring integration of paid Downloadable Content (DLC) into Dragon Age and what it potentially means to consumers.
Throughout Dragon Age you are able to visit the party camp, where you can recover from injuries as well as buy and sell items from a merchant. This is completely normal. There is also a character with a giant exclamation mark over his head waiting to give you a quest. Seeing as this is an RPG and questing is sort of the entire point of the game, this seems perfectly legitimate—until the character asks you to pay for the quest. I’m not saying that he wants some of your in-game gold; I’m saying he wants some of your real fucking money. It is at this point that the immersive digital environment the developer has tried so hard to create begins to crumble. Moments ago, you were decapitating darkspawn with a Chasind Flatblade and trying to get your freak on with a shape shifting mage, now you’re contemplating grabbing your MasterCard and suckling the corporate teat to the tune of seven dollars. EA has traded the potential impact of a game for the opportunity to wring every ounce of monetary gain out of a product. Admittedly, seven dollars is a paltry sum; however, at its core, this isn’t really an issue of money.
It’s an issue of how far EA will go to foist DLC on its customers. In that sense, Dragon Age represents the middle ground in EA’s vampiric approach to DLC. It was easy to decline when, in 2006, EA brazenly attempted to charge for codes that unlocked content already on the game disc, but it is more subtle than that now. Instead of a faceless corporate entity with its greedy palms open, it is a man who looks down on his luck asking you to honor a promise your mentor made to him (for the low, low price of seven dollars). By tying it into the story of the game, it becomes exponentially more difficult to resist. I fear that soon, the integration of DLC in to EA’s games will be so seamless that, like a back alley sex fiend, you won’t see it coming until it’s too late.
Throughout Dragon Age you are able to visit the party camp, where you can recover from injuries as well as buy and sell items from a merchant. This is completely normal. There is also a character with a giant exclamation mark over his head waiting to give you a quest. Seeing as this is an RPG and questing is sort of the entire point of the game, this seems perfectly legitimate—until the character asks you to pay for the quest. I’m not saying that he wants some of your in-game gold; I’m saying he wants some of your real fucking money. It is at this point that the immersive digital environment the developer has tried so hard to create begins to crumble. Moments ago, you were decapitating darkspawn with a Chasind Flatblade and trying to get your freak on with a shape shifting mage, now you’re contemplating grabbing your MasterCard and suckling the corporate teat to the tune of seven dollars. EA has traded the potential impact of a game for the opportunity to wring every ounce of monetary gain out of a product. Admittedly, seven dollars is a paltry sum; however, at its core, this isn’t really an issue of money.
It’s an issue of how far EA will go to foist DLC on its customers. In that sense, Dragon Age represents the middle ground in EA’s vampiric approach to DLC. It was easy to decline when, in 2006, EA brazenly attempted to charge for codes that unlocked content already on the game disc, but it is more subtle than that now. Instead of a faceless corporate entity with its greedy palms open, it is a man who looks down on his luck asking you to honor a promise your mentor made to him (for the low, low price of seven dollars). By tying it into the story of the game, it becomes exponentially more difficult to resist. I fear that soon, the integration of DLC in to EA’s games will be so seamless that, like a back alley sex fiend, you won’t see it coming until it’s too late.
The Lie
There are authors whose novels feel more like math equations than living, breathing organisms. To give you an idea of the type of writer I’m talking about, consider Chuck Palahniuk’s formula: Disillusioned Sarcastic Protagonist + Outlandish Premise + “Shocking” Event – Any Emotional Resonance = Something You Read to Look Edgy in High School. See? After reading Chad Kultgen’s 2007 debut, The Average American Male, I fully expected him to become a mathematical writer, simply plugging in the unvaried variables to create a rehash of his first, best novel. You can imagine my surprise when his latest novel, The Lie, turned into something much more than I thought it could ever be.
The Lie is essentially three people looking back at their four year relationship during university and realizing the precise moments of their mistakes, moments of retrospective clarity, and the moment they crossed the point of no return and kissed their sense of morality goodbye. Despite all three characters being extreme stereotypes of the nice guy (Kyle), the jaded misogynist (Brett), and the gold-digging slutty sorority sister (Heather), Kultgen manages to combine all three (mostly) one-dimensional personas to create a story that is at once enthralling, meaningful and unsettling. The reader is made aware at the onset and throughout the novel that everything the characters do will ultimately lead them to a bitter resolution. It is this sense of futility that lends itself to the dark tone of the novel and instils a sense of hopelessness in the reader. Think back to your last relationship and pinpoint the moment you should have smothered your ex with a pillow but didn’t, and that is feeling of helplessness and regret The Lie evokes.
Kultgen’s writing is, as usual, very easy and enjoyable to read. His real achievement, however, and where his growth as a writer is unmistakable, is in the voices of the characters. Kyle speaks like a normal person with a hint of endearing idealism that gradually becomes perverted; Brett speaks like a teenage Patrick Bateman (American Psycho), obsessed with demeaning women, or as he unfailingly refers to them as: “cunts”; while Heather speaks like a vapid, single-minded Valley girl, punctuating sentences with the words “like” and “seriously”. Equally impressive is Kultgen’s ability to show the reader the flaws of every character, turning them into their own antagonists as they act against their natures because they are blinded by love or jealousy or the need for revenge.
The lie at the end of the novel is often, though erroneously, considered the lie referred to in the title of the novel. It is clear by the final three pages of the novel that the titular lie is the direct product of the falsehoods accumulated over the course of the novel. In the end, the actual lie is the lives the characters lead; lives consisting solely of desperation, duplicity, and apathy.
The Lie is essentially three people looking back at their four year relationship during university and realizing the precise moments of their mistakes, moments of retrospective clarity, and the moment they crossed the point of no return and kissed their sense of morality goodbye. Despite all three characters being extreme stereotypes of the nice guy (Kyle), the jaded misogynist (Brett), and the gold-digging slutty sorority sister (Heather), Kultgen manages to combine all three (mostly) one-dimensional personas to create a story that is at once enthralling, meaningful and unsettling. The reader is made aware at the onset and throughout the novel that everything the characters do will ultimately lead them to a bitter resolution. It is this sense of futility that lends itself to the dark tone of the novel and instils a sense of hopelessness in the reader. Think back to your last relationship and pinpoint the moment you should have smothered your ex with a pillow but didn’t, and that is feeling of helplessness and regret The Lie evokes.
Kultgen’s writing is, as usual, very easy and enjoyable to read. His real achievement, however, and where his growth as a writer is unmistakable, is in the voices of the characters. Kyle speaks like a normal person with a hint of endearing idealism that gradually becomes perverted; Brett speaks like a teenage Patrick Bateman (American Psycho), obsessed with demeaning women, or as he unfailingly refers to them as: “cunts”; while Heather speaks like a vapid, single-minded Valley girl, punctuating sentences with the words “like” and “seriously”. Equally impressive is Kultgen’s ability to show the reader the flaws of every character, turning them into their own antagonists as they act against their natures because they are blinded by love or jealousy or the need for revenge.
The lie at the end of the novel is often, though erroneously, considered the lie referred to in the title of the novel. It is clear by the final three pages of the novel that the titular lie is the direct product of the falsehoods accumulated over the course of the novel. In the end, the actual lie is the lives the characters lead; lives consisting solely of desperation, duplicity, and apathy.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Ass Backwards
Reebok’s first major ad campaign in two years is groundbreaking. It is the only instance in recent memory where a company has so thoroughly failed at selling sex to their target demographic. The magnificent failure in question is for Reebok’s “revolutionary” new shoe, the EasyTone. The idea of the EasyTone is that merely by walking, I can work my calves and hamstrings up to 11% harder (!) and tone my butt up to 28% more than if I were to walk in my common, inferior shoes (!!!). Yeah, I know, who gives a fuck? The commercial features a beautiful woman with legs that are already long and toned and with an ass that would make an atheist reconsider god. The problem is that it also features a sex offender behind the camera and he zooms in on her ass every time she mentions it—which, considering the product, is often. Is she offended when he does this? Does she mace the pervert? No. She coughs politely and motions for the camera to film her face, saying, when the camera begrudgingly moves away from her ass, “I take it you agree?”
There are a couple fundamental problems with this method of trying to sell a product. First of all, treating your target demographic (women) as pieces of meat, whose sole purpose of living is to look beautiful and be stared at by unsavory men with perspiring upper lips, is just bad marketing.
Secondly, knowing who you’re marketing to is probably going to be a big help in moving forward. I was watching this commercial with a female friend and she went from complacent to righteously furious in the span of the thirty second commercial while I went from mildly aroused to…mildly aroused. I’m not a business major or anything, but I think if you make a product for a woman and in attempting to market it to a woman, the woman begins to foam at the mouth, her eyes burning like the lidless eye of Sauron, her body paralyzed with rage, you’ve failed.
The EasyTone commercial seems like it is marketing to men, but logic would dictate that if you buy a shoe that will help tone your girlfriend’s/wife’s/fiance’s calves and ass, you’re just begging to be dumped/dirvoced/a combination of dumped and divorced. It would be akin to saying, “Yes, those pants do make your ass look flat, but I bought you some shoes that can remedy with that.”
However, there is a silver lining. If you failed Marketing 101, Reebok will still hire you.
sign of the times #362
Theoretical Situation:
a.) I approach you and say, “I hate gay people” (I don’t).
b.) I approach you and ventriloquise, “I hate gay people”
Would you think a.) was funny? No, you probably wouldn’t, because there’s nothing inherently hilarious about homophobia. Would you be more inclined to laugh at b.) because I used a puppet as a proxy for my parochial hatemongering? If you were one of the 7.9 million people that tuned in to watch the pilot for The Jeff Dunham Show and didn’t ragequit it after the first two minutes, I would imagine your answer to be something along the lines of, “Fuck yeah, that shit’s funny as hell. Hyuk. I watch it right after Leno.” The sad fact is that The Jeff Dunham Show makes Leno look like highbrow humor filled with incisive social commentary.
The Jeff Dunham Show opens with a racist “joke” about how ironic it is to have a black president in the White House (sigh) and it only gets worse from there. Dunham and his crotchety old man puppet, Walter, just can’t seem to get along so they visit a therapist to work on their issues. Through the course of the conversation, it is revealed that the therapist is gay. Walter’s mouth hangs open while he and Dunham glance nervously at each other. This is followed by a string of offensive homophobic comments that ends in the realization that the only thing Dunham and Walter can agree on is that they don’t want to be homosexual with each other, and by extension, at all. This is just a microcosmic example of the horrifying world Jeff Dunham, his lifeless proxies, and the millions of slack-jawed Jeff Dunham fans inhabit.
I don’t have a problem with incendiary, unapologetic humor that a lot of people might take issue with. However, I do have a problem with humor that is cheap and hateful. There are no jokes in Dunham’s show, there are only insults levelled at homosexuals, black people, Jewish people, and women. In an interview with Slate, Dunham dodges accountability by saying that he would “shudder to utter” the things his puppets say. Yet, it is hard to imagine that Dunham has the artistic capacity to invent personalities for his puppets other than, “the old one hates gay people, the Middle-Eastern one is a terrorist, wait, no, he’s a terrorist ZOMBIE, and the redneck hates every minority.” The dodge is rendered increasingly ineffective when you can see his mouth moving in unison with the mouth of the puppet on his hand.
The worst part of this clusterfuck of hate is that we (as a society), not only allow Jeff Dunham to get on stage and spew his hatred, but we flock to see him, we pay him an inordinate amount of money, we demand he gets a television show, we actually watch it and what’s more is that we love every single goddamned second of it.
If Mel Gibson would have been wearing a puppet on his hand during his drunken anti-Semitic outburst, would it have been acceptable or funny? What about Michael Richards’ (Kramer) crazed racist diatribe? It’s depressing that at least 7.9 million people would answer “possibly” to these questions.
Digesting the Dinosaur
When Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs was first published in 2003, I had never seen anything like it. It was a book of essays that reveled in the fact that it analyzed low culture (see: pop culture) in a way that didn’t involve a thorough knowledge of media and communication theory to appreciate. The essays were written in an amusing, wry way, by an amusing, wry author. They were easily accessible and infinitely entertaining, which is what made the book so great. It was pop culture writing, written for an audience that consumes pop culture. However, it wasn’t a transcript of an episode of Two and a Half Men; it had value in that Klosterman used these essays about pop culture minutiae to illustrate points about our society. For instance, Klosterman argues our obsession with the Real World can be seen as the advent of people developing one dimensional personalities and our voyeuristic perversity as a culture. Eating the Dinosaur takes what Chuck Klosterman started four years ago and adds to it in a more mature—though still amusing and wry—way.
Through a series of what, at first glance, seem to be wild non-sequiturs, Eating the Dinosaur manages to tie together essays that compare Kurt Cobain to David Koresh (think Waco) in a somewhat offensive yet somehow convincing way, an analysis of time travel that is way more in-depth and thought out than it needs to be, a critical take on the laugh tracks employed by sitcoms, and progressive football plays into the larger, more important idea that through our love of culture and idolization of cultural figures, we create a fake reality that is far more comfortable than actual reality. This fake reality is so pure a fantasy that when we encounter someone entirely truthful (Rivers Cuomo or Ralph Nader, to name a couple of Klosterman’s examples) we are hostile and disappointed.
One of the most interesting instances of this fake reality comes in the final essay, named FAIL. Everyone prides themselves on being tough to influence, infinitely skeptical of how much they are affected by the treacherous “media,” but by quoting from Jerry Mander’s book, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, Klosterman provides us with a revealing example of how much media we actually internalize and how that internalization of images makes it difficult for us to differentiate from the real and unreal. In order to illustrate this inability, Mander asks people to imagine, “life in an Eskimo village,” the Old South,” and “a preoperation conversation among doctors,” and “playing basketball.” A simple enough task, to be sure. You probably already have the images in your head. Though you have experienced maybe one or two of these scenarios, you can picture them all with clarity, right? Mander says that the images conjured up are “either out of your own imagination or else they [are] from the media. Can you identify which was which?”
Yes, some of the essays are hit and miss—particularly the ones on basketball, football and ABBA. Yes, it’s written in Klosterman’s signature style, which some could argue is getting stale, but it is far and away Klosterman’s most thought-provoking and mature work to date. Besides, (arguably) stale Klosterman is still (arguably) great Klosterman.
Monday, June 8, 2009
wig flipping and teeth gnashing.
At any given moment, if someone were to ask me how I was feeling emotionally I would most likely respond: mad. It's not a big deal, though, because ever since I can remember, I have been furious about something. That doesn't mean I'm always flying off the handle—the fury ranges from mild (1) to righteous (10). I stub my toe: mild. I'm trying to assemble a piece of furniture purchased from IKEA: righteous. However, on rare occasions, I reach a peak of rage unbeknownst to most mortals. A violent orgasm of fury. At first I can feel the acid in my stomach begin to moil like the magical magma of Mount Doom; then I start to sweat for no other reason than my body has reached its red alert stage and is attempting to expel rage through my pores; my body then begins to seize, as if it has become host to a dark parasite that has latched onto my brain stem, controlling me like a marionette suffering from Parkinson's; finally, my jaw cracks and comes loose, a bouquet of the nine reptilian heads of a hydra emerge like a hideous flower blooming out of my throat, the skin of my mortal husk falls in a puddle where my feet used to be; I devour all. This only happens when people don't display proper etiquette at the movie theater.
As a professional moviegoer, I've had time to hone my craft (e.g. creating optimal seating charts, making a best guess as to where the talkative douches will be sitting, etc.), and create a 'code,' if you will, that dictates what is and what isn't appropriate to do at the movies. I would like to outline some of these rules and relate to you some of the more harrowing and infuriating moments I've experienced at the theater in my young, angry life.
For teh lulz
Everyone likes to think that they are funny, but, to be honest, many people aren't. Some people are born funny and some aren't, that's just how it goes. When I hear people trying to crack jokes during movies, I get really pissed off. Not only are they talking during the movie but they are making bad jokes. I don't know about everyone else, but I didn't get the memo that said, "Hey, instead of shutting the fuck up and watching the movie, use every lull in the action of a movie to work on your stand-up routine!" There are very, very few cases where someone has told a joke in the theater and got more than a noncommittal chuckle from an annoyed friend. An example that perfectly illustrates my point was when I went to go see Drag Me to Hell. This douche nozzle behind me would not shut the fuck up with his biting social commentary and what I'm sure he felt were top-notch jokes and when a fly flew into Alison Lohman's mouth, he delivered his comedic payload with, "I hear flies are full of protein. Yum." It was then that I popped open the lid of my friend's giant cup of diet Coke and drowned myself in it. I'm going to the movies tonight, and if I even catch a whisper of some cocksucker saying, "What's the deal with airline food?" during the movie, I'm going to cut his dick off with a spork and shove it in his goddamn mouth.
A new and terrifying phenomenon I've been witnessing over the past year or so are people yelling "OWNED" or "PWNT" (which when spoken aloud sounds less like a hilarious internet saying and more like a verbal tic) or, and this one is getting archaic now—"SERVED". I recently had the opportunity to witness someone saying, "OWNED!" at a movie. It was during Star Trek and this throwaway redshirt is sucked into the engine of a giant drill and you could tell this guy was just waiting for the opportunity to go for the cheese because the very second this character died, the wretch yelled, "OWNED!" No one laughed. His friends shifted their bodies away from him and the offender scratched his neck nervously. It was a beautiful sight to see even this bastard's friend's turn on him. Sadly, this rarely happens. It's the Haley's Comet of social situations.
Malodorous motherfuckers
I smell good because I wash daily and wear deodorant. Do people think that dousing themselves in obnoxiously pungent chemicals makes them more, I don't know, desirable. I'm here to tell you that it does not. Perfumes and colognes remind me of a few things: guid's that use so much of this shit that their sweat actually begins to smell like it, stoners trying to disguise the fact that they are stoners, and old people. My grandparents reek of the most caustic scents known to man. It doesn't matter how much of that shit you spray on yourself, grandma, I still know your life is eroding! There is nothing worse than having to mouth-breathe the entire night because the woman sitting beside you smells as if she has just crawled out of Coco Chanel's rotting vagina.
Despite my aversion to ungodly stink, there are a number of scents I expect to smell at the theater. For example, I expect to smell are anything you can buy at the concession and the one guy who hasn't showered lately, but what I don't expect to smell are KFC (sure, they sell that shit at the theater but nobody buys it) and enchiladas and sushi. I went to the movies with a friend the other night and, since she was running a little late, she hadn't had time to eat dinner. I didn't really pay it any mind until she whispered, "I brought sushi!" and proceeded to take the lid off her vat of spicy sauce and dip her sushi in it. I was mortified. The spicy sauce was toxic and when it opened, a mushroom cloud of gas that singed nose hairs was released into the atmosphere. Shadows of bodies that had been incinerated in the blast radius were etched into now empty, scorched seats. I forgave her, sure, but I think I will always be subconsciously mad about it.
Didn't you hear, four is the new fourteen
In my final guideline, the blame is divided between the people who work at the theater and the people viewing the movie.
My worst movie experience would have to be seeing Eagle Eye (love you, Shia) in September of 2008. I knew it was going to be trouble when a young boy of around nine or ten asked if the three seats beside me were taken. I said they weren't, thinking that maybe his parents were coming. NOT THE CASE. He had, against the wishes of his parents--who had no doubt instructed him to take his brothers to see a kid-friendly film-- I'm sure, brought his six-year-old brother and four-year-old brother with him. I was willing to give them a shot. I thought maybe instead of teaching their children about Feng Shui and how to really appreciate good sushi, his parents had taught him how to behave in a movie theater. NOT THE CASE. Throughout the entire movie, the older brother was explaining what was happening in the story to his overwhelmed brothers who acted as if they had never been in public before. The youngest one was slurping at a drink that was long gone, his lips puckered, eyes bulging in vain. Pretty bad, right? It gets worse. They had kinder eggs. If you have ever had a kinder egg, you know it is not about the chocolate, it is about the toy. You might be wondering how one assembles microscopic toy in the dark? Well, you don't. You flip open your cell phone and use the LCD that looks as if it's being powered by a nuclear generator, a radiant beacon of assholery in the dark, and attempt to construct all three at once. I kept looking over at these kids with a WTF look on my face, but that shit don't faze a 4 year old. The icing on the infuriated cake was during the climax of the movie when Shia is shot (SPOILER ALERT!), the littlest fuckwad whispers to his brother, "Did that boy just get shot?" It's probably a good thing I keep being denied a firearms licence or four boys would have been shot that night instead of just Shia. And I would be blogging this from prison.
I don't mind if you let a thirteen-year-old into a 14A movie or a sixteen or seventeen-year-old into an 18A movie, but I think four years old is pushing it, guys.
I'd like to thank all the people who follow these rules because, really, this shit is common sense. And for the villainous creatures that refuse to act like humans, there's a special spot in hell for you mofo's.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
is milo the future of gaming/technology?
One must always take care when writing about video games. To most people it probably seems like a pretty innocuous topic, but to gamers, it's quite a volatile subject. Sidestepping fanboys that will drop everything in order to take up the shield emblazoned with the logo of either Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft is a difficult task even when attempted by the most soft-spoken of writers. Soft-spoken I'm not.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is always an exciting time for gamers. E3 offers insight into the direction technology will be heading in the future and reveals some of the most anticipated games of the next year from the biggest companies in the industry. Being a gamer, I follow E3 fairly closely every year and I've always been excited to the point of arousal by some of the announcements, but never before has my jaw come unhinged and hit the fake mahogany finish of my desk. Such was the case with one of the most interesting announcements since it was announced that the Wii would use motion controls. I'm talking about Milo.
Milo is, essentially, a very sophisticated piece of AI in the form of a young boy. You interact with Milo by utilizing Microsoft's cutting edge Project Natal camera device. Project Natal allows you to interact with a game by using your entire body instead of just your sweaty, calloused fingers. If you're having trouble understanding what exactly that means: if you see a soccer ball coming at you, move your leg and you have kicked it. Milo incorporates facial recognition, voice recognition and even color recognition. What's most impressive/terrifying about Milo is that he has a memory and feelings. By identifying the unique tone of voice one uses when telling a joke, Milo will laugh. When using nervous mannerisms, Milo will inquire as to what's troubling you. And, probably the most jaw-dropping detail of all, when a reviewer told Milo that he was standing with Peter Molyneux (the developer of Milo), Milo sighed. As Milo's creator, I imagine Milo has spent hundreds of hours with Molyneux and the sigh is like, "when is he not standing around me?"
It's hard to get too excited about Milo because Peter Molyneux is developing it. Anyone who has taken an interest in gaming beyond shoving the disc into the console probably knows about Molyneux and sort of smirks whenever they hear his name in the news when he's hyping a new project. The fact is that Molyneux was something of a messiah many years ago when he was working on a game called Fable. He promised gamers a lot of things that he didn't deliver on. Fast forward to The Movies, same thing. Fable 2, same thing, though to a far lesser extent than Fable and The Movies. He always described his product with a wild gleam in his eyes, using words like groundbreaking, revolutionary, earth shattering, and urethra tearing. It appears as if Molyneux has learned his lesson, though. He kept his mouth shut about Milo for quite a long time (for him) and when he did speak about it, you could see he was excited about it, but his mouth wasn't frothing and he didn't say anything about trees aging with your character (a la Fable).
Molyneux has gone on record as saying that Milo would, indeed, be a game. I'm not sure if I like the idea of that. Milo is an eight year old boy and, by and large, I hate eight year old boys. It has also been revealed that if interacting with an eight year old boy isn't your cup of tea (which it isn't), then you also have the option of interacting with an eight year old girl named Millie. Awesome! Now I cannot wait. I'm kidding, of course. What has yet to be revealed is whether or not Millie just shouts nonsensical pieces of dialogue from Hannah Montana at you or sings Jonas Brothers songs out of key, as my inferior (i.e. human) eight year old sister does.
Even though Milo isn't finished and there will probably be bugs and glitches, that does not mean the technology isn't new and, to say the very least, interesting. I remember when the iPod first came out, there were a ton of glitches, but look at it now. The current generation iteration is barely recognizable when compared with the first generation model. It's gone from the size of a sandwich to slightly larger than a pack of gum. It's akin to looking at our early ancestors and then looking in the mirror. To me, Milo could symbolize something huge. Imagine playing an RPG where characters recognize you and your facial expressions and tone of voice guide social encounters. God, I moisten at the very thought! I'm not saying this will ever happen in my lifetime, or ever, but a nerd can dream, can't he?
Saturday, May 30, 2009
discrepancies.
Whenever I have high expectations for something, or feel my expectations mounting, the voice of my ex-girlfriend screeches into my skull, a spectre that forever haunts my gray matter. She told me that no matter what my expectations were, I would universally be disappointed. And as treacherous a woman as she was, she could not have been more correct. I didn't realize it at the time, but she was basically outlining the whole foundation of our relationship. The burgeoning relationship I had such high hopes for imploded after one bonnie and clyde-esque, hallucinogen-fueled night filled with misdemeanor felonies involving three gallons of A1 steak sauce and a transient hooker. One criminal record and a broken heart later, I have try to not have expectations of anything. Without any expectations, it's impossible to be let down. However, I couldn't help but feel a slight pang of disappointment. Perhaps the word disappointment is too strong; it would be more accurate to say they weren't what I expected. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it was sort of refreshing, but it was fairly evident that not everyone enjoyed the show.
I don't want to go into great detail about the mute, holier than thou, 'experimental' (see: shitty) 'band' that preceded Animal Collective. It was just a woman with a bunch of tapes and tape decks, a looping device, a frown and a guitar that she barely played. What I do want to say is that people actually clapped for her and I can't tell if they clapped because it was bad and they wanted to seem as if they appreciated it because it was 'real art' or if they clapped out of the goodness of their hearts. Either way, after people clapped and howled for her, she just walked off the stage. Look, I know being a pretentious bitch is probably an acceptable professional persona in the world of really bad music, but honestly if you don't even say thanks to the people wasting their time watching you be unique, then you can go fuck yourself. And, yeah, when I clapped sardonically for you, it was a gentleman's middle finger.
To me, Animal Collective are more artists than musicians. That sentence sounds like it should be followed with a painfully contrived comment about my favorite year for wine or about the unimaginable depths in Albert Camus' (pronounced with a French flair) criminally short story, L'etranger or, The Stranger, for the uninitiated. You'll get no such comments from me, though. The reason behind my viewpoint is fairly straight across: I've never heard a band layer so many different sounds on top of each other to create a beat that is as comprehensive, luminous, and frenetic as Animal Collective's are. It evokes the feeling of being lost in a sea of sound yet always having something solid to latch onto.
I remember a friend of mine telling me before the concert that a lot of their songs were improvised and sometimes they just played a lot of new stuff with only a few of the songs being devoted to stuff off the album they're touring. He was right about the first part, whereas I imagine the only reason he was wrong about the second is because of the steadily increasing popularity of Animal Collective. They can't go back to their roots of screaming unintelligibly into microphones and pouring milk all over each other anymore, unfortunately. Although I'm sure their more la-de-da fanbase would love this high concept art, rich in both metaphor and calcium.
As I said before, my expectations are never high, BUT when I go to a concert, I expect to hear the songs I heard on the record. Probably because at 99.9% of the live shows I've been to, that's what happens. I long to recognize the song and sing along with it in my signature falsetto. However, since Animal Collective improvise a lot of their sound during their live show it has an almost disorienting effect. There would be rambling interludes of laser sounds and rhythmic chanting that lasted almost five minutes before they would morph it into a song. It might sound as if I'm excoriating them for it, but I happen to think that's a big part of their genius. There would be a tangle of sound but then a tiny drum beat would flit in and out of the noise, barely there, and before it dawned on you, it had become the instantly recognizable opening drum beat of Fireworks. Picture it as starting a sculpture with a huge block of marble (or whatever) and chipping pieces off until a basic shape was created and then refining it until it was something beautiful.
Sure, they played a couple of my favorites like Brothersport and Fireworks, but they often changed the tempo of the songs and added little bits to it. I didn't mind it, personally. I was just there to see these guys go buck ass wild, which I did see. But you could tell a lot of people felt, I don't know, betrayed, perhaps?
ps. that's a picture I took of the geologist.
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