I know, I know, this blog is basically dead, and I’m sorry. I’m either going to try and salvage it or make a different one. However, since I have nowhere else to put it, I’m going to embed a video review of James Cameron’s Avatar. Did it live up to the astronomical hype? Or did it crumble under its own hubris?
EDIT: Added in a bonus vid–it’s about 20 minutes of me doing a spoileriffic rant about the movie. If you’ve seen the film already or don’t care about spoilers, you might like it.
I don’t know when I became so apocalyptic. I think being out in the real world, and being amidst so powerful a maelstrom of activity, change, upheaval and general chaos and discord has brought me to question the stability of just about everything. Will the institution I now belong to still exist in five years? In ten? Twenty? Nothing is impermenant. All is susceptible to change. This could be the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. Now, I look to the future and I see ruin and disorder. Chaos and fire, real or metaphoric, and widespread change. Everything we know, all that is familiar, is becoming washed away by a gargantuan flood, and in its wake, we will stand upon new foundations, carved from hindsight into the mold of tomorrow’s soil.
Journalism, as always, is the growing pressure on my mind, the ever present monkey on my back. The industry in which I hope to earn my living could well be dying, lashing out in its death throes, consumed by thousands of flesh-eating microbes, each so small and inconsequential that they could easily be ignored, yet together they form a mass of death that consumes the tenuous financial fabric upon which the news has been stitched for so very long.
We can’t live as we have. Like it or not, journalism is changing. Yet change is a hopeful, optimistic word. Change implies a tomorrow–for what can a corpse change into, save for dust and dirt? You can’t market dust and dirt. So, change and hope. How WILL we earn a profit in this new era? How will the fabled internet carry our lofty goals into the rising sun, so that we may live and eat off the gains of our new massive medium? These are questions often asked, and widely debated. Yet one question isn’t being asked, or at least, isn’t being asked enough.
What if there is none? What if the very force that makes the Internet so popular, so wide-spread and accessible, is the very same force that makes it wholly unmarketable? Time and time again, forces have attempted to control the Internet, control the flow of information. That’s how you make money. You control, and then you surrender part of that control in exchange for dollars and cents. Once, journalists controlled information. We were the ones who told you what was happening. Not the government, not corporations, not the police–us. We were the message board, and you had no choice but to pay your 75 cents and pick up a paper to learn the latest headlines. No longer.
Now, you have a million blogs, many useless, many not. A tech-savvy person can pick up his laptop and report a big traffic accident on a crowded freeway on his Twitter, almost immediately. Articles are linked to far and wide, spread about the net with all the speed and ferocity of a wildfire. A politician could fart on stage, and within ten minutes, folks in Beijing will be reading about it. We can’t control information–not like we could. Sure, the Wall Street Journal has the inside scoop on economics, and a number of local papers are the only ones in the know for local issues, but that will all change, and soon. A generation, maybe two, tops, and everyone will be able to fulfill the basic roles that journalists used to provide–all for free. Concerned citizens, perhaps, or maybe just fame-hungry entrepeneurs, delighted by their high hit counters, eager to bring more faces to their blogs. Where once there was a weatherman, now there are dozens, voices detailing the climate in every corner of the country, on every landmass on the globe.
People need to realize that they are the ones who are holding the smoking gun. Journalism can throw a lot of blame inward–its hubris, its high expense, its unwillingness to change, to adapt–but the blame lies squarely on you, the average person. And good for you! Take charge of your information. For once, in all the history of the world, an individual holds the power to break the news, to shape how people understand their world. A few keystrokes, a wifi connection, and a single tweet can inform the world.
It’s up to you. Do you want that responsibility? Do you want to be the ones who have to tell everyone what’s happening? What’s going to happen? What has happened, and if it will happen again? If so, rush to your computers, hop onto your internet, make a blog, a twitter, a Facebook, go now! Do it! And with your power, your insurmountable power, you become a gear in the grinding machine that will crush the reporting industry beneath its mighty tread. I welcome it, invite you to do so, because it is your RIGHT. Your hard-won right and privelage to access this power, this digital godhood, and excersize it as you will. You may not make any money, but you weren’t being paid to tweet before. Keyword searches are growing more and more advanced. The sophistication of the average internet user is slowly but steadily growing, and people will find you if they need to.
Or don’t. Relinguish your responsibility, and fork over some cash. We’ll do it for you. We’ll tell you what’s going on, what the weather is, where the traffic accidents are. We’ll make you laugh, we’ll make you cry, we’ll broadcast daily life with the same finesse and familiar formulaic flavor we’ve done so for generations and generations.
But you gotta pay for it. Simple trade, right? We take away that responsibility, and you pay us for it. We do you a service, and you pay us for it. It’s one way or the other. You can’t continue to expect us to work for free. Eventually, there won’t be any point. Those with the spark will continue to report, to investigate, to dig into the dirt, but they won’t have the resources or the time they once had. Reporting will suffer, at least at first, until more and more people grow increasingly skeptical of what they see and hear. Not everyone KNOWS how the news is made. I’ll tell you, I think, later, when the coffin is almost nailed, and the grave is almost dug.
Before we go, we’ll tell you our secrets. Or at least I will. I’ll try. It’s the least we can do. Our industry may crumble, and burn to ashes, but our secrets, our techniques, our beliefs–they cannot die. They won’t. Someone will continue our work, someone will take up the mantle. They may rename it, regift it, repackage it, but it’ll be the same, fundamentally. Somebody has to. The world offers so little answers, and we have so many questions. Somebody has to seek out the truth, and report it.
Remember us when we’re gone. We weren’t great. We made a lot of mistakes. But we had some good times too, yeah? We helped you out when you needed it. We taught you something new that day, made you care, for a little while, about that girl who got kidnapped or that dog who got lost. We made you hate, for a little while, that crook who got busted or that senator who stole money. We did some good, if only a little bit. Remember Watergate. Remember Vietnam. Remember Murrow and McCarthy. Remember Walter Cronkite, the old, comforting voice of today, the wistful wizard who stared into space with a child’s eyes and invited us to partake in its wonder. Remember Peter Jennings–please, please remember Peter Jennings, who simply did his best. Remember me, the lost little voice of journalism’s present, the one who finally, finally sees the writing on the wall, and sadly, reluctantly accepts it.
We did our best. We had a good run. Now it’s your turn. It won’t be easy. Take it from me–it’ll be hard as hell. But with a little help from your friends, a little support from your family, and a little determination and persistence, you’ll be alright. You’ll make do.
Goodbye, media consumers. Remember: the future is up to you. Shape it as you see fit.
Do as thou wilt.
And do no harm.
Marilyn Manson is an incredible, incredible musician.
I warn you in advance, I may be gushing a lot in this post. But, goddamn, Marylin Manson is an icon. A kind of disgusting, inhuman mockery of everything we hold dear. To him, our society is disgusting, filth-ridden, corrupt and rife with despair. He despises it, despises every single thing. His songs are rife with perverted imagery, foul dark things that no civilized person would want to imagine. The polar opposite of our ordered world is painted on a canvas of dark, grunge guitar, a mirror stained in shit, and the paints flow from Marylin Manson’s twisted soul.
Do yourself a favor. Have a moment to yourself, and just WATCH Marylin Manson perform. It helps to be in a dark mood. In fact, wait. Wait until you just have an absolutely SHITTY day. Then Youtube or Video Marylin Manson–his AntiChrist Superstar Stuff is a must-see. It’ll blow your mind.
There’s something powerful about the Antichrist stuff. His whole stage show is an absolute dissection of society’s very core tenets. Power, lust, greed, ambition, even self-righteous zealotry are all examined and torn asunder by the sheer force of Manson’s hate. Hate pervades every lyric, like a sickness, and it sweeps you up in a cloud of blind, frustrated fury. You have no choice but to scream along, scream at the world with him, his skeletal body painted white, dressed in outfits that defy description. Like a pied piper from Tartarus, he leads you along with his twisted tune, and you have no choice.
No choice but to follow.
Journalists like to think that they are stalwart watchdogs, loyally guarding their beloved master (truth, justice, American way, etc) against Corruption, Greed, Deception and Dishonesty. It’s a nice, friendly image. People of the world, feel safer because your guard dog is watching the bad guys, making sure YOU are safe.
Yeah. Bullshit.
Journalists are dogs, yes. But I don’t imagine myself, nor many of my fellow journalists as “watchdogs”. We don’t “watch”. We hunt. We sniff around, unwanted, distrusted, black shapes amongst the marble white of bureaucracy’s halls. Snarling carrion hounds, picking the flesh off even the leanest of carcasses. When we find something limping, weak and vulnerable, we’ll strike, quickly and mercilessly, and pull it down with us, devouring it. We’re hungry–we’re always hungry, and we can’t eat enough.
Frankly, it’s a better image. More honest, perhaps. I don’t think we’re in this business to help people. Some, like myself, may want to. But the system isn’t suited to that. Idealism may take people into journalism, but pragmatism, dogged determination, and an unending, savage hunger keeps them in the game.
But what makes a journalist? What do we do that is so different from anyone else? It isn’t that we’re more noble. We aren’t humble messengers telling you what’s what. Journalists are a collection of well-informed, and well connected citizens who take the time to call people in the middle of the day and ask them what they are doing. What they are doing, why they are doing it, and who are they doing it for. Anyone can do it.
Oh, but I suppose that’s the problem. Years of schooling, money spent, and entire industry built to print “journalism”. Think your morning weather report is cheap? No way. All those graphics, those nice suits, those cameras, the makeup and lighting–ha! Costs a fortune. Ahhh, but the money is running out, isn’t it? The newshound is hungry, and for once, he can’t find enough to eat. The meat is still there, but it’s not enough. Somehow, he’s starving to death.
Well, that’s ok. Fortunately, he mated with the right bitch somewhere along the way. There’s litters of little hounds out there, gnawing happily at whatever scraps they can find. Of course, the big dog snatches it all up, leaves little behind, but there’s only one of him–and his myriad children are VERY hungry.
One day, the Newshound may find himself in a corner. Alone, unwanted, half-dead. And then, from all around, the glittering eyes will appear. One by one, the children of the Hound will fall upon him, cracked and yellowed teeth gnashing at the darkness. There will be blood.
Blood as black as ink, running down a pale white page. And there will be no headlines that day. The Newshound gets no obituary. No one wants to write it.
But somehow, you’ll know the weather. You’ll know the traffic. You’ll know who won last night’s game.
And the world moves on.
Still on my quest for the salvation of journalism on the interwebs. I have a few nifty ideas circulating, and am pursuing some leads, all that fun stuff. Here’s a memo I wrote for that same class, about an online magazine called “The Escapist” which I think is a fitting update, even if the news is a bit old:
The Escapist is a fully online magazine, complete with full graphics, editorials, articles, video, audio, and an impressive assortment of talented writers and entertainers providing in-depth analysis of media, pop culture, and the effect interactive software such as video games, computer games, the proliferation of information on the Internet and the ease of its use in an increasingly mobile world.
The most impressive thing about the Escapist is that it is unabashedly modern. It offers no print alternative, and it pays its way by opening itself to freelancers, keeping a small staff, and drawing in casual readers with funny video reviews, such as Zero Punctuation. Zero Punctuation, for a brief history lesson, is a series of video game reviews done by British commentator Benjamin “Yahtzee” Croshaw, who delivers erudite reviews of various games backed by a slideshow of still images crafted using very simple tools. It’s an example, sterling if I may, of just how simplicity and ingenuity can be combined online to create a product that is not only entertaining, but also lucrative. When the Escapist hired Croshaw on, after watching his videos on Youtube, their web traffic increased by a whopping 500 percent! Not a bad number, especially since the site makes the majority of its money from advertising, which it embeds into its video or scrolls the sides of its home page.
A thriving forum and an active enthusiasm for taking in freelancers and lone bloggers, the Escapist exists because of its audience, serving them and serving itself in the process. The popularity, stability, and quality of its product is hard to ignore, and the fact that it is fully online with (seemingly) few drawbacks makes it a model that journalists today should seek to emulate.
Why is it so successful? Well, the key thing, I feel, is that it not only knows and understands its audience, but it opens its doors to them. The Escapist may not accept every freelance article submitted, but it certainly doesn’t discourage you from offering suggestions, and the fact that the editors regularly patrol the forums, picking out good ideas and offering unpaid, but published and portfolio-building opportunities for contribution.
In addition, the magazine has a clear focus—it focuses, essentially, on modern technology and entertainment, with a clear emphasis on video games, video game culture, as well as internet culture, the future of technology, and the impact it has on humanity on a whole. It sounds lofty, but the internet is almost primarily populated by tech-savvy gamers, gadgeteers, programmers and their various fans and offshoots, delivering the Escapist an almost pre-made audience, easily lured in by their quality content, and delighted to stay by their strong community building. Truly, the Escapist may very well be the prototype for the future of journalism, and maybe the future of mass media as a whole—open to the public, well-organized, and gracefully melded with the chosen medium.
I don’t know what I am talking about.
I was told this, not ten minutes ago, by the teacher of a class I’m taking about Business and the Future of Journalism.
Now, I won’t pretend I know a whole lot, and oftentimes I have been concerned that I really DON’T know what I’m talking about. But the subject at hand was, basically, the internet, and how people can thrive and succeed online–something that I’ve actually prided myself significantly on knowing quite a lot about. So, to be told that I DON’T know how the hell the internet functions is akin to a slap on the face to me.
Now, the point is valid. I realize now that I’m operating on extremely limited, idealistic information that is validated only because I say so, and not by any evidence–or at least, any evidence I can provide. So that leaves me a few options: one is to dismiss the claim, scowling and strutting out of the classroom, muttering under my breath about how it’s THEM who don’t know what THEY are talking about, and put it out of my mind.
But I am, in my opinion, a smart man. Smarter than most, I’d like to think, and certainly smart when it comes to the internet, which I have spent countless hours and hours and hours of my adolescent to post-adolescent life communicating with, interacting with, and understanding. But intelligence is useless without learning, and I AM in college to, ostenably, learn. Ironic, indeed, in a class where a fundamental and ongoing discussion is “Why are we even learning what we are learning in our journalism classes if, indeed, the very nature and model of how journalism is conducted is being questioned, needs to change, and is antiquated.” So, I am here to learn, but I’m not being TAUGHT what I need to learn. I need to learn on my own, and discover more thorough knowledge.
So, I’m undertaking a quest–a quest I would like your help with, you faceless readers who have probably all but lost interest in what I had to say long ago. How DOES one succeed on the internet? What does one have to do to profit, benefit, and do good in a digital world where everything is free, subject to sudden and rapid change, and utterly, completely unpredictable? I need to learn, and I need to learn NOW.
So, tell me what you know. What you think. What you believe. In the meanwhile, I’m going to be gathering my own information, seeking my own sources, and I’ll be keeping you all posted on what I find out. Hopefully, we’ll all learn something, and I won’t be called an idiot to my face. That’ll make everyone happy, right? Right.
Wish me luck, denizens of the digital sphere. I shall go where few dare to tread, and I may not return the same.
I was released in a rush of sensation.
Pain, of course. Intense, incredible pain. An agony that truly can only be experienced once, a pain that numbs you after. I fell. My body hit the ground, but I did not. I stayed perfectly still, dangling like a fish from God’s fishook. No movement, no sound, no sensation–for an instant, I was a statue in the gallery of the universe.
Then God began to reel me in. And I rose.
There was light. All around me, like a funnel, expanding, opening, filling all of Creation. I felt my arms, and I raised them to the portal above my mind, groping desperately, anxiously. I needed to feel it. I needed to feel anything. Desperation flooded me, and fear and greed and lust and need and I needed. The world of light crashed down upon me, and my fingers touched the face of all that is.
His skin was as soft as tissue paper, and split to my touch. My fingers wormed their way into his skull like ravenous maggots. Deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, I needed. Harder, harder, harder, harder, I needed. Inside. I had to be inside. I embraced Him, his bleeding skull and tangled hairs, sewn from the strings of dead stars. His breath was the inky smoke of nubulae, and it billowed around me like mist. His face collapsed like a paper mache sculpture drenched in blood, sticking to me, wrapping around me like a funeral veil.
I stood upon the stair, carved from God’s bones. In my hands, a saw, a chisel. Blood dripped from both. I stared into the ever expanding sky, saw the stair rose into oblivion. I took a step. And another. And another. And another. And with every step, I heard silence. No chorus. No songs. No angels.
I took another step. I knew it would be better up high. I knew I could make it, up high. I walked with a purpose, skipping stairs now, taking them two at a time. I felt no weariness–the lungs that had once ached with pain, caked with filth and tar, they were rotting an eternity beneath my feet. I could breathe endlessly, and yet I didn’t need to.
Higher. Higher. My hands were shaking. My throat was dry. My eyes watered.
Higher. Higher. The world was so vast. Bombs exploded in the brilliant cosmos. Radiation blanketed the world, and the people gasped and choked.
Higher. Higher. Fire fell around me, igniting the world’s gasses. Buildings were furnaces. Bodies were candles. Souls were kindling. And they all burned.
Higher. Higher. The Earth was far away. Near me, a star exploded, and destroyed a galaxy.
Higher. Higher. There was only mist now. The universe had ended long ago, and now there was nothing but possibility.
Higher. The possibilities are endless.
Higher. I have discovered the impossible.
Higher.
And now the gate. Just like I imagined it. And the latch. Just like it should be. I pushed the doors open. I took a step over the threshold. The clouds. The waterfalls of luminosity cascading from cliffs of imagination. The sky is indescribable–like a mosaic of all that was and all that every will be. I smiled. Everything is in its right place.
Hello?
Hello?
Is anyone there? I’m here! I’ve arrived! I did everything right. I lived my life, I followed the rules. I want my reward. I want to see my dead family. My dead heroes. I want to see them. I want to talk to them. Where is God? Where is the Messiah? Where are they? Where are you? Where is anyone? Where is everyone?
Hello? Can you hear me? Maybe they’re hiding. Hello? Is there someone there? No…just a shadow on a cloud. Hello?
There’s…there’s no one here. I’m all alone. I…I got to Heaven. I saw God. I received salvation.
So where is everyone? Where is anyone?
I…
I’m the only one.
I got in. I got to Heaven.
But when I got to Heaven, everyone was gone.
And I was all alone.
Boy, been over a week since my last update! I bet ya’lls missed me!
OR not. Whichever, I come bearing links and shit. See, not too long ago, I had a love for writing reviews for things I’d just seen or played, which I’d upload to various parts of the internet. I don’t as much–lost my zeal and my means for getting the newest, best products in time for a particularly impactful review. But, I still like reviewing things, so if this list turns into a mini-review of each item, I apologize in advance.
NOT.
Being the weary, disillusioned sort, I can quite suddenly and for long bouts of time grow completely and utterly disinterested in television. Not just the current crop of programs, either. I mean television as a medium. I can’t stand it. I turn it on for noise and distraction and when I can think of nothing else to do. I love watching movies, but even nowadays I only do that when I’m around my friends. So, instead of television, I have been steadily feeding my consumerist appetite for bite-sized chunks of flashy entertainment on the sweet, succulent treats rolled out on a buffet line I like to call www.thatguywiththeglasses.com .
Thank CHRIST for this website. It has spared me so much boredom and reckless periods of morbid and miserable introspection. Run, mainly, by a gentleman called Doug Walker, who is most well known on the Internet for his programs like the Nostalgia Critic and Bum Reviews (which isn’t as dirty as it sounds). Nostalgia Critic is a blisteringly funny (and occasionally controversial) break down/dissection of shit we liked when we were kids. And by “we” and I mean “my generation”.
MOM. /:<
Bum Reviews are of a different sort of humor, but no less entertaining. They’re cutting and incisive movie reviews (of whatever the most recent film is) done from the perspective of a homeless man named Chester A. Bum, who loves EVERY movie he sees because he’s just grateful to be in a warm building. He reviews each movie by spastically reenacting almost every major scene in the movie, kind of like a kid on a huge sugar rush, except…as a bum. It’s very funny, though SPOILER ALERT. He can and will spoil MAJOR plot points in his reviews, so be WARNED. They are funny and sarcastic enough that you don’t lose ALL the spoiler impact, and he does choose to keep some mysteries secret, if they are pivotal to the plot.
Both are very funny, and they are just the tip of the proverbial Internet Entertainment that is available from that website. With dozens of hours of sketches, Q&A’s, reviews and cross-over specials, Walker himself is the primary draw to the website, but his rag-tag team of associates (hosts or major players on their own internet variety shows) can be just as entertaining.
There are a metric shit-ton of other videos and videomakers on Walker’s site. Many are hit-and-miss, some are solidly funny, and quite a few appeal to rather narrow audiences (the Frenchman Benzaie being a good example, and not everyone might dig the nerdy approach that Linkara‘s comic book reviews take) but all are worthy at least of previewing. I, a growing conneseur of indie Internet entertainment (stuff like the Angry Videogame Nerd or, perhaps more famously, Yahtzee Croshaw’s Zero Punctuation being prime examples), have found this site a WEALTH of new options for what you do on the internet at night. Because, face it, porn can get old after awhile.
A few special mentions to particularly favorite videos and performers:
The Spoony One, AKA Noah Antwiler, is a very entertaining amateur film maker who props up a camera in his cramped bedroom and films himself playing with toys. He is hostes on TGWTG but has his own, more personal and slightly more cluttered site here
REALLY, it is better than it sounds. He’s infectiously passionate about all kinds of pop culture, delving deep into the depths in terms of video game, movie, television and even internet pop culture, to find humor in even the most poorly made products. Part reviewer, part one-man show, all entertainment, a special nod should be given to at least his whole-hearted ATTEMPTS to try and fit decent editing and special effects into his productions. Most of it is very low-budget, but he has on occassion pulled off an effect or two that actually suceeds in, if not dazzling, certainly surprising the viewer in a pleasent way. Plus, he’s an Arizona native, so we’re practically neighbors. Holla!
I found Paw more recently. He’s on the site, but has less top billing and less videos than some of the founding members. Nevertheless, he may very well have the best product on the site. He hosts a few different shows–a Let’s Play that is entertaining, but only if you like Let’s Plays, and a weird section where he reads off music lyrics to songs in a slightly creepy voice (I am the Walrus becomes a tad bit darker when HE reads it). However, his main series and draw is a mini-series entitled Full Circle.
Full Circle is unique as it isn’t designed to provide the VIEWER as much. While the other critics and reviewers try and bring the audience to a conclusion through funny jokes and reviews, Paw actually spends every episode talking about…himself. Trust me when I say, it’s more interesting than it sounds. Basically, he recounts his entire childhood by comparing and (gently) criticizing all of the music and albums and songs he listened to in the various stages of his life and development. It quickly transcends regular music blogs, and with snappy editing, subtle but genuinely witty dialogue, and a careful mix of nerd lore, poet sense, and natural charisma, the man manages to fully engage you in his story, for seven episodes and an epilogue, and in the process you may become aware of a number of bands you’d have never heard about, which is always ideal for any music blog. Plus, his collection of the Top Nine Video Game soundtrack songs from oldschool (late 80′s-early 90′s) retro days is VERY well made, and an intelligent list to boot.
Better known as the Nostalgia Chick, Lindsay Ellis manages to be both a handy side-kick to the Nostalgia Critic while holding her own amongst the other bigger names on the site with ease and charm. Being a knock-out who seems to mold herself to EVERY nerd girl fantasy sure helps, but she’s incredibly funny, creative, has skilled edits and effects, and has coined as many catch phrases as a lot of the other guys. I know it’s unfortunate that I have so little to say about her, but she IS the second funniest entertainer on the site, and with as much talent as there is, that’s saying something pretty damn good.
There are so many others on the site, but I’ll let you explore for yourself. Not all of it is as great as the ones I listed above, but most is at least watchable, which is better than what I could say for most of the drivel I find on cable.
Miss Mayes earns her own unique spot on this list for being her own unique sort of person. She’s a game reviewer…of a sort, who has just one gimmick. She reviews a game in song. And not just ANY song–well produced, high quality, FOLK songs. Like, really really good. She has an airy voice that is utterly angelic, she has simple, wonderfully catchy and surprisingly heartfelt beats and melodies, and her lyrics are a mixture of funny, wistful, sad and thoughtful. She doesn’t really REVIEW the games she sings about, but she does sum them up in either a thought, a feeling, or even just an image. She has her own podcast, and she’s now featured on The Escapist , which is another fantastic way to waste your time on the internet.
Need a great way to waste time? TV Tropes. Whether you need to pass twenty minutes or a quiet evening, there is something here that you will be interested in. A wiki site (which, for the unwebly, is a website that is almost entirely user run and depends on the average internet surfer for its content. Wikipedia is the biggest example, but any website that is populated by articles from average, often anonymous joes, qualifies as a wiki), this site’s topic and theme is Tropes.
What is a Trope? A trope is kind of like a plot device–in fact, most plot devices are tropes, but not all tropes are plot devices. It can be some kind of facet of a character, a setting, a plot line, even a story archetype that is not only clearly identifiable, but classifiable too. Some tropes includes things like Catchphrases which are very general, and others more specific, like One Liners. Every example has dozens of examples of each trope, including subversions, lampshades, and aversions as well. With each article having two or three links on average, you’ll soon find your internet tab bar chock full of tabs, for the dozens of different articles you’ll want to browse at any given moment. Sit down for a minute, find you haven’t moved in hours. See this xkcd comic strip for a funnier description.
Now, moving away from the online, a brief look into MOVAYS.
4. Shottas
Fuck Cool Runnings, man, John Candy and his friends LIED to us. Remember when we could all just think about Jamaica as this happy-go lucky place that loves its weed? Well this movie takes your Cool Runnings Jamaica and shoves it right up your ass, then it carves out your insides and uses you as a fucking bobsled.
This is the Scarface of my generation. A small-budget, beautifully shot indie gangster film, it focuses on the life and crimes of an up and coming crime lord, a young Jamaican-American named Biggs. With him and his best friend Wayne, the pair set out to conquer Jamaica, then later on, America, through the slums and drug pens of Miami. The movie is OUTSTANDING. The action sequences are thrilling, stellar, and deeply cinematic without being over the top, and the depiction of the gangster lifestyle pulls no punches, but also doesn’t jerk for tears. Yeah, it shows the ups and downs of being a no good criminal, but it also shows all the rewards too–the stuff that matters in today’s world, money and bitches and bling. With a Shakespearian plot that is full of interesting characters, alarming plot twists, and deep emotional impact, you’ll be drawn in to this mesmirizing film from the first frame.
The movie’s kind of a foreign film, since almost every major character speaks in a thick Jamaican dialect, to the point where the movie is actually subtitled for easier understanding. Half the fun is trying to piece together what the main characters are saying, since there’s a hefty use of English in the lingo. So, if you can’t STAND foreign films–or you just really hate subtitles–I’d still say the movie is worth watching, but you probably won’t enjoy it as much. Of course, this IS a movie about Jamaica. If the thought crosses your mind to make appropriate party preperations, consider it a good thought, and an encouraged one.
That’s about all I have to say for this update. I also saw Bruno recently–which was quite stellar and funny, but it IS identical to Borat in most every way, outside of specific jokes. Enjoy the links, you can expect another excerpt from the Graveyard Quarter in this next week. If I have something to share, I’ll be sure to do so.
Peace, ya’lls. Respect.
I think it’s pretty indicative of my generation that I’m starting to realize the effects that pop culture saturation has had on me.
Growing up exposed to all manner of television, comics, video games and movies, I find that whatever I expose myself to, in any medium, grossly affects the manner in which I view the world. It can be a bit jarring. After watching a sad movie, I can become intensely convinced that the world is a foul, vile place. On the other hand, reading a charming comic strip about college-age slackers can give me the nihilistic, arrogant pride in my procastinatory habits that I need to continue to idly stand around uncaring of all of the insignificant expectations placed upon me.
I wonder sometimes if future generations, with so much more access to so many more forms of media, helped in no small part by the proliferation of internet technology and the ease of its use, will be reduced to shambling, pop-culture spewing consumerist junkies, incapable of forming their own thoughts and ideas, instead simply regurgitating whatever latest fad or populist sensation that they have most recently become aware of.
This issue is greatly exasperbated by this website. It is impossible to, once you have entered, to easily disentangle yourself from the fascinating dissection of almost every fathomnable aspect of pop culture, where every individual trope can yield hours upon hours of examples, discussion, and further links to other tropes, causing one to become caught in a spiral of consumption. After a time, you start breaking down everything you know and experience into such categories, labeling everyone and everything that is relevant (or irrelevant) to you.
On another issue, I’m growing irate at my inability to do my latest journalism assignment. For one, the awesome interview questions I sent off to certain agencies have not been returned, despite said questions being send some days ago, and as the hours slowly trickle past, I’m becoming more and more worried that I shall not have a proper substitute story. I’d like to be a journalist now, but there’s nothing newsworthy that I can find or have access to, and with little guidance and even less resources at my disposal, the best I can do is pace about, idly checking my emails every twenty minutes, in the vain and empty hope that somebody responded to me. With my deadline just a day away, I’m starting to grow despondent and frustrated, and it isn’t helped by this website and all of its myriad distractions.
I’m tired.
I can barely lift my fingers to type. Everything is in a late-morning haze, and time is ACHINGLY slow. With little to do, and plenty that needs doing, I’m sort of like a rubberband being pulled in different directions. Eventually, I’ll snap lax and launch myself forward into some new location, but for now I’m just taut, waiting, wanting very much to work, yet not knowing even where to start.
I’ve grown bored and jaded these past days, and figure that only a vigorous and dedicated stroking of my ego will bring me pleasure in these dark and decadent days. So, I’ll let you all join in the fun of the writing process. I’ve been tinkering, between writing projects, mostly as an excersize in fun, experimental writing, on a little story. I’m trying to refine it into something episodic and interesting, and figure that, in-between proper blog posts and the like, I’ll upload sections from it for you to read and critique. I’ll begin with the first chunk of the first chapter, and hopefully it won’t be too long. Please tell me what you think! You can comment either on this blog, on facebook, or email me at rentcavalier@hotmail.com.
The following is just my tenative foray into the world of fantasy. I hope it’s at least different from the rush of Tokein rip-offs you all are used to. Enjoy! The story is called “The Graveyard Quarter”.
* * *
There is a city, at the edge of the Oblivion Wastes.
A city so large, even those who live within its borders cannot tell you for sure where it begins and where it ends. From the rotting suburbs to the decaying monolithic towers, the city reeks of decadence, of mystery, of danger. In the abysmal slums, where day is night, and night is a deeper darkness still, dark things lurk amidst the ruin, haunting all unfortunate enough to dwell there. In the empyrean heights, stout-hearted souls gaze out of dusty windows upon vast rivers of steam and fog, flowing amidst ivory towers, churned by a powerful wind into an unimaginable current.
This is a city where the dead outnumber the living. Where even corpses cannot stay still. A city where rumors and hearsay often speak finer truths than anything else, a city where heaven and hell are joined in an impassable block of urban decay. Come to this city, and lend an ear, for its tales are many, and this one in particular shall provide unearthly delight. A tale of four souls, linked by cruel fate and impossible destiny, and how their union would shake the gargantuan city to its very foundations, and usher in a new age.
It begins on Midnight Street, amongst the lofty mansions of the rich and affluent, at the edge of the Graveyard Quarter…
* * *
Chapter 1: 11:00 on Midnight Street
Footfalls beat like war drums, echoing off the slime-encrusted brick walls. A trio of shadows charge heedlessly into the omnipresent darkness, stricken by an unnatural fear. Lowborn Humans, tattered bags clutched tight to their chests, look over their shoulders frantically, praying to the Multitude Divinities that they make a clean break. Their singular pursuer does not try to match their pace.
He does not need to.
A great arm of steel cleaves through a stone wall, sending chunks of material spewing into the narrow alleys. An unfortunate Lowborn is struck on the back of the leg, and stumbles. His bag flies from his hand, and a rain of golden coins spills free, bleeding onto the ground. The would-be thief stares hopelessly at the bag, his final thoughts being ones of frustration and despair before a great metal foot descends upon his skull.
The remaining two thieves hang a sharp right, charging onto Midnight Street. The leader, Adrian Winchester, speaks up.
“He’ll be on us swift-like.”
“What do we do?” says his miserable companion.
Adrian chuckles and runs a finger along the handle of one of his Steamguns.
“I can take ‘im.”
“Those guns of yours really strong enough to punch through a Mettaloid?”
Adrian digs his heels into the cobblestone path, spinning around and tossing his bag aside. A mad smile crosses his face as he grips his dual pistols tight, narrowing his eyes. His accomplice stumbles and jogs in place, torn between helping his boss and saving his own skin. The choice is made much simpler for him when, from out of the thick darkness, a stream of gunfire spits leaden death down the street. The Lowborn’s face is torn to shreds, and his body soon follows. The bloodied remains are plastered against the wall in the space of a heartbeat.
Adrian is spared from such a fate. A shimmering emerald shield materializes before his face, catching the gunfire expertly. The ephemeral barrier crackles with green lightning under the impact, but holds strong. From the shadows steps Adrian’s looming pursuer, his single unnatural eye fixed on the bandit lord’s smirking face.
“Epsilon!”
Adrian’s voice is thick with sarcastic glee. He speaks to the Mettaloid as one would speak to an estranged uncle.
“Y’know, I’m awful touched you’ve gone through all this trouble just for my sake.”
Epsilon Steel saunters forward, the ground cracking under his ironclad feet. The Mettaloid stands seven feet tall, with a chassis as thick as a turbine. Layers of steel click and shift, constantly in motion. The smoking gatling gun that is Steel’s left hand begins to spin again, but he holds his fire, speaking in the familiar monotone voice for which all Mettaloids are known.
“Adrian Winchester. You are under arrest.”
Adrian spits on the ground and shakes his head. Green light engulfs his hands, growing to envelop his pistols. The guns hiss, and he thumbs back the hammers, releasing a stream of steam from both.
“Nu-uh. Not today, Epsy.”
“This chase is pointless, Adrian, you’ve nowhere to turn. Your accomplices are dead. I have already confiscated a third of your haul. You’re going to lose—why die now, when you can live forever?”
Steel’s voice is carried by an unruly wind, which carries it up to a flower-lined balcony high above Midnight Street. In her room, Victoria Stiff is awoken by voices outside her window. Rising swiftly, she wraps a shawl around herself as she opens her balcony door and peers over the edge.
Adrian squeezes down on the triggers. His Steamcannons belch forth explosive fury, their thick shells tearing two neat gashes right through Steel’s armored carapace. Steel, taken aback, but hardly deterred, counters with another barrage of gatling rounds.
Adrian charges forward, two green circles materializing over his forearms, like bucklers. Thrusting his arms in front of his face, he dives forward, piercing through the surge of gunfire. Sliding underneath Steel’s legs, Adrian drives his Steamguns into Adrian’s sizable steel gut, the reinforced bayonets attached to the cannons’ underside carving a deep trench in Adrian’s wake.
Sparks and thick drops of viscous mechanical fluid leak from Steel’s wounded chassis, and with some reluctance the Mettaloid lowers his gatling arm and raises his other. His right hand is just that—a hand, albeit a steel one. Around the wrist, the metal swells into a thick bracelet, and from within that band extends a foot and a half blade. Steel raises the blade to his face, the neatly polished weapon reflecting Adrian’s grimacing face.
“You’re not even trying, are you Adrian? Was that your best counterattack? Trying to castrate me?”
The Mettaloid shakes his domed head and adjusts his voice so that it sounds like a vicious growl.
“You’re finished.”
He launches forward, gargantuan form lumbering at Adrian with surprising speed. Steel pulls back his bladed arm, readying to thrust it into Adrian’s face. Adrian runs towards a nearby wall, leaps at it, and lets his momentum carry him. He takes three steps up the wall’s face and flips over Steel’s charging form, twisting his arms towards the colossal Mettaloid. He fires, bullets striking Steel’s head, puncturing neatly through the iron dome. With cat-like grace, Adrian lands softly some distance behind Steel, another torrent of steam rushing from his smoking guns.
Steel makes a noise similar to, but not quite like, a laugh. As he turns to face Adrian, the thief can see the gashes in his chassis have grown smaller. Strips of metal slowly close around the wounds, sealing them away.
The mechanical man was healing.
“Not enough, Adrian. You are fast—but that simply isn’t enough.”
Steel crouches slightly, his short legs buckling under his weight. His kneecaps split open and stretch out into long black springs. Steadying himself with his hand, Steel tilts forward. Adrian staggers backwards, eyes widening as he realizes, almost too late, just what his pursuer intends to do.
The springs tighten and then snap loose, vibrating the air noisily as Steel is launched straight towards Adrian with all the force of a cork being spat from a champagne bottle—except, in this case, the cork weighs close to a metric ton.
And there is no wine.
Adrian drops to one knee, green light swirling around him. Resting one hand on the ground, he raises the other skyward, and traces a symbol with his index finger. Trails of green follow his finger’s movements. Just as Steel closes the distance between himself and his quarry, the air thickens around Adrian, and in an instant he is encased in a shimmering green bubble.
Steel slams head-first into the bubble, which sinks slightly under the force of the impact. Steel flails helplessly for a moment, then is flung backwards as the bubble, much like a rubber band, snaps back into its original shape. Steel crashes through another nearby brick wall, shattering several water pipes. All at once, a surge of superheated liquid has engulfed him.
Adrian grits his teeth. Steel’s impact has shaken him to the bone—he feels an aching pain in places he didn’t even know could feel pain. The barrier held, but he can feel the strain on his body. Worse yet, he can’t see beyond the green veil—he can only hear the heavy, earth-shuddering metallic footsteps of his foe as he advances closer, that unchanging monotone voice almost teasing.
“Heh heh heh…Adrrrrrriiiiiaaaaan…I’m not dead yet.”
The voice comes closer—the footsteps grow louder. Adrian closes his eyes and tries to focus. The barrier bubble shrinks around him.
“I always get my man, Winchester. You know this. I’ve chased you all the way here—you have nowhere left to run, unless you mean to venture into the Graveyard Quarter.”
Adrian grits his teeth as that emotionless chuckling floods his ears. He knows that Steel is standing right in front of him.
“And I know you aren’t suicidal. So…”
Steel swings. His blade slams into Adrian’s barrier, and Adrian feels the impact in his insides. He coughs, and tastes blood. The air crackles and pops around him.
“Come…”
Another strike. Adrian’s knees get weaker. The bubble constricts more.
“Out…”
WUMPH! Adrian’s vision blurs. He’s sweating profusely, barely able to keep his concentration.
“Now!”
WAM! WAM! Steel wails on the barrier, both hands bludgeoning the shrinking wind bubble, his eye—naught but a small light in a thin black visor—flashes a deep red. As he pulls back his blade-arm for a final blow, the barrier sucks into itself, as if it were taking a deep breath…
And then it expands.
The barrier explodes outward, a surging torrent of wind and raw energy that tears down Midnight Street, disturbing brickwork and cobblestone, shattering the sentinel streetlamps, and sending Epsilon Steel hurtling backwards once more. A great smoking hole is burnt into his chest—the melted layers of metal around it glow an eerie green as they cool.
Steel crashes to the ground, his gatling gun firing wildly in Adrian’s direction. A bullet clips Adrian’s shoulder, piercing (thankfully) clean through. Adrian stumbles around the corner, vainly grasping at his bag of loot.
He collides into Victoria Stiff. The girl, changed from her nightgown into a simple dress, all ruffles and lace and age and grace, a fitting garment for antique shopping, and unsuitable for much else, stumbles backwards, dropping the jug of water and bandages she had dutifully carried outside. Winchester regards her briefly, sizing her up, before grabbing her roughly by the arm and pulling her close.
“Evenin’ precious. Bit of an unlucky time to be gone for a stroll, is it?”
He pulls her close, resting his head on her shoulder, digging on gun into the small of her back. Epsilon Steel slowly gets to his feet and looks up in alarm as he sees Adrian clutching the young girl.
“Winchester! Taking hostages now? Haven’t you even a shred of decency?”
“Rich talk, comin’ from a copper! Self-serving gun nuts! This city’ll be gone right to an ‘ungry ‘ell if there wasn’t folk like me to set ya’ll straight.”
Steel grinds his gears in irritation, stepping forward. Adrian, in turn, jabs the gun up against Victoria harder, causing her to gasp in alarm as the tip of the bayonet pierces her bodice and touches her bare, pale skin.
“Little miss Moneybags ‘ere is gonna be sorely lacking in the organs department if y’even think ‘bout takin’ one more step!”
Steel slowly lowers his gun-arm, setting his voice to include an exasperated sigh.
“Where will you go, Adrian? We’ve got this whole block cordoned off! There’s a squad of officers at every intersection! You shant escape!”
An evil light flashes behind Adrian’s azure eyes, and he chuckles as he backs away into the darkness of Midnight Street, dragging his unfortunate hostage with him.
“Shant I?”
He glances upwards at the sky. Despite being clogged by the shimmering clouds, the moon was clearly visible—great and eerily green in the heavens.
“Tis a nice night for a stroll, Steel.”
His smile is the last thing to face from sight as he vanishes into the shadow.
“Perchance I’ll tour the graves…”
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