End the stigma. End the persecution. End the long decades of rotting lives at the bottom being forgotten and ignored. But whatever you do, don't point out how mental health has been adversely affected by the modern world, because that's where we make our profits. Let's not stigmatize the status-obsessesed, the oversharers, the internet addicts, sociopaths, borderline sociopaths, the narcissists, the identity fetishists... in short let's just change the perception by stating that it's not the ill person's fault they're ill, and give them a modicum of respect, and continue on our deranged way. Some day we'll all be mentally ill, if we aren't already.
So let's have a mental health awareness month, a couple corporate-backed mental health awareness movements every year, some nice infographics, some nice ads, some good progressive and compassionate copy. Let's take some real steps, let's end the crisis before it gets worse, or at least make a pretty big deal about acknowledging it. Just let's not pry into where it's coming from, or why more people than ever are getting ill. Keep condemning the suicides and the silence. Don't look over there at the causes: that way lies madness.
Poverty, mental illness, illiteracy, substance addiction, lifestyle addiction, non-normative sexuality (itself a freaky frontier that's easy to support especially if you want nothing to do with it but want to appear a progressive and compassionate person), and megatons of other stuff. It's no longer anybody's fault. Those who declare it a function of individual responsibility, as well as those who declare it a function of societal responsibility, are entrenched in ideology. The truth is far simpler than anyone wants to acknowledge: they're all Bad Things. Mental illness is just a Bad Thing, that needs Attention, and requires Awareness. The problem is that mental illness not photogenic. It doesn't respond well to attention. It's really, really ugly and it's got deep roots and deeper pockets.
Health in general in decline. Increased incidences of diseases of affluence, first world problems like anxiety, a weakening breed finding new ways to pity itself. Dementia rears its ugly head. Cancer from years of worry-free high-living catching up to us. The natural, polluted world with its natural conclusions. Let's keep consuming so the economy doesn't falter. Let's not ask questions. Let's never wake up from our nightmare as it gets darker and darker.
People are less mindful than ever. Overconnected to everything via the internet. Bombarded with images of opulence and excess that they will never know, for which they are programmed to have an insatiable lust. Lost in meaninglessness, with false meaningfulness leading them astray. Conditioned to worship at the altar of Mammon. Real vs. VR. Terrorism vs War. Inequality is Solved. Internet sickness. Quality of Life. 12 Steps to a Better You. Fired by Text Message. 10 Cute Cats That Will Cure Your Blues. The Babylon System is winning, the world is changing, nobody seems to give a shit. Money rules everything, people with money call the shots, and most people believe their half-truths. Meanwhile a million unchecked distractions clamor for everyone's attention, and the individual (despite the hype of optimists) has never felt so insignificant in a world of Social Networks, Big Ideas, and Batshit Maniacs. There's no fucking respect, I'll tell ya.
In my opinion it's no mystery why people are getting all fucked up and sick. They can't police their own thoughts, they can't control their government and corporate sanctioned addictions to legal substances and activities, they can't escape without losing their future. People are generally more separated by technology than they are brought together by it. A whole generation is living a shitty, loveless, poor existence wrought by their elders and blamed on them – and I'm sure they'll turn out fine and well-adjusted despite this, but they take a sickening amount of shit from a world so unfair it's parodic. Suicides everywhere... a sinking quality of life, urban hellscapes, the decline of the natural world and a bunch of insane technofucks claiming we should divorce ourselves further from our roots, as if our current divergence isn't at least partly at fault for the insane clusterfuck we've wandered into. Jargon rules the day, but it never saved one life.
And the isolation. Alone in a sea of identity, tired of the cult of identity, feeling like nobody and nothing and stumbling through a life ruled by the pleasures of others and the whims of the greedy, powerful, and detached. Faces are masks, genuine humanity is in decline and retreating to the quiet places. Hope is dying along with mental healthiness. There is nobody to talk to, but everyone wants to speak out about how it isn't shameful to be mentally ill. Of course not, but the cure isn't in reinforcing the status quo, just like how all the cures to all of what ails us as a species are not in keeping things comfortably similar to 'how it is'. We don't want to look into what's harming us, like the obstinate addicts we are. Maybe things seem worse than they are, maybe I'm a shitty blogger and an alarmist, but things're bad enough and breeding vast populations of stunted narcissistic sociopaths incapable of human emotion or connection – populations in all age groups, not just the young tech-savvy millenials who already have tons of opprobrium piled onto them coupled with an increasingly grim outlook.
The world is increasingly soulless and irreal. Appearances have replaced qualities. Abandon all hope, because nobody gives a shit anymore. The pressure to succeed can only be met by dishonesty and combativeness, the competition is severe, the world is at the edge. Don't ask any questions. Don't step out of line. Don't live - exist. Just repost the memes, make those donations happen, and keep ignoring the people you know who are sinking, the people you pass on the street who are already sunk... keep your eyes on the newsfeed. Let the internet do the good works for you. This is the least self-aware era and it needs to be ripped violently in half by a comprehensive, blood-thirsty, no-prisoners satire before we destroy everything of value and premise our future on misery, ignorance, and disgust. The time to wake up is fast approaching, and a world of comatose automatons will greet it with indifference.
1/21/15
Literature as Film in the Epic-Franchise-Commercial Mode; or, The Hobbit Trilogy
The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies was sullied by many things. It smelt of the boardroom, for one. It was kind of uncool to the source material, for two. And for three (threes are gonna be important): parts of it functioned as a commercial for a video game and quite possibly a theme park addition as well. Don't be surprised if in the next five years a middle-earth theme park opens (if it hasn't already, I am not bothering to look). And it wasn't just the action scenes, major characters were added to make it right. Maybe you don't care, but if this were middle-earth, then there is only a handful of villains spooky and evil enough to think up such a subtle and convincing marketing scheme.
Another thing you might have noticed if you watched it (and it was a grand spectacle, there is no denying that) is how each movie had at least one theme park ride of a scene in it. For instance the sterling standard of 'theme park ride scene' that anybody could recognize is the barrel escape (lazy river/barrel ride variant) from the second movie in the series. There were other such moments... I can't afford to go back to document them.
I'll admit, I'm the wrong person to point this out. The last time I read the book I had not yet lain with a lover, driven a car, or drank alcohol. I read The Hobbit at least five times. It's a slim volume packed with adventure, humor, and the odd dwarf song/elfin slam poetry session that you may skip if you're a kid. In short: it's brief, to the point, and quite fantastic. I don't think there's a lot of modern fare that could boast it was better, if any. It might be the best, but I don't indulge in fantasy as such anymore, so I don't know. In my mind it gets the gold.
However that's not even to the point. To clarify: I may be the wrong person to look upon the Hobbit Trilogy Franchise because as soon as I heard it was to be a trilogy I already thought 'Oh, oh no. This is not how things should be. I must ride... to New Zealand!' because damn it all, it is not impossible to pack the whole little book into a single two and a half hour (three and a half extended) film. It could've been done, it would've been considerably more exciting, taken more skill, more risks with narrative, trusted the audience more... in essence it would've been greater than it was, doing more with less. I'll state that one of my chief contentions with the modern world is its increasing inability to do more with less, and how it instead does less with more, and leaves the increasingly tone-deaf uncritical audience squalling with idiotic delight anyhow. That is the degradation brought into the world by the explosion of Nerd Culture... that is what has been wrought. I will say no more at this time.
It would've taken skill to condense the story into a manageable screenplay. It'd take some 'hard' decisions like throwing Frodo Baggins and Legolas out, which would've saved about an hour. All the backstory nonsense could've been stripped out (1.5 hours), the business with the Necromancer could've handled as it was in the book (saving roughly another hour), and the love story could've been shit-canned (which would've hurt Orlando Bloom's feelings and destroyed Evangeline Lilly's lifelong dream of playing a cute elf – and also saved another hour and a half). So with basic, sensible ideas I have already cut the length of the movie by 5 hours, making my originally stated aim possible. Plus I'm reducing the budget - you're welcome.
There could've been less bloat in this fantastic franchise vehicle. I won't say the series is shit. It's pretty good – not as good as the LOTR movies (which confronted me with less major issues, though the omission of Tom Bombadil was unforgivable) but I suppose that's the price you pay when Nerd Culture rampages through the things you loved as a child. The technical achievement of the movie cannot be understated: many talented people worked hard to make it happen and I do not deride their efforts in saying the movie could've been better. Parts were cheaper than I liked, and cheapening the source is somewhat of a sin. And sometimes it all looked a little plasticky, a little too videogamey for my tastes. Which leads to the most interesting angle: the commodification of middle-earth.
What really burned me, what really made me feel squeamish, and what really sullied and cheapened the experience is the fact that it was a big old commercial – a vehicle to create retail appetite in the viewer. As stated earlier, it was a subtle one (or at least subtler than Transformers), but not too subtle for this viewer (who, cards on the table, never played Shadow of Mordor). The game was quite hyped and the movie was incredibly hyped, so much so that I, who was quite outside of the media ecosystem, still heard more than enough about the trilogy's finale. Two rentals and a discount midweek viewing later I had all the facts at hand to make my dismal voice heard in the matter. I was free to state my opinions bloggishly, and I knew I had to.
The videogame-like action sequences (when Galadriel, Elfin Agent Smith, and Saruman battle the ghost skeleton warriors springs to mind, or almost every other major straight-up fight or battle) set the tone to a degree where I cannot hold my peace. Watch the rhythm of the fighting, artificial enough in execution, and you can almost imagine someone pressing B three times and forward once on the joystick to execute a daring feint or parry, or the blatant finishing moves... not that filming the chaos of battle with any fidelity is possible in a staged event, but care should be taken to keep it separate from interactive experiences. The choreography doesn't have echo the digital dance. One can almost see the gang teaming up for an epic loot raid, Radagast complaining meekly about having to buff everyone and that he's got to go to sleep while the rest slash meaninglessly at a big enemy, hacking away the health bar and exchanging terse gamese jargon.
Most of my contention stems from the final movie, when all the pieces fell into place, confirming my suspicions. Azog the Defiler is a clear Shadow of Mordor Nemesis-system entity, and so is Golg. The final fight at the end, gratuitous as it is, is nothing more than a winking reference to the videogame. The whole backstory of Thorin and Azog is basically an example of the Nemisis system – wherein you slay an enemy only to find out it survived, gained power, and has your death on its mind. Their final battle is so on the nose that I had to Google, Yahoo, and AskJeeves search about the commercial theory, and finding nothing begin to write this very post you are reading. The media are so interlaced it boggles my mind, and chilled my enjoyment of the show. Also there's a little part in the second movie where the gang climbs up a blocky staircase that looked specifically Minecraftish... dreary, maudlin, maybe even unintentional, but I could not escape the connection.
The writing could've used polish and was almost painfully amateurish at times. Dain repeatedly saying bugger as if he knows of no other term for orc. The 'forcing the hand' of the Necromancer (this phrase is used and reused so much as to be admirable - a true testament to recycling lines) is the only idiomatic phrase the writers seemed to know. The love story is filled with lines that groan under their own dull and predictable weight. The earnestness with which the lines are delivered is sometimes their only saving grace, but all deviations from the book are apparent because the lines are either too flat or too flowery, and the actors make them work, but a critical ear will hear what it will. The Master of Laketown and his wormish assistant are so baldly written they become parodic, which was out of place in a movie that took almost everything else too seriously. I did enjoy Stephen Fry's portrayal for all that, but it was really very super on the nose... a little subtlety would've carried it far. The wormish guy was just... feh, super overdone, even a deaf-blind fish would've grimaced a bit at the character as he kicked infants and old women, exhibited unrealistic cowardice, stole gold from the poor, and threatened to transform into a cartoon villian. I don't recollect if they were this blatant in the book, but probably not. Tolkien was a little subtler than that.
The schmaltzy love story was for the girlfriend, the insipid video game action sequences (you can literally tell when a character has unlocked Quad Damage, Rage Counter, or God Mode by how easily they plough through the abundant fodder enemies, and there must be Life Regeneration going on) were for the boyfriend. Good for more than dates, even, but best for dates... millennials will go crazy for it. Everyone will love it, in fact, except the critics and who gives a shit about their pernicious skepticism? What a perfect creation, what an essential excretion of our era – a timeless expression of the values of 2014. The book got shafted again by the light rays of the cinema, the synergistic marketeering of commerce, was it ever any different, et cetera...
Finally: what's up with the alleged Brian Cranston cameo? It might be the most underlooked part of all, and the least offensive. I truly hope that it was Brian Cranston I saw at the horn-blowing sequence after the battle... others have noticed it as well, but I'd like to know more. If anyone gets the DVD/BluRay, please do screenshot that moment and post it. It would be good to confirm or deny this one.
There could also be a great two-hour epic of all the walking scenes in the entire Peter Jackson middle-earth series. I wouldn't watch it, but it would be hilarious enough after five minutes of steady walking in various beautiful locations.
Another thing you might have noticed if you watched it (and it was a grand spectacle, there is no denying that) is how each movie had at least one theme park ride of a scene in it. For instance the sterling standard of 'theme park ride scene' that anybody could recognize is the barrel escape (lazy river/barrel ride variant) from the second movie in the series. There were other such moments... I can't afford to go back to document them.
I'll admit, I'm the wrong person to point this out. The last time I read the book I had not yet lain with a lover, driven a car, or drank alcohol. I read The Hobbit at least five times. It's a slim volume packed with adventure, humor, and the odd dwarf song/elfin slam poetry session that you may skip if you're a kid. In short: it's brief, to the point, and quite fantastic. I don't think there's a lot of modern fare that could boast it was better, if any. It might be the best, but I don't indulge in fantasy as such anymore, so I don't know. In my mind it gets the gold.
However that's not even to the point. To clarify: I may be the wrong person to look upon the Hobbit Trilogy Franchise because as soon as I heard it was to be a trilogy I already thought 'Oh, oh no. This is not how things should be. I must ride... to New Zealand!' because damn it all, it is not impossible to pack the whole little book into a single two and a half hour (three and a half extended) film. It could've been done, it would've been considerably more exciting, taken more skill, more risks with narrative, trusted the audience more... in essence it would've been greater than it was, doing more with less. I'll state that one of my chief contentions with the modern world is its increasing inability to do more with less, and how it instead does less with more, and leaves the increasingly tone-deaf uncritical audience squalling with idiotic delight anyhow. That is the degradation brought into the world by the explosion of Nerd Culture... that is what has been wrought. I will say no more at this time.
It would've taken skill to condense the story into a manageable screenplay. It'd take some 'hard' decisions like throwing Frodo Baggins and Legolas out, which would've saved about an hour. All the backstory nonsense could've been stripped out (1.5 hours), the business with the Necromancer could've handled as it was in the book (saving roughly another hour), and the love story could've been shit-canned (which would've hurt Orlando Bloom's feelings and destroyed Evangeline Lilly's lifelong dream of playing a cute elf – and also saved another hour and a half). So with basic, sensible ideas I have already cut the length of the movie by 5 hours, making my originally stated aim possible. Plus I'm reducing the budget - you're welcome.
There could've been less bloat in this fantastic franchise vehicle. I won't say the series is shit. It's pretty good – not as good as the LOTR movies (which confronted me with less major issues, though the omission of Tom Bombadil was unforgivable) but I suppose that's the price you pay when Nerd Culture rampages through the things you loved as a child. The technical achievement of the movie cannot be understated: many talented people worked hard to make it happen and I do not deride their efforts in saying the movie could've been better. Parts were cheaper than I liked, and cheapening the source is somewhat of a sin. And sometimes it all looked a little plasticky, a little too videogamey for my tastes. Which leads to the most interesting angle: the commodification of middle-earth.
What really burned me, what really made me feel squeamish, and what really sullied and cheapened the experience is the fact that it was a big old commercial – a vehicle to create retail appetite in the viewer. As stated earlier, it was a subtle one (or at least subtler than Transformers), but not too subtle for this viewer (who, cards on the table, never played Shadow of Mordor). The game was quite hyped and the movie was incredibly hyped, so much so that I, who was quite outside of the media ecosystem, still heard more than enough about the trilogy's finale. Two rentals and a discount midweek viewing later I had all the facts at hand to make my dismal voice heard in the matter. I was free to state my opinions bloggishly, and I knew I had to.
The videogame-like action sequences (when Galadriel, Elfin Agent Smith, and Saruman battle the ghost skeleton warriors springs to mind, or almost every other major straight-up fight or battle) set the tone to a degree where I cannot hold my peace. Watch the rhythm of the fighting, artificial enough in execution, and you can almost imagine someone pressing B three times and forward once on the joystick to execute a daring feint or parry, or the blatant finishing moves... not that filming the chaos of battle with any fidelity is possible in a staged event, but care should be taken to keep it separate from interactive experiences. The choreography doesn't have echo the digital dance. One can almost see the gang teaming up for an epic loot raid, Radagast complaining meekly about having to buff everyone and that he's got to go to sleep while the rest slash meaninglessly at a big enemy, hacking away the health bar and exchanging terse gamese jargon.
Most of my contention stems from the final movie, when all the pieces fell into place, confirming my suspicions. Azog the Defiler is a clear Shadow of Mordor Nemesis-system entity, and so is Golg. The final fight at the end, gratuitous as it is, is nothing more than a winking reference to the videogame. The whole backstory of Thorin and Azog is basically an example of the Nemisis system – wherein you slay an enemy only to find out it survived, gained power, and has your death on its mind. Their final battle is so on the nose that I had to Google, Yahoo, and AskJeeves search about the commercial theory, and finding nothing begin to write this very post you are reading. The media are so interlaced it boggles my mind, and chilled my enjoyment of the show. Also there's a little part in the second movie where the gang climbs up a blocky staircase that looked specifically Minecraftish... dreary, maudlin, maybe even unintentional, but I could not escape the connection.
The writing could've used polish and was almost painfully amateurish at times. Dain repeatedly saying bugger as if he knows of no other term for orc. The 'forcing the hand' of the Necromancer (this phrase is used and reused so much as to be admirable - a true testament to recycling lines) is the only idiomatic phrase the writers seemed to know. The love story is filled with lines that groan under their own dull and predictable weight. The earnestness with which the lines are delivered is sometimes their only saving grace, but all deviations from the book are apparent because the lines are either too flat or too flowery, and the actors make them work, but a critical ear will hear what it will. The Master of Laketown and his wormish assistant are so baldly written they become parodic, which was out of place in a movie that took almost everything else too seriously. I did enjoy Stephen Fry's portrayal for all that, but it was really very super on the nose... a little subtlety would've carried it far. The wormish guy was just... feh, super overdone, even a deaf-blind fish would've grimaced a bit at the character as he kicked infants and old women, exhibited unrealistic cowardice, stole gold from the poor, and threatened to transform into a cartoon villian. I don't recollect if they were this blatant in the book, but probably not. Tolkien was a little subtler than that.
The schmaltzy love story was for the girlfriend, the insipid video game action sequences (you can literally tell when a character has unlocked Quad Damage, Rage Counter, or God Mode by how easily they plough through the abundant fodder enemies, and there must be Life Regeneration going on) were for the boyfriend. Good for more than dates, even, but best for dates... millennials will go crazy for it. Everyone will love it, in fact, except the critics and who gives a shit about their pernicious skepticism? What a perfect creation, what an essential excretion of our era – a timeless expression of the values of 2014. The book got shafted again by the light rays of the cinema, the synergistic marketeering of commerce, was it ever any different, et cetera...
Finally: what's up with the alleged Brian Cranston cameo? It might be the most underlooked part of all, and the least offensive. I truly hope that it was Brian Cranston I saw at the horn-blowing sequence after the battle... others have noticed it as well, but I'd like to know more. If anyone gets the DVD/BluRay, please do screenshot that moment and post it. It would be good to confirm or deny this one.
There could also be a great two-hour epic of all the walking scenes in the entire Peter Jackson middle-earth series. I wouldn't watch it, but it would be hilarious enough after five minutes of steady walking in various beautiful locations.
1/5/15
What Kinda Dream was 2014?
If you're reading this, you survived 2014, unlike a fairly large number of other people. Congratulations.
You may be wondering what you've gained by surviving another year. Truthfully I don't know. Maybe you lived only to find anguish and lamentation in your future. Maybe reality has a cruel sense of humor. Maybe you're fated to find true love and then lose it in a desperate struggle against the way of all things. Who knows? You got another year out of the deal, and in some way surviving Jan 1st to Jan 1st is more
Maybe you didn't survive it. Maybe, somehow, your consciousness continued to exist in a purely sophistical realm in the tiny unknowable increment of possibility between life and death. In that case, I don't know how you're reading this, because as far as I know I exist in a world shared with other fully conscious and existing beings, not in your mind. Then again maybe you're a figment of my imagination... but what would that mean... what would that make me? I've often thought that I've merely poured my attempts at writing into a dark void. Maybe I was right all along.
2014 - The Good
So what was good in 2014? There was some stuff...
The movie Birdman came out and was actually really good, good enough that if Shakespeare was around he would love it and probably encourage other people to watch it; or cry tears of joy; or demur any opinion but secretly watch it again and again, planning his own remake on similar themes... it's a great movie, and I'm speaking as a lameoid who saw it in 2015. The meta-factor is a little steep, but if you can look askance of a little bit of preciousness there is an humorous, beautifully (if not impeccably) shot masterpiece there.
John Maus hinted at a 2015 release for a new album, which is in this humble writer's opinion the best music news of 2014. Now I have most of a reason to see this year through, instead of going ahead with my original plan of throwing myself off a building in March.
Gas got really cheap. I realize it's a side-effect of a geopolitical game that only serves to stress our hopeless plight as small nothings in an unfeeling world, but... it's probably not even good news, but filling up hasn't felt so good in a long time.
The World Cup - mixed bag but let's face it, the Germany/Brazil game was the stuff of legend. What a brutal slaying. I still catch myself thinking of it from time to time when I wonder about how fucked I am compared to various World Cup games.
Uhh... there was other stuff, but I neglected to plan this post out at all, and to be honest 'good' is kind of a subjective term. Maybe you're a tineared fuck who doesn't like John Maus. Maybe you hate the idea of unrestrained fossil fuel feeding frenzies. Maybe you hate good cinematic films. Well, I know I'm a lazy bastard at the moment, and I think it's stupid to look up other people's 2014 Bad/Good lists and basically... fuck it. 2014 was mediocre, but I'll get into that a bit later.
2014 - The Bad
There's so much. I could do my research on this and go on about it until next year. Gluten-free idiocy, a continuation of the growing divide between the wealthy and poor, mediocre job markets, 'good economic news' that translates into the status quo, all sorts of murder, all sorts of unrest, a couple of unnecessary extinctions, casual brutality, hatred flaring up everywhere, the old guard firmly in control as ever. All sorts of stupidity. A dazzling galaxy of insipid and bright distractions. An increasingly etherized worldwide populace. The motherfucking internet.
There was one story that was so stupid, and such a fulfillment of a prophecy I made in the Nerd Bubble post a long time ago, that I have to include it here. It's the GamerGate scandal - a nonevent that blossomed into a great expression of childish fecklessness, misplaced values, and good old fashioned hate. I don't even really know what happened. It involved a journalist, the guy who used to date her, maybe someone else, and a bunch of what you may as well call men who proved without a doubt that they have worthless opinions and misguided priorities. I had a good chuckle every time this story reappeared, and by the time it got to the TV I was thoroughly tired of it... a worthless scandal.
Ebola, petty squabbles, a bunch of disheartening stories, The Colbert Report is over... war and rumors of war... perverts... the internet...
One whole jetliner disappeared. People got to remember this one because it's a little crazy. You'd think there would be at least one piece of debris found at this point. Was it pulled into space? Did it vanish? Did North Korea or ISIS hijack the plane, saving it for a terrible spectacle? Did they collaborate? Did you know that ISIS used to proceed with the essential blessing (non-action) of the West, way back when Assad was the main villian? What's going on with that narrative?
Meanwhile in news nobody cares about but that affected me deeply: I fucked up badly with a few experimental blog posts and it seems like I've lost basically all of my 50 person audience. I apologize for posting one or two really bad, pretty dumb, and mostly unenjoyable posts. I don't know what to do anymore. I don't like being a commentator, I don't have a special insight or overarching interest to report on, and it's really hard to do anything good. So yeah, I got a bit drunk and wrote the Ross Heffi bit. It sucked.
The Logitech thing was crazy, too. I can see you'd get an idea that I'm just a filthy mouth with no spine, but consider that social media/tech support person is not actually the project designer or parts buyer and might deserve respect. And if I fell for a fraud? Well then, I guess someone proved something about duplicity (I've been using a shitty mouse again and it hasn't stopped working, it's just really uncomfortable and unhandy). And basically every post I made since then has had as much traffic as I used to get when I still had any hopes for this blog. I've been close to jumping out of this business for a while, mostly because I'm a stupid coward and I doubt there's anything creative or fun left in me at this point. Maybe I'll push on. I want someone to pay me to write at some point in my life. I want to get published. I learn from mistakes.
I'm pretty tired. I'm only 5 days into 2015 and already it seems like all the technophiles in the world couldn't make me feel good about it. If I'm lucky... hell if we're all lucky, this will be a much better year than 2014.
You may be wondering what you've gained by surviving another year. Truthfully I don't know. Maybe you lived only to find anguish and lamentation in your future. Maybe reality has a cruel sense of humor. Maybe you're fated to find true love and then lose it in a desperate struggle against the way of all things. Who knows? You got another year out of the deal, and in some way surviving Jan 1st to Jan 1st is more
Maybe you didn't survive it. Maybe, somehow, your consciousness continued to exist in a purely sophistical realm in the tiny unknowable increment of possibility between life and death. In that case, I don't know how you're reading this, because as far as I know I exist in a world shared with other fully conscious and existing beings, not in your mind. Then again maybe you're a figment of my imagination... but what would that mean... what would that make me? I've often thought that I've merely poured my attempts at writing into a dark void. Maybe I was right all along.
2014 - The Good
So what was good in 2014? There was some stuff...
The movie Birdman came out and was actually really good, good enough that if Shakespeare was around he would love it and probably encourage other people to watch it; or cry tears of joy; or demur any opinion but secretly watch it again and again, planning his own remake on similar themes... it's a great movie, and I'm speaking as a lameoid who saw it in 2015. The meta-factor is a little steep, but if you can look askance of a little bit of preciousness there is an humorous, beautifully (if not impeccably) shot masterpiece there.
John Maus hinted at a 2015 release for a new album, which is in this humble writer's opinion the best music news of 2014. Now I have most of a reason to see this year through, instead of going ahead with my original plan of throwing myself off a building in March.
Gas got really cheap. I realize it's a side-effect of a geopolitical game that only serves to stress our hopeless plight as small nothings in an unfeeling world, but... it's probably not even good news, but filling up hasn't felt so good in a long time.
The World Cup - mixed bag but let's face it, the Germany/Brazil game was the stuff of legend. What a brutal slaying. I still catch myself thinking of it from time to time when I wonder about how fucked I am compared to various World Cup games.
Uhh... there was other stuff, but I neglected to plan this post out at all, and to be honest 'good' is kind of a subjective term. Maybe you're a tineared fuck who doesn't like John Maus. Maybe you hate the idea of unrestrained fossil fuel feeding frenzies. Maybe you hate good cinematic films. Well, I know I'm a lazy bastard at the moment, and I think it's stupid to look up other people's 2014 Bad/Good lists and basically... fuck it. 2014 was mediocre, but I'll get into that a bit later.
2014 - The Bad
There's so much. I could do my research on this and go on about it until next year. Gluten-free idiocy, a continuation of the growing divide between the wealthy and poor, mediocre job markets, 'good economic news' that translates into the status quo, all sorts of murder, all sorts of unrest, a couple of unnecessary extinctions, casual brutality, hatred flaring up everywhere, the old guard firmly in control as ever. All sorts of stupidity. A dazzling galaxy of insipid and bright distractions. An increasingly etherized worldwide populace. The motherfucking internet.
There was one story that was so stupid, and such a fulfillment of a prophecy I made in the Nerd Bubble post a long time ago, that I have to include it here. It's the GamerGate scandal - a nonevent that blossomed into a great expression of childish fecklessness, misplaced values, and good old fashioned hate. I don't even really know what happened. It involved a journalist, the guy who used to date her, maybe someone else, and a bunch of what you may as well call men who proved without a doubt that they have worthless opinions and misguided priorities. I had a good chuckle every time this story reappeared, and by the time it got to the TV I was thoroughly tired of it... a worthless scandal.
Ebola, petty squabbles, a bunch of disheartening stories, The Colbert Report is over... war and rumors of war... perverts... the internet...
One whole jetliner disappeared. People got to remember this one because it's a little crazy. You'd think there would be at least one piece of debris found at this point. Was it pulled into space? Did it vanish? Did North Korea or ISIS hijack the plane, saving it for a terrible spectacle? Did they collaborate? Did you know that ISIS used to proceed with the essential blessing (non-action) of the West, way back when Assad was the main villian? What's going on with that narrative?
Meanwhile in news nobody cares about but that affected me deeply: I fucked up badly with a few experimental blog posts and it seems like I've lost basically all of my 50 person audience. I apologize for posting one or two really bad, pretty dumb, and mostly unenjoyable posts. I don't know what to do anymore. I don't like being a commentator, I don't have a special insight or overarching interest to report on, and it's really hard to do anything good. So yeah, I got a bit drunk and wrote the Ross Heffi bit. It sucked.
The Logitech thing was crazy, too. I can see you'd get an idea that I'm just a filthy mouth with no spine, but consider that social media/tech support person is not actually the project designer or parts buyer and might deserve respect. And if I fell for a fraud? Well then, I guess someone proved something about duplicity (I've been using a shitty mouse again and it hasn't stopped working, it's just really uncomfortable and unhandy). And basically every post I made since then has had as much traffic as I used to get when I still had any hopes for this blog. I've been close to jumping out of this business for a while, mostly because I'm a stupid coward and I doubt there's anything creative or fun left in me at this point. Maybe I'll push on. I want someone to pay me to write at some point in my life. I want to get published. I learn from mistakes.
I'm pretty tired. I'm only 5 days into 2015 and already it seems like all the technophiles in the world couldn't make me feel good about it. If I'm lucky... hell if we're all lucky, this will be a much better year than 2014.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)